 Good evening like to call the Durham City Council meeting order 701 p.m. December 1st. I'd like to welcome all of you that are here with us this evening. If we could just take a moment of silent attention please. Thank you. That's a clerk issue call the roll please. Chair Bell. Present. Chair Pro Tem Cole McFad. Councilmember Brown. Councilmember Cotati. Councilmember Davis. Councilmember Moffitt. And Councilmember Schuyl. Thank you. Let me ask are there any announcements about members of the council? If not I guess I'd like to make an announcement. At our last work session I got in a call from other people got in calls about what was happening on Fayetteville Street. And that's a road that we've had a lot of complaints about in terms of the condition that it was in. And it's a road that we've had to explain that it's one of the streets. This is I'm talking about Fayetteville Street near North Carolina Center University from 147 to Cornwall at least of a yarn. We've had to constantly explain that that's not a street that's under the city's jurisdiction. It's maintained by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. We've had several conversations with them hoping to get them to move. Well they finally moved so we were pleased with that but they are going to supposedly complete that work by the end of the end of the year. But it's another example of we've done a lot of street resurfacing in the city of Durham through bonds that have been passed. But there's several streets that are not under our control under state control. Fayetteville Street was one of them but that's finally getting repaired in condition. So we appreciate the state for doing that. Since no one else had anything said so that threw it out. Having said that I'm going to ask other prior items by the city manager. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Good evening everyone. No priority items. Likewise city attorney. Thank you Mr. Mayor. No priority items. Likewise city clerk. No items Mr. Mayor. Okay we proceed with the agenda. First items are the consent agenda and consent agenda items may be approved by a single vote by if no council member or public pools an item. If an item is pooled then we'll discuss that later in the agenda. Item one is approval of city council minutes. Item two is the Durham City County Appearance Commission Appointment. Item three is the city wide strategic plan performance audit report October 2014. Item four is the take home vehicle performance audit report October 2014. Item five is the conference annual financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30th 2014. Item six is FY 1516 budget development schedule. Item seven is memorials on city property are right-of-ways and I'll pull that item. Item eight is 2015 city council meeting schedule. Item nine is U-3308 North Carolina 55 Austin Avenue widening municipal agreement. Item 10 is the bid report for October 2014. Item 11 is Maplewood and Beachwood cemeteries design contract amendment one cold and dual things PA. Item 12 is proposed acquisition of 320 Maldives Street for the Department of Transportation sign and signal shop operations. Item 13 is FY 2014 burn criminal justice innovation program planning grant award. We'll pull that item. Item 14 is setting public hearing to consider rescinding the ordering of 11 petition sidewalk projects and I am 16 to 20 of items that can be found on the general business agenda public hearings entertain emotional approval consent agenda exception item 7 and 13. It's been proper move by the mayor pro term seconded by councilman Brown. Madam clerk we open the vote. We close the vote. It passes seven. Thank you we move to the general business agenda public hearings. Item 16 is unified development ordinance text amendment Unipole freestanding wireless communications facility. Thank you very much Michael stock with the planning department. Before I begin staff certifies that all required notifications for this and the following planning department related public hearings have been performed and on file for review. A text amendment TC 14 0004 is a privately initiated amendment by Morningstar law group to unify development ordinance to allow Unipoles or also not a slick sticks freestanding wireless communication facilities to be considered concealed in all non residential districts except commercial neighborhood in all plan districts except for PDR districts and in all design districts. This would expand the range of allowable zoning districts where this type of a wireless communication facility could be located and would allow approval within these districts to be administrative instead of requiring a special use permit. The specific text amendment application is found in attachment a examples of such facilities have been included in attachment B. The draft ordinance prepared by staff to attachment D attempts to provide clarity to the request while maintaining the intent of the applicant by creating a separate category instead of classifying a Unipole as concealed or non concealed. Also in order to provide some consistency with other types of freestanding towers Unipoles are proposed to be allowed in the RR and RS 20 districts but only with a special use permit which is also consistent with non concealed wireless communication facility approvals. Staff recommends approval what would prefer to incorporate this amendment into the overall revisions to the wireless communication facility ordinance standards TC 120013 that have been under consideration by the Joint City County Planning Committee with impending subsequent public hearings. The applicant was provided the options to either incorporate the request into the overall revisions or to move forward with this request ahead of the those revisions the applicant has chosen to initiate the approval process ahead of the overall revisions in order to take advantage of both the current setback standards and the current exemption of concealed freestanding wireless communication facilities from the minor special use permit process. The overall WCF revisions may propose changes to both of these current UDO provisions. The Planning Commission recommended approval 7 to 2 of the text amendment on October 14th 2014. The Planning Commission determined that the request requested amendment is consistent with the adopted comprehensive plan and that is reasonable and in public interest based upon comments received to the public hearing and information in the staff report. As a reminder council will be required to take two actions. The first action it will be a vote on the ordinance amendment itself and that again is attachment D in your agenda packet. The second action will be a vote on the appropriate statement of consistency which is found in attachment E of your agenda packet. The applicant is here to answer any questions and thank you I'll be also happy to answer any questions. Thank you this is a public hearing. I would ask other first comments by members of the council on the staff report to recognize council. I just want to ask one question. The staff report referenced TC 120013. When do you think that will be in front of the governing bodies? We're looking at hopefully I'd like to get it to Planning Commission January February and then following the schedule so you're looking at late winter early spring hopefully. We had to wait for there was special order and ruling from the FCC on some federal legislation that came out in mid-october and coinciding with reviewing that with the attorney's offices it's just unfortunately kind of push things back a little bit. Any other questions about members of council? Okay before we hear from the proponents I have two persons that have signed up to speak in opposition to this item I'd like to know is anyone else that wants to speak. I have Dolly Ferrenbacher and Mel Ferrenbacher. Is anyone else that wants to speak in opposition to this item? If not then we'll allow 10 minutes on each side for this and recognize Patrick Beiker. Good evening Mayor Bell, Mayor Pro Tem Colmick Fadden, members of the City Council. My name is Patrick Beiker. I live at 2614 Stewart Drive. I'm an attorney with Morningstar Law Group. I'm here tonight representing Durham Tower LLC for this text amendment. With me tonight from Durham Tower is one of its founding partners Matthew Danielson. You've just heard the staff report and we very much appreciate the planning departments and the Planning Commission's support for the terms of this proposal. We're here tonight to request your approval for this text amendment that will promote the installation of unipoles sometimes referred to as slick sticks through an administrative approval process. We want to stress that we are only requesting this administrative approval process for non-residential zones. In short we think this is a text amendment to incentivize good behavior. And now to show you what we're talking about with the term unipoles here's a picture from Cary. This picture was taken on the Triangle Expressway. The extension of the Durham Freeway going into Wake County. So you can see the 195-foot tall unipole in the center of this picture. And to give you a reference point Could I stop you for a moment? Yes, sir, of course. What we're seeing back here is not on this screen. That's beyond my control. I understand that's why I'm stopping you. I'm going to find out. I appreciate that. This is one of my better power points too. I mean we don't have a problem turning our backs but we've got these monitors around. Yeah, I'm sorry. Oh, I've lost it too. Have other slides in your presentation? Is that the slide? No, no, it's, I got like a half a dozen more, you know, eight or nine more slides. Shucks. Well, I certainly don't want to take up the council's time so you just want me to talk about it. Now we can move ahead. And if you have any questions maybe we can. They can't do it. Okay, go ahead, Patrick. Turn our heads. Sorry, Mayor. So anyway, this picture was on the Triangle Expressway. You can see the 195-foot tall unipole in the center of this picture. It's about a half mile north of the USA Baseball Complex in Cary. Are we all going to take a look at that? Yeah, sorry, I appreciate it. What distinguishes the unipole or slick stick is that all the antenna hardware is inside the pole and nothing is mounted externally. To be very frank about the proposal that's before you tonight, we essentially borrowed the concept in its entirety from the Cary zoning ordinance. I'd like to contrast the unipole and Cary with some pictures I took while going around in Durham. Here are two towers with external antenna. The one on the left is on the Durham Freeway at Alexander Drive and Research Triangle Park. The one on the right is on Hillsborough Road next to the Wendy's that's just past 15501. So those are cell towers in non-residential zones. However, you can also see these types of external antenna in residential areas. The one on the left is an apartment complex on Highway 55 just north of Cornwallis and the tower on the right is an apartment complex on Maureen Road. I'd like to contrast the visual appearance of how that unipole and Cary looks from a residential neighborhood. As you can see, it presents much less visual clutter. Now what's currently allowed in Durham by administrative approval is the monopine. Maybe it's just me, but I think it would look odd to have the monopine sort of tower in a non-residential zone. And now to conclude, we have a specific location for the unipole we wish to install. It's along Pettigrew Street in a light industrial zone close to Durham Technical Community College. I hope all of you had the opportunity to review the letter that's in tonight's agenda package from the president of Durham Tech to planning director Steve Medlin emphasizing the need for improved cellular coverage in the Durham Tech area. We think this is a great location for implementing this type of cell tower because it will minimize visual clutter and improve service for Durham Tech students and faculty. This new tower also will enhance safety because not 75% of 911 calls currently come from cell phones. Also in terms of community appearance, we can avoid installing a monopine at this industrial location. And so for all these reasons, we respectfully ask for your approval and I'll be happy to try answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Are there questions from the staff on the proposal as presented? Thank you. Welcome. I'd like to recognize Dolly Ferenbacher and Mel Ferenbacher. Either one of you can come if you just state your name and address please. Dolly Ferenbacher. I'm the president of the Good Neighbors of 751 Durham. I live at 4 Oak Wing Court in Durham, North Carolina 27713. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. This request to make the unipole concealed would change the height restrictions of a concealed tower in the RR and RS zones from 120 to 199 feet in the present UDO with no increase to setbacks in any of the zoned areas. And under preliminary proposed WCF text changes thus far created by citizens, planning and industry, the unipole defined as a concealed tower would open the door to allow 60 foot unipole towers as defined. Thank you. The unipole defined as a concealed tower could open the door to allow 60 foot unipole towers as defined concealed to be placed in any zone by administrative approval only and then be allowed to grow heights in numerous increments again by administrative approval only. The safety setbacks that we are working to get implemented will be compromised with the future text and of course not in the present UDO text. In conclusion we feel that the timing and the major conversion of the unipole in a concealed tower would be better for the community if revisited after the major WCF text changes have been approved. It's our understanding that they are able to go ahead with approval through the Board of Adjustment to get this specific side approved. So we ask that you please do not make this a part of the text change. Thank you. My name is Mel Ferenbacher. I live at Four Oak Wind and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of Carol Baldwin for the Bucks Crossing neighborhood. We first want to thank the council members and Mayor Bell that in November 2012 at Citizens Matters you responded to our request for resident involvement in the process that puts high-rise wireless businesses in residential zones. That day you authorized revising Durham's UDO wireless regulations toward what you call citizen engagement and that's a quote. We also thank the planning department and industry as well as Inc for working diligently through 2013 and and to date to create wireless regulations that address residents concerns for the safety and quality of our neighborhoods. Now it looks like the goal of resident mindful wireless revisions to the UDO has hit a bump in the road. Just when JCCPC is told neighborhoods that the comprehensive amendment TC 120013 version revising section five on wireless facilities is about to conclude council is asked to vote on an amendment that would change the UDO for just one wireless structure design. There are parts of the unipole amendment TC 1400004 that seem in conflict with the more comprehensive TC 120013. So why move on the latter until these are resolved. Thank you. You're welcome mother. Questions again this is a public hearing before I close the public hearing I want to know if anyone else who wants to speak on this particular item. Sure. State your name and address. You have I'm going to tell you how many minutes you have you have to take them. You have three minutes. Thank you. I was just curious on something that I thought I heard so I just want to make sure. Did they mention the tower is going to be over by Durham Tech. So that's did somebody mention that about the towers. It's on East pedigree street it's a location that we've identified and we submit to the planning department. When was that Matthew. Yeah it was it was eight or nine months ago. I just and my other question will those towers bring about radiation in the air. I do know when you deal with your when you deal with your electrical lines they do. So will these towers do that and also my other concern the residents that live in some of these areas. I don't live that far from Durham Tech and that whole Macducateris area all those housing because it does sound like it's going to cover a sort of a broad area. So so my question would be also where the residents told about this who live in the other areas where this tower if you're speaking about wireless covers a broad a broad area. And also will you be using fiber for your towers also for underground. I don't know. So those are some of the questions. The main thing is will it release radiation in the air. And if it is and if it's going to where the residents in those surrounding communities besides Durham Tech where they notified and told about any meetings or hearings I know oh I'm a homeowner in that area and I have not received anything. So that's why Mr. Mayor I wanted just to say. Ms. Peterson I think the preparator respond to your questions. Just to clarify Mayor Bell all the surrounding property is zoned industrial or industrial light we're not aware of any residents being within 500 feet of the site that we're looking at and Matthew if you'd address the radiation issue and any other concerns. Good evening Mr. Mayor members of the council my name is Matthew Danielson our office is located at 201 South Alba Marl Street and to answer your question regarding radiation no cell towers do not give off radiation so there would be no concerns for that. I would like to make one point unfortunately you didn't see the PowerPoint presentation. Tomorrow I could go to planning staff and get approved 195 foot monopine I again I'm not sure if you saw that and that's administratively approved today as the ordinance is written. We believe that cell towers in fact if I may ask the audience a quick question who here doesn't own a cell phone. So when we're talking about cell towers we're talking about public infrastructure and so the idea here is to allow the wireless industry to come in in an industrial area to put in the least obtrusive possible cell tower as a slick stick. We have a letter I believe it's in your package from the state historic preservation office asking us to put a slick stick here not they do not want a monopine because again that's the most obtrusive thing you could see and yet again I could go before the the planning staff tomorrow get a monopine administratively approved but not a slick stick it just doesn't make sense and I've been more than happy to answer any more questions so you or the audience may have. Thank you thank you. Recognize councilman shul public hearing is still open. