 Good evening everyone. I'm going to call this City Council meeting to order this regular meeting of the Durham City Council at 7 o'clock on November the 2nd 2020 certainly want to welcome everyone here today Council members are jumping on now. We just finished a closed session of the council and Technology made it a little difficult to jump between one meeting in the next but Colleagues are getting on as quickly as possible And again, I certainly want to welcome everyone Who is here with us tonight? now as we settle in for a big day of national importance tomorrow, and I asked that you all join me in a moment of Silence as we think about all the Important things in our nation and in our city at this time. Thank you Councilmember Reeves, will you please lead us in the pledge to the flag? You're muted councilmember. You'll give me a moment to turn my microphone on. Yeah. Hi everybody I want to thank you mr. Mayor my colleagues a city staff and Durham City residents who are watching this meeting. I will now change my background and I said I'll now change my background and Versailles pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Thank you very much councilmember Adam clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor shul here mayor pro tem Johnson here on some ever come a euro here And some member Freelon here and some member Freeman present and some member Middleton here And some member peace here. Thank you Thank You madam clerk colleagues, we have one ceremonial item tonight and this is a proclamation to honor Mary Ann black many of you all like I was We're friends with Mary Ann as well as having worked with her many of us over a long period of time For the betterment of our community in so many ways Not just her legislative service, but through her many many years of service at Duke university health systems and also as a county commissioner for many years And we are all grateful to Mary Ann for The tremendous service that she has offered to our community Uh before I read the proclamation madam clerk, is there someone here to receive this proclamation? Checking mr. Mayor. Thank you Yes, mr. Mayor, jonathan black is here great All righty, can we please uh, is can we make mr. Black able to be seen and heard? Great welcome. We're glad to have you. I'm going to read the proclamation And then if you would like to make a brief remarks, we're happy to have you Whereas a compassionate advocate for the people of Durham the honorable Mary Ann e black msw lcsw devoted her life To improving the lives of children and families to access to education employment and health care And whereas But more than 30 years she provided a psychotherapy services She provided psychotherapy services to children and their families as an accomplished clinical social worker who served in private practice In 1994 she was named social worker of the year by the state of north carolina And later the same year by the national association of social workers And whereas in 1990 to increase her advocacy on behalf of children and families She began her first term as durham county commissioner serving as the chair of the durham county commissioners from 1996 to 2002 In a role as chair she honored the legacy of durham county general hospital By guiding the creation of the duke regional hospital with its commitment to serving our growing community And whereas in 2002 she was chosen to serve as associate vice president for community relations for the duke university health system And in that year helped create and implement the annual durham health summit which engages community members in collaborative efforts To improve health outcomes and access to important health care services This led to the development of the principles of community engagement in 2005 and in 2008 the creation A project access of durham county where people with no insurance gained access to specialty care And whereas in 2011 she led the reopening of the city of medicine academy on the duke regional hospital campus Which has educated and trained hundreds of dukes of durham students to work in the field of health services and medical care And whereas in 2017 she was appointed to the north carolina general assembly as a member of the house of representatives Where she faithfully served the citizens of district 29 with honor and distinction working on key committees including aging appropriations health and human services Now therefore i steven m shul mayor of the city of durham north carolina do hereby honor the Calming strength wisdom and grace and can i also add warmth to such a warm warm person Of maryanne black and her commitment to improve the lives of the children and families of durham Through access to education employment and high quality health care I urge all residents to join in reflecting on the life and legacy of the honorable maryanne e black msw lcsw Witness my hand. This is second day of november 2020 so Let's all please applaud and Give thanks for the life and legacy of maryanne e black and now Uh, jonathan black mr. Black. We're welcome. We're glad to have you. Welcome. We'd appreciate if you have some comments Sure. Okay. Um Thank you. Thank you durham city council and mayor shul for honoring my mother maryanne black My mother loved durham north carolina She loved watching this community thrive with new businesses Diverse people and coming coming to live here She was also excited. Um, she also was excited to attend live musicals at the d-pack She um She she also loved helping people many times many times my mother would say it's about helping people She understood the importance of health insurance education and many topics that america americans are going to vote for our will are already voted for tomorrow um I would like to tell people to vote if they have not yet My mother believed that voting can bring about change So if you haven't voted, please vote tomorrow Thank you again. I'm mayor shul and the durham city council for honoring my mother maryanne black Thank you so much. Mr. Black. We appreciate you You are the beneficiary of an incredible legacy Thank you for being with us tonight And as we honor your mother and everything that she stood for thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much Colleagues after that wonderful ceremonial item. We'll now move to announcements by members of the council councilmember reese Thank you, mr. Mayor. Good evening again colleagues. Sorry that was uh I was surprisingly emotional for me. Um, uh representative black was A friend and a a mentor and some on my representative in the general assembly um, and uh someone whose contributions to our community are really, um Difficult to measure Um, but I want to jump off what mr. Black mentioned about voting tomorrow's election day here in durham You know, we have elections every