 testing is it on? Testing one two now it's on. Staff over ready. Good afternoon and welcome to the Durham City County Planning Commission meeting on December 8th 2015. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council and the County Board of Commissioners as an advisory board to the elected officials. You should know that the elected official will have the final say of any issue before us tonight. You wish to speak on an agenda item tonight please go to the table on my left to sign up to speak. For those who wish to speak please state your name and address clearly when you come to the podium. Please speak clearly into the microphone. Each side those speaking in favor of an item and those speaking in opposition to an item will have 10 minutes to present for each side. The time will be divided among all persons wishing to speak. Finally all motions are stated in the affirmative so if a motion fails or ties the recommendation is for denial. Thank you can we have roll call please. Mr. Busby, Ms. Freeman, Mr. Gosh, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Harris, Ms. Huff, Ms. Hyman, Mr. Kinship, Mr. Miller, Mr. Riley, Mr. Van, Mr. Whitley, Ms. Wonders. And for the record I have an excuse absence for Commissioner Huff and a possible one for Commissioner Gibbs if he's not here if I can get a motion to that effect. It's been moved by Commissioner Wonders and second by Commissioner Hyman that Commissioner Huff and Commissioner Gibbs be excused for and we do have a quorum correct? Okay. And that motion carried nine to zero. Okay. So do we have approval of the minutes from now of November meeting? Mr. Chairman I move approval of the minutes. Commissioner Busby motion second. Commissioner Riley second. All those in favor of, well are there any questions about the minutes? All those in favor of approving the minutes from November please raise their right hand. All those in opposition? Okay. The next thing is adjustments to the agenda and I'll just mention one for the record while Mr. White's coming. On the agenda you have Linda Huff as vice chair and it should be Commissioner Hyman as vice chair. Good evening commissioners. Pat Yan with the planning department. The chair identified the one correction I wanted to make. Thank you for doing that and that was a clerical error. We apologize. And there are no adjustments but I do want to certify for the record that the public hearing items before you tonight have been advertised in accordance with the requirements of law and their affidavits to that effect on file with the planning department. Thank you. So could I get a motion to adopt the agenda as printed? Motion by Commissioner Whitley seconded by Commissioner Buxby that we adopt the agenda. All those in favor let me know by showing the right hand. Commissioner Whitley second by Commissioner Buxby. So the on the item five the first item on our agenda is a plan amendment and concurrence on the map change for a one five zero zero zero eight and say it one five zero zero zero two one. Good evening. I'm Laura Woods with the planning department. This is case a 15 0 0 0 0 8. The applicant is capital civil engineering and the site is located at the intersection of T. W. Alexander and Steer Creek Drive in southeast Durham. The applicant has requested a change from office to industry. Proposed change is in the suburban tier. It affects a 6.6 acre portion of a 22.2 acre site. The rest of the site by the way is a zoned industrial and institutional use lies north of the site. Townhouses lie to the northeast to the northwest is vacant land and a shopping center and a variety of industrial uses. And to the east the site is that site is vacant. Industrial uses lie west and south of the site. According to the applicant the proposed use designation is more compatible with surrounding uses than the current office designation. The proposed use designation will create one unified future land use for the entire property. A uniform designation according to the applicant will provide a size a site of sufficient size and configuration for industrial development whereas the current office industrial split does not. Staff has evaluated the application and the proposal and finds that it is consistent with adopted plans and policies. It is compatible with existing and future land use patterns. It does not create substantial adverse impacts. It is of adequate size shape and size to accommodate the proposed land use. Therefore staff recommends approval. That completes my presentation. Good evening Amy Wolf with the Planning Department. The zoning map change case associated with the plan amendment that Ms. Wood just presented is cases Z15000214062 Sturrup Creek Drive. The area is different than that of the plan amendment. It encompasses a greater area because the request is consistent with the underlying land uses for those areas not included in the plan amendment. So the applicant is capital civil. It is in the city's jurisdiction and the request is from office institutional and industrial park to industrial light with a development plan and the site acreage is 22.15 acres and there's no specific use identified. The site is in the suburban tier as Ms. Woods identified. It does encompass a larger area to the south than what the plan amendment encompasses. NC 147 is about a mile to the west just for context and the area itself is known as Triangle Business Center. The request does satisfy the criteria for the industrial light district as highlighted in this table and in the staff report. The proposed conditions for the development plan are identified here. There is entry signage along the corner of Sturrup Creek Drive and TWA Alexander Drive. There is a sanitary sewer easement running through the site from east to west and it clips off this corner. There's floodway and floodway fringe along the eastern portion of the site and the site's mostly tree covered and forested. The proposed conditions on the development plan are shown on the slide. There are five access points identified, three along Sturrup Creek Drive, one to the property to the east and one to the south. The committed tree preservation area location mostly encompasses the area to the east that is identified as floodway or floodway fringe. There's a number of commitments. The maximum intensity identified for the site is 350,000 square feet of floor area. Again, there's five access points as I pointed out. Maximum impervious surface of 65% and 10% tree coverage. The graphic commitments are the location of those access points that tree preservation area which is on the east of the site and the building and parking envelope which shows development outside of the floodway fringe. There's a number of text commitments. One, it's rather lengthy, but it identifies the permitted uses and the prohibited uses on the site which I believe to be consistent with the covenant for the property. We did ask for some changes for ordinance language that uses that the planning department can verify. I believe it's consistent. I'll let the applicant speak to that. There's limitations of uses for the site as identified here and in their staff report. There's a number of them. There are roadway improvements that were associated with a traffic impact analysis which is installing a traffic signal at TW Alexander Drive and Sturip Creek Drive and Presidential Drive and site access ingress and egress improvements at site access one, two, and three along Sturip Creek Drive. The applicant commits to constructing a bus pullout and concrete pad or bus shelter along TW Alexander Drive and four feet of additional asphalt along TW Alexander Drive for a future bicycle lane. There are design commitments associated with this site which is a requirement for the non-residential proposal that identifies the architectural style, the roof lines, the building materials, any features that will be provided and how it relates to the context area. This request is not consistent with the future land use map. The area in pink is identified as office as Ms. Wood described in the plan amendment request to change that office designation to industrial. Should the and the request is consistent with the applicable policies or a comprehensive plan and staff determines that should the plan amendment be approved, this request is would be consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances and staff is available for any questions. Thank you, Amy. I have one person signed up to speak in favor of this, Michael McQuillan. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Michael McQuillan. I work for the developer of the property. I work for Capital Civil Engineering. I prepared the rezoning in future land use amendment, some middles and applications and I want to thank Laura and Amy for doing a great job all the way through this process with their assistance and putting these packages together. Real quick, I want to take a lot of your time, but I did want to speak to a few of the items and highlight a few of the items. The Triangle Business Center development was developed about 25 years ago. It's mostly empty right now. It's probably about 30 to 40% full. There's a lot of interest in building out there. A lot of businesses looking to create jobs, bring them into Southeast Durham in the industrial section. In the future land use package, there's some language that this future land use change and rezoning adds prime industrial land, which Durham County and City of Durham is running out of. So this will provide a good amount of building square footage for that use. The majority of the parcels surrounding this request are zoned light industrial. Light industrial doesn't always mean warehouse, it could mean some office, some flex space, be multiple types of uses. Also, as Amy mentioned, we did do a traffic impact analysis. A design commitment is installing a traffic signal at Steer Creek Drive and TWA Alexander, which will significantly help not only the traffic in Triangle Business Center, but evidently, there's been some TWA Exanders a very busy road, and it'll help control some of the speed and some of the traffic on that road as well. Tree conservation will be already committed to as well as adding a four foot wide bike lane, which is consistent with the Durham County long range transportation plan along the frontage of TWA Alexander. I'm available to answer any questions. The developer is also here to answer any questions and please let me know if you do have any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Are the other members in the audience wishing to speak to this item? Do we have other members in the audience wishing to speak to this item? If not, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners. Do I have commissioners wishing to speak? Commissioner Miller. Commissioner Miller. A real quick question for staff. There is on the commitments in the development plan for this rezoning, there are a whole list of uses that would not be allowed. Are these uses that would be allowed but for the commitment? Yes, sir. We did review those under what would otherwise be permitted in the industrial district and by placing them on the plan, they do restrict what would otherwise be allowed. Okay. Thank you. That's great. And then I have a question for the gentleman that just spoke. Michael. Thank you. Yes, sir. So this property has a very distinctive berm that I have admired at the entryway that I've admired for years. Sure. Do you have any plans for taking that or removing it? Absolutely not. That's in a dedicated landscape easement in any event, but we have no plans on touching that. That's actually part of the entry feature into the Triangle Business Center. All right, that's good to know. And finally I have one last question for staff. I'm completely in trouble by this rezoning and this plan amendment change. But what does trouble me in the area is that there seems to be some competing development in residential that seems to be so inconsistent with what our future land use planning says supposed to be happening here. There's a fairly new townhouse development diagonally across the street from it. And then there's a single family home neighborhood that's a little bit further north does not implicated with this property that snakes down behind industrial property. Gosh, I wish there were some way we could stop that competition in in relatively new development because it seems like we're going to end up with kind of a mixed up mess. And that's just an observation, not really a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm ready to make a motion with you for the time. Commissioner whiners. I did have a have a