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I have a question for the staff. The in terms of the timing the report says although staff considers a request to be reasonable staff would prefer the changes to be incorporated within instead of ahead of the overall revisions to the WCF standards. Can you talk about the timing when when we think those will be prepared and can you talk a little bit about your reasons for thinking that should be done as part of this process rather than separately. The timing we're looking at most likely late winter early spring at the earliest they draft that is out for public review right now was released back in September and then we were planning on moving forward with those after JCC PC final direction that was given in August and then things happened with the Federal Communication Commission where they released their how they see the rules from federal statutes to be interpreted and thus we needed to take a step back and make sure we weren't doing double the work. So we're moving forward at this point again we're looking at late hopefully late winter early spring at the earliest. We thought that for some of the reasons that were brought up by the Farron Bockers that there was a lot of public input put in with the overall revisions and the draft that's out there now actually reflects what you're seeing seeing today in terms of where the the unipoles would be allowed but we thought there was reasonableness to package it all together so you're not seeing multiple revisions to OWCF ordinance in such a short period of time. And Mr. Mayor for my Mr. Beiker how do you respond to that because you're the you talked about the the monopons and the the as opposed to what this would look like and I think we could all agree that would be superior and this gentleman I'm sorry I forgot your name but made this point as well is there some reason that you are wanting to move this along that's compelling because I do see the interest of the public in having this all be a package that this has been as you know discussed for some time and and there's been a lot of public input and and I do have some concern that that people will feel like that that process being short circuited in the interest of one one institution or one one client's interests. Yes thank you for that question councilmember Shul. If I'm I believe I'm understanding Mr. Stock correctly we're looking at a good six months from today before the the the text amendment could be before the city council. We feel that's a long time for Durham Tech to continue to have to put up with the the cell service issues that they have right now and again this is we all drive the Durham freeway frequently and it's we working through this issue we did work with the playing department to investigate the monopine option and that simply seems like a bad outcome to have to put that up in the short term when this text amendment would take care of that problem so we feel that six months is a fairly long wait and that's obviously every people reasonable people can differ on that issue but that's how we feel about it we obtained this letter from President Ingram in late June of this year and so as you can see this issue was brought to our attention you know five months ago and we're still trying to resolve it so that's our that's our feeling on it to us six months feels like a long time maybe maybe it isn't but that's that's how we feel recognize city manager had a question too but I'm going to recognize the council person sorry council member good I recognize you thank you I just had a question for staff to clarify Michael you indicated that you completed the review of the the FCC questions we have and we met with the city and county attorney's offices last week I believe and so we're still waiting to we have one more time to meet with the industry and the neighborhoods to kind of go over last remaining comments and issues and then we'd like to move forward with the actual public hearing process so as it relates to the you know the standards around this monopole do you anticipate that the standards that you'll be recommending will be different or the same as what is included in this proposal the standard you said that might be different but I wasn't clear about that they would be different what's being worked out are greater setbacks your your base basically you're looking at needing larger lots to place almost any freestanding tower what regardless of the zoning district thank you recognize council member thank you mayor I'd like to clarify with staff the special use permit process are they eligible to proceed through that with us the monopole for the unipole yes yes they would or or for a standard monopole yes they would they're currently classified as a non-concealed tower so they would follow that approval process that's what I thought and I believe that mr biker brought this before jcc pc in august is that correct believe so yes right and it is now december so at that time we had also suggested perhaps you proceed with the special use permit and you could have been well into that process I'll just say that I prefer that these changes be approached with the overall revisions to the wireless communication facilities and not separately and I do believe it should stay as a special use permit and public hearing in the interests of citizens we've been hearing about wireless communication facilities and citizen concerns for so many years I really don't want to do a separate process thank you recognize councilman moffitt yeah I have a question for mr baker or for one of you yeah since you since this has been stated this is for the cell tower near Durham tech and since you could do it with a special use permit and you've been interested in doing this since august what can you tell us why you didn't pursue a special interest permit a special use permit it was tracking to get to the city council before it would have gotten to the board of adjustment and we were fortunate to have a 7-2 vote for approval from the planning commission so we took that as a positive indication that the community was was okay with this process and to be perfectly frank with you we'd be willing to only have the slick sticks allowed in industrial light zones I mean we could put office or whatever to the side because that's really the only one that we're interested in is the industrial type zoning to provide this service for people who who need it it's it seems to me that the odds of or the probability of people being concerned about a slick stick in an industrial light zoning district is very low given the other uses that are permitted there as of right and I'm yes thank you the question I was wondering is since this has been stated as for a single particular site at some point way back there was a decision to pursue this avenue rather than a special use permit right but long before the planning commission and it's exactly for the reasons that we talked about it's to incentivize good behavior to ask people like Matthew to really look hard at commercial office and industrial zones before they look at residential I have a question for staff Michael Mr. Stock the in the revisions that you're contemplating would you absent this application would you consider unipoles to be concealed or unconcealed in those well we would take the same tact that we're doing now in fact it was brought up at JCCPC that unipoles don't fit neatly into either definition so the tact that we took in this and what we would and what we would follow through even if in a revision would just give unipoles own category but maintain the intent or at least we maintain the intent of the applicant further application so we didn't define it as concealed we didn't define it as non-concealed we kept it as unipole and gave it its own definition within the definition section but you're treating it as the same we're keeping the intent is to treat it with the same approval process as concealed but we're not defining it as concealed and if I understood the staff report you feel like that's reasonable and prudent yes thank you recognize councilman Davis thank you Mr. Mayor I guess I have some concern that has been voiced by some of my colleagues about the possibility of our curbing citizen input and I guess if I had to choose and since the he vendor here has had a choice between going through that process after we have received more citizen input as opposed to going forth tonight I guess I would side with the idea of going through the process that the open hearing process and the final decisions by the JCCCPC and I am would be opposed to moving forward without that citizen input thank you are there other questions or comments I like this long back here if you could come back no not Patrick dolly where's she from but could you come back I had a question about I want to understand one of the concerns that you raised you spoke about the height being a being extended what could you repeat that again oh it was written okay the request would make the unipole concealed would change the height restrictions of a concealed tower in rr and rs zones from 120 to 199 in the present udo with no increase of setbacks in the zones area the height restrictions actually do not change for those owning districts the rr and rs 20 districts are would be 120 feet and they would remain 120 feet and they would require also the minor special use permit okay thank you did you understand it okay thank you thank you I'm going to close the public hearing on this item uh and Matt is back before the council for consideration entertain a motion on this item Mr mayor I'll move the item with the intention of voting though is there a second to that motion it's been properly moved and second in for a discussion councilman can talk and move councilman's fuel second is it clear madam clerk will you open the vote please be closed the vote the motion fails six to one with council member moffett voting yes is it my actual name you so who else is voting no you okay so mayor pro tem is voting no also so it fails okay that matters has been covered let's move to the next item on agenda please excuse me for one one moment yes sir even though the motion failed you by state statute you still have to approve the do the second part and approve the consistency statement there's a second part of you know on that attachment that is if the motion fails okay so you just have to move the appropriate consistency statement based upon the failure of the entertain a motion you vote to just approve yes for the appropriate consistency the option is as if the motion fails you would vote on that one we would make sure we need clarification this is the first time we've done this good evening Steve meddling with the Durham city county planning department attachment e of your document actually is the consistency statement if you look at the bottom of that attachment you'll see in the event that the motion to approve the ordinance fails there is actually a consistency statement we're asking that you approve that consistency statement okay are we clear on this okay so who has the motion who made the motion council moffett new second councilman shewell madam clerk will you open the vote close the vote it passes seven is zero thank you item sorry item 17 comprehensive plan amendment erwin terris at lasal street a 13 000 010 good evening mayor bell members of council pat young with the planning department on the case before you is a 13 000 10 erwin terris at lasal street the applicant is seeking to change the tier designation of a six nineteen point six four acres of property on the north side of erwin road at its intersection with south of south street from its current tier designation of urban to the compact neighborhood tier this is an existing mixed use development on a portion of this site at this location the applicant is represented that they've maximized their residential density under the urban tier designation and the proposed compact tier designation excuse me compact neighborhood tier designation would allow increased density and a more transit oriented design of a site as city policy encourages through the comp plan for future transit stations staff finds that the request to change the tier designation meets the four criteria for comprehensive plan changes as outlined in detail in your staff report and recommends approval planning commission recommended approval by vote of nine to one at its october 2014 meeting thank you i'll be happy to take any questions and this is a public hearing the public hearing is open i'll ask first of the questions by members of the council and staff report here and then we'll move to the public for comments and again to make sure we have all persons that have signed up to speak on this item uh so i can determine the amount of time for each speaker we have judith wegener as a proponent robinson everett as a proponent dan jewel as a proponent patrick biker as an opponent as a proponent is there anyone else that wants to speak in support of this item okay in terms of those persons who are signed up to speak in opposition drainer freeman jen sarara reba hicks vicki rider and lorisa cyborg now is there anyone else whose name i have not called that would like to speak on this item okay let's let's assume that we've got 15 minutes and mr. mayor i'd like to defer till item 18 i didn't know how to sign up for this if i could i'm judith wedner melissa narson north one norton okay as an opponent and salina mac as an opponent does anyone else who wants to speak in opposition uh that being the case let's let's go with 15 minutes each and one two three four five six seven make a 21 mess each person has three minutes to speak recognize um patrick biker good good evening mayor bell mayor pro tem colin fadden members of the city council my name is patrick biker i live at 2614 steward drive i'm an attorney with morning star law group in durham i'm here tonight representing urwin terris limited liability company for this comprehensive plan amendment with me tonight from urwin terris is its manager robinson everett as well as our landscape architect dan jewel we also have our design architect darin latin of due to pain our project manager robert everett of neema management our financial advisor keith wells of northmark capital and andrew tap our traffic engineer you've just heard the staff report and we appreciate the planning departments and the planning commission's support for this plan amendment we are here tonight to request your approval of this plan amendment that will continue the strong success we have as a community have seen over the past 15 years with turning urwin road from a fairly lackluster suburban low density corridor into a vibrant lively mixed use environment that serves residents workers and visitors to durham extremely well first of all it is important to note that this corner of urwin and lasal today is served by three durham area transit authority bus routes and two bus routes operated by triangle transit i know some of you on the council will recall that i served eight years on the durham area transit authority many of those years as chairman or vice chair if i were still in that role i would recognize that it makes no sense to have the city's current boundary for the compact neighborhood to your end at lasal street when we as taxpayers are supporting so much bus service at this intersection right now in order to capitalize on our community's investment in bus service at this intersection we need compact neighborhood standards to include these 20 acres and that is exactly the proposal that's before the council tonight second we wish to note that this application has been under review for just over a year our team submitted this application in november 2013 we wish to emphasize that the detailed review by the playing department has not disclosed any negative impacts from creating this new compact neighborhood tier designation i think the success we have seen during the redevelopment of urwin road over the past 15 years shows that this section of durham thrives under the compact neighborhood standards rather than the urban tier standards third the fact that triangle transit unilaterally elected to create a proposed light rail transit station at the intersection of lasal and urwin reflects the necessity for implementing the compact neighborhood tier at this location of course this light rail transit proposal was supported by a strong majority of durham county's voters who turned out in support of the transit referendum a couple of years ago to leave the current urban tier standards at place at this location will hamstring our efforts to demonstrate durham is implementing sound land use planning principles to support triangle transit's proposal to the federal transit administration and so to follow through on supporting both existing bus service and potential rail transit at this location and to recognize the logical extension of the strong redevelopment along this section of urwin road we respectfully ask for the council's approval of this plan amendment and now our landscape architect dan jewel will address the history of this corridor and how it is benefited from design that interacts well with transit and pedestrian activities thank you thank you patrick good evening mr mayor mr manager members of the council i am dan jewel of 1025 gloria avenue president of culture jewel thames as many of you know i'm very passionate about our community's need to grow in a more thoughtful and urban manner i've worked tirelessly for many years to help create a transit corridor in durham that will promote denser more sustainable pattern of building when i worked with robinson's father 15 years ago to create the very first vertical mixed use project in durham urwin terrace our goal was to set an example of a better way for durham to grow to create a place where folks could live shop dine and work in one location within walking distance of major employment centers and on existing bus routes our proposal while modest compared to the other more recent developments on urwin road seemed like a stretch at the time even though at that time we were still six years away from the adoption of the current comprehensive plan which created the notion of a compact neighborhood around future transit stops the city council at that time strongly endorsed our zoning application and so we became the pioneers for the pattern of growth on urwin road that you see today fast forward to just a few years ago when rob and i first started talking about the possibilities of expanding urwin terrace to meet the demand that was there the very reasonable proposal that's before you tonight will afford even more opportunity for people to live work and shop in a walkable place and provide a way to accommodate some of durham's projected growth in a manner that is less dependent on suburban expansion we've been in discussion with tta about how our proposal accommodates the future light rail station by providing plazas and spaces for retail shops along the frontage to serve those transit riders and this proposal embodies what i've been working for for years to help durham achieve and to make this corner worthy of a new compact neighborhood 15 years down the road now we're again a ask again asking you to allow us to be pioneers for great durham growth and now you'll hear from robinson everett the lead developer with urwin terrace thanks dan good evening mr mayor and members of city council my name is robinson everett junior i grew up in durham and i live here now at eight chance replace i'm proud to say that the original build out of this project has indeed contributed greatly to the success of this city i grew up on lasal street uh just a couple of blocks away from urwin road and at that time and until very recently urwin road was quite dormant today it's one of the largest growth corridors in the city when it was built urwin terrace was dense and ambitious today as you've heard from dan we're the little development on the block but we stand at a corner that remains primed for further business growth and this plan amendment will allow us to continue where the first phase left off it will provide more mixed use amenities in durham in a walkable setting across from a medical center and university research corridor that other cities across this country dream of having our application was indeed submitted november 6 of last year but we actually began this process long before then with surveys and environmental reports and traffic studies and neighborhood meetings working hand in hand with the term city staff to revise and resubmit this request allows for more growth and density at the very location that triangle transit has already announced to the federal government that it intends to build transit and such growth and density is essential to support transit our team recognizes that supporting transit also requires successful implementation of the council's resolution adopted in may 2014 six months after we submitted this plan amendment and we look forward to being a participant excuse me a participant in the housing needs assessment and plan called for in that resolution and we wish to assist with addressing affordable housing the affordable housing issues by contributing twenty five thousand dollars to the city of durham administration and we can address that in more detail during the zoning mac change public hearing that's next on your agenda that said everything i've learned during this process over the past year plus has only confirmed to me that the proposed project is vitally important to durham and makes sense as it is the city staff has approved it the planning commission has recommended approval and throughout the process