year durham in november In the odd number of years our local elections take center state Uh, but next year is a presidential tomorrow. Excuse me is a presidential election day We're also electing all of the officers in our council of state. That's governor lieutenant governor attorney general every member of the north carolina general assembly 120 house members 50 state senators all 13 members of the Of our house delegation to the u.s congress us senate seat And tons of state judges and of course county commissioners The the choices before voters tomorrow are considerable and important And the amazing thing i want to tell you Is that so many durham voters have already made their way to the polls Whether it was early two weeks of early voting or A lot of folks did what our family did was we requested our absentee ballots by mail and then turn them in at the at the board of elections Mr. Mayor, there are about 244 thousand registered voters in durham county Fully two-thirds of those voters have already cast their ballots in this election, which is astonishing But that means that somewhere in the neighborhood of the 80 thousand registered voters here in durham have not yet cast their ballots And so i'm hoping that all of them Are listening tonight or at least some of them are listening tonight And i hope that if you are and you have not yet cast your ballot that you will make a plan right now Figure out where you're good where you need to go What time you're gonna go how you're gonna do that and then commit when you wake up in the morning to executing that plan to vote you know decisions are made by the people that show up and So often these elections come and go and people don't really see the importance in their lives But nothing could be more important than the election we're facing now and the choice we're facing both here in north carolina and across the country So i wanted to get folks a little information for those 80 000 folks. So if you have to vote to a registered You can go to decovotes.com. That's dco votes.com. That's the website for the durham county board of elections You can all the information you need to find your polling place Hours locations the information that you need to go and cast your voice cast your vote and make your voice heard There are lots of ways to get to the polls this year Our go durham bus system was a fair free for the two weeks of early voting That just ended this past saturday and is again free tomorrow If folks want to figure out how to use go durham to get to their polling place They should go to way to go durham.com forward slash go vote Which has all the information you need to plan your trip on go durham to get to your precinct polling place um and so There are lots of there's also a An organization called durham rides calm that is Helping provide free rides to folks who maybe don't have access to public transportation Or we just rather take a ride with those folks And i've i know some of the volunteers in that program They use really good ppe and safety protocols to make sure that this is done safely during this pandemic So just wanted to mention that first of all mr. Mayor that tomorrow's election day I hope the the 80,000 voters in durham who have not made their way to the polls plan to do that tomorrow And and make your voice heard The second thing i wanted to say is is related to that and that is to talk just briefly about one of the real mvps of the pandemic here in the city of durham and that is our go durham bus bus service As we all know Our bus service is different from a lot of other cities in this area because our bus service is a Absolutely critical lifeline to working families here in durham and Our bus service and our especially our transit employees Have gone so far above and beyond the call of duty during this time to keep that service running You saw in other cities around the country in the area significant drop-offs in transit ridership during the pandemic In durham you saw some reduction but not a ton and that's because folks needed to get to work Who are essential employees and so those essential workers continued to use our go durham bus service throughout the pandemic They're continuing to use it now The other thing I wanted to mention about go durham is I think about a month and a half ago they started offering face masks on the buses and I have learned today that that during that time somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 face coverings have been distributed on go durham buses By go durham and I think that's just tremendous It just builds on some of the other work that community members have done to get our bus riders On the buses safely with with appropriate face masks So thank you go durham, especially our operators and all the staff who have made Go durham work during this difficult time The last thing I wanted to mention, mr. Mayor speaking of nvps during the pandemic is durham parks and rec I received an email last week from phil holmes who is the president of south durham little league South durham little league is has about 450 kids Who provide baseball and softball programming? To kids in the southern half of durham and surrounding areas They just finished their 2020 season a season that they weren't sure whatever what happened And at the conclusion of the season The president of south durham little league phil holmes sent a letter or just an email to durham parks and rec And was kind enough to copy me He said i'm writing today to let you know that our 2020 season would not have been possible Or at the very least would not have been as successful that two specific durham parks and recreation employees And mr. Holms specifically named tami brown and kathy reagan Who have been incredibly responsive and supportive in south durham little league's efforts this year to feel the season That again, mr. Holms said he wasn't sure whatever happened Um Some of the some of the the city facilities they used was were herned in southern boundaries crest street right wood and lion park They used baseball facilities in all those areas And obviously city employees were responsible for maintenance and making sure that those Fields were up to par And he was just really really impressed and i didn't want to let that email go by without sharing that with my colleagues and the folks Here who are watching so many thanks to durham parks and rec for their outstanding service Especially during this difficult time mr. Mayor that's plenty of announcements. Thank you very much Thank you very much councilmember But there are other announcements by members of the council um councilmember freelon Hey, um first i wanted to uh echo Thank you, mr. Mayor. I wanted to echo uh councilmember reese's Remarks about mary and black and i can see that jonathan black is still Still