question for for the developer speaking to the mic. With regard to the list of land uses that are not permitted. Why did you in? Why are you not permitting the manufacture of alcoholic beverages? That seems like kind of a hot business these days. And they might need some space. Yeah, I would agree. The the list of restricted uses comes from the Triangle Business Center Covenants. That was I don't know how long ago that was developed. But that's that's been in place for quite some time. And that's that's from the Covenants for the Triangle Business Center. At some point, that was decided upon for that. And would you tell me more about these this landscape covenant or something that you just mentioned that what's going to save the berm? Yeah, so there's at the entrance to Triangle Business Center along Steer Creek Drive, both at this location. And as it kind of winds down to the south to to tie into Miami Boulevard, there's there's a I don't know if it's a substantial berm, but it's a it's a it's a very large landscape easement. That's trees, understory trees, mostly in bushes and they plant annuals. There are some architectural features in in this easement in the berm. And those are those are part of the Triangle Business Center, even though they're on this land. But they're not part of anything that can be done as far as development. So you your I don't see that noted on your development plan as as any kind of landscaped area or it's sure it's actually outside the buildable area and located in an easement on the existing conditions on the on the in the development plan. So it's something that that we didn't feel that we needed to address because it's something that we can't we can't build on anyway, just like the buffers in tree save area, it's something that's off limits to development and grading. So does that how to figure into the calculation of impervious surface and it's not count it's not counted as part of the tree save or it's not counted as part of tree save. We don't I don't think that the trees that are in there could be are the type of type of trees that are required to be in a tree save area. Like I said, most of these are understory decorative trees. There any part of the landscape easement that is on the property is counted as pervious. So it's it's excluded from any impervious area calculations. But for the overall property, the 65% of pervious area takes that area into account. So that's if your it is 65% your your percentage is is is actually 65% and the other 35 includes that landscaping area and the the tree save area. That's correct. Yeah, that is correct. Okay, staff, I have one question. I guess Laura would if it's a typo, then I don't have a question. And I need to make on page four and five, the adverse impact. And on page six, you have the staff concluded. The proposal amendment would significant that should that be would not the six acres. Would it signify? I'm on page five staff conclusion. First sentence. Should that be would not significantly increase the Durham supply of marketable industrial land? The area requested for the amendment is proximate and is of sufficient shape and size. And then you want staff conclusion. The site is of adequate size to accommodate pursuit percent of the year. No, no, page five. I say I am in the plan amendment. This is on my, my apologies, I was looking in the wrong spot. The proposed amendment would significantly increase the Durham supply of marketable lands. This less less than seven acres would significantly increase the six, the 6.6 plus the additional part of the site, which is in total over 22. Yes, that would be a significant impact. Okay, and then I've a look at the paragraph above that. I mean, we're looking at thousands of acres. We are. And we're looking at 22 acres to be a significant increase. It would in dealing with thousands of acres. Yes. Okay. You must, you must keep in mind that most of our industrial parcels in Durham are under 100 acres. So we're talking about incremental changes. We're, we're, we're debating the somewhat squishy term significant. So, okay. Chair Harris, can I have one piece to that? Laura's answer certainly stands on its own, but Laura was a primary staff member, as you may recall, on an industrial land study several years ago, three or four now. And one of the findings from that is that we, the amount of the amount of a industrial land we currently have designated industrial, a large amount of it, and Laura could help clarify the amount is not usable as industrial. It's not marketable. It's either not marketable, or it's constrained with environmental constraints. So I think part of the point here is that this is a location that meets all the criteria for the type of industrial use that the applicants proposing. Yeah, that information is in the paragraph before that. So the results from that step. Okay. Time you're ready to make a motion if there are no other comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this time, I'd like to make a motion that with regard to the plan amendment case a 1500008 that we send this forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation. Motioned by Commissioner Miller, second by Commissioner but that's that we send a plan amendment a 1500008 to the city council with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor, let it be known by a show of hands. Although it's an opposition. And I note that we had one new member to come in. So it's 10. And motion carry 10 to zero. Okay, thank you. Uh, the next item on our agenda is no zoning case. Mr. Chairman, if I may at this time, I move that the planning Commission sent forward the zoning case C1500021 to the city council with a favorable recommendation. Motion by Commissioner Miller, second by Commissioner Whitley that we send zoning case C1500021 to the city council with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor, let it be known by showing the right hand. All those in opposition. Motion carries 10 to zero. Okay. The next case we open the public hearing for current current zoning map change requests an amendment and zoning map change for 150 quadruple zero nine and Z1500022. Yes, this case is directly adjacent to the previous case. It applies directly to the West. And the applicant again is capital civil engineering. In this case, the applicant is requesting that a portion of the property be changed from office and commercial to industrial. There is small portion in the southeast quadrant of the of the property seemed to have lost my slideshow for some reason. There we go. That is in fact, is owned industrial. The proposed change is for 13.3 acres within the suburban tier. Again, that's in Southeast Durham adjacent and to the West of the previous plan amendment. Lying to the north is a shopping center and vacant land north of that are a variety of industrial uses. Lying to the south are industrial uses. Property to the east is currently vacant property. The West consists of two adjacent single family homes and then vacant property. According to the applicant, the proposed designation is more compatible with surrounding uses than the current office designation. And the site lies by the way east of research triangle park and the future land use map designates the majority of land in this area for industrial use. The site currently has three different land use designations. Two of them are affected by this plan amendment commercial office. And as I said, the third bit is industrial. The site currently, well, I've already said that the three areas are insufficient size to accommodate the three intended uses. And the applicant states and that the uniform designation of the entire property would provide a size of sufficient a site of sufficient size and configuration for industrial development, whereas the current tripartite split does not. Staff has evaluated the proposal and finds it's consistent with adopted plans and policies that is compatible with existing and future land use patterns. It does not create substantive adverse impacts. And the site is of adequate size and shape size and shape to accommodate the proposed use. And anticipating your question. Yes, staff did regard this as a significant increase in industrial. Therefore, we recommend approval. That concludes my presentation. Amy Wolf with the planning department and I'll present the accompanying zoning map change with this request. The site area is slightly different. Again, there's a small portion that is already has a future land use map designation as industrial. So the acreage of this zoning map change request is slightly different from that of the plan amendment. This case 1650 T. W. Alexander Drive case Z 1500022 is applied for by capital civil engineering. It's in the city's jurisdiction and the present zoning designations are commercial center with a development plan office institutional and industrial park. And the request is for the industrial light zoning designation with a development plan. The acreage is 13.07 acres. And there's no specific use identified on the plan. Here's the existing site. It's in the suburban tier at 1650 T. W. Alexander. It has frontage along South Miami Boulevard to the west, as well as stirrup Creek Drive. The previous case that we just heard was directly across stirrup Creek Drive, where the cursor is pointing now. So again, the site is just to the west of that and has three road frontages along South Miami Boulevard, T. W. Alexander Parkway and stirrup Creek Drive. Central to the site. You'll notice on this context map is a white area, which is not included in the request. This area is designated as the guest family cemetery. So it is being preserved. It is not part of the request. So there's what we call a donut hole inside of this site area. The existing district is to the west. The current office institutional district is at the corner or the intersection of stirrup Creek Drive and T. W. Alexander Parkway. And there's a small portion of industrial park to the south. The industrial light district standards are being met with this proposal as identified on the slide and in the staff report. The existing conditions of the site are shown here. Again, it's 13.07 acres. It's mostly forested. There is, again, the same as the other one directly to the west of the previous site is a similar landscaping and signage easement, as you have probably noticed going into stirrup Creek Drive as well. It's a similar feature. And the guest family cemetery is identified in the site here as well. The proposed conditions of the site meet the requirements of the development plan. We have tree preservation area at the intersection of South Miami Boulevard and T. W. Alexander Parkway as well as some to the, excuse me, the northwest corner as well as the southeast corner and identifying the appropriate buffer around the guest family cemetery. Again, preserving that there are three access points, one along T. W. Alexander, one to the south and an internal to the donut hole zoned property within the boundaries of this site for the cemetery. The proposed intensity is 200,000 square feet of floor area with two external access points and one internal to the cemetery. The maximum impervious surface is identified to be 66.41% or eight and half acres. 