we have received unwavering support from our commercial tenants somewhere here and neighbors indeed our team has reached out to the only established neighborhood near to urwin terrace the crest street neighborhood we met with mr willy paterson the president of crest street community council to inform of the him of this proposal mr paterson could not be here tonight but he was kind enough to provide a letter of support which we're making available to you now and i would thank and like everyone who came out tonight in support of urwin terrace and all that it represents durham to please stand up thank you accordingly we respectfully ask for your approval and our team will be happy to try to answer any questions you might have thank you you're welcome let me ask other questions by members of the council of the proponent if not we move to those who are in opposition to this proposal as i call your name if you come to the podium to the right uh you have a total of 21 minutes each person has three minutes uh selena mac melisa norton the brain freeman uh jen savarra reba hicks vicki roder lorisa cyborg i would say that you can organize yourselves as you as you choose each has three minutes you just state your name and address as you come to the podium please to speak good evening my name is lorisa cyborg i'm representing durham people's alliance and as you know people's alliance has advocated for homes affordable to all durham residents for many years and the city has worked to create and preserve housing opportunities for decades however there continues to be a need for affordable homes 35 000 households in durham are cost burdened they are paying too much for rent and some too much for their mortgage and then also we need homes for people who are moving into our area including veterans with disabilities who need services at the va medical center in fact on veterans day i heard from gk butterfield that an additional 2500 homes are needed for disabled veterans in this area recently durham has seen a huge increase in development as you've just heard with rents becoming unaffordable for average working people like teachers and firefighters police officers nursing assistants and certainly out of reach of people who serve our food and clean our buildings these higher rents are rippling out across the city this year rents increased 50 to 100 dollars on average when we updated our rental guide over the past four years rents went up 240 dollars at duke manor apartments which is in this area and is being accounted as affordable housing but now the rents instead of being in the 500 dollar range are going up to 770 dollars will these apartments be affordable tomorrow or in 10 years when the rail station is built or in 30 years when our children need these affordable apartments to get started durham needs incentives to preserve long-term affordable housing density given away in areas such as downtown and ninth street has resulted in unaffordable housing this amendment would give high density away and would actually decrease the percentage of homes affordable to working people with incomes under 35 thousand dollars a year and with each development approved without affordable housing homes become less and less affordable to working families therefore we ask the city council to wait to work with this developer and future developers in the transit areas to create mixed income communities with homes that are affordable to working people long term and where we may be able to subsidize housing that's affordable to people with disabilities people on fixed Indian incomes such as seniors and other low wage working people and I want to ask the people who came to support affordable housing to stand or hold their signs up or both thank you mr. mayor I propose that those two groups go outside and fight it out not violently of course again if you state your name and address please good evening mr. mayor my name is reba haix and i'm a proud homeowner at 2119 collier drive durham north carolina 27707 thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak i am one of two representatives speaking to you this evening from durham can which as you know stands for durham congregations associations and neighborhoods the representative organization for me is immaculate conception catholic church we at can are very very encouraged that the city council and the board of commissioners jointly adopted a resolution calling for a minimum goal of 15 affordable housing in residential developments built around an adjacent to the proposed light rail transit stops our group of community organizations city council members mayor mr. mayor and mr. city manager we are always for something we're never against in this instance however we urge that the council do as misciples suggested wait and try to negotiate with the sustained developer to create so as to prevent a precedent for future rezoning and zoning for residential development that will not include affordable housing let me just say that i moved to durham six years ago because my children and grandchildren live here it is a wonderful community and i have a real estate background and i have nothing against any developer and i certainly have nothing against any citizen and i can assure you that the development that is going on in durham because of your wise leadership and your receptivity to citizen action as a city and i've lived in many places you we are going we are far more committed and we are creating a vibrant community so this is not naysaying the urwin wood urwin road developers in any way but let's point out something that this urwin road parcel is directly in front of a proposed light rail station and it'll probably serve those employed by duke university and its hospitals we believe the provision of affordable housing by this transit station is vital to the many workers affiliated with duke such as nursing and uh and patient assistance nurses and a host of administrative and support personnel i thank you so much for letting me speak good night if you have written remarks and you would like to leave them with a clerk you can do so so to be a part of the record thank you mr man next speaker also mr may i didn't get her first name let my first name is riba it's like riba mac entire but it's spelled r h eba you speak very well good evening my name is jim savara i live at 1114 woodburn road and i am here trying to speak for yvonne para tonight he would have been here speaking for can but is is out of town uh as we have heard uh from from riba and from lorisa the need is great for more affordable housing the goal to have at least 15 affordable housing close to transit stations is a start an important start toward addressing that need it also assures that people who live close to stations to a rail system that is constructed with large amounts of public funding are available to those with the greatest transportation needs and that this proximity is not an amenity that is limited to the affluent we i think all support the goal of more sustainable development in durham but sustainability requires equity and inclusion the fact that there is extensive market rate affordable housing close to the lasal street station now does not mean it will remain affordable when property values rise in the rail corridor in the future to use current conditions as a reason for not doing anything now means that opportunities are lost as yvonne pointed out at a meeting in september it is very difficult to come up with affordable housing once the high end development is built the affordable housing goal means that every development proposal should be viewed as an opportunity to expand affordable housing all parties should look for the ingredients that can make it feasible to incorporate these units durham can has requested that the planning department re-examine the incentives that are offered to developers in order and make them more more varied and wider in order to make them more effective some have argued that it is not appropriate to apply a resolution approved in march to a project that has been in preparation for a longer period of time the commitment of durham to expand affordable housing however is not new the incentive to developers has been to permit higher densities than would normally be permitted thus for 10 years the policy of the city has linked approval of higher densities to provision of affordable housing this principle along with the possibility of other incentives that might be provided in this case should be applied in addition to avoiding a bad precedent as riba has mentioned we durham can looks at this as an opportunity to provide a positive example a positive outcome we recommend that the city and the developer take the time to find a solution that will meet their respective goals and set the example of including affordable housing in new developments a great durham growth requires affordable housing this is a wonderful project that we're hearing about but why are affordable units left out thank you welcome again if you just state your name good evening my name is selena mac i'm the director of durham community land trustees at 1208 west chapel hill street durham north carolina i just want to kind of reiterate a lot of what has already been said and as much as we're not i'm not so opposed to the the request for the compact neighborhood tier i'm opposed to the exclusion of affordable housing in this project this project in the future project should certainly within a half mile of the transit station it's vital that it include affordable housing and it's not it's crucial that we are not just looking at what is affordable today i mean i was at the planning i mean the planning commission's meeting and i know that what has been said is that there's a vast number of affordable housing units existing in this area today however i think i want to really emphasize the fact that we can't just look at what's affordable today that we have to look at what is permanently affordable what will be affordable over extended period of time so if you're looking at housing other than land trusts or public housing most housing units will only remain affordable for a period of 15 to 30 years in case of tax credits in this case most of the affordable housing units being counted are those of privately of a privately owned development dick man and with 900 of those units are actually being counted as affordable what we we know we're seeing rents there already rise we know that those units are not going to remain affordable over the long haul so ideally i think when we when these such cases come before you for approval you know ideally we wouldn't see 15 at least 15 a minimum 15 percent of all housing of all new housing being affordable in order to create a continuum of affordable housing units in existence and well i recognize that the the the idea of managing affordable housing can be a kind of frightening experience or a frightening idea for for-profit developers it's important that if we're going to ask developers to create affordable housing units that we are ready to offer a strategy for them to be successful and there are many examples of of such many examples of of how non-profit for-profits have worked with non-profits have partnered with them on the development or have allowed them to manage the affordable housing units that have proven successful throughout the country so at least regardless of how it's done is essential that developers be provided this toolkit in order to be successful thank you welcome the next speaker hi good evening my name is vicky rider and i have previously written to all of the members of our council about my feelings on the need for affordable housing to be included in any proposal that is approved by this uh by this body and i wanted to especially thank diane catari for responding to my to my letter i'm like the speakers before me not speaking about what this development does bring but what it has left out we support the development of enhanced mass transit for the people of our city we support intelligent urban design and walkable mixed-use communities but we also must be mindful of providing affordable housing for our citizens and so we have a message for for our council tonight because the season approaches of goodwill and cheer and so in that spirit we grannies are here to ask that you do what we all know is right approve zoning so poor folks can sleep well at night there are too many folks sleeping out in the street clutching their bundles it's cold without heat no place to call home and no blankets or bed they're lucky if some of them even get fed when wages are too low to pay the high rent and folks are left homeless not even a tent it's time for a change and on that we agree more affordable housing is what we all need now in this prosperous country now wouldn't you think we could house all the homelessness quick as a wink if we weren't spending billions on weapons of war we'd have affordable housing for all of the poor and right here in Durham it's time to get down and provide decent housing for the poor in our town with transit close by that would be a great thing so rezoning for housing and make our hearts sing thank you so much thank you it's a tough back to follow good evening mayor bell mayor pro temp and city council members my name is mel norton i live at 1102 wall street and i'm here tonight along with so many others to advocate for an affordable housing component in the case that this density bonus is approved as many of you know i spent five years with downtown Durham Inc during which time i helped advocate for many successful public private partnerships and i think you can look around in downtown and our central neighborhoods and ninth street and it's just completely astounding with these public private partnerships have resulted in it's a completely transformed central city and during many of these discussions of these public private partnerships and affordable housing kind of came up and the message was always we're not quite there yet you know we're just not quite there and i'm here tonight to say that we are here i think we can look around in any urban neighborhood downtown ninth street and we are here we have succeeded and we are succeeding when it comes to affordable housing policy i think something that's important to keep in mind is that density is our key way of getting affordable units when it comes to new development density is the only bargaining chip we really have in a lot of cases and i agree with so many people that this is a great project i think that three points it's close to transit it's close to jobs it's close to amenities why not 15 out of 100 of those units be for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to live there and we're not talking about you know people in poverty we're talking about workforce housing let's be real i mean this is teachers this is public servants you know this is not really low income housing i think it's also to keep in mind that this is a big project we can't do inclusionary housing with 20 unit 30 unit projects but this is a big project and you can find ways with the developer working very closely with them to make those numbers work i believe that so i just want to end my thoughts by saying that we're here it's something to be celebrated that we as a community are now having this hard conversation and i'm worried that we're going to get behind the eight ball if we don't start taking these opportunities very seriously as they come in front of us thank you good evening my name is didriana freeman and i live at 1005 warp street and i actually serve on the city county planning advisory board and i unfortunately had to miss the meeting that this project came up at because i was out of town on business i would like to take a moment and briefly just highlight the fact that i understand and appreciate the long-standing history of the errant family here in derm and once as as many of us have said this is not about the development itself it's about the process and just make sure this is what this is the first of many to come and i would like to caution moving forward without some policy in place to keep housing affordable for low wage earners that would encourage all developers to develop around transit with progress in mind unlike the transit area plans currently in other cities like charlotte Atlanta and others that did not consider the drastic market affordability upshift that would occur when rail transportation was installed it is my hope that the planning around transit makes a priority of keeping and creating housing options for low wage earners of this city all along the transit line moving forward without regard for the macro impact of each of these zoning and planning developments near and around transit stations could cause displacement for residents please consider what is best for all of derm and the location next to transit including homes affordable to people with low material wealth focusing now on developing policies and partnerships to allow for a 15 percent minimum priority of new housing developments at each station should be affordable for for wage earners would you please support this small request as a policy makers there are many ways to isolate this issue and find resolutions to ensure that the derm citizens that live and work in this city can afford to live in it as male mentioned the teachers the teachers assistants the custodians the administrative staff the hourly employees barely making livable wage all need someplace to live not just now but in the future consider what proximity of residents access to public transportation to get to work can do for a budget and how beneficial transit service is for those with lower incomes people who live and work here in the city of derm all should be able to afford to live in derm after the wave of development drives the market rental rate and home ownership prices up like in downtown or ninth street if you work for the city you should be able to afford to live in the city i want to be specific in stating that it's not so much that this development is the issue is that this there shouldn't be a piecemeal process to this in order for us to actually have an impact we're going to need to do this as a comprehensive plan thank you welcome that concluded all the persons who have signed up to speak in opposition to this this item uh i don't know if the developers want to use the remain amount of their time for any comments i'm not going to close the public hearing yet until i've had an opportunity here from council members i'd like to respond briefly to some points first of all i appreciate the sentiments and i've uh in this process met many smart people advocates on all sorts of sides and talking with staff um and i and talking with advocates for the issue and talking with city council members and have learned a great deal um there's some some some quick rebuttals that i'd like to make just to clarify the issue and to give a different side i do appreciate all the people who even the advocates who said this is a great project and that means a lot and i think that's unanimous here i guess what we're talking about even though it's a comprehensive plan is affordable housing um but to just say what in case someone doesn't know in the room what they're talking about is uh my family's had a long history of reporting this affordable housing which i've mentioned before uh my father who who came up we we spoke about came up with the idea of mixed use um actually was the founding board member of the affordable housing group of north calina in 1966 that was the time when not many people talked about affordable housing um and his work as i pointed for the planning commission was so appreciated over the 30 years that the charlotte housing authority and that group named a affordable housing house in his honor but then housing units called the robinson everhouse that has disabled affordable housing it's an issue we care about greatly and i appreciate all the compliments we gave about developers and that's why i think a vote tonight is a vote for a great project and a vote for a developer that clearly is making an effort has clearly thought about it who's made an offer that i think is the best offer for this time now when