on with us if you can hear me brother your mom was such such an important figure in my family's life and uh, particularly she was close friends with my parents, but also Was instrumental in helping council members of my own family through some really difficult times So that was also a very emotional Reflection on her legacy and uh as someone who's recently lost a parent You know and gained an ancestor. I feel Uh, you know a mix of of sorrow that she's not here with us anymore But also a great pride in in the legacy. She's left behind in the city of durham So thank you again to miss ancestor mary and black the honorable um, I just want to Give a little kind of report back about You know something that i'll probably be talking about every week until We see the crime go down in durham. There's the shootings haven't stopped and um I haven't stopped kind of working um Again going back to that email. I got several weeks ago. What are you doing every day? I ask myself every day what what i'm doing to address violence In durham and I was really excited last week to receive a proposal Uh for the we are the ones fund which we'll discuss next week at the durham city council meeting I've been talking. Um, and again, this is just for accountability for the members of durham Who I want to know that we take the issue of violence in durham very seriously and uh, you know, literally doing everything we can to move at lightning speed towards, uh addressing the issue and and getting some solutions in front of council that we can vote on that are Uh, that that are going to address the the rise of violence that we've seen um, and so, uh, you know, I've been in contact with Minister paul scott who wrote a really powerful article of the black liberation action committee the durham committee on the affairs of black people spirit house Today I spoke with my former colleagues on the human relations commission and countless other community organizers We've been doing canvases talking to people about what they think they need to be safe And those efforts will continue Because we want to hear from you. So please this is echoing something brother middleton has said in the past Please use your voices hit us up over email. Let us know what you think needs to happen It's so important. It's so vital that we hear from you As we consider different options to address violence in durham um, but you know, just wanted to just kind of wanted to follow up Uh specifically to that issue and let you know that it's uh, something we discussed last work session with the violence interrupter And it'll come up again at next week's Work session. So shout out to everyone who's taken time Uh, small businesses sweet smoothies black men build, you know, no cap muffin Aminia Alexis dr. Alexis Pauline gums everybody Uh, who's who's been who I've been in communication with I just appreciate your feedback and would like more of it Um, so that's it just wanted to to share that. Uh, we're still working behind the scenes. You may not see between the meetings What work is going in but we are working we do care And uh, we want more feedback. Thank you, mr. Mayor Thank you very much council member Are there other announcements by members of the council council member middleton? Thank you, mr. Mayor. Good evening again folks to all my colleagues and all everyone watching um Former president clinton once said of nelson-mandela That when he walked in a room, he made you want to stand up taller and there are just certain people That have that effect when they're in a room. Mary and black was one of those people although small and stature Uh, when she was in her room, she made you just want to be better and stand up a little taller So we honor her memory and her legacy tonight. It was a beautiful Uh memory and proclamation on her part mr. Mayor and um to her son her great son. Thank you for being here to receive it Um, we bid her hail and farewell Uh, may her memory be a blessing Mr. Mayor so tomorrow the the world really will be focused on What is arguably the world's only remaining superpower what we will do in terms of choosing leadership of this nation But i'm reminded that all politics is local Also, while many of us are caught up with the presidential election um, we still have issues going on here locally and and Counselor freeline has already alluded to it that the gun violence continues in our city We send our hearts and our concerns out to the family of our elder the grandmother who was shot and brought daylight Just the other day here in durham. I'm heartened by the presentation. We got from Bulls City united last week. I think now that we are on the precipice. We are right on the threshold Uh of being able to put in place of the first piece Of of a multifaceted comprehensive tactical right now responds to gun violence in our city I'm i'm grateful that the staff Expedited that presentation and I know they're working on it, but I hope in very short order We will have something action about whether it's going to be actually Muscularizing what the county is doing with money or deciding we're going to launch our own initiative in the city But I think that we should make it above most importance to to translate what we heard last week Into a week or four last into something actionable And give us something that we can actually point at that is tangible that is an actual policy that speaks to right now I think the the One of the perils of right now colleagues is that whatever we do whatever we decide to do Is going to be viewed through the prism Of a right now response to what is going on And I think the danger and well not danger, but but but one of the concerns we should have is that You know, you know if your kid is drowning That's not the time to pull out the tablet and start looking for camps that have swimming lessons Um if somebody's having a heart attack, that's not the time to talk about You know lifestyle changes and eating better in an exercise program You got to get the kid out the pool. You got to stabilize the heart attack victim So the issue right now is is we should have been doing we should be talking about root causes all the time So if we reflexively focus on root causes, which we should at this time um But because right now we're in the middle of the emergency I think we're going to have to be able to point to whatever we do right now and say This is when we can expect to see this initiative impact the numbers Whether that's a year a week six months six years Because we're doing it while the emergency is going on Um as opposed to doing it all the time and I think that's going to be a fair question And I think that's going to be a fair metric that we've got to be able to to Articulate and defend to the people of this city particularly when it starts throwing money around