10% tree coverage or 1.28 acres. The location of the access tree preservation and building parking envelope has been appropriately identified in those locations are committed. There's a number of commitments and this is the similar in anticipation of the same use or question a limitation of uses that are consistent or brought forward from the Covenants. So in anticipation of that question, these uses are our uses that would otherwise be permitted in the district that are being prohibited. There are, there was a traffic impact analysis also associated with this site and the mitigation identified are installing a traffic signal at T. W. Alexander Drive and Sturt Creek Drive, presidential drive, as well as improvements at the T. W. Alexander Drive in South Miami Boulevard and ingress egress improvements for the site access point along T. W. Alexander Drive. The development plan also commits to a bus pullout and concrete pad along T. W. Alexander Drive as well as four feet of additional asphalt along T. W. Alexander Drive for a future bicycle lane. Moving right along, hopefully the screen will catch up with me. The computer seems to have frozen. If you remember from Ms. Woods presentation, the future land use map, the future land use designations are consistent with the zoning designations. I pointed out earlier with commercial future land use designation on the west office on the east with a sliver of industrial on the south. The request does meet the future, all the applicable policies of the comprehensive plan. And these are in the staff report. Apologize that we're having a technical difficulty. And staff determines that this request, if the plan amendment is approved, would be consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances. And staff is available for any questions. Thank you, Amy. I have one person signed up to speak in favor of this. Michael. Hello again. I'm not going to go into too much detail on this. As it relates to similar items that came up from the last project, I will address the cemetery, obviously is a completely separate parcel. We don't own it. We sent out mailings for our neighborhood meeting, just like that was done for this meeting. We actually haven't been able to locate anybody that knows anything about the cemetery. That being said, we're going to treat it with respect. The developers certainly understands that it is meaningful. We'll have a 20 foot buffer as required by the city at a minimum and on, I believe, two of the sides that there won't be any development at all. So it'll be pretty much just ground that's left. There is a driveway access of the adjoining property. That's one of our access points that will that is near it. But there will be a road that goes up to it. I don't know if you've seen it right now. There's really nothing there. There's really no way to even get to it. So like I said, we have an understanding of the importance of this, and we're going to take that into account as we move forward. Some other things to mention about this particular property. It's somewhat of an odd shape. We're not going to be able to put kind of a huge box building there. It's going to have to be some sort of design that kind of fits in with the with the site and with the tree conservation area and with the stormwater management. The access point of TW Alexander is actually already there. There's a driveway curb cut and we're using that that location. There'll be no other access off of TW Alexander. Similar to the bike lane and sidewalk along the front edge of TWA Alexander, the traffic signal as far as the traffic signal with TWA Alexander and Steer Creek Drive, whichever one of these properties gets developed first is on the hook for the traffic signal. So that's kind of how that works. And there is some some road improvements to TWA Alexander from Miami toward the toward the east. We'll be adding a separate lane for right in access into this into this property that will extend and continue to be right in access into Steer Creek Drive. Again, this is a light industrial has many different uses. Obviously at this point we don't know what it will be, but I can say there's been some interest in this property too. You know, it will create it will create a good amount of jobs in the area. And and with the road improvements, we believe that the that any traffic impact will be mitigated due to the results of the TIA. If you have any other questions, I will be available to answer them. Thank you. As we allow Mr. Wade to address the computer. Are there any other citizens that would like to have questions or comments about this item for us? Is anyone in the audience have a wish to speak? If not, then we will close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners. Do I have commissioners that would like to speak to this item? Commissioner Miller. Commissioner Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a question for the applicant. So the the buffer that surrounds the cemetery is a 20 foot buffer with a 4% opacity. What kind of plantings go in there? And and it's wooded now. So it's it's a difficult place to install landscape materials. Well, with that the the landscape buffer that you mentioned is correct. We won't remove trees or to plant new ones. So what will likely happen is whatever's there currently will remain there. If it if it's hardwoods or pines, it will remain there. And the UDO allows for existing vegetation to be used in place of new vegetation. If you can demonstrate by tree samples that the that the landscape buffer that is current meets or exceeds the landscape buffer that that is required. My general, when I wrote past this, I couldn't as I was on Sturpe Creek Drive. I couldn't look up there and actually spot the cemetery. I couldn't see it. It seems to me if you cut the trees down to develop the rest of the parcel, the trees that would remain in that buffer are going to not going to have a branch below 20 feet. So it's not really going to function much as a buffer. The buffer would also be supplemented with in order to meet the requirements of the UDO will be supplemented. You would have some planning. Yes, absolutely. It'd be supplemented with with shrubs, bushes that are specifically chosen to to be placed in a buffer versus parking lots or or other areas. And I don't see anything that indicates you propose to put a fence in there. I believe there's a I believe there's a small fence around there, but we are not proposing that at this point. All right, very good. And then if I wire at the mic, the the two residences that are located there on South Miami, they're being used residential, but the property is owned industrial. And so there's a 20 foot buffer requirement also with a 4% capacity. And so it's kind of the same story, except for that those parcels are substantially already clear. At least I mean, I couldn't tell when I drove past them where the property line was, but they appear to be used as primarily lawns all the way back. So you'll be putting some sort of planning in there as well. That's that's absolutely correct. And I was surprised and this is to staff that there must also be a buffer against the large building to the south. And that there's it's there because it has to be there. That's correct. I can pay on with planning department. I can verify the applicants representation regarding the understory trees adjacent to the cemetery. And yes, because they're different zoning districts and they proposed I L they do require the buffer. Commissioner Ham. Yes, Michael, I am always interested, especially when there is any mention of job creation or quite a few opportunities for jobs. Can you give us some idea as to what types or categories of jobs we're talking about? Yeah, just state your name and address. Hi, my name's William Linville. And I'm one of the owners and developer the product that we're putting in here. We actually have on one of the lots that's being developed now in the park. You know, you'll probably remember this development was done by Wachovia Bank about 25 years ago. And it was set up to be a mixed use business park with industrial and office. And some of these kind of pieces and parts zonings seemed like a good idea at the time, like this piece that we're talking about actually has three zonings on it. And I think the initial vision was that it would have a retail component like a bank branch and maybe an office building. But functionally, it doesn't really allow for anything because it's all split up. But one of the pieces that we have a building going in now we've attracted a corporate headquarters. I can't announce what it is, but they're bringing over 200 jobs to the community. We'll have they handle a retail oriented product that that they'll be doing some light assembly and and fulfillment order fulfillment out of the back of the building. And then they'll have their corporate offices in the front. I think at this corner, we would see we were approached. I think I can mention this name. It's not going to happen. But we were approached by court furniture at this location to have a sales and distribution. We've been approached by business equipment companies like IBM to have sales and service. I think that's the kind of application that you'd see at this corner because the building, given the configuration of the site, really can't be a very big building. We have to do two separate facilities to fit it on the parcel. Did that answer your question? Yes, it does. Thank you. Thank sir. If you would file records, put your name and address. Any other comments? Commissioner Wynes? I'd just like to ask you about the the other and maybe this is out of order, chair, Mr. Chair, the the types of businesses at the in the other two cases that we just discussed and and could you could you have any guess about the total number of jobs? Well, kind of ratios of how many, you know, it's it's kind of interesting the evolution of this property. It it it has been dormant and really non job or income producing for the community because it was bought by a by a land speculating trust back in Wacovia. And I'm getting kind of taking the long way around the barn to answer your question, but it give a little history. The when Wacovia did this back in set up this park back in the mid eighties, I believe it was. It got into some financial trouble with the savings and loan crisis back in 2000. I think it was late eighties, early nineties that the park started. And this trust purchased it back in about 2000. Well, they are not a they are not a development company. There's a land holding entity. So the land really hasn't been marketed or nothing had happened with it. And so there is a lot of demand for property, you know, for operations in that location, but it was not really being marketed. So we have entered agreement with that entity of Auntie Trust is their name out of Florida. Good people, but that's just not the remote build buildings. And we've entered an agreement with them to purchase and develop all of the parcels that are in there. The remainder of which are all zoned I L right now. These pieces we're talking about were just something that was out of the ordinary. And we can we can do about depending on the actual plan as as it's executed, it's a little over a half million square feet of space. And if you take normal ratios of job creation for mixed use flex kind of light industrial, they typically run about 1.2 to 1.5 jobs per 1000 feet. So if you have 500,000 feet of possible development, that could be in the neighborhood of I'd say 700 jobs. If it follows industry averages, but the Raleigh Durham area typically has brings more jobs per square foot than the national average. So my guess is like this one that I gave as an example, that's corporate headquarters, they're bringing about two jobs per 1000 feet. So if that ratio applied for the entire development, it would create about 1000 jobs. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to approve plan a one five zero zero zero zero nine. Okay, motion by Commissioner Vox being second by a host of by Commissioner that we move forward with a one five court zero zero zero nine with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor, let me know my showing the right hands oppositions. Motion carries 10 to zero. And the zoning case will keep it going. Mr. Chair, I move we approve case number Z one five zero zero zero two two. Motion by Commissioner Becks be second by Commissioner Freeman that we move forward with a favorable recommendation by zoning case one five triple zero two two. All those in favor, let me know my showing the right hand. All those in opposition. Motion carries 10 to zero. Right here. We have opened the public hearing for concurrent with plan amendment concurrent zoning map change request for a one five triple zero one one and Z one five triple zero two two final would have to restart the power point because of the glitch a while ago. Do you need a minute or two? No, I have. But thank you. This is case a 15 zero zero zero one one and this is submitted to us by Horvath Associates PA. It's located in Southern Durham County within the city limits and suburban tier and is located on you in C Highway 55 just south of the intersection of Sedwick Road. The applicant has requested a change from commercial to an industrial designation. The proposed changes for a 3.5 acre site and the site by the way is within the Falls Lake Jordan Lake be watershed protection overlay. Lying to the north is a commercial use. That's a pharmacy and to the east the site is bounded by a railroad just east of that is vacant land land to the west is a mix of commercial and office uses and to the south is a small apartment complex. According to the applicant the proposed use designation will be consistent with proposed a proposed service related industry which the while the current designation is not consistent the proposed designation will promote contiguous orderly development. The proposed designation will encourage infill development on a an underutilized property and will allow for