everyone says let's come up with a plan that we're offering a proffer that really makes sense and it's a yes to a developer that's shown that they're a local developer that isn't going to be building something and flipping it that isn't going to be doing about some of the things that people have expressed concerns about the that is here to stay and that actually cares about the same issue you're talking about and shares the same goals so i think you're saying a double yes to both sides and it's a win-win and that's how i feel strongly and i do think that they talked about so many good things and i just want to be clear what we all know those are so we stay it we're talking about jobs potentially over a thousand jobs that could be done with the full build out of this project we're talking about taxes taxes to go to things not just housing but things like schools that we all care about so be voting against that you're voting in something else when someone says they're just for life's complicated um when they talk about things that could happen there are a lot of different viewpoints about what would happen i actually went to all the tta meetings of a tta meeting at the bus station and spoke with those and have done some research and it's not clear all the impacts of rental rates on different housings in different stations it depends on the city it depends on the light rail when it's built how the city supports it how the city subsidizes it it depends on how the station is for instance everyone has said here well we know there's an incredible abundance of affordable housing at this site that's right the Durham staff made their first report to show this site has 79.5 percent current affordable housing the goal of the resolution is 15 percent that's more than five times 13 percent of which is already committed housing so when when you hear studies that i've been sent from friends or experts in this industry and they say the affordable housing has an effect on it's uncertain things like potentially new construction that's built to take advantage of the transit not all the construction when someone's talking about popular manner my own staff who's here to support who does work and knows this error very well can tell you that popular manners prices have not risen as people have just said to get some specifics they say why can't we just do 15 percent well 15 percent of a new build by the way would be an incredible ask so i think you need to clarify the resolution which is why we want to support and give our 25 000 dollars to the housing needs assessment plan so that Durham can understand and make the right decisions but 15 percent the reason we've explained over and over again is because it's impossible to finance in this particular location with this particular very dense very expensive build around a parking deck with a wrap that's why we can't to um address some things that were said earlier here unless you want to speak oh well for those reasons to support the many things we said of jobs to support tax increase to support transit itself which by the way if you don't get and you don't increase the density you won't have this issue about affordable housing that we're talking about we ask you again to give us your approval and we again thank the people came to support and we ask you to stand again thank you that concludes the public comments both pro and against this project thank you madison now back before the council and the same questions by our comments by members of the council in any particular order recognize the mayor pro tem um i'd like mr everett to come back could you explain i'm trying to just wrap my hands around what you just said could you explain again why 15 percent of this project could not be affordable housing is it money that you would lose or make it clearer for me sure i'd be it yes man um we would lose money it's a it's a to do that it's um when you go to finance a project you have to go to lenders and lenders have a system of underwriting the project based on cash flows investment thresholds and without being expert i actually have uh keith wells of north mark capital who's been advising and when i ask those questions they're very clear with me rob it would be unfinanceable a lender is going to balk because of the cost of doing it because of the difference between the construction cost the really significant construction costs in this land around this deck and how much your your fixed income would be and because the difficulty in my mind of license of how what they would do if it failed how they would foreclose upon it what value would we get out of it so because we couldn't go to any traditional lender and get alone we could not do it so you mentioned though that you could not do it in this location i thought did you say that in this location yes right this proposal right so suppose you were to take it some of where in Durham could you take this project and include that 15 percent well here of course there's already 80 percent so the understanding the best present of the best policies perhaps of what you'll find and i don't know the answer because Durham's still looking for and i want to be a part of that process and help but i think the answer of where this wants to you know as opposed to where there's already 80 percent and where it's a transient population that comes and moves would be where there's a more a population that lives it's more stable that sets routes and has a mixed band of income and you're talking some of the examples were given were big multifamily income projects well this is of course a mixed use project with a lot of high commercial and retail use not typical easy garden variety retail but complicated retail around a deck with parking that has complicated land use rights which is another air rights which is another reason of bank as i understand would find it impossible to underwrite it who is the banker in the group sir could you come i'm just trying to go through this education process my name is Keith Wells i'm with north mark capital would you just share why you would not be able to finance under these circumstances yeah and i might be repeating a couple things but the the high density the the parking garage that's built the wraparound structure the the the requirement or the needs for the density to go six to seven stories over and above add multiples on the costs and because it's an air rights and it's not a simple fee simple meaning it's it's a piece of land and a building on it and the security is the land and the building but in this case because of the high density and the parking garage in the cross easements each of the pieces of the puzzle of the commercial of the retail of the apartments of the parking deck all need cross easements and they have to flow in a certain way that's much much much more complicated than a and i don't want to make it as simple but as a simple fee simple structure the high density the cost of the project will will most likely double because of the parking garage and the required engineering on the structure as well as just the the workings of the different banks and permanent lenders that have to work together to finance all these pieces so in my opinion my professional opinion of 32 years and doing commercial real estate financing it is very unlikely that this would get financed at all um in the current economics of income expenses versus the total cost of the property i have other questions but my other question is for lorisa and i'll i'll get i'll ask it later other other comments by members of council recognize councilman brown thank you mr mayor i want to thank everyone who came out this evening and spoke so well so eloquently on on both sides of this issue i want to specifically address can and those of you who were here representing can i start my my twelfth year next month on this council and i have been to almost every can meeting and i have voted i think with almost every resolution that you presented to us except for one and that was the meeting a month or so ago at my wife's parish immaculate conception and where you attempted in my judgment to move the goalpost to change the game because when we voted in may of this year it was indeed a unanimous vote for the 15 percent affordable housing within a half a mile of a transit stop and what you inserted in that resolution of that night was to say that all new housing must also contain 15 percent and that is not ladies and gentlemen what this council agreed to in may we looked at the aggregate of housing close to the train stop and that is why as has been pointed out tonight this current stop has close to 80 percent affordable housing as it exists now now some of you have said jim and others that well who can determine what's going to happen 10 or 15 years from now how much of the affordable will be affordable even though i think rob you mentioned that 13 percent will remain as affordable but in some ways you know to be fair that's rather specious logic i mean how can we look 10 or 15 years from now and say well you know that's a huge x factor so we can't determine that so therefore we need this with this particular project that's not logical in my judgment and i know many of you will disagree on that but again we are talking about a specific site that already contains 75 to 80 percent affordable housing and now many of you are here asking for this new construction to have the 15 percent as well and Keith i'm glad you were here because you know we talked about this site and we talked about the developer but what we have left out until the last few minutes is the lender because this project please take your rose colored glasses off now this project will not happen unless the lender approves it and the underwriters and they will not approve it now and this has been in the mix now for going on at least a year so i would suggest that we need to remember that the perfect which perhaps the 15 percent would represent perhaps the perfect must not become the enemy of the good and the good is what is represented here by this family and the overall development and what it will do for this area in a very very positive way now a second point and emails and it's been expressed verbally this evening by some of you that we should not give away density well i guess i would suggest that you can't give away what you do not have many of you in this audience this evening want a transit system now quite frankly i'm not sure if that's really going to happen but i can assure you of one thing it will not happen it will not happen unless we have the required density and i must say folks if you're just looking at chapel hill and derm and we all know that we cannot do this without state funding and federal funding that that will not happen unless we have the density and even with that it is going to be a real difficult task to get any monies from either the state of the fed for this project which has now blossomed to close to 1.8 billion dollars 1.8 billion and we have increased taxes for this but that rep and so has orange county now white county thank goodness elected four new good people to their county commission but still this will go before the voters the voters in white county and how long one year two years three years who knows so i'm not one to be pessimistic i was not elected to be pessimistic okay i was elected to try to look at on the positive to believe in hope but when you look at the total infrastructure needs in this state indeed in this nation for all of our transportation needs some people may come back and say and perhaps some of you by the way saw the 60 minutes program two weeks ago on the crumbling infrastructure and you know we've heard about that now for years and we're not doing anything about it and some may come back and say well light rail fine that is a nicety but it is not a necessity a necessity is making sure among other things that your bridges are functional and safe and that your your highways and your streets do not create more problems in terms of safety than they do now so light rail fine do i support it sure will it happen when i'm still on this earth and by the way i'm a pretty young guy i don't know i don't know but if any of you or any illusions have any illusions about going to rally and asking the members of the general assembly to support Durham and chapel hill for their light rail system you need to perhaps you've come from colorado and you're smoking something else because that is not going to happen folks um so these are just a few of the issues that the city attorney i'm sure and my good friend steve sure will bring up the the issue of a mandated 15 out of sight which to put it very succinctly we cannot legally do not do in the state but there are just a couple issues i may return thank you so much for listening councilman brown let me ask you there let me get some water here before i make councilman moffitt councilman titi councilman davis councilman shulman at order i i wonder can i get staff up to the microphone please so we've heard a lot of comments and i'm starting to get a little lost between plan amendment and rezoning can we come back to this is a plan amendment which which i will make the editorial comment this is why i wanted to combine both hearings into one at some time in the past but let's let's see let's get back to the fact that this is a plan amendment that enlarges the compact neighborhood tier so can you just briefly once again sort of bring us back to focus by saying the impacts of the plan amendment just tell us what they are sure councilman moffitt the the plan amendment before you proposes to change the development tier the development tier is changed through the comprehensive plan amendment process that you're undertaking right now but it does have some of the characteristics of zoning map change it does authorize through the unified development ordinance additional density and it does change the site development standards reduces buffers allows a more urban mixed use and intense urban form than the urban tier does so what this act would do is allow the zoning change that will come before you next to be legally approved and implemented so okay so it it adds density it reduces buffers but it doesn't change the underlying zoning that's correct okay and does it does it does it add any entitlements i mean it allows additional entitlements to be added but does it actually does the tier change itself add any entitlements i would say no i think your frame is exactly right it allows for those to be added through through subsequent zoning actions and site plans and other actions okay thank you councilman katana thank you mayor um similarly i have questions for the planning department and um i was wondering if you could explain our planned approach moving forward to transit and station area planning as a whole and the timetable for that as well as our plans for improving affordable housing incentives and can you also clarify whether we'll be addressing and i'll repeat all these if you need them both new units and maintaining existing affordable units in the area because i think that's a very important clarification and then lastly if you could also talk about our plans to revise the mixed use guidance in the udo if i might councilman katana i'll take your middle two questions first and then i'll ask erin can of our staff to come give more detail about our planned approach to compact area compact neighborhood planning um city staff is working very diligently since our august 20th kickoff uh with count the county and our community partners to ensure that your may 2014 resolution the goal set in that is continues to be met we are going to be giving a detailed update to the joint city county planning commission at the january 7th 2015 meeting on seven separate initiatives that are well underway different stages of completion again you'll get a detailed report on the 7th of january that all contribute towards that goal um they kind of fall in two broad categories one is ensuring that we have good basic data such as a detailed existing conditions analysis and looking what we call opportunity sites which are underutilized sites that are either held by the city or county or by community partners institutional partners uh and looking at um some other basic fundamental information that will set the frame for your future decision making and then the second box is what we call kind of incentives and tools so we're looking at a detailed toolbox that will give you all a very broad set of tools for which you can either help direct uh that we pursue further or that we just dismiss we're looking at um text amendments seen by development ordinance that would refine the density bonus and the uh and look at parking reductions associated with the four wheel housing um and we have also applied for uh through in partnership with the triangle transit administration a grant to do very detailed uh economic analysis of what kind of value can be captured and looking in detail at value capture techniques so that's a kind of a sneak preview in terms of where we're at on that process certainly um as has been has been alluded to tonight that um per the resolution that definitely will include preservation strategies um I think something that can be said fairly obviously is that almost always preservation of existing units that are in standard condition of which we have um over over 2000 at the LaSalle station area is generally going to be much more cost effective than um including new units so we do certainly want to keep that on the table we're going to be looking uh we'll look at both new and preservation but that will be an area of focus because um of the per unit cost um I'll ask Aaron to come up and talk a little bit about next steps if we missed any of your questions let me know sure thanks Aaron came with the planning department yeah a couple of things that maybe I can go into a little more detail that Patrick did not uh one is that we are looking at um shall we say exporting the design district uh per the conference of plan to our other compact neighborhoods at Austin Avenue and the medical center area which would include this LaSalle street area as well as three of the suburban transit areas um that also plan to have stations at South Square Patterson Place and Lee Village we're in that process now and we'll have an update for you on January 7th uh we also were talking today about some of the affordable housing incentives that we'll be able to provide for you on January 7th probably not tech UDO text yet but a couple of uh things that we can go ahead and move forward such as lower parking requirements and some changes to the affordable housing density bonus which will hopefully make it more palatable and usable to the development community that's very helpful thanks um so one thing I was going to reference is certainly we're hearing from other neighborhoods or communities like leaf arm um that are asking for planning attention and action and so I guess my question is what is the urgency to move on this particular request uh for the comprehensive plan change in this area now why wouldn't we wait and um approach the compact neighborhoods and stationary plants holistically rather than parcel as parcel uh that would developers approach us sure that would certainly be an option is to um wait for us to go through the process to better define the compact neighborhoods now that we are more um aware of and the more defined locations of each of the station areas um so we can do a better job now of defining where those compact neighborhoods should be and employing the design district zone compact design zoning to those areas that's simply a timing issue that's probably going to be um at least months if not um years away at least for the zoning to be in place that would provide for the um administrative rights to build what has been proposed here thank you um jumping ahead to the zoning I'll just say that the the development plan doesn't provide a lot of specificity so it's hard to tell exactly what's intended there but um I would favor that we wait and do this in a comprehensive fashion rather than parcel by parcel thank you thank you recognize councilman davis thank you mr mayor I guess I have a couple of questions one