What when can we expect this initiative to address? What's going on right now? And at the same time address Strategic long-term concerns. I think the violence interruption program is something that we can there's obviously a lot of agreement on I know there's there's you know, there's divergent views on other initiatives But um, I think this is the first salvo that we can fire the first concrete thing that we can do post haste To address the violence in the short term in the immediate sense And then I think we need to quickly pivot to the rapid type of wraparound services that violence interruption Requires whether it's a ubi universal basic income whether it's Some some other type of initiative, but but I think for the right now And I don't think we need to wait for the next budgetary cycle either. I think we need to act mid-cycle in doing something that will will convey Um Confidence and convey solidarity with the people of our city Convey a concern to the most vulnerable folk who um, you know Really aren't going to be worried too much about who's president. They want to know can their kids go outside and play? Uh, well, they have to jump in the bathtub tonight So I want to again just just reiterate the importance of of beginning to to put ourselves in a position as a government to point to concrete policy actions And interventions that we're taking as a government that are not just aimed at future generations But that we can say we believe that this will help us not only the long term But in the short term as well Because it is upon us now the game is afoot the emergency is going on right now We got to get the kid out the pool and we got to stabilize the heart attack victim And then we can talk lifestyle changes and look for camps for for swimming programs Um, so thank you all for that. I look forward to all of us putting our collective will And creativity together to address this scourge that is upon our city Big day tomorrow. My god, this our country. My god, this our city. Thank you, mr. Mayor Thank you very much council member Are there any further announcements? All right, I appreciate the unit. Oh, I'm sorry councilor Caballero Yeah, I council member Freeman can go next. I think she actually had her hand up before me No I saw you first and that's the way I do it. So go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um, Mine is very different than what we've been talking about. So it's gonna be no problem. Go ahead Um, I just this is about tomorrow's election and what we're facing. Um, so Uh earlier today, I I've been going to the woods more. I've been lucky the one positive of the of the pandemic as I've been able to Go out and I take my dog and for me it's it's a It's a place where I reflect and it's a place where I find fault solace and A place where I can think quietly instead of having two parents on Two parents working from home and three kids and a dog in the 1200 square foot house. So the The quiet is needed and um, you know, I think these last many months have been really hard For everyone in our city And I think our physical mental and spiritual health has suffered We know that so many of our residents who were already close to the margin are barely hanging on And I think many of us are waiting With an existential knot in our stomachs for the outcome of tomorrow's election And I want to thank all the people in Durham and across our great state For all their get out the vote efforts. I've seen so many incredible organizations and volunteers and Durham should be really really proud of its turnout so far And I know that the outcome of tomorrow's election means the difference of more relief coming And a different response to this pandemic and a different response to the terrible economic situation Many of us are facing this winter And I've said this before it's been really hard for me to maintain my hope And I've been listening to a lot of Dylan and Victor Hara and others To remind me that this fight for a liberated more just world is not new We have fought fascists and we have fought white supremacists before And we must continue fighting regardless of tomorrow's outcome This week I've been Reminded in a really painful way why it's important to fight for the world and for our lives My deal the mingo in Santiago has been intubated and then medically induced coma in Santiago since october 25th due to covid He turned 75 in september And though he's definitely in the later arc of his life. He's fighting like hell He has a grand kid on the way and family praying and waiting for him not to let go yet And on the same day he was intubated In chila there was a plebiscite or a referendum to vote on a new constitution And the Chilean Chileans overwhelmingly 78 percent of Chileans voted for a new constitution The current constitution currently in place Was brought in by pinotchet and it's not a fair Reflection of what democracy should be And I think if you asked my uncle if you would ever see that day He would have said no Like many Chileans. He's lived through a lot. He worked for the allende government in the 70s He was detained and interrogated and luckily my grandmother. He was not tortured my grandmother heard That he'd been detained Was able to pull a lot of strings and get him out and he was one of the lucky ones He left Chile in 1974 Was able to go back in 1984 a decade later But was blacklisted from being an attorney and from practicing law until many late many decades later So he was able to return to his profession But not until he was a much older man And so these are the things that I am sitting with before tomorrow I think so many of us Have family and we come from people. We come from folk who have lived And survived so much And we must always keep the faith and imagine the world we want In our minds and our spirits And so whatever happens after tomorrow I'll see you in the streets Durham And hopefully it will be to celebrate Thank you council member for that very very heartfelt and personal statement and And We'll be out there with you and much gratitude for Sharing your story your family's story With all of us and with our community. Thank you so much All right council member Freeman Thank you, mr. Mayor, and I appreciate the opportunity to go last or to go after so many of my colleagues have already spoken and shared so much of what I would have talked about I also want to send my heartfelt support to council member calguero acknowledging how difficult it is to watch a family member Go through the co-hit Process I am deeply Moves And then also just noting I wanted to also thank mr. Black for being on the call this evening and acknowledging that a wonderful powerhouse and and You know and senator my now ancestor Mary and black This evening couldn't be more like I can't be more present in this moment and