reuse of an existing structure on the site. Staff has evaluated the proposal finds it consistent with adopted plans policies. It is compatible with existing and future land use patterns. It does not create a substantial adverse impact and the site is of adequate size and shape to accommodate the proposed land use. Therefore staff recommends approval that concludes my presentation and for the companion zoning map change case is case Z one five zero zero zero two four fifty five fifteen and fifty five seventeen and C fifty five highway. The applicant is Horvath associates is in the city's jurisdiction. The site is currently zoned commercial neighborhood and the request is to go is for the zoning designation of industrial light with a development plan. The site acreage in this case does match that of the plan amendment of three point four six acres and the proposed use which is not committed is for pest control operation and office. Sites in the suburban tier Ms Woods. Gave all the important identifying context information about the site it's in the FJB watershed protection overlay. The northern it is two parcels the northern parcel at fifty five fifteen. Is developed currently. With a single family structure on it the southern site. Is tree coverage there's no development on that site. And it does front on N. C. fifty five highway and the rear of the properties front along the railroad. The request does meet the criteria for the industrial light zoning district. And as mentioned here are the existing conditions of the site the northern parcel does have a house and associated structures on it. And the southern parcel is forested and not developed. There is a shared access easement along the southern boundary. Which the proposed conditions shown here. Proposes to utilize for their access. Other commitments on the development plan include the access point again and the tree. Preservation area in the southeast corner. All the criteria. That are required that is required of a development plan is shown on this on this proposed condition page. It includes a maximum square floor area of fifty thousand square feet the one access point a maximum of seventy percent impervious surface which is the maximum for the F. J. B. watershed protection overlay. And ten percent tree coverage area which is point three five acres. The location of the access points tree preservation area and building and parking envelope are commit graphic commitments of the plan. There are a. Number of commitments. One is a bus pull out concrete pad along NC fifty five highway. And there's a limitation of uses as identified on the site. To anticipate the question again which is for clarification these sites would otherwise be permitted in the industrial light district and they have been reviewed so including them as a tax commitment indeed prohibits their use. That would otherwise be required design commitments are required for a non residential district that describes the architectural style roof lines building materials any proposed architectural features and how the proposal relates to the context area and these as identified only relate to new buildings that are that could be developed on the site. The request is currently has a commercial land use designation hence the plan amendment the associated plan amendment for industrial the applicable policies were getting to that point again. Where I froze the computer this request does meet the other applicable policies of the comprehensive plan they are outlined in the staff report but is not consistent with the future land use map. And staff determines this request should the plan amendment be approved would be consistent with the comprehensive plan and other applicable policies and ordinances. And staff is available for your questions. Thank you. I have one person signed up to speak Tim so thank you members. Luckily I won't need the computer site hopefully I don't take up too much of your time. I want to keep Amy a little bit further away from it I think Tim Sivers with Horvath Associates I just want to go over a few main items. First I do want to thank Amy and Laura for their reports it makes our job easier once we get up here don't have to follow up with too many too many detailed items. A few items that I did want to bring up as it was mentioned it is a three and a half acre site just south of NC 55 and Sedwick Road. The service related industries I wanted to explain that a little bit that is it is we're requesting to change from commercial to light industrial to allow a service related industry by service related industry what we're referring to is more of where industries are or the services are provided off site for example pest control which we anticipate this site being used for air conditioning repair plumbers examples of service related industry where there's a hub but the majority of the of the work the service itself is off site where you know anybody that can come to your house a plumber has their hub but they still come to your house to provide the service so that's what we refer to that's what the UDO refers to as a service related industry and Patrick can feel free to update or confirm with that as well. The light industrial proposed classification for this site as Laura and Amy both said will provide orderly development in comparing to the development trends north of Cedric road. The site also if you look at the area just directly to the north and to the south it's kind of been skipped over for development the goal of this site is to be able to use some of the existing features but eventually potentially develop a smaller office building to be able to grow and use the site over the next next few years. I'm available for any questions if anybody has any thank you for your time. Thank you. Mr. Griffin. I give you a minute. While it's coming up are there other members in the audience wishing to speak to this item. If not we will close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners commission wishing to speak. Commissions with okay. Freeman and Miller and okay. If we just wait until the computer come back and was and why this commission why this would like to send Christmas carols. Here I'm here. Commission Miller. Thank you Mr. Chairman. So my question is here again we're talking about putting industrial next to residential. This residential is in an office zone where we allow it it's multifamily residential. Can somebody explain to me the performance of this buffer as it's shown on the development plan. And it's complicated and the reason I'm asking it's not just a simple buffer because there's the easement that runs through that split on both sides of the property. Access and utilities easement runs through there and then there's the buffer so how does that perform. So the performance of the buffer the total opacity has to be met between the two properties and that's the case whether there's an easement or not it's just shifted so long as the total opacity is is met through either side of the properties the appropriate buffer will be achieved. In this instance the opacity is six point six point six right and the easement is not part of the buffer correct. And so it's it's offset and does this development plan commit this developer to a particular buffer or do they have their options. They could get it reduced if they put in a wall or fence or something like that. How does this work here in this instance or is the buffer model available. They have identified that excuse me read this but they have identified what they would intend to do. And so they can reduce the buffer with because they did identify that and that's allowable by the development plan and the ways to reduce the buffers with a fence or excuse me a wall or a berm. Masonry wall or berm or a continuous vegetative hedge or something like that. Isn't that one of the options. I believe it's just a berm or a wall. OK. And what would it be reduced to and with a maximum of 25 percent reduction. OK. So that would be from 30 feet to 22 and a half feet. All right. Very good. Thank you. But if they chose not to do any of those things the buffer would actually increase to 30 feet and still have the point six opacity. That is correct. Thank you. I understand. Commission free. Any other comments questions. Chair will now entertain a motion. On the. Tax amendment. Mr. Chairman if I may hit this miller. I move that we send forward the text amendment. Reposed in case a one five zero zero zero eleven. To the city council with a favorable recommendation. Motion by Commissioner Miller second by. By Commissioner Riley that we send tax amendment a one five triple zero. 11 to the city council with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor let it be no machine right hand. All those in opposition. Motion carries ten to zero. The zoning case. Mr. Chairman if I may then I move that the planning commission send forward case Z one five zero zero zero two four to the city council with a favorable recommendation. Second. Motion by Commissioner Miller second by Commissioner Hyman that we send zoning. Map change Z one five triple zero two four to the city council with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor let it be no machine short right hand. All those in opposition. Motion carries ten to zero. Thank you. We will move to item six public hearing is on a map change for. Farrington mixed use Z one five zero zero zero nine. Thank you Mr. Chair Amy Wolf with the planning department. There it is. So this case this next case Farrington mixed use case Z one five zero zero zero zero nine was continued two cycles from the October 13th planning commission. So I'll briefly review the staff report and just highlight the changes that have been made with the request from the October meeting. So the applicant is wood partners it's in the city's jurisdiction. The present zoning designation of the site is office institutional with a development plan and residential suburban 20. The request is for the mixed use with a development plan zoning district and the site is nineteen point nine five acres and the proposal is for office and residential mix of uses. The site is for parcels at fifty seven oh eight Farrington road between Rutgers place on the north and NC fifty four highway on the south it's in the suburban tier in the Lee village suburban transit area. It is also within the FJB watershed protection overlay and the major transportation corridor overlay. The proposed district meets the minimum requirements for the mixed use district as identified here and in the staff report. Again here's the existing conditions of the site north is on your left of this of this slide. There are four parcels to a long. Crescent drive and a larger parcel in the center then there's clear a drive that separates the the fourth parcel which is closest to NC fifty four highway site is mostly tree coverage there is an existing place of worship developed on the. Parcel to the. South. So I've highlighted on the proposed conditions here the difference between from the October planning commission meeting. We we we've gone over the development plan at that meeting. There were a number of changes that I'll highlight I just want for orientation sake they're all on the northern portion of the site. I've reoriented this portion this. Slide so that north is to the top of the screen. And I'll just. When I read the the updated text commitments I want to highlight this line here. Which is related to text commitment number six and I'll get to that. As well as text commitment number eight in this hatched area. And text commitment number nine which involves this. A darker dashed line. So there's the minimum commitment briefly. Is a mix of uses five hundred to six hundred residential units. One hundred thousand to one hundred and seventy three thousand square feet of office. And a hundred thousand to five hundred thousand square feet of a parking structure. There's five access points. To public right away in three cross at. Access drives to the south. The graphic commitments are the access points in the building and parking envelope. And there's a number of text commitments. The one through five have not changed. So these are in your staff report and you've heard these two months ago. Continuing. At today's hearing the change for text commitment number six is adding. Some standards. To. Improvements along Rutgers place in Crescent Drive. And that is. So this the improvements will be extended north. To be in front of. The property identified and I'll flip back in just a moment to show you this but the improvements that were going to be along Rutgers. Crescent Drive are extended. To