for the opponents uh and I'd like to ask a representative of that group to uh talk about how long you think you'd want to wait as you have advocated and um what kinds of negotiations or discussions would you have with the developer during that interim period and I guess the question for the proponent would be the contribution of $25,000 is that something that can be viewed positively or will some people put a negative spin on it in terms of um money to just bow off the opposition do you want me to speak first either way either one um I wanted to just say one thing about the $25,000 it would be great if we could use some of those funds to help us resolve this um issue that we have here tonight and but there are free folks that we can utilize um at the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency they have a 80-20 tax exempt bond program that's been used by Bank of America and that's Charlotte Housing Authority and um I think that there are banks that do finance affordable housing and also there are lenders who finance mixed-use housing which includes residential and we've had that in this area I believe Golden Belt is one example um so I don't know how long it would take uh to try to include affordable housing because it's really up to the developer to offer do you want me to speak to anything else that's fine thank you thank you for that question Councilman Davis um our team read the resolution that was adopted in May of 2014 very carefully and that resolution calls for a process the process of establishing a plan that will put in place the the term used by the planning folks as a toolbox we need to move that for process forward and you're looking at a team with Dan Jewel Rob Everett and myself that we have put in thousands of hours on these transit issues over the last 15 years and we recognize I think it's fair to say that the planning department is is somewhat resource constrained so as we read the resolution very carefully we said how can we move this process forward the best way to do that is to contribute financially $25,000 from Mr. Everett and his family to bring in the expertise or to give the planning department and the the administration the resources they need to put together the toolbox to create incentives so that instead of having discussion like we're having tonight we'll have a framework so that we will know as we're going through the process what works in order to allow the project to obtain financing and to provide affordable housing at appropriate levels at at different stations so I hope that answered your question we we want to move the resolution the language of the resolution forward and we racked our brains over the last couple weeks to come up with this idea it wasn't just something that we thought up walking into the building tonight we appreciate all the time the council has put into this issue and we hope you'll recognize the dedication of this team to this particular issue and to moving this process forward that mrs. May I want to apologize to both sides this was not intended to we'll bunk questions but we're not there's no offense taken there's absolutely no offense taken councilmember Davis absolutely none thank you recognize councilman shul thank you mr mayor so I have I first have a question for the banker again would you but that'd be all right thank you is it mr. Wells I'm sorry I couldn't remember that thank you yes it's Keith Wells yes sir in terms of I mean there are there are financial institutions that fund affordable housing in in mixed use and mixed income developments in cities around the country have you all do you all do that sort of thing yes sir I've financed a lot of affordable housing in excess of a hundred million dollars right but financed a couple hundred million dollars worth of market rate apartments it gets dangerous in confusing when you say Bank of America on an 80-20 tax exempt bond deal supported by an EDA on a garden apartment deal that was done so it could get built and then to try and transpose that into a very complicated structure high density mixed use because it requires now an EDA to come in it requires a bank that has certain requirements for tax-free bonds and if you follow the amount of regulations that go on who they least to win and if it goes out of whack then the tax-free bonds lose their tax-free status and then there could be a put so it's it's much more complicated than it in a scenario where it is a mixed use commercial residential hospitality office retail where we're trying from what I understand is to increase the density for jobs for for this location for tax revenues with the support of the housing that's there so when you mix some apples and oranges together yes they do get done and there are lots of very very very specific rules and regulations on the tax credits that go and if they default what happens on the tax-free bonds which are very draconian and that's why I say and again there's a difference between an air rights development where it's it's there are multiple pieces of multiple lenders on each pieces and the cross easements of the flow of traffic in this parking garage again part of the high density use which yes this lender does do those things but is that lender going to come to this location and do this specific property on an air rights not a fee simple basis with cross easements and elevator buildings at and at $125,000 a unit in cost well now it's a different story and that's the piece of the puzzle yes there is affordable housing that does get done there are certain initiatives that certain major metro areas dc philadelphia may do because they're trying to solve certain issues um and I just it's very dangerous to say well they did it in dc so we should be able to do it here it they're very much specifics to this property right so have you all run any numbers with any of those affordability assumptions built in amongst ourselves we've talked about what it means but more importantly uh it's it's the complications of the tax credits and the tax-free financings that are used by housing agencies and uh edas to get these so that they are feasible and the mixing of those with market rate lenders and banks and because this is going to have to roll off from the bank to a permanent lender from a recourse to non-recourse now we're bringing in life insurance companies and if I said could you include one affordable unit in the in the in the development what would the answer be the economic impact would be minimal about 10 again it becomes a multiplication what happens is the number of lenders who are feasible at one most of the lenders are still in the room at 10 half just walked out at 20 three quarters just walked out and and now we're start stressing an undue burden potentially on the project can it get feasibly done because every lender that walks out the price just went up so I mean this is a this is a a fairly large project it's millions of millions of dollars that would be invested in from the the the uh the residential and the commercial and so forth the office and and you're saying that for 10 affordable units out of over 200 that are potentially to be built the lenders would walk out of a deal like this they're sure but if there's an affordability calm piece of the puzzle as soon as you said affordability half of them are going to walk out because there are again there are certain restrictions and requirements that go to a higher level there are also time periods that go and and the the lady brought up earlier which is very important in most affordability properties it goes away after 15 years I'm I'm I'm I finance a lot of properties that have a 15-year window and it's gone after 15 years so the um the councilman brown talking about what's in the future five years 10 years 15 years it is very important because they're gonna go away anyway the requirements that are the the restrictions to affordability use it and this is national housing financing this is through HUD requirements we do we do a lot of that in Durham and we I think we we really understand really well about those uh how the uh requirements do roll away and we do a lot of work in Durham with taxpayer money to extend those the the affordability periods I think we've done that this year for probably a couple of hundred units that we've uh worked with the uh the develop the developer the owners to to keep those units affordable they're very great they're great tools for for an increasing period of time thank you very much I appreciate it thank you um to the um but also a couple questions for the staff um we've we've received first of all I want to say something about the staff I just I'm really you guys do fabulous work um the you know the the the number of questions that you all are constantly at uh asked under pressure and uh from all sides I just want to uh express my appreciation and just thinking about that when when you were up here in Aaron when you call on Aaron I saw him getting up out of his seat and I thought you know poor Aaron he's going to be on the hot seat but you all do a wonderful job with it and not just in in this in these settings but in the information you give us so I really want to express my appreciation they're very you're probably the only department in the city that's constantly under this sort of uh questioning and I know it's probably not the most fun part of the job yeah um how is this different from how we're approaching Lee Village and we've received so many emails lately from and you all have as well from Lee Village um people that would like to have a compact neighborhood district for Lee Village and they have a they've they've privately uh they have a private plan that they have promoted um and so how is this different than that situation sure councilman sure that's a great question I I think um I'll give a little more information uh kind of picking up where uh some of the information Aaron gave to councilman catati thinking back in 2005 when we were um planning for and then adopting the comprehensive plan there was only one station area uh along the Irwin corridor which was at the at the medical center uh in 2010 uh TTA identified the second station area right at the corner of LaSalle in Irwin which is immediately adjacent to this site so I think um we as staff made a distinction between um this future LaSalle station area the property in question before you tonight is is certainly going to be either directly adjacent or within hundreds or thousands of feet uh of the station area um because of the certainty that we now have about the station location we feel comfortable recommending to you as we have did earlier um that that this area can be designated and developed under those standards uh Lee Village Patterson Place and MLK South Square in 2005 were part of what was then considered a phase two a very distant in time potential alternate alignment along 54 uh so what we did because of that uncertainty is identify those three station areas as what we call suburban transit areas uh candidly that was kind of a hedge on the idea that we did not know where these stations were going to be we didn't know whether there was going to be a southern alignment or the northern alignment we now know that because we have that sort better certainty and much better information about the station location we feel like it's important to go out with a more robust community engagement more extensive process um in all three of those areas to make sure we understand that the definition the outer boundaries um and other characteristics of these uh and really just to designate them as compact neighborhood tiers which does not occur yet so I think it's just the level the planning and the level of certainty we have about the development pattern I think is the short answer and um and the but the planning we're doing there um you know the the the the sassy process and so forth uh it's it's can you talk about some of the things that are provided for in that kind of planning and would that be done would that be done for this uh extension of this boundary I mean how how how do those things interact well that's a good question I think that the sassy process is going to continue and it's going to look at all 11 areas and it's going to look at uh infrastructure needs infrastructure infrastructure finance possibilities and include affordable housing we're kind of using the umbrella of the sassy financial component to look at the affordable housing financing and develop that toolbox and take it to the public um so we are going to look at that in Los Al area and all the other 10 uh station areas uh through the sassy process um I mean it's certainly a fair point and you all don't have to make the same the same distinction as Erin alluded to that we have of how this site is different than Lee village but I think it's really just because it's a directly adjacent to an existing area really the La Salle and Irwin areas will be overlapped substantially because of the proximity of those two plant stations so we feel like the planning we did there helps helps improve our understanding of the those area that area and I can see how that is true I can see why you would make those distinctions and that makes sense on the other hand we are now extending the boundary without the benefit of the of that kind of planning would that be true I mean I think without a thorough process like we had in 9th street in downtown that would be correct yes yeah and and and as we are also planning then it for the future station areas as well so one of my questions I think was answered earlier which is we'll get the first look at the affordable housing toolkit on January 7th and and then how long after that how long is the process is it to go from that toolkit to being able to implement some of those housing affordable housing incentives I know you can't tell exactly but do you have any sense of what that might be well I think it would depend on um we would need to do and this won't be able to occur until after the initial presentation we want to give you all the broad range of concepts we want to get some direction from joint city county planning committee and those there are those um toolbox components that appear to be favored we want to do detailed analysis on the legality and fiscal feasibility of those and then after that analysis is complete we'd come back with a full report and we certainly intend to be near completion that by the end of the fiscal year by the end of the fiscal year so okay um thank you very much um and then I had a question also for the developer which was when do you anticipate can you talk about the phasing of the build out and what you anticipate I know again you don't know exactly what that will be but I wondered if you could try to give me some sense of that council member shill the real estate market right now is very strong and so we would be remiss if we didn't say we are we are bullish on the commercial and office opportunities at this location we do not have any immediate plans for additional residential at this location we we would start rolling up our sleeves and working on the financing tomorrow if this project is approved tonight it's been in the hopper it's been the process for over a year so and the market is is is strong how much longer that market lasts is a very difficult prediction to make so I'd be remiss if I didn't say that timing is something we're very very concerned about that's why we've moved ahead with the structured parking that I trust everyone the council has seen to in order to make the development move forward as quickly as possible so if a large biotech company a spinoff from duke due to technology transfer wanted a large office space r&d space we'd be able to move forward quickly and meet that need meeting the needs of tenants in the real estate market is really a 12 month window if you say you're it's going to take you longer than that to deliver their space they're going to look somewhere else so I hope that answered your question we have good strong indicators that commercial and office sort of to move forward soon when that commercial and office can move forward in the near future yeah and then when you think about the residential and and I heard you say you you don't have any immediate plans for it and and I suppose there's a possibility that if that there were other uses there there might never be residential there if the market was that's an interesting question councilmember shul you know we've approved so much multifamily and Durham that I have seen it taper off I'm not aware of a whole lot of multifamily coming through the pipeline now relative to what we saw over the last two or three years so it appears to me that that the cycle is is going down when I'll pick up again I really don't know yeah and then so the does the is there any match in the timing of the arrival of the the toolbox in let's say the end of the fiscal year so you know let's just say next July or August and when you might really need to know about your residential I'm trying to get at this idea you all are have shown a lot of interest in affordable housing and and I believe that that is sincere and and yet you haven't proffered any and I won't I'm gonna get to the twenty five thousand dollars in a minute because I think it's very you know it's great but the we've got a toolbox that we think will have will be ready for and that this hopefully this twenty five thousand will contribute to and then that would be available which would provide various incentives that might help the financing that this gentleman was discussing earlier in time for you all to build your residential at least the way I understand it you're not really looking to build that residential soon and I was wondering if there was a a match there or if there was anything that could be worked out along those lines to follow up on what the planning department shared with us about preservation being important part of the tool toolbox we think it'd be fair for the developer to agree that the existing affordable housing onsite which is popular manner we will agree to not redevelop that for at least 12 months which would give if I understand the planning department correctly plenty of time for the toolbox to be put in place and so we would we can commit to maintaining the existing affordable housing onsite throughout the duration of the time that it takes the administration to to bring forward the the incentives that we've been discussing tonight if that addresses your concern I hope it does it helps and would you would you then also how would you feel about and Patrick's going to tell me about my wording in a minute but how would you feel about then working with our with that the popular manner as potential longer-term affordable housing working with the toolkit that the city has developed we'll certainly evaluate it and and we're all committed to being part of this process or the next 12 months in terms of working with the planning department on that exact issue so was that a proffer no sir now it was a commitment to shouldn't use that word it was our understanding that we will be at the table it's been difficult my understanding is it's been difficult for the planning department to identify members of the private sector the development community to participate in this process however we're committed to doing that and so I think we can come up with a good set of incentives if we have the resources and the willingness to do so and I'm sorry I misspoke was the first was that what are were you profferance to keep yes popular you would not to redevelop it for a manner for a year yeah that's correct yeah we could agree to not redevelop popular manner until at least until December 1 2015 okay okay thank you so mr. mayor I apologize for taking so much time I think that you know there to me there's a lot to like about this development the density is is very important and I do it jean I do anticipate one day pushing you in a wheelchair on the first train to Raleigh I'll be on crutches and you know we it's important that we have a very highly respected developer a you know a son of Durham who's developing this and and I think that that's there's a lot to that I also want to say that I think that the $25,000 proffer is for the to help