acknowledging just how much we are all going through and I want to make sure that I take stock and acknowledge that and Say to the public of the general public watching and viewing and to my colleagues as well that it's important to note That tensions are running really high right now And it's not going to dissipate after tomorrow. And so just noting that I just beg you all to Be patient and kind to yourselves acknowledging there's grief and there's grace And that there's also help and so just noting the you know organizations like the Durham crisis response center Or you know alliance behavioral health are available and just noting that they are really good resources here in our community Is important to make sure that you're you're acknowledging when you need to To kind of tap out or to just check out Because you have to take care of your mental health Otherwise it can become mental illness. I I do want to also note that I And many occasions I thank folks for using their civic Civic doing their civic duty and doing protests and I want to thank The many parents who have shown up at the Durham police headquarters For multiple Saturdays and and have continued to show up For their guns down hearts up rallies and I just want to note that I see you I know we all see you and we're here and we're all in this together and we will get through this I also want to note that it is Black Solidarity Day and it's important to acknowledge The experience of what folks are Have seen throughout this year throughout this pandemic is is present and and just acknowledging what happened in alamance county for uh Just trying to take a moment to acknowledge those eight minutes of 46 seconds What came of it with those two children being pepper sprayed is unacceptable and I just wouldn't It wouldn't be a um A proper you know Council without Noting that and letting folks know we see you and we hear you and we are with you on that I also just want to uh To share that in this moment, um There are lots of decisions to be made and I just want to make sure the folks are holding up their friends and families and and keeping as much as they can close because um We're getting ready to face some trying times folks and and I know you're ready But when you need to step back and others will step forward. Thank you, mr. Max Thank you very much council member Any further announcements All right, colleagues. Thank you for sharing those thoughts with us tonight We'll now move to priority items and I'll first ask are there any priority items by the city manager madam manager. Welcome Good evening. Mr. Mayor madam mayor pro tem members of the Durham city council. I do have several priority items for you this evening agenda item number seven 2020 eno hall regional hazard mitigation plan Additional information has been provided in attachment number four agenda item number 19, which is 2020 2021 multifamily production and preservation requests for proposals The funding award recommendations Additional information has also been provided For this item in attachment number four Number six is located in the priority items by the city manager city attorney and city clerk section Of the november 2nd 2020 city council meeting agenda agenda item number 27 proposed amendment to the Durham city coronavirus relief fund crf plan Additional information has been provided in attachment number five and attachment number one was updated item number 21 Z 1 8 0 0 0 1 3 Chesterfield avenue street closing Needs to be heard after item number 22 Z 1 8 0 0 0 3 2 Which is 1700 hill andale road due to the relationship of those two items Thank you very much, madam manager I had seen that on the agenda that last item and uh, we'll absolutely do that. Thank you All right, uh, madam attorney. Do you have any priority items for us tonight? Good evening, mr. Mayor madam mayor pertam members of city council. It's good to be with you this evening We do not have any priority items from the city attorney's office tonight Thank you, madam attorney Madam clerk any priority items tonight Good evening, mr. Mayor and all the council members. I do have a priority item the city clerk's office Had an update to the september 8th 2020 minutes and they've been revised as per council's request and no action is required Thank you, madam clerk All right colleagues. We've now heard the priority items No action is required and we're going to move to the consent agenda The consent agenda consists of items that has previously been worked on by the council And can be approved by a single vote of the council Any council member a member of the public can pull an item from the consent agenda in which case it will be heard at the end of the I'll now read the consent agenda item 1 approval with city council minutes item 2 housing appeals board mayors nominee item 3 human relations commission appointments item 4 mayors council for women appointment item 5 year end 2020 inventory performance audit dated September 2020 item 6 participatory budgeting pb grant agreement with the lgbtq center of durham ink to provide one-time funding for positions and benefits item 7 2020 eno hall regional hazard mitigation plan item 8 vehicle lease agreement linkin community health center item 9 celeste circle and githin school lift stations amendment 1 of the professional engineering services contract item 10 williams water treatment plant based improvements designed contract award to hazeman soyer item 11 award of utility easement survey and delineation service contract to taylor wiseman and taylor incorporated item 12 authorized quality assurance contract for priority dispatch corporation item 13 bid reports september 2020 item 14 resolution approving an amendment to an installment financing contract item 15 property exchange interlocal agreement for the durham public schools board of education for snow hill road park and lucas middle school item 16 support for the upper news river basin association interim alternative implementation approach i a i a item 17 security operation center s o c managed services item 27 proposed a member to the durham city coronavirus relief fund c r f plan You have heard the consent agenda and i'll now accept a motion for its approval so moved seconded Moved by councilmember reese seconded by councilmember caballero. Madam clerk. Will you please call the roll? Mayor schull I Mayor pro tem johnson I Come to member caballero I Come to member freelon I Come to member freeman I Come to member middleton I vote aye Come to member reese I Thank you Thank you very much Madam clerk The eyes have it and the motion passes unanimously We'll now move to the general business agenda public hearings and the first item is item 20 Consolidated annexation national heritage academies nha oak charter school And we'll first I believe here report from