the northern line of this property which is. Identified by this line so. Clarifying text commitment number six that the street in. Roadway improvements will be extended to the north of this property. Moving on the. Second change to the. Commitments from the. Initial public hearing is that the structures located opposite. To parcels which I'll show you those. And within a hundred and twenty five feet of the eastern edge of Crescent Drive right away. Shall can not contain any individual units with open balconies or porches facing west. And again. Those are. In this hatched line area. Of a hundred and twenty five feet. Off of these two properties. And that is an additional change from the last hearing. The final change. Identified is that the open space features located north of the line that is shown and I'll show you that in a moment. Shall comply with the following play structures and outdoor music venues shall not be allowed in this area. Pocket Park shall be designed to accommodate passive activities such as gardens picnic area seating areas or informal play lawns. And dark dog park shall be enclosed with a minimum of forty two inch high decorative black aluminum fence. And again that is. This darker dashed line. So those were the changes from last hearing to this hearing. Just to complete the staff report the. There was a number of TIA improvements that none of those have changed since the last report. There's quite a few of them. This site is designated as office on the future land use map. Office is a is a identified use and committed use of this development plan. So this request is consistent with the future land use designation of the site. The request is consistent with the comprehensive plan policies that are related to this site or that apply to the site. And staff determines this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances. And I'm glad that the computer didn't freeze but staff is here for your questions. Thank you Amy. Okay I have three. Persons signed up to speak to in favor of it and one against. I have Mr. Camps falling. Good evening Mr. Chairman and members of the planning commission. My name is Kenneth Spaulding. I'm representing the applicant Wood partners. Debra Anderson will give the major presentation tonight but I want to say we appreciated the opportunity that you all gave us to go back and to bring you more specificity and to answer the questions that you all had. And we look forward very much to trying to get your support tonight for this project. Thank you so much. Thank you. Debra Anderson classes without glasses. To scroll down. Okay. We'll give it a go. Not super technology savvy. Good evening. My name is Deb Anderson and I represent Wood partners. The developer of the Farrington mixed juice community. I'm happy to be here with you again tonight to discuss our high density transit oriented mixed juice community. I'd like to share just a few slides tonight with you as you consider the merits of our proposal. The first slide is a simple aerial but it illustrates a significant point. Our location in Southwest Durham is surrounded to the north and west by roughly 400 acres of undeveloped land known as Lee Village. We believe our rezoning request is pioneering. We will be the first high density mixed use proposal with a residential component in this Southwest Durham neighborhood. With your approval tonight we are confident that our investment in this virtually undeveloped area will be a spark that ignites the additional high density development needed to make light rail a reality in Lee Village. The proposed future land use map shows our site's proximity to the future light rail stop in the Lee Village Design District. Not only will our community pave the way for light rail by providing the area's first high density community we will also contribute the following. Once fully constructed our development will contribute an additional $1.6 million in annual tax revenue to the city of Durham. Our development will provide $1.7 million of roadway improvements to both the Farrington Road Highway 54 intersection as well as to Cleora, Crescent and Rutgers roads two of which are currently dirt drives. Our development will provide water and sewer infrastructure improvements. Our development will improve the street level pedestrian experience and create appropriately scaled streets to slow traffic. This will be particularly noticeable as we improve Cleora, Crescent and Rutgers from dirt roads to paved lanes with bike paths and sidewalks. Our development will create the first public oriented high density mixed use community near the future transit stop and it will promote future development of all types for the Lee Village Design District. With your approval of our proposed 500 to 600 new apartments and 100,000 to 173,000 square feet of office development you will give Southwest Durham the jumpstart it needs to create a vibrant Lee Village Community Center. I will move quickly through this slide. The point that I'd like to make here is that we are committed to being a good neighbor. It's one of our top priorities as a development firm. To that end we began meeting with neighbors near our site in October of 2014. Over the past year we have been able to modify our proposal to address those features that were of importance to our neighbors and tonight we are pleased to have neighborhood support for this project. At our previous meeting you asked that we formalize our commitments to the neighbors and we've done so and Amy just reviewed those with you. Thank you Amy. We have also committed ourselves to complying with all adopted city policies and ordinances. Planning staff has confirmed in their report that our request for this rezoning is consistent with the comprehensive plan and the other policies and ordinances of the city of Durham. This slide is again a list that illustrates our willingness to meet or exceed your expectations. When I was last here you asked me if we could provide some number of affordable housing units. Maybe five units. Commissioner Freeman you said even just one and I said no. If I left you with the impression that we are developers who do not support affordable housing then I would like to apologize. Tonight I am thankful to have the opportunity to correct myself and to clearly state that Wood Partners understands the importance of affordable housing and we want to let you know that we support affordable housing. I'd like to share the next slide with you to show that Wood Partners is committed to affordable housing. As a national firm we have invested in local communities across the country by developing affordable housing units in those cities where there is a program in place and a mechanism by which that program can be implemented. In fact since 2010 we have built nearly 700 affordable housing apartments in 23 communities from Boston to Los Angeles. Since our last meeting with you we have met with the consultant preparing the affordable housing recommendations for the city. We understand her report will be ready in just a few months. From these recommendations we know that the city will work to develop a program and mechanisms for the implementation of its affordable housing initiative. We also met this week with community members including Jim's who's here tonight. These members of the community are working diligently to promote and facilitate progress towards the city's goals. Given Wood Partners long history of development in Durham and our commitment to helping Durham reach its affordable housing goals we would welcome the opportunity to contribute to the dialogue on how to provide development community partnership with the city, how private developers in particular can partner with the city in this important cause. Wood Partners remains committed to incorporating affordable housing units in our future Durham communities once an approved program is established and there are mechanisms in place to implement and monitor this program. In closing we ask not only for your vote tonight but we ask for your vote of approval. Our plan is complete and meets all of the city's approved ordinances. Our plan contributes to the city of Durham with 1.7 million of roadway improvements, 1.6 million in annual incremental taxes and the addition of water and sewer infrastructure. Our plan supports the much anticipated future light rail stop in Lee Village. Our plan brings a first mixed use development to the Lee Village Design District and our plan paves the way for future development in Southwest Durham. Thank you. Thank you. Jim Sauvera? Sauvera? Sauvera. Good evening. Jim Sauvera, 1114 Woodburn Road in Durham. I am here to talk about this interesting and important project but to continue to urge the commission to look at this issue of affordable housing and to encourage the developer. Excuse me, just a minute. Ten minutes. Okay. Okay, thank you. And encourage the developer to re-examine its position on this matter as well. This is an important mixed use product that is coming to South Durham, but it is not a mixed income project. Once again, we have a possibility to have the first project that would be associated with a zoning change that could include affordable housing. Now, it is clear, as Deb Anderson has said, that Durham has stated the policy. It has a goal, but does not yet have a program in place. In a very interesting discussion that we had, with several of us had, with Deb yesterday, she stressed, again, this point that without, as she said now, without a program in place and mechanisms for implementing it, it is not possible for them to include affordable units. I urge the commission to take into account the fact that, at the present time, there are three apartment projects in Chapel Hill that are moving forward in which the developers have voluntarily included affordable units. We hear about Chapel Hill and its affordable housing policy, but that applies only to homes that are owned, not to apartments. There is no policy in place. There are no procedures. Three developers have determined ways to include 5% of their units, not five units, 5% of their units, as affordable housing units in these projects. And I encourage, with partners, to do the same thing. It is, we know that the affordable housing need in Durham is extremely critical and is getting worse. We need to start now. But there is a special responsibility associated with proximity to a light rail station. This, one of the major purposes for having light rail is to increase transportation accessibility for persons with limited income or limited access or limited transportation. This enormous public investment of over a billion dollars will greatly enhance the value of this property and make this project possible. It's doable now with its other key, its proximity to other key transportation elements. But light rail really does make this a very important project that will be financially successful. Based on back of the envelope estimates that I have made starting with the planning department's proformas presented earlier this year, it would appear that for the first phase of the project, we heard yesterday that would be 280 units, if 8% of those units were affordable units, that would be 22 out of the 280 units. We certainly don't expect each private developer to in their projects meet this 15% goal. Reaching 15% is going to come from a combination of including smaller proportions of units and private developers along with publicly supported projects that have higher proportions of affordable units. But we need to encourage developers to look for ways to do this. We have a tremendous opportunity, given wood partners experience with affordable housing in other places. And we encourage them to tap into that experience and into that commitment to include affordable units within this project. The back of the envelope estimate is that 8% of the units, the difference in income generated by having those units from having all of the market rate, all the units be market rate, would be about 3.4% of the projected income. Now that's real money, to be sure. It is a smaller gap than would be the case in downtown projects, because the projected market rate rentals here are lower. But still it is an important contribution that the developer could make to introducing not only mixed use but mixed income to this project. So we encourage wood partners to continue to explore possibilities, to tap into their experience in other places, since this would be a voluntary program as in Chapel Hill, they could design, and there will certainly be non-profits who would help in doing that. And the coalition for affordable housing and transit