us develop the housing toolkit is is great because I do think what we have going now is is underfunded and I think that would help us I want to take on just a couple of the arguments the the idea that rents might not rise in this area and with the advent of transit and I've appreciated you all providing me with some information which I've read and with interest I I I would say that it's my sense and I could be wrong that this is an area where we're we're already seeing rents rising and I think we're going to continue to see rents go up there and so I still think that that you know how can we preserve the affordable housing we have and that means requiring commitments or obtaining commitments of affordability over time because I think left to the market over time we're going to lose affordability I do I am concerned about moving the compact tier boundary in piecemeal fashion I think that we're we're studying it everywhere else we're making a lots of lots of we're making a huge commitment to study the the station area strategic infrastructure and here we are we're not we're studying the development of compact neighborhood districts along the entire proposed rail line and at the same time we're coming up with the affordable housing toolbox I also think of strength is the walkability and that was mentioned earlier that that people that live in these areas will be able to live in this development will be able to walk to the medical center and I think the the key there is that will we continue to have as we have now people who are nurses who are clerks who are data entry folks who are orderlies being able to walk and I think that that is also really key I'm appreciative of the developer's constraints and again appreciated the discussion I was able to have with you all the I do believe that there are significant constraints developing affordable housing here I have no doubt and that there are difficulties that would have to be overcome I want to say just to to the advocates of affordable housing just so it's clear we cannot have we cannot require inclusionary zoning and we cannot require anything that is rent control it's against the law what we can do is we can incentivize it and we can work with developers to make it happen and we can use the public benefits that we do confer in order to work with the developers the private developers who want those benefits to provide affordable housing but we can't just require it so it's really important to know that the to developers I want to say taxpayers cannot subsidize our way to the affordable housing that we need in Durham we we do it a lot already we're we're we're spending millions and millions of our federal and local dollars in south side to to subsidize affordable housing federal government one out of every 20 people in Durham one out of every 20 lives under the care in some sense of the Durham Housing Authority either through Section 8 vouchers or through living in one of our housing community so five percent of our folks and this is taxpayer subsidized but the the in order to keep our housing affordable we're going to need the cooperation of developers we're going to need developers to come to the table as they have in many other communities especially around transit this is not unusual this is not something only occurs rarely it occurs all the time we got to have private sector participation if we're going to have the affordability that we need so here's my here's what I would like to offer Mr. Mayor is that we keep this hearing open that we defer it and and ask the developer to take another shot at this to come back with us when the developer is ready with ideas on how he can achieve some level or or maintain some level of affordable housing so what I would say is this the the commitment on the popular matter is is a tremendous I think a tremendous step and significant can he extend that commitment in time can he make a can he proffer that he will work with our with the toolkit that we are providing in order to make that work and that's what I would like to see Mr. Mayor my final comment is this the we have a developer here who is very civic-minded we don't always have that I mean we see what people are throwing up in this town and and you know calling them good developments and we have here a developer that we know that is very trustworthy and is going to do something good and so what I would ask the developer to do is you know put the cap on that figure out a way to and popular matter would be a fabulous way to do it to add something to what you've you've you've offered already come back to us in a you know in a you know in a in a month or any short period of time that you would like and push this idea using popular matter farther or come up with some other way to provide some commitment to affordable housing so that my two concerns then are the affordable housing and as well as the as how we're handling the compact neighborhood tier and I appreciate your time Mr. Mayor again I'm sorry it took so long but I had a lot a lot I wouldn't think about well I wouldn't try to be brief as possible and I'm going to preface my remarks by saying there's no one on this council that has been an advocate for affordable housing as long as I have I've been here along anyone on this council and we've made a lot of progress in the issue of affordable housing we've dedicated one cent of the property tax towards affordable housing we've demonstrated what we can do over in northeast central Durham with eastway village what's happening in rolling hills south point south side housing so I just cut a ribbon a part of a ribbon cutting last week for sedgeville apartments where the city put in over five hundred thousand dollars for veterans so I don't want anyone to leave this room thinking that at least for me that I don't have an interest or care for affordable housing in this community now let's talk about tta I've been on tta's board since it was in existence I'm not chair of tta's board I understand the relationship between what tta is trying to do and the whole issue about affordable housing and there's no one been any strong on that board in terms of trying to see how we can fit affordable housing around our transit stops so I understand tta's requirements I understand what they're up against I understand gene's concern about finance and we have a concern also but I understand tta well as it relates to affordable housing we are here this evening on this particular issue primarily because of resolution that this council adopted unanimously I didn't go to cans of housing program because I was out of town so I wasn't aware of what what they did but I know the resolution that this council adopted and what's driving us here now is because we're looking at a transit stop we're looking at a transit stop and somehow we're trying to fit in that resolution with the transit stop and the development now I'm going to ask the staff to tell me how many affordable units are in the one half mile of this transit stop affordable I've heard the percentage of 75 percent eight five how many units are they Mr. Mayor it's approximately 2030 as of 2012 which was the most recent year 2030 2030 okay so even if this development put all 200 apartments they even said they go do apartments the first place you've heard them say their issue initially is commercial development so we don't know if they're going to put affordable housing and we don't know if they're going to put residents in there or not but if we gave them the benefit of setting up with 200 in there and we talk about 15 percent of the 200 that's 30 units on top of 230 I think what we're forgetting is what this house has also done relative to affordable housing and subsidized housing is where we want to place it and what we said is we don't want to place subsidized housing in areas where there's more subsidized housing we said that so to me we've got a perfect example where you've got 75 percent of affordable housing already in existence within one half mile of a proposed and I say proposed transit stop so why not put more market rate housing if we're going to do that in this particular development so he puts 15 percent of 200 he puts 30 houses in there what does that do what I'm concerned about is we have a developer everybody's praised them for what they've done in this community how reliable they are how long they've been doing they started this process before we adopted the resolution and it's about money we can talk about two boxes all we want but the incentives are going to come down to money that's what it's going to translate into I've never been supported of our toolbox right now because I've never thought that you know this bonus density was going to work I've said that over and over again you know if this council is serious about affordable housing you know we should make it a priority for the staff to get on and develop this incentive box we've been talking about that since I've been here and now suddenly it seems to be a priority but still we don't have the resources put on there I haven't seen anybody direct them they have it done by a certain amount of time but we're going to hold up this development because of that and I have a problem with that I really do because I don't think it accomplishes what we want to accomplish because we've already got what we've already we're meeting the resolution many times over a half mile over transit station 75% of the housing is affordable what what more do we're going to ask for and we don't know if they're going to put residents in there they've said they're going to put commercial developments in there we don't know when the residents are going to come in there but we're going to stop them because of that I really have a problem with that I really do so I can't support delaying this any longer for all the reasons I cite it they've made a proffer on popular apartments I lived in popular apartments when I first came to turn I live there okay you know we subless the place so I know I know what the development's about they made a proffer that they aren't going to do anything else to that how many units is in popular apartments 72 I believe 72 units out of 230 out of 2030 units in the whole area so they made a proffer they aren't going to do anything else to popular apartments for another 12 months make it 18 months I don't know what you want to do because I don't know if the toolbox is going to be ready in 12 months I don't want to be ready in 18 months but if they're willing to proffer that they aren't going to touch popular apartments in terms of doing anything to it for another 12 to 18 months if the toolbox is ready then they can use the toolbox to go ahead and add keep to keep the affordability there and maybe do a couple of things so I really think we're stretching ourselves I think we picked the wrong project to try to test our resolution on because it's already there it's already there I think we picked the wrong developer to push it on everybody has talked about you know what they've done what they've demonstrated they're a strong member of the community the man said his father was you know given an award for affordable housing so what else do we need they aren't outside developers there's somebody we know they're talking about putting a thousand jobs possibly with this project if it goes forward why do we want to stop them at this point in time I think we need to push our staff to get that toolbox or incentive box in place as fast as possible if they're going to give us $25,000 to help with that I think we're going to use it and move on so I'm not in support of stopping the project I'm not in support of keeping the public hearing open but again it's up to this board to decide what they want to do I'm going to call on one last person let me approach them she's had raised her hand that's okay okay so I'm going to close the public hearing now and the matter's back before the board to take some kind of step on where we are I'd entertain the motion on item this before us move the item it's been properly moved in second uh for the discussion on item if not madam clerk will you open the vote close the vote it passes excuse me it passes five to two with council member katati voting no and council member sure voting no let's move to the next item please thank you mr. mayor members of council pat young again with the planning department this is a companion zoning case c-13 00031 for the plan in case you just considered it's a request to change a portion of the site considered in the plan amendment 9.86 acres located at the northwestern corner of urwin road and lasal street for mixed use with the development plan to mix youth with the development plan under the compact neighborhood to your standards if approved this zoning map change would allow up to 322 residential units 268 000 square feet of office space 45 000 square feet of public or civic uses and approximately 193 000 square feet of commercial uses please note that these totals are cumulative there is existing 104 residential units at this site and approximately 180 000 square feet of commercial and office space at the site staff determines this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan which designates the site based on your previous action as commercial and compact neighborhood tier the request includes a development plan includes numerous text graphic and design commitments which are detailed in appendix d of your staff report table d4 staff determines this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other adopted policies and ordinances and planning commission recommended approval at their october meeting by a vote of 10 to 0 i'll be happy to take any questions again this is a public hearing the public hearing is open i would ask other comments or questions by members of the council if not i'm going to call the names of the persons that have signed up to speak on this item uh these are people who are opposed i guess uh riba higgs selenia mack vicki roder mel norton miss freeman uh the proponents are patrick biker youth wegener and am i missing anyone did i miss anyone who is if not uh let's take let's take 15 minutes on this each you say your name and address please mayor bell mayor pro tem colmick sadden members of the city council my name is patrick biker i live at 2614 stewart drive i'm an attorney with morning star law group in durham while with our team that was introduced earlier this evening i'm here tonight representing url and terrace llc for this zoning map change we believe there are three compelling reasons to approve the zoning map change for approximately 10 acres that's before you tonight first approval of this mixed use zoning district application is the best way to implement the comprehensive plan amendment that was just approved to expand the compact neighborhood tier many provisions in durham's comprehensive plan and unified development ordinance encourage pedestrian oriented and transit oriented development visual and anecdotal evidence suggests that this section of durham has provided people there with a lifestyle opportunity where they can walk or use transit to get to work accordingly it is not necessary for a two person household to be of necessity a two car household in this part of durham the second reason is that the redevelopment of url and road has not only been a success for durham from a planning perspective but also from an economic development perspective for example the trinity commons development just one block away from url and terrace generates over 800 000 a year in property taxes from just four acres even greater than that is the hawk plaza complex another four acre site that generates one and a quarter million dollars annually in property tax revenue for the city of durham and durham county these tax revenue numbers represent great stewardship of our land in durham since we are far more land constrained than most other counties the increase in property taxes i've just described resulting from the redevelopment of url and road is a significant achievement that i don't think many people have fully recognized and it is something that we as a community should be very thankful for the third reason to approve this zoning map change is to continue the positive momentum durham has gained from the redevelopment of url and road we feel confident in saying that based on the successful redevelopment of the url and road corridor of the past 10 to 15 years and the interest in the current market and i'm sorry and the interest we have seen based on current market conditions that success is based on successful mixed use projects such as trinity commons lakeview hawk plaza and url and terrace the next phase of url and terrace could bring further commercial and office development to this section of url and road giving durham an area that competes well for economic development with mixed use projects in our pure cities as our mayor pro tem often says and we agree great things are happening in durham we like to think that the next great thing will be the next phase of url and terrace and so for all those reasons our team respectfully asks for your approval we appreciate the opportunity to present on this outstanding project to the council tonight thank you very much for your time judith is it wedner mr. mayor members of the council my name is judith welch wedner i live at 2307 pickard mountain road in hillsboro i'm one of the trustees for the kathleen our effort uh charitable trust which is one of the beneficiaries as this project is developed i'm also a former dean uh law professor unc who teaches property law land use and state local government law so i have students i send them over here every semester to observe your processes and now i can tell them i was here as well uh i wanted to tell you too you need to joke this late in the evening i would have had at least a thousand except they're taking exams or fall you sleep right down between duke and unc in any event i want to thank you for your careful consideration and i want you to be aware that in this situation with this charitable trust uh that was also benefited by robinson everett there's an impact to delay there really is because the financing could get further complicated as was said here it's really also it's not cost neutral the cost of people working on this and the risk in the marketplace is really real so i want to say first to you you're weighing very wisely the concerns for the community but please bear in mind that there's an additional public interest here namely the students who will get scholarships as a result of things of that sort the second thing i wanted to share with you i uh don't want to second guess your fine attorney here but as i was hearing the earlier conversation i was making a list of what i would be worried about on the legal front if i were sitting there with you i actually had served on the car bro town board and on the orch county planning commission so these are not new questions to me i would agree with those at least two of you who said north carolina does not permit mandated inclusionary zoning nor in my opinion affordable housing i think there's other issues here that if you ask too many exactions from an individual developer that are not closely related to the impacts of that very development that can constitute an unconstitutional action for which you may have liability in addition the state statutes are limiting on when moratorium can be created so if in effect you hold things off to get to the toolbox or to get to another day and another time you really not only is a practical matter may be affecting this development but in addition you may be facing some important liability issues again i don't speak for your fine attorney but i just thought since i was here i should tell you that because i try to teach my students as much thank you very much you're welcome mayor bell i apologize i forgot to put in the two committed elements that we discussed on the record if i may have just a few seconds one additional committed element will be to assist with affordable housing issues the developer will contribute 25 000 to the city of Durham administration within 45 days of the approval of this zoning map change and the second additional committed element will be