staff What i'm looking for a staff member to help us with that report Yes, sir Mayor schull Yes, all right Mayor schull madham pro mayor pro tem johnson honorable council members good evening I'm alexander cahill with the planning department. I'm happy to be here with you I do want to state for the record that all planning department hearing items have been advertised and noticed in accordance with state and local law and then affidavits of all notices are available on file in the planning department We received requests for a utility extension agreement voluntary annexation and an initial zoning map change they were received by bob dunstan of charter development company for two parcels located at 2201 east gear street and 25 23 east club street These total 12.37 acres if you remember this case was continued from the october 5th council session at the applicants request and this was to include additional transportation improvements that may be found in the utility extension agreement This annexation petition is for a non-contiguous expansion of the corporate city limits However, it is adjacent to an existing satellite annexation There's also an associated major site plan for a new one-story 42,316 square foot K-8 public charter school that will serve 772 students which is under review which you can see in attachment 14 a spot minor special use permitted will also be acquired for this use but has not been received at this time this site is a presently zoned residential server been 20 commercial neighborhood and residential rural and if the annexation is approved staff does recommend the exact translation of the zoning designation if approved this request would become effective on December 31st of 2020 city and county operational departments such as solid waste fire police and the MMS have reviewed this request and the potential impacts this annexation might have at full buildout while that's not known at this time it could result in some reduction in the level of service provided by the police department the public works and water management departments have determined that the existing city of Durham water and sanitary sewer do have capacity for the proposed development and budget and management service department has determined that the proposed annexation will become revenue positive at buildout additional information can be found in the staff report in addition the applicant has proffered transportation improvements in the UAE these additional improvements include school zone pavement markings and flashers and sidewalks and they have impacted the cost benefit analysis that was originally done by the budget and management department which you find in attachment five the anticipated expenses for the city transportation department will have been reduced with the applicant since committing to these transportation improvements so our recommendations staff does determine that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances staff recommends that the city council does approve the utility extension agreement voluntary annexation and consistency statement for the proposed zoning map change this recommendation is based on the geographic nature of this annexation while the proposed annexation is non-contiguous to the primary city limits it's continuous to a satellite annexation that previously occurred and begins to fill in the city limits of that non-contiguous area there are three motions that are required for this application the first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into an utility extension agreement the second is to adopt a consistency statement and the third is for these owning ordinance and this time staff is available for questions thank you very much mr k hill you have heard the report from staff and i'm now going to declare this public hearing open and i first want to ask if there are any council members who have questions for members of for mr k hill are there any questions for staff at this time all right hearing none we'll move to the presentations from members of the public i see that we have five people who have spoke who have signed up to speak on this item let me first ask just to make sure dylan smith dylan smith are you are you planning to speak on this item or are you here to listen to this item want to make sure we're including everybody madam clerk can you make dylan smith available to be heard i'm here with bob dunstan and i will be here for questions i'm the civil engineer all right yes thank you mr smith yep all right i i i see then that we have four people who were signed up to speak um and they are neil gosh bob dunstan bill brian and john da berry just want to make sure again is there anyone else here who would like to speak on this item is there anyone here an attendee at this meeting who would like to speak on this item if you would you can please put that in the chat or you can raise your virtual hand but i don't see anybody okay uh mr gosh uh madam clerk can you make mr gosh available to be heard mayor shul can you hear me yes i can mr gosh approximately how long will you all need for your presentation uh maybe 15 minutes that will be fine thank you mr gosh i'm going to let you i know you have four speakers i'm going to go ahead and let you manage that time okay all right that sounds great thank you thank you and good evening mayor shul mayor pro tem johnson and members of the city council my name is neil gosh i'm an attorney with the morning star law group at 112 west main street in durham first i want to thank the staff for its presentation of the requested annexation you will all may remember this site better as the old starlight drive-in theater at the corner of east club and east gear as staff mentioned national heritage academies is requesting annexation to gain access to municipal utilities to accommodate a k through a public charter school for 772 students from a land use planning standpoint annexing this area will help the city achieve several long-range goals the annexation will decrease an existing gap in the city's corporate limits moreover the annexation will be revenue positive and not detrimental to the ability of the city to provide municipal services while there is no rezoning requests associated with this annexation like most annexations this request is paired with a utility extension agreement or uea usually ueas are boilerplate agreements however through this uea nha voluntarily has committed to a substantial number of off-site road improvements these road improvements are well in excess of what the city could require of nha through the typical site plan process we are committing to them nonetheless because we feel they are important to make a safer road network not only for the school but for the community as a whole we estimate that these road improvements will cost over one million dollars to install our next speaker mr bob dunstan will go into more detail about these road improvements mr dunstan is with the national heritage academies and he has been working closely with staff and his consultants to put this plan in front of you tonight he's proud of what a team has been able to put together and hope to have your support tonight bob i thank you nil uh and good evening council members my name is bob dunstan and i'm with national heritage academies we in partnership with the oak charter academy board of directors national heritage is the developer and will be operator of the proposed school site that is the subject of the annexation request before you as nil explained the process through the proposed annexation will provide a valuable benefit to the city of durham if approved this evening an approval will provide in round numbers about one million dollars worth of improvements and upgrades to the east club boulevard and east gear street intersection at absolute absolutely no cost to the city of durham this investment in public infrastructure is in addition to the school facility itself which will cost around 12 million dollars to construct also at no cost to the city of durham if staff could pull up we have a uh a site plan exhibit if they could pull that up i know that usually takes a minute or two i'll kind of move through the next paragraph by the way that the the club gear intersection perfect um we'll we'll need that in just a second but that's great the club gear intersection suffers from too few lanes and too many turning movements and from the increasing traffic volumes due to the expanding commercial and residential development in the area the traffic study that was completed earlier in this year in connection with the proposed development identified several improvements that could help alleviate the traffic pressures in the area but only about half of those will be required by ncdot as a condition of the site plan approval nevertheless we recognize the importance of having a robust and safe road network especially near our schools and consequently we have agreed to construct the remaining intersection improvements recommended in the traffic study at our sole expense uh now i can briefly walk you through um some of those improvements if you would uh as we refer to the map that we pulled up uh primarily everything that's in yellow within the two road systems those are all the improvements we'll be discussing and those improvements in yellow will be made at no cost to the city of durham to start with the entrance to the school is designed to allow free flowing traffic to enter from both directions the one double lane entrance off of east gear as well as two single lane exits permitting right turns only by the way one of those will be off of gear near the entrance and the other one will be on club and both of those are designed to keep traffic is a write out only as i said and those should also allow traffic to move flow to move slowly and smoothly to the basically the immediate expressway accesses the eastbound club approach will have a left turn lane extended to serve more vehicles there'll also be a curb slash median if you would that will be installed to allow or basically force the existing school traffic exiting out onto east club to only turn right and head towards i-85 the northbound gear approach so coming in from the south will be widened from one lane to two lanes and this is important it'll provide a dedicated left turn lane onto club and a combined through right lane currently if you look down to the south those improvements extend literally they're more than a football field in length all the way down to the south if you would now swing around to the north side the southbound gear approach as you're approaching from the walmart area will be widened from two lanes to three lanes providing a dedicated right turn lane onto westbound club as well as a dedicated through lane and a dedicated left turn lane onto eastbound club the same left turn lane now if you look from the intersection and moving north up to the walmart that turn lane will be extended from the intersection all the way up to the entrance of the school so that will provide a dedicated left turn lane from gear directly into the school and once again that'll enter into the the free flowing entrance off of east gear lastly in addition to the road improvements national heritage academies has also agreed to provide pedestrian sidewalks along the entire frontage of both east club boulevard as well as east gear street the sidewalks will help promote the development of a safe pedestrian network as well as provide safe connectivity to the future developments that are on the books right now when complete the entire intersection will serve pedestrians and move vehicles in a significantly better manner than in its existing condition and this will all occur at no cost the city the city of Durham the commitment to do more than what is required more than the minimum is who we are at national heritage academies we are committed to the families that trust us every day with their children's education and we are committed to responsible development in the communities we serve from a technical perspective this is no pointed out the voluntary road improvements which i've just laid out for you are also included in the executed utility extension agreement accompanying this annexation request so that our commitments are very explicit with that i'm happy to answer any questions you may have and i respectfully request your approval of this annexation request thank you very much mr dunstan i believe mr brian is next up yes thank you much yes thank you mr mayor good evening my name is bill brian and i'm an attorney with the morning star law group and i'm counsel to the applicant national heritage academies as you've heard from mr gosh and mr dunstan and as is confirmed by the staff report the annexation proposal before you tonight more than meets the objective criteria that the city applies to annexation requests in exchange for the extension of water and sewer which will be paid for by national heritage the school project will be putting more than one million dollars worth of transportation improvements on the ground and substantially improving the quality and quantity of both water and sewer and the transportation infrastructure in this area of the city objectively therefore this project and the proposed annexation is a very good deal for the people of durham but beyond the issue of dollars and cents and infrastructure this proposal and the project it will enable also will be very good for the city for both economic development and policy reasons as you all know i've been involved with the chamber of commerce in durham for over 30 years serving as chair of the board among other things for every one of those 30 years both the city and the county have saw greater investment economic development northeast durham as mill pointed out this is the side of the old starlight drive-in movie theater which has been an empty lot for ages the property that we're talking about is at the intersection of east club and east gear streets street names that have figured prominently over the years and stories about economic deprivation disinvestment and which also have long been community targets for redevelopment and reinvestment now national heritage is prepared to invest over 12 million dollars in the state of the art school facility extend water and sewer and put a million dollars with the road improvements on the ground in this area national heritage has a lengthy record of proven success in durham it has operated the research triangle academy for over 10 years what better catalyst for further investment and economic development can there be with economic development will come job opportunities expanded educational opportunities infrastructure and investment all in east durham ladies and gentlemen this is exactly the type of commitment you've been asking for in this part of town for decades and our clients and our client is here to make that commitment to durham and to east durham in particular so for all the objective financial and subjective policy reasons we urge you to vote to approve this annexation tonight we very much appreciate your attention and we will be happy to respond any questions you may have but over next i'm going to introduce mr john de berry who's a member of the board of the proposed school and who would like to address you mr de berry good evening mayor sull and council members again my name is john d better and i'm at 41 21 trotter rich durham north carolina i've been a resident of durham for 30 years and i am passionate about the youth in this community as well as all over the united state i speak on behalf of everyone here saying thank you for your leadership and your dedication to durham i have long been a volunteer in durham i served on the durham city small business advisory committed from 2005 to about 2015 i worked with numerous youth organization to durham business and professional change i worked for several years with their their mentor and program they do with the youth right now i serve as the regional director from dark carolina new york with full gospel business man fellowship international and we sponsor a event every year where we take anywhere from 45 kids uh to uh fort casual down in oak island each year and we do intense training during that time and we bring the kids back and of course we mentor them throughout the year uh 2021 we're expecting to take a hundred youth we've already got even some kids coming from gone to west africa that's going to be working with us and even before the pandemic i actually was working with uh the uh youth jail out on broad broad street i actually went out there every fourth third for the last couple of years to help mentor and work with the youth so that just give you some idea how passionate i am about being part of the community of durham and making sure that it remains successful tonight i'm here as a durham resident a board member of oak child academy i respectfully ask that you support that annexation our school into durham because it is the right thing for our kids and the future of our community our school will be a point of pride in its immediate area successfully serving the students from all background we will work to ensure that our barriers for any family who wishes to enroll their kids in our school our oak child academy board is comprised of a team with extensive background in durham and in education as noted i am a durham resident committed to the success of our community uh we've got board members in the van uh she's a durham resident has over 15 years experience with durham public schools uh special education teacher and was an assistant principal dr derrick sols is department chair and assistant professor of the department of public health and exercise science at st augustine university dr iris garner spent seven years as the national assessment educational progress directed with the north carolina department of instruction our boy chair gerard mcnell lived in durham for many years and he actually works real close with me with the event we do every year that uh uh at the men's retreat that where we take the youth so he works real close with me with that you can see we've got extensive and a lot of knowledge in our in our board of directors our boy's goal is to meet children at the learning level and offer them an education that establish a foundation of success we will not only aim for them to strive academically we will also mentor them in the areas of social skills and character like councilman militant saying we want to snatch them out of the pool we want to snatch them out of the pool immediately as soon as we get going in that way we will prepare them to make a meaningful contribution with our community and across our society by building oak carter oak charter academy we are not only investing the neighborhood and community infrastructure we are investing in the future our kids i know what i know we would all agree that did it this is the most important responsibility we hold in closing as i listened to the council meeting may i say when you first started we was talking about choices uh councilman reese choices every councilman came home was talking about choices we make a great one the greatest choice that we made in it since we've been alive tomorrow all of us have choices pulling the kids out of the pool is a choice all we're asking is that you all support this annexation so that we these parents in this community will have a choice we'll have a choice where they where their kids go and where they're supported that's all we're asking to give the parents in that area a choice like we're talking about all evening long and we're investing in the long-term success of the city that we love thank you very much thank you mr. d barry mr. bryan um mr. dunstan and mr. gauche appreciate hearing from you all uh i'll now ask again is there anyone else here who would like to be heard on this item before we have questions from the council anyone else here if so could you put that in the chat or um raise your virtual hand all right i don't see anyone before we get started on the questions mr. bryan i'm reminded uh with tomorrow being election day that four years ago you were on the hot seat as the chair of our board of elections in what was a very controversial and close election and uh you as a you did Durham proud as our board of elections chair and i just want to here we are four