would be happy to do it. They could design a program to include the units within their project. This should be a model project. This should be the first one that will do all of the things that are currently proposed, as well as including affordable units close to transit. For the commission, I signed up that I was not against, but I favored but with revisions. I think that if the only option is as it is currently presented, if affordable units are not included, then I urge the commission to wait until there is a proposal that does include affordable units. But hopefully, that will not be necessary. Thank you. Thank you. Are there other members in the audience that would like to speak to this item? Do we have any other member in the audience that would like to speak? If not, I will close the public. Yes, ma'am. Please state your name and address, and then sign this before you produce it. I hadn't really intended to speak tonight. I'm Debbie McCarthy, and 30 years ago founded the Farrington Harp Neighborhood Association and also worked on founding the Lee Farm Park Planning Advisory Committee and have been very involved in Lee Farm Park ever since. And when I hear words like spark and jumpstart, I understand the significance of this issue that you're looking at right now. It is indeed a critical decision. It is the first domino to fall. And I would like to just urge perhaps additional caution when you think about not just what this may bring in a positive light, but what you may be losing. I want to speak on behalf of Farrington Road in the corridor as it has existed for all these years. It is a beautiful green belt dividing Durham from Chapel Hill. It is historic. It's environmentally sensitive. It's mixed racially. It's already a mixed use place to live, believe me. We have old, young, black, white. We have a black family that I've known for many years who's lived on that land since the Civil War, when the grandfather chopped wood to save the money to buy the land where his descendants still live. Isaac Newton Jones was his name. It's also adjacent to the New Hope Creek Corridor, which is a precious environmental commodity, irreplaceable, feeds into Jordan Lake. And it is adjacent to Lee Farm Park. That's an 86-acre phenomenal oasis of wetlands and woodlands in Southwest Durham. It's been sited with its bottom land hardwood forest as one of three sites left in the state of North Carolina with that quality of bottom land hardwood forest. Hundreds of children go there every week for nature camps. And that park may be inundated with runoff from the romp, which is associated with the light rail. And the light rail is driven, as you all know, partly by the projected density of development, this kind of project. So it's not all positive in the opinion of those of us who live there and will live with the consequences of this density. Five to 600 units, think of that number, five to 600 units on 20 acres of land. How tall is that building going to be to hold that many apartments? Four stories? I'll comment to the chair. Oh, I'm sorry. You can't talk. I'm sorry. But it's a vast and very marked departure from the history of the area. So please just think very carefully about that, if you would. OK. Thank you. Are there? Would you please sign this, Debbie? Oh, OK. Does anyone else from the audience ever like to speak? This is a public hearing. If not, I will close the public hearing and bring it before Ohu. I hadn't really anticipated on speaking either. My name is Lisa Brock. I'll be R-A-C-H spelled like the candy. No, I'm not related. Yes, I wish a word. And then I'd have lots of money. My address is 5233 Niagara, NIA, G-R-A Drive, Chapel Hill, North Carolina is my mailing address. But I am most assuredly a Durham City taxpayer and have been since I moved there six years ago. My only question in listening to both sides of this issue and to the developer is they had, she spoke nothing about any plans to take care of traffic on Farrington Road. If any of you have been on Farrington Road during rush hour times, it's already a headache. Now, we're not talking adding tracks at grade across Farrington Road stopping traffic and backing it up further. We're just talking their developments and the people that are working in those offices needing to be able to access 54 so that they can get to 40 or 54 so that they can get home and then in the mornings to get there. So there's going to be turns on and off of Farrington Road. You know, what are their plans? What are their plans for alleviating traffic? What are their plans? I mean, I think that needs to be thought. It's like kind of like putting the cart before the horse if you build it and then fix the roads. I mean, you need to have the roads and the infrastructure there ready to handle all these people that they're going to dump onto Farrington Road. That's my only comment. That's my only question. OK. Thank you. Ma'am, would you please sign this? Yes. That's fine. Thanks. As you may have guessed, I also didn't plan on speaking this evening. My name is Ellen Michelson and my address is 4324 Trenton Road. I've lived within two miles of the designated area for the past 30 years. The points that the developers are saying is the reason that they think it's a good spot are the reasons I think it's not. If you look at the aerial, it's all trees. That's why we live in Southwest Durham. That's why we don't live downtown. I wanted to bring up a few points in terms of the 54 Farrington Arrow section. It is already a disaster as putting it mildly, no matter how many lanes you add. You're adding the cart before the horse, as Lisa said. And saying that the romp is definitely going to be there, light rail, that's not proven. It's you're fixing a problem that you're creating. So I don't know which we're doing first. But basically, the dirt drives, we like the dirt roads. We don't want our trees gone. We don't want the noise that's going to be created. I have a pond in my backyard that's already getting runoff. And it's going to be even worse, and especially the watershed area. I've had bobcats in my backyard, bald eagles. That's why I live there. It's very habitable to me. It's not paved. It's not high density. We're talking mixed use. But I heard a pretty tall parking deck. Now, it seems to me the people that are not in affordable housing, but the people who are going to live in these either 475 to 575, whatever the numbers are, if you take off the 5%, they're not going to be taking the light rail. The light rail is going to take twice as long as a car to get from point A to point B, no matter how you do the math. So it seems to me that, although there's been a lot going into this, I'm strongly opposed to the proposal. I have looked at the left-hand turn lanes. And that intersection has been my home for a really long time. And so far, I have not seen anything to solve. It's just going to contribute. There's also a school on the north end. People are going to have to deal with the rail crossing Farrington. It's going to be a fiasco. So I hope you consider it in some other modification. Thank you. Thank you. Ma'am, would you please sign here for our records? Is anyone else? All right, if not, I close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners. Do I have commissioners wishing to speak? Commissioner Whitley? OK. Mila? Harvey? Bugsby? Commissioner Bugsby. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is for the proponents. Just a question. I guess, first of all, thank you for the additional text commitments. It seems like that they do potentially address some concerns of some of the existing neighbors, even that we've heard some additional concerns here tonight. My main question is the question that Mr. Savarin raised as well. And the question on affordable housing, we obviously spent a lot of time talking about that. In the interim, interestingly enough, we've had a proposal that we sent forward with a favorable recommendation that includes the affordable housing density bonus in Durham. So I just wanted to hear your thoughts now that that's actually been put to use in Durham, which a lot of folks said really wasn't feasible. What are your thoughts and any reason why that's not something that you've taken a look at as well with this proposal? Thanks. We were aware, are aware of the density bonus and also a parking reduction in the code that would allow you to put more units on the site. That doesn't add to our development. We don't need the additional density, to be honest. I don't know that the parking reduction would also be helpful to our residents whether they are mixed income, high income, low income. I think in Durham, Durham, until there is a light rail transit stop, I think folks will still use their car. One thing we haven't talked about much here is the addition of a bus stop, which we'll be placing on Farrington Road. And that's really going to be the only public transit that's available for folks that live here in the short term. So, and I do appreciate Mr. Sfar's suggestion. I'm not well-versed exactly in how the Chapel Hill program works. I did believe it was a bit more formal than simply being voluntary. And I do believe that the city, the town of Chapel Hill, has more of a program and mechanism system in place. One of the things we haven't talked a lot about tonight is the financial gap and the financial feasibility of doing affordable housing. And I don't really want to get into that, but I think we spoke last time about the need for our equity and debt and for our partners in this deal to have a reliable system in place within the city that we can operate within so that we know that we're doing what you want us to do and you know that we're doing what we're supposed to be doing and that all the i's can be dotted and the t's can be crossed. And at the end of the day, there would be an annual certification, some sort of evidence from the city that we have in fact complied with your program. We need that. Our partners need that. And so that's that's a bit of a hang up right now. And I know that's that's unfortunate. I think the good news is you guys are all everybody's headed in the right direction. Both folks that we spoke with this week, both the consultant for the city, has asked if we would become involved as a developer that's been doing development and Durham for over 20 years or longer in fact. And we would love to do that with her. We also were asked by the coalition if we would be willing to work with them perhaps even joining a development task force that they may have. They now have a technical committee, which is the group that we met with. We would love to do that. I think that we also know several other developers that have built here meaningfully in the last years. And to date, I think we haven't necessarily been asked the work that's been done today to sort of been behind the scenes with staff and with the city and with the consultant. But as we come out and begin to develop a program if the city were willing to have us be at that table, we would love to be at that table. I think we're highly qualified to be at that table. We can bring examples and experience from other parts of the country. And we know at this point what the economics are in developing a project in Durham that meets the needs of apartment residents of any income level. Sorry, long winded answer. But we would really love to help get the city over this hump that they're currently in. And I think it's imminent. It's within the next probably 12 to 18 months. And again, there's a lot of land out there to be developed. There will be many apartment communities there. And we will be here for a long time. And I'm confident we'll be doing affordable housing units in the future. Commissioner Miller? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of questions. As I read through the development plan and the commitments, and I do appreciate the additional commitments, I don't understand the dog park and the pocket park reference. They're conditional statements about how they'll perform, but there's no actual requirement that they be built. There's an open space commitment, but there's no commitment for an express commitment, affirmative commitment to provide a pocket park. There's no affirmative commitment to provide a dog park. That's not in the development plan. It may be something you contemplated in your site planning. Ironically, the neighbors that we are trying to please that we did, we actually had come to this agreement and just had not documented it prior to our last meeting with you. And I think you encouraged us to document that. They would like for there not to be a dog park or an open space park or any, they would like for there really to not be any outdoor amenities at that end of the site, because that may create noise for their homes. So what we have done is tried in the best we can to appease them by restricting to some extent what types of activities can occur at the northern end of the site. Those would be passive. They would be more quiet, peaceful types of things. If they were here tonight to speak or if I could speak on their behalf, I don't think they would be keen on there being noisy venues or even a dog park, frankly. My question is, it's really just to understand the commitment. So it might be better if it were worded to say that if these amenities are included above the line or, yeah, I guess it's above north of the line, then these restrictions will govern them. Right now, it seems to be anticipated that they will be there. The fact that they're conditional isn't clear to me at any rate. And so maybe staff could help me with this answer. We are trying to provide the neighbors what they would like while leaving ourselves the ability to create some amenities for our residents on site. If we were to create, let me answer another way. We can create the open space that's required, very likely on the southern half of the site. But I think it would be very nice to have it distributed evenly throughout the site for our residents. Our neighbors were particularly concerned with noise. That was their key concern. And also some of the visual, which is why we changed our balconies and we're putting in an evergreen buffer and things like that. We're just trying to say to them that whatever we do put up there will not be a loud, active area. Can you help, Pat? Yeah. Commissioner Miller, and if the applicant is willing, we're certainly willing to help ensure that that gets rewritten to make it clear that it's conditional, which is what I hear both there and 10. If these things are put there, then these restrictions apply. Yes, sir. I understand. And then, I mean, we've watched a lot of these big multifamily structures go up recently, the ones that I think they've been calling them Texas Donuts, but essentially multifamily structures surrounding an internal part of the structure. That's what this is going to be. No. Well, may I qualify? We have two phases proposed. The first phase on the northern half of the site will not, in fact, be a rap deal or a podium deal of that, will not be that type of density. There will be three-story and four-story buildings with surface parking. Okay. Yeah. But then you will have... The second phase is very likely going to be a rap with a higher density. And we have, in our plan, given your comment from last time, we, what I wanted to do was pull out of our design commitments what we have already committed to with regard to that, because it's really far too early to have designed that structure. It's phase two of the project. It will have a deck, and it will have units around it. But at this point, at this early stage in our proposal, we're offering design commitments that require finished materials for the deck to be complementary to the aesthetic of the rest of the building. And you will find these finished materials to be of the highest quality and consistent with what you would expect in a new mixed-use community. And so those materials are listed on the plan. I see the materials listed. What I don't see is percentages. In my opinion, the best of these buildings that we have built in Durham, and we've got a lot of examples now to teach us what can be done, are the ones where the developers have committed to certain percentages of surface materials that are not cementitious panels or boards, not vinyl, not stucco. I mean, I suppose it's aesthetics are in the eyes of the beholders. But in my opinion, most people in Durham don't like the 605 property particularly well. And it's reliance on the cementitious panels. So if this goes forward, I would like to see a commitment for more brick. Okay. And those are my questions. There will be brick or stone on the project. We have not set the percentages, but it would not under any circumstance be a completely cementitious product. Yeah. Well, even 605 has got some brick. Okay. So if I can, Mr. Chairman, I have some just general remarks. Or do you want to wait and have a second round? I'm going to do it your way, Mr. Chairman. Okay. You have a minute and 11 left on this round. So if you want to wait for the second round and get to the board two minutes. I'll wait. Okay. Commissioner Hyman. Yes, Deb. I have a couple of questions. You indicated that you had been having conversations with the neighbors since basically October of 2014. And as you were making your presentation, I was very pleased to hear that there was some modifications that had been made and that you were providing this information with neighborhood support. So I anticipated that there would be individuals here from the community in the neighborhood that would express their support for the project. And the further we moved along, I found that not to be the case. However, this particular situation is handled tonight and you move forward, or if there's additional discussion, my suggestion would be, and it would be important to us, that we hear those individuals because right now I'm very uncomfortable because I'm hearing the same comments that I heard before from the residents and the concerns that they have that still have not been addressed. So that's just a concern for me. And it was my hope and desire that that neighborhood's support for the project would be here. At the last meeting, I believe you were here at our last meeting, we did have neighbors here. They actually completely rescheduled a vacation to attend in support of the project. Mr. Edie did come and he did speak on behalf of his neighborhood association. We held our first meeting in October at the Baptist Church, which is just there on the property and had probably 30 people that attended. We followed up with all of those who chose to ask questions or become involved with us. I haven't met the neighbors that have spoken tonight. I know some of them just personally and I would, if I could address their concerns, I would simply say that we are making a massive amount of improvements on Farrington Road. I think you would be very pleased and I would be happy to meet with you and show you how we're improving Farrington Road. The intersection, we're improving almost every leg of the Farrington 54 intersection with the roughly $1.7 million, a full lane will be added to Farrington through the length of the property. And I'm happy to meet with those folks. I have not been approached by them prior to this. Have not met them in any meetings, but I would be happy to follow up. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. Commissioner Wainers. I just like to say that I feel that we do not need this kind of dense development unless we're prepared to make it available to some of the lower income or low and moderate income people in the community. And it seems to me that you could probably figure using the models from Chapel Hill and your experience in other places, you probably could figure out some way to include affordable housing. And if it's absolutely not possible, then we shouldn't do this kind of dense development until we have done the homework and the policy work to get the program in place. And we could move ahead with this development at that time. Thank you, Commissioner Whitley. I need to ask you some questions as well. You have stated that you'd be more than willing to support a mixed use affordable housing once the program is set up. Doing it without the program, how does that hinder you? So as we finance these projects, we invest a fair amount of money along with other equity partners and then we secure quite a large construction loan. This project will, the first phase alone will run 40 to $45 million. The second phase will be a $45 to $50 million project. Those are not insignificant investments for us or our partners, both the equity and the debt. As we go to complete that transaction, they will vet and double check that we have met every code, every ordinance. Everything that the city has asked us to do, we will pull dozens of permits. The closing checklist as I go to close on these transactions sometimes can have two and 300 item checklists of ways in which we must prove to them that we have done all of our homework and that this project is legal and compliant in every way possible before they will lend us that money and before they will invest with us alongside of us. At this point, given that there is no program in place in Durham that I can turn to, I can't turn to and say here's what it says in the code, we have done everything that it says in the code and we have a letter of support or a permit. As you know, I mean we can't break ground here without having a number of permits from the city. All of those things are put in place to protect the city. It also enables the city to enforce your code. It enables them to come out and say to us, you did not meet our expectations, we will not let you move forward. So here, because Durham doesn't yet have an affordable program and it has no mechanism by which we can go through the many steps that it would take to provide units, qualify residents, put them in their units and maintain that program over a period of time, a long period of time including annual certifications by the city, we will not be able, we just will not be able to transact, you know, a development of this size. And that's just sort of the nuts and bolts. And again, frankly I don't really even need to get into the financials and why there is also a financial cost to doing affordable housing. I think that we have proven to you our commitment to invest heavily in the city of Durham through the infrastructure improvements and through the tax base that we will bring. And I might point out that the penny for housing program will benefit from this project whether we provide you with an affordable housing unit or not, we'll be bringing 1.6 million of tax base annually to the city of Durham. So you will have some money from this project going towards affordable housing even prior to your program being put in place. What I am committing to you is that the day that that program is approved by the city of Durham, we will be a developer here developing. And we have been developing for years. We will develop for years and we will comply with whatever program you choose to put in place. And there will be many choices I believe presented to you by the consultant. And hopefully some of those will be public-private partnerships from the financial perspective. But at a minimum I have to have, you know, something in writing that tells me what I need to do so that it can then be proven to my partners that we have done all of that and that the city is happy with our work and can sign off on it every year annually. Um, you said that it will be 18 months before such a program be put in place. I would not actually know that. I think in our speaking with the city consultant she hopes to have her preliminary report and her recommendations to the city prepared by first quarter of 2016. She didn't give me an exact date and I don't think I deserve an exact answer from her on that. She's working on it now. I would assume the city council or those that have hired her would know when that report is due. I want to say February, March. And it will have recommendations which the city will then need to evaluate the pros and cons of each recommendation and pick and choose. Her goal is, as we said before, to create a toolbox of, a toolbox of things so there's all kinds of options for developers in the city. When do you, what day do you think you'll be ready to do your punch out? If, I think the important factor here if we cut to the chase is if we cannot achieve a zoning on this project then we will not be able to move forward and at the time of that zoning we would either be committing to affordable units or we would not be committing to affordable units. So when the rezoning is approved I need to know whether there's a program in place at that point in time that we can comply with or not. And so I think unfortunately this project is moving at a faster pace. We entered the rezoning process in February of 2014. If you were to vote on our case tonight we'll go to City Council in February of 2000, sorry, February of 15, we'll go to Council in February of 16. And at that point we'll start kind of move in full speed with site plan drawings and hopefully break ground by the end of 16 or the beginning of 