the developer agrees not to submit a site plan for the redevelopment of popular manner for at least 18 months from the date of approval of this zoning map change we'll be happy to email that to the planning director in the morning thank you sir recognize councilman shul i admit miss dean wegener i just want you to know that our city attorney is not a potted plant the advice that he that you talked about he has given us in fact he gave it to me today about an hour before this public hearing and so i just wanted to to say that just so you'd know we don't always do his bidding but i can tell you that he said exactly what you did thank you i'd like to call in person's miss freeman she president nail norton vicki roder selena mack reba higgs larisa cyborg i'm present i would like to correct a couple of things that were discussed at the plan amendment discussion the affordable housing that is at in the half mile transit area is only the public housing at maureen road and damar court which make up less than 11 percent of the total housing the other housing is market rate housing and this rezoning actually does have a negative impact on the community in that it decreases the percent of affordable housing either way you measure it so i respectfully urge all of our city council members to wait and work with this developer to come up with a proposal that will address the needs that are in our community for affordable housing as well as the other any other issues that may arise in this development that will have a negative impact on our community and finally i i do think that it is extremely important for us to quickly move forward with incentives for developers i understand it costs money to develop affordable housing and that's why the city has invested so much in affordable housing but there is no way we can assist with the 35 000 affordable homes or the even the 2500 affordable homes needed by veterans so as we move forward i hope that we will have the toolbox in place very quickly so we can move forward on this development and all the future developments that we are going to see around the transit areas thank you very much you're welcome jim svara is it going jim jim did you want to speak that's all the person that asked to speak on that item i i don't normally try to read but something someone says but since it's been said on the public record i want the staff to come back up and tell us how many affordable housing units are in this within this half mile radius so mr mayor miss libel's representation is correct there's approximately 2030 units that are affordable to folks at 60 percent of area median income of that of that number 391 or approximately 11 percent are subsidized meaning they're contractually obligated to remain affordable under the control of dha or our partner management entity so we did per the resolution include market rate affordable units of which there are many approximately 1600 and the resolution specifically spoke about affordable housing at the 60 percent uh unit i mean so i don't want to invite a walk away to say we're decreasing if we approve this development we're decreasing the number of affordable houses especially when we don't know if the developer's going to put anything in there and even if he does even if he puts 200 in there you're still going to be well above the 15 within a half mile area so i mean i like i don't normally rebut people but i don't want anyone to walk away to say even if developer puts 200 units up there we're decreasing the number of affordable units we may be but the resolution spoke to at least 15 and we're almost at 80 percent now so even if you put 200 in there you're still going to have 60 at least affordable units in that one half mile area i just think we picked the wrong project to map against our resolution that's that's all it's not that we don't want to see our resolution done i just think we picked the wrong project at this point in time to use it against recognize councilman thank you i want to um first of all i didn't realize a lot of people were going to leave a lot of the stuff that was going on before was about the rezoning and i was holding off until now so i'm going to talk a little bit about the rezoning and repeat a couple things i said at that work session first of all i really appreciate everyone who has been here tonight the passion interest on both sides of this issue i find it very complex as i told the applicant today maybe a good thing maybe a bad thing but most interesting case that we've had in a long time i will say i want to repeat what i said at the work session which is that affordable today is not affordable tomorrow if it's not protected and certainly when i voted for the resolution i'm i love having affordable housing today but i was thinking into the future um that i want affordable housing when the trains start running and i want them for years after that and so when we start counting up units today it's i'm not interested in a photograph a point in time count i'm interested in a long term perspective and and more of a movie if you will and the way we do that is the same as we do with environmental properties which is if it's not permanently protected it sooner or later it's going to get redeveloped and in the curse of it in the in the case of environmental properties it's a conservation easement there are other vehicles in affordable housing but absent those vehicles it's market rate and it may be cheap market rate but it's market rate i i want to appreciate mr biker and mr everett and through mr biker mr jewel for um committing to work with our staff to help develop the toolbox in a way that's feasible and workable we have a great staff i want to repeat what my colleague said about the staff i have the utmost respect for them but getting the real world perspective and experience real world that's not the right way to say it the business perspective and experience i think will be invaluable to help them do that so thank you um i also appreciate the commitment to helping fund the work and um and for the commitment on not redeveloping popular manner for some period of time when i look at this i weigh out the public good in my opinion um and on the one hand uh we've we've heard talk about jobs we know that density is important to um the application for rail and of course the tax base is always important it's important for every tax paying citizen of Durham um and whether whether they're paying their taxes directly or indirectly through their rents on the other hand i do look at affordable housing i think that's an important issue and i also look at an orderly planning process for these transit areas and that's just what i'm weighing out in my mind those are the issues that i see before tonight and what i'm considering thank you other other comments if not i'm declared put here to be closed and that's back for the council on this item entertain a motion on item it's a discussion recognized council member tony yeah i believe the staff report notes that there are 46 additional students that are possible under this rezoning and we usually um ask whether the applicants willing to support support to our school system council member catati thank you for that question to continue in the spirit that the discussion is carried tonight our development our developer will commit to uh five hundred dollars per student to be paid to be paid to the Durham public schools prior to the approval for any site plan containing additional residential units i believe that comes to twenty three thousand dollars although math and lawyers are a dangerous combination and again we'll email that to the planning director in the morning other discussion if not the question has been called amount of clerk we open the vote close close the vote it passes 70 zero thank you let's move to item 19 zoning map change grand ale grand and trace thank you mr mayor and members of council pat young again with the planning department kc 13 00035 grand and trace is a request to change the zoning map designation of 20.05 acres located between herndon road and grand ale drive south of barbie road from rural residential to rural residential the development plan and plan development residential or pdr 3.3 22 and the applicant is committing to a maximum of 54 single family residential units with this proposal this request is consistent with the future land use map the comprehensive plan which identifies the property as low density residential which is four units dwelling units per acre or less and this is just over three units per acre there is an accompanying development plan with this request which has text graphic and design commitments and those are detailed in appendix d table d five of your staff report there was an error in your staff report that i want to correct on the record section g of the staff report entitled infrastructure alludes to a previous development that had provided a roadway improvement proffer at this location the staff reporting correctly identifies a right turn lane on barbie road onto grand ale i think as all of you know there's no segment of grand ale north of barbie so the correct citation in the correct commitment is that right northbound right turn lane on grand ale onto barbie road turning right onto barbie road with adequate storage and taper so i wanted to clarify that for the record and apologize for the air planning staff determines this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other adopted policies and ordinances and the planning commission recommended approval at the october meeting by a vote of 10 to 0 i'll be happy to take any questions thank you again this is a public hearing the public hearing was opened i would ask other questions recognize councilman moffett yes i didn't i wasn't quite sure from reading the report i saw that the applicant had proffered paved bicycle lanes for staff they did proffered paved bicycle lanes where they were doing other improvements did would they or they're providing easement for the additional bicycle lanes you know for the the the area in between for future paving or is that like i mean is there a future bicycle lane possible i think you follow my question mr judge address that question bill judge transportation yes the applicant is dedicating enough right away that the bicycle lanes can be constructed for the full frontage they just only proffered the construction for a portion of that frontage okay are there other questions or comments if not we have bill rippley tony tate as proponents and i have george brine so let's let's say 10 minutes i guess if you could state your name and address please mr mayor members of council good evening my name is tony tate i'm a landscape architect and land planner i'm here tonight representing uh region's development um for this case the location of this property is near the intersections of granddale herndon and barbie roads and um early on in this process we we held a neighborhood meeting and we presented the project answered questions to the neighbors that were there they were um i don't know exactly or at least 30 people from the community there spoke of their concerns um several of them came back and followed up with additional meetings and so um we feel like we've addressed all the currents except for one that i think mr brine is going to speak to tonight just an overview on the development it's approximately 20 acres in size we are requesting a pdr 3.3 2 2 with this case um there was a a section of amanda road which was a dirt road that kind of cut across the northern portions of this and it was substandard intersections distances angles and everything so we um had that portion of amanda road was closed in that area to help facilitate this project we are proposing a maximum of 53 units all single family detached units our entrance is directly across from huntsman drive along granddale and we as staff reported we've the plan meets all the adopted plans and fulfills all the requirements of the udo and so we respectfully ask that you consider this case and and um grant approval tonight i'm here to answer any questions so i'd be happy to entertain those thank you could you could you speak to the um maybe staff can speak to the uh tree recovery piece or tree coverage on on this property i know you have a line of trees along granddale drive is it planning to keep those there or move them along granddale the i don't believe the ones along granddale are part of the proposed tree save areas currently well can someone speak to that from the staff if you don't mind steve are so mr mayor you're referring to the uh the buffer along grandale okay all right there there's a tree he called a buffer along grandale from huntsman down to um i guess uh amanda whatever that road is i'm just trying to i'm trying to understand are those trees going to be removed are they going to be saved or what sure give me just one moment to get it i can develop mayor sure if i can speak i can answer that question i think all right thank you just state your name again yes the record uh bill rippley fifty eleven south park driving durham mayor bell members of the council appreciate your time tonight uh in follow-up to your question the i know you're very familiar with the location in the property there is a group of pine trees that are along grandale for most of the frontage our tree save areas are internal to the project near lakehurst point where there is a stream buffer and also on the north side of the project there is no tree tree saver in preservation in the area you're speaking of however there will be required what's called a double frontage buffer that we will have to do some screening landscaping from the backyards to the street so you're going to remove the trees is up your tone yes sir and replace them with what there will be the ordinance requires what double frontage lots to have a screening uh it will we haven't designed it will be designed at site planning we will replant bushes and trees possibly could be also a burn depending on how much topsoil is on the site i'll ask you about that a little bit later uh okay any other comments you want to make on this since you had signed up to speak uh yes i wanted to go ahead and uh save councilmember katati's uh voice i'll i know there's some concern the only concern i'm aware of is uh george bronze concerned about traffic and i'll let him discuss that as his and then i'll be glad to speak to that and answer questions and answer any additional questions council has thank you recognize uh george brine good evening mayor bell and council members my name is george brine and i reside at 6505 hunters lane in Durham and before i get to my remarks i just want to thank council for all their work because i know it's been a long evening it had been my hope that in connection with the proposed development that we could get a badly needed left turn lane on granddale drive at barbie road indeed the developer was willing to work with us on this matter however it now appears that our efforts toward this end were in vain this being the case my hope is that council can find a way to get that left turn lane constructed otherwise i am concerned that we will see an increasing amount of traffic on huntsman drive as impatient drivers cut through our neighborhood in search of alternative routes to their destinations thank you for your consideration to these comments thank you staff have any comments more on that item can someone tell me what are the plans for the roundabout at herndon and barbie road can anyone speak to that uh westley param city's transportation department uh the state department transportation is still um proceeding with the development of the project relocating utilities and uh we'll be moving forward with construction i believe sometime next year so that is a commitment by the ncdot and what impact would that have on traffic in terms of the barbie road and herndon as far as this particular development well i don't expect it would have any benefit to this particular intersection but obviously we'll make improvements at the uh herndon and barbie intersection to provide better traffic control and addressing safety concerns there and ingress egress movements at that intersection but not the one at grand ellen barbie and the question has been raised by george brian in terms of swapping what what was the reaction to that um the request that was made um to us earlier um by the applicant was they basically asked if we would lobby ncdot on their behalf brand cdot to lower their design standard which would be which is to require turn lane into the development in lieu of an offsite improvement and we advised that that wouldn't be an appropriate role for staff to take on a technical matter of that sort that we clearly understand that it is ncdot's policy to require turn lanes into new subdivisions on roads that carry the volume of traffic that currently exist on herndon road we are certainly supportive of both improvements and see that there is certainly a need for both and what about the the turn lane well as i said we would agree that the turn lane at both locations would be appropriate but uh the the turn lane at grand ell is an offsite improvement since this particular development did not rise to the level of triggering or requiring a traffic impact analysis we didn't see that there was a technical basis within the ordinance to require the offsite improvement at grand ell yes we'd certainly agree that there's no doubt that there's a need for the improvement and that's been identified in previous studies including the uh traffic impact analysis done for the 751 south development bill you have any comments on that i'm not in disagreement with you're driving and mr bruns driving that area neighborhood i know you go through that intersection so i don't have the personal experience of driving through and seeing the delay in the more i i assume it's the am left turn lane delay is the biggest delay the street itself is at 46 percent capacity so grand ell drive itself is serving its needs that intersection or proposed improvement is uh as i think pat young mentioned early is a committed element on 751 south to make that improvement so i can't i don't know if that project is something that will be added in a their first two years or five years down the road of when they get to that improvement all i understand is from several staff members of the city that they have been meeting with different folks to get some plans together so i assume they will be excuse me submitting a plan to start their 751 south um that i don't have a schedule i'm not tied into their development plans but none of this you can't do it the size of this 20 acre project and 50 plus or minus houses is really it's an economic burden um a traffic improvement of that nature is probably our estimation is a hundred and fifty thousand dollar cost okay i've been volunteered if it made more logical sense to put it at grand on barbie road and it was more useful i'd be glad to do that in exchange for offset i'm not doing the one at huntsman drive which is maybe not needed as much uh there's a lot of there's a lot of places where there are not left turn lanes and grand ell as you know is a fully developed street section and this is basically the last remaining parcel of a greater than an acre okay i don't want to get too far in this since it does impact my neighborhood i don't want to accuse me of doing something that shouldn't be doing so i'll leave it at that i hope you look at the brine and berm instead of tearing tearing out all those trees but all right any other comments i'm going to close the public hearing recognize councilman davis and councilman marvin thank you mr mayor i guess i need to um i have a question answer about what triggers a traffic light um particularly if it ends up being one that is so close to the proposed roundabout is is it possible that there could be a traffic light uh at the corner of grand ell and barbie again west of parent with the city's transportation department i've not seen any studies or indication that indicates there's a warrant for a traffic signal the studies thus far indicate that there would be a benefit providing a separate left turn lane so that left turning and right turning vehicles would be uh would not be uh impeding the flow of the other but you are also correct that if the intersection were to increase to even greater volumes we would then have to do a traffic signal warrant and one of the concerns that could very well come into play as a proximity to the uh to the roundabout that's downstream but this point of not seeing any numbers that suggests that the intersection would warrant a traffic signal the first improvement that would be necessary would be the provision of a separate left and right turn lane recognize council yes uh this for the planning staff i was looking just looking at the development plan i suddenly realized um that although the project goes to herndon road there doesn't appear to be any access to and from herndon road is that correct that is correct counseling of it then i have a question for mr ripley which is why no access plan for herndon road um as you can see this is a very linear acreage along grand dale road it is part of an existing farm the herndon uh eh herndon farm currently has cows on it and the cow pasture pond area is mostly the east side of this property which is not what we're developing uh the stub to the west if you'll see it just uh just north of huntsman on the west side of the project there is a stub the the reason for that is that when that property is in the future developed it made more sense to align a road there and tie back into herndon north of senator mckissick's house instead of south of senator mckissick's house to the but it looks if i understand right your project includes the land that's south of senator mckissick's house that's correct and are you planning to develop that land that's correct so in order for those people to there is a crossing a potential crossing of the stream for a street to potentially cul-de-sac uh at the south side of the mckissick okay so all these that that's what puts all the traffic out on the granddale right at this time until the future development yes this project would have all its traffic on to granddale okay thank you any other questions not public hearing is closed matters back before the it's been proper moving second and i assume that includes the um profits and except anything else we need to add to that i'm asking the staff on this motion miss oh mr mayor could i clarify your for your earlier question based on um access to the ordinance if there are double frontage lots as as the applicant indicated there would be required to be a burn wall fence or other uh or tree plantings along granddale to soften the visual impact and prevent access directly onto granddale all right thank you madam clerk will you open the vote close the vote it passes six to one with mr moffitt voting no the city attorney reminded me we didn't do we do it on this one also all right entertain the motion it's been properly moving second madam clerk will you open the vote close the vote it passes seven is zero and we need to go back to item 18 also for the consistency vote so move it's been properly moving second madam clerk will you open the vote close the vote it passes seven is zero okay the next item is item 20 zoning map change waffle house no kind of 55 highway z 14 00019 thank you again mr mayor members of council pat young again with the planning department uh this case c 14 00019 waffle house uh nc 55 is a request to change the zoning map designation of um 1.5 acres of property located at 4203 nc 55 highway uh just south of carpenter fletcher road north of meridian parkway from its existing designation of office uh institutional or y to commercial neighborhood uh which would allow for the development of a proposed uh a waffle house restaurant uh the request is consistent with the future land use designation of this property which designates the site as commercial and staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other adopted policies and ordinances uh and uh planning commission recommends approval uh at its october meeting by vote of 10 to 0 i'm be happy to take any questions this is a public hearing the public hearing is open are there questions of the staff by members of the council if not we have one person that assigned to speak on this item um sharing mattocks is that correct is there anyone else that wants to speak on this item it's being a public hearing if not miss mattocks you have uh five minutes if you need that's plenty uh thank you all for letting me speak today i live at 5816 hinder place which is just outside of the 600 foot whatever that they have to notify people about um i don't know if anybody's ever been through there or not i've had i've lived there 10 years and i've had quite a bit of flooding the most significant was last june when we had the big flood um my house is on a three foot crawl space it got up onto the floor joist under there um i have some wonderful pictures um my concern is that this is close enough to an overflow area this storm water runoff that this could potentially negatively impact not just my house but several others along hinder place and others in this lowland um i don't know if anybody's ever been through there when there's been heavy rains but meridian parkway floods in fact across from the existing waffle house now there is flood water there i'm not really sure why they're moving the waffle house but that's not important now the two things that i have concern about one primarily is the water storm water runoff and second is the traffic impact because there's a lot of traffic going through there now it's very difficult during rush hour especially uh carpenter fletcher isn't it's a two lane road going into 55 but just prior less than a mile above that is four lane woodcroft parkway which merges down into carpenter fletcher and then once you cross over 55 you come up a dead end on south austin and there's no light nothing there and i'd encourage you to go through there at six o'clock in the evening if you've not done that before again i'm not against the waffle house per se but i do think that there needs to be some significant consideration as far as the flooding potential that is there as i said south of meridian parkway in between there and i-40 floods significantly it flooded during the same time that this was june 30th of last year i know from personal standpoint i lost about 13 000 in repairs and all that i had on my house not covered by insurance because i've been told i'm in a low to moderate flood risk and i'm not even required to have flood insurance i do now uh but at the time i didn't and so that's what i'm looking at the other thing is that we did have storm water drum storm water come out and talk with us last year in august and they looked at it they did some reviews and the best thing they could tell us was by flood insurance um due to topography and all like that they were not very encouraging about what that could be done about protecting my property or those are of anybody along hinder place and so that was a little discouraging but i'm trying to do what i can um because it's all i have um i'm not sure what else i can tell you on that but i appreciate your time and consideration uh at least consider the impact this may have one last thing they did tell us that fema is looking at redoing all the flood maps and while they can't tell me anything specifically i got the distinct impression that they're going to put us in a higher flood plane than what we were before and that's going to include that area thank you welcome was just discussed at the planning uh it was not mayor bell um the area in question is not in the flood plane before the area that's before you tonight uh and as i'm sure you're aware and i'm not a storm water engineer or an expert but i know our storm storm water ordinance will require that both in terms of water quality and volume that there not be excess of current condition a runoff at most uh rainfall events and very high intensity rainfall events that there could be some increase um in that the property in meridian parkway and some of the other jason property as you're probably well aware was developed um at a time when we did allow more development in the flood plane now there's almost no development allowed in the flood plane so i think a lot of these historical conditions that i don't there's no information that makes me think that anything on this property would exacerbate or increase or negatively impact um uh the citizen or any of the other property owners nearby this is uh this is tough because i i always have a concern about what happens when we disturb property and create flooding implications i know there is she's speaking about i draft it quite frequently so i'm going to close public here and listen in the comments i'm going to vote against but any any further comments on the side and recognize councilman marford i just wanted to give you i understand your concerns i wanted to give you my own experiences um i'm working on the development of a small grocery store it's on five acres i'm amazed at the storm water facilities are having to be constructed um uh in keeping with the the ordinance requirements that um mr young was talking about so i'm trying to reassure you a little bit on and for that five acres there's two facilities that are underground one of them is over a hundred feet long 30 feet wide and eight feet high and um it's a sand filter they have to maintain it they have to clean it regularly the other one is the is the holding facility so one holds the water for a large rain event and the other filters it before it's let off the site and that's the kind of thing now with the with the you might have been reading the paper about the jordan lake rules and the car uh the falls lake rules and um because we happen to be upstream of both of those major reservoirs with our development requirements now are pretty excessive pretty extensive um so while no one can say with absolute certainty that uh your home what what's Pete were you on hinder place it's a small dead end street i'm on the cul-de-sac at the end 58 16 hinder place uh basically i can see carpenter fletcher across my back street backyard across the ditch that has the storm water runoff okay um in any case while no one can say with any certainty that this won't add to your woes um that it's certainly not the case that they're going to be able to just pave it let the water runoff um so one thing i did come before the council several years ago when there was a company in meridian parkway that was wanting to improve their property and they were just essentially across carpenter fletcher from me and after speaking there they did add an extra condition that they had to accommodate storm water runoff and they did add that as a condition of them at improving their property i don't think they ever actually improved the property but that was very heartening to me that they at least took that under consideration well we'll be rest assured that that the requirements have changed over the last few years have gotten quite a lot more extensive and um people do have to accommodate the runoff today that's good to know that's very encouraging don any other comments if not entertain a motion on the item it's been properly moved by whom the mayor approached him who second uh i'm doing that for the clerk's purpose she wants to know who does the motion in the second uh madam clerk we open the vote close the vote it passes six to one would mayor bail voting no i hope don is right and thanks work out for you mr mayor this is a statement on this one also moved by councilman shul second by the mayor pro tem madam clerk we open the vote close the vote it passes seven is it thank you we'll go back to the items that were pulled i'm sorry we're 20 supplemental i'm okay 22 approval of landlord sort of certificate by the city of Durham for the tenant shana sp associates limited partnership it's been properly moved and second moved by the mayor pro tem second by councilman shul okay well your voice is sounding a lot this time of night all right madam clerk we open the vote close the vote it passes seven is zero okay thank you we'll go back to the items that were pulled items seven from the consent agenda i recognize victoria peterson on this item can can can you come to the microphone miss peterson if you don't mind this is memorials on city property or right of way can i have can he speak on it please could you ask your question so we make sure we address it what do you want to speak on on the policy specifically what is the policy about and then i would like to say something about it both parkerson deputy city manager for operations this policy was developed in response to a council desire for staff to come forward with some guidelines that provides consistency on how we treat memorials that are placed in roadways non-city property throughout the city i would like to just ask mr baker if you could look over at the first page of the policy where it says the treatment and the removal of ununauthorized memorials and if you approve this i believe that's the wrong word because then you are allowing memorials attorney baker to be allowed place on city properties and the public right of way for at least up to 45 days so how i read it it's not going to be i don't think will be unauthorized but it will be authorized so so now after 45 days when that item has been there then you're going to ask the family or somebody to remove it i really have some concerns even about that mr mayor i think it should be at least even a little longer than 45 days but also when i read this if you can't get in touch with the family or the person that put it there then the city government will remove it itself i think we should encourage somewhere on that memorial that there be a name and address of somebody that has left this memorial there that if the city wants to get in touch with them that they can and also if now what the city is saying to the public that you can put a memorial on city property or either the public right away as long as it's not blocking or hurting or either offending somebody you can do that for 45 days that's what this is saying to me and i don't know if that's what you really want to say here but anyway when you say now that you're calling it unauthorized that will no longer be true it will be authorized they have up until 45 days so attorney baker who i think is doing a good job in this city uh in interpreting the law and our policies what do you think about this is this do they need to change that wording there this peter said i i've had an issue with my machine up here so i'm borrowing the mayors now could you point to me directly it's in the purpose yes i got it out of from your city council book i just have a question of that first sentence there by them using the word unauthorized because this policy this new policy will authorize it i'm not confused with it i'm not sure if if the staff is confused or that's just not my reading of what you just said so when a citizen reads this are you saying now that you have put something in place for memorials if this is adopted yes excuse me if this is adopted yes that's that was the purpose of the policy okay so should not you not change that word since this will be considered an authorized memorial not every memorial that's placed will be author automatically authorized well if this memorial here is speaking forward on city property and the public right away the only way that it will not be if it is blocking particularly the plot the public right away how i read it is any other comments of questions on the side i guess is she does this piece to understand that we're talking about voluntary placement not a a a memorial that would be to or to a hero or something that this is just spontaneously prompted by people who may have been killed along that way these voluntary memorials is what we're talking about here yes but you're speaking this one here is for government property that the city owns i mean where i live at we have quite a few memorials over at meduca terrorists right there on the corner that's been there for some time of young men that have been killed i i do understand that it's just my concern about how this one is reading and and mr bonfield you've mentioned excuse me what you're doing the motion on the item please it's been properly moved by councilman moffitt said by councilman brown madame clerk we open the vote close it up it passes seven zero and miss peteerson you had item 13 13 is FY 2014 jane byron bern criminal justice innovation program planning grant award yes the city receives a lot of federal monies um dealing with crime and my friend chiefs um um uh my my service chief service who's uh very good chief here in dermis and i wanted to i had some concerns about this um i know that the community we have a lot of crime going on and i know we need to have research and data i just have some concerns why are we using a university in the greensboro area to collect that data the criminal data to we we know what kind of problems we have here in derm with crime um i really would have loved to seeing these dollars used to really work with our young people that are seriously have gotten involved in criminal activity in criminal activity in this community and the police department can partner and i've mentioned this several years ago when particularly these funds when they get the funds from the federal government they can partner with nonprofit organizations that are doing things here in the community to try to get a handle on the crime i don't know um steve and ed we've had a lot of gun shooting over the last week or so here in derm over the end of mcduke terrorist area as well in some of the other areas i don't understand why so much of our federal monies are not really used to address these problems and develop programs a hundred and some thousand dollars uh a percentage of that is going to be given to uh to the university of north canline in greensboro uh to do some research on the census track 10.01 uh i would like to know what track that is would like to know why north canline the center university was not called upon they have a criminal justice department they have a law school over there uh if we're going to use these dollars to collect data um my understanding uh i'm hoping after that's done that this city council uh will get that report another report to tell us that we have crime in derm another report to tell us we have murder going on in derm and robbery i don't understand why we need so many reports so much dollars are going out instead of mr mayor and city council members bring some people together in this community and developing the kind of programs for our young men and women to get them out of the crime where are the jobs for our young boys where are the jobs for our young men mr mayor and the other city council where is that program developed thank you miss peterson uh could uh chief service uh respond to why the grant has been used with university of north canline greensboro plus i see other city and county agencies yes good evening ed service with the police department um this this was a referral from the u.s attorney's office to use the university of north canline at greensboro because they do that specific type of research here so it did not require a request for proposal you uh i recognize councilman moffitt yes i just wanted to point out that um is that let me ask how many local dollars how many city of derm dollars will go into this project none none and that and that if we if we participate in this then we can apply there's a million dollars in funding for implementation that we can apply for and if we don't participate in it then we're just out of luck correct right okay thank you okay at the proper time i'll be happy to move in i'm talking to motion or night so move it's been properly moved by councilman moffitt's i'm gonna buy mayor pro tem madam clerk we open vote close the vote it passes seven zero thank you are there any other items coming for the council at this time mr mayor recognize city clerk yes i miss spoke on item number 16 as far as the vote has to do with the unipole free standing wireless mayor pro tem voted no not yes okay that's one to clarify that am i correct mayor protein any other items if not the meeting is adjourned at 10 25 p.m thank you