17. But I think that this decision about affordable housing has to occur with the zoning. And I think that would be my understanding of the way it works. Thank you. Thank you so much. Can I make my, how much time I have left? About two minutes. Two minutes. I would like to make my point right now. Okay. I strongly believe in affordable housing, especially on high density projects. But I also believe that it's be unfair to, if a program is not set up to force someone into doing something that they're not ready for. And given that Durham is going to grow, we cannot be against growth. What we need is very smart growth. And everything about this project tells me it's smart. They're not just putting up units, but they're also making sure that transportation, that they do them roll work. You know, these are contributions to the city. And we have to plan and build as we go. We cannot wait until people are knocking on our doors and don't have housing for them. That means that's revenue going someplace else. The rail system is going to make its decision about coming and bank is going to make the decision about banking it based on density. So this is a smart project. It's something that's needed in that area. I believe in them. And when they say there's a shot in the arm, and I would advise you to go ahead with this project. Thank you. Commissioner Freeman. I just wanted to ask Deb, do you already own this property? We have a contract on the property. So just hypothetically, if you were unable to get the zoning today based on the presentation of the project you've given, any developer could come in and do the project with the affordable units possibly, right? I'm not sure I understand the question because it does need to be rezoned. If it were rezoned with that affordable housing included, I just want to make sure that the underlying landowner could come to you and ask for the zoning. And they could get the rezoning and do the affordable units, no problem. If they were a developer, yes. That's all I just wanted to measure. Though as a steward to the city, you are also a steward to the landowner. And this land seller is hopeful to be able to transact with a developer that can come and develop on the property. But it's clear, I just want to be clear that you're not the only developer that they could try that with. No, there's dozens of developers in the area, of course. And just making sure that we're clear like affordable housing does not block growth. It specifically is an issue targeted at making sure that there's equity for folks who have lower. I fully support affordable housing. And when you have a program, I hope we're the first developer to provide it. It's not an opposition at all of growth. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to vote against a project tonight and I urge my fellow commission members to vote against it too. And I'm going to explain why. I'm convinced that Wood Partners, for the reasons it's expressed, doesn't want to move ahead with this project with affordable housing because they have structured a complex arrangement of investors and what have you without including it. And it's an unknown quantity that at this stage of their development of their project they're not ready to move ahead with. I'm convinced of that. But this really isn't a question about this project. You know, this piece of property is going to be there. To me, you know, this is a legislative rezoning. And it's a question about making legislative zoning decisions in a way that supports and advances our city policies and programs. As the staff report says, we are now 10 months into a program of identifying this property as this area as a compact neighborhood tier and converting the zoning there to a design district. If we were to approve this rezoning and it went forward and the compact neighborhood tier and the design district continue to get developed and then we ultimately rezone the property again. Whatever we include in this development plan is going to get wiped out by that design district rezoning. It seems to me, and we are also at the same time we're developing and are moving considerably far along on developing policies so that the city can have a program for affordable housing that the developer development community can opt into. I say that it's too early to rezone this property located as it is in an area is that my time limit? At any rate, if I can just then wrap it up. I think it's too early. I think the thing to do here is to wait. We've got programs in place. Let's not get in front of our own programs, get our feet tangled up. This property is not going away. Nobody's entitled to a rezoning. This property is the opportunity that this property represents is not going to go away. It will still be there. As a matter of fact, if we rezone it now we may actually lose the opportunity that we're talking about. It was a close observer of the conversion of the Night Street area into a design district. We know what happened there. There's not a single affordable unit out of thousands of units that have been built. Let's not do that again. Let's just not. I'm going to vote against this and I hope you will too. Commissioner Whitton. I mean, I'm sorry. Commissioner Van. Yes, I just want to note, you know, one thing I'm reminded about, I keep in my office on my bookshelf. It's a wonderful item. It's a Sisyphus. For those who know about Sisyphus and the Boulder. He's standing there pushing it up and it's obvious that no matter how much he moves it forward he keeps coming back. And so to a great extent, almost this kind of appears a little bit that way. While you've helped or you've made a few adjustments here but it seems like you've come right back. And I heard that I was reminded tonight what I heard 60 days ago. And while it appears that you obviously, you know, as you've noted with the express movement of Durham really moving to really help to get these policies in place. I get that. I understand that. But I must express that affordable housing is a part of Durham's what's the Durham's values and who we are and what we believe in. And the people I believe in, the people I know, I couldn't possibly get conscious really sort of overlook first the issues of those who live in that neighborhood while I've heard from one who obviously is in your favor and we heard from one previously. But yet I've heard from others on here tonight and I always lean on hearing from those who live in that neighborhood because that would tell me more than anybody or anything else that's there. But I do wish that, you know, that there would be some way, some willingness almost in a sense on the part of you. And I understand, I would not wish anyone to face any financial crisis or issues associated with the project because it could be a potential good project but it could be a better project. I think if we can find some window, you know, as a folks in the country a heist to wind up just a little bit and see what you can do. All right, that's it. Okay, thank you. Any other comments? I just have one question. You mentioned the first phase would be three to four storey buildings. The second phase, how high would those buildings be in this for depths? Four. Maximum four. Maximum four stores. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Best. Great, thank you. Again, thank you for your time. I think Commissioner Vann summed up my feelings quite well. I'm personally inclined to actually propose that we postpone this another 30 or 60 days, but having heard what you had to say, I don't think anything's going to change. So I actually don't think that's probably a good use of any of our time. But I am deeply concerned about the affordable housing issue. I appreciate your willingness over time to be ready to help. I don't think this plan gets us there. There are traffic concerns as well. So I plan to vote against the proposal. Pat, you have something before I ask for a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Appreciate that. Pat, you're on with planning department. Deb, was your intent to make an additional commitment regarding the number of stories of the units? Amy and I didn't see that on the plan anywhere. The current limitation is 120 foot maximum height, but there was no limitation on stories. So I'd need clarification about whether that's an additional commitment or not. Well, in this context, that's typically considered a commitment, which is why I'm asking for the clarification. So, Deb, would you be willing to put that on the record that it was not intended as a commitment? Correct. I was trying to answer the question that we anticipate these will be three to four story buildings. I was not making a commitment per the code text. Okay. Which is why I ask for the clarification. Thank you. And thank you very much. So 120 feet height. That would be six serves. Okay. The chair will now entertain a motion to this item. Commissioner Miller. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion. And recognizing that the commission's rules require motions to be in the affirmative, I'm going to move that case Z15000, I believe it's four zeros, right? Yeah, we're missing the zero. Yeah, 409 be sent forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation. But to make it clear, Mr. Chairman, if this motion receives a second, I will be voting against it. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Miller. Second by Commissioner Whitley that we move Z15 quadruple nine to the city council with a favorable recommendation. Roll call, please. Mr. Busby. Ms. Hyman. No. Ms. Freeman. Mr. Harris. No. Mr. Kenshin. Yes. Mr. Miller. No. Mr. Riley. Mr. Van. No. Mr. Whitley. Ms. Winder's. Motion carries eight to two. Fails eight to two. Motion fails eight to two. Okay. Thank you so much. The next thing on our agenda is new business. Do we have any new business? Mr. Chair, the only business we have is a brief summary of next month's meeting, which I'll ask Grace to provide. Good evening. I'm going to step a little closer because I'm always too far away. So can you hear me? Great. Okay. So next month looks like you have six of the compact here neighborhood. A plan updates coming your way? Mm-hmm. Oh, no. I'm sorry. Well, they're updates, but they're, um, once a policy update, well, they're actually, they're all, no, they're the actual, um... Get a little closer to the mind. I'm sorry. They're actually the compact here. The plans that you got the updates on the last time, yes, they'll be coming to you for that. Yes, I'm sorry. The ones you got the... Information last time. Right. But there's going to be items. Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Okay. I apologize. And then we have one zoning case with a development plan, um, an additional zoning case with a development plan and a plan amendment. Wait a minute. One zoning case with a development plan is Straw Valley, with no plan amendment. And the other case with a plan amendment is Hope Valley Commons Business Park. Uh, yes. We have been getting a lot of letters about a rezoning that is anticipated, I believe, at this stage, in dealing with property between Barini and Chakri roads. Mm-hmm. Uh, the citizens in that area have indicated that the developer has held a couple, I believe, of neighborhood, the UDO neighborhood meetings. Uh, has that rezoning actually been filed? No. Okay. No. Barini. No, it's not in. It's not in the... No, it's not in yet. No. But we have out-of-preserve. What did you do right in just a bit? I believe it's coming in. Mm-hmm. No, it's... It will... I don't... Whenever they put it on the agenda. Uh, okay. Thank you. Uh, you have anything else, uh, staff? Commissioners. Uh, if you guys would, if you would include, uh, Commissioner Huff, she is recovering from an injury, uh, almost two months ago now, and, uh, Commissioner, uh, Gipps, would you just include those guys in your prayers? He has some health issues right now, so... Mm-hmm. Well, Commissioner... Well, there's back with us. He's on the mend, so... Anything else to claim our attention? Yes. Yes. Yes, Commissioner Vuxby. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. Uh, the consultant who is doing the report on, on, uh, affordable housing will be giving an interim, uh, report at the City Council Work Session this week, uh, Thursday at one o'clock, so if your schedule permits, you might want to attend that. Unfortunately, mine does not. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. But before we adjourn, I know it's our last meeting of the year. I know most of the staff is not here. I just wanted to say thank you to the staff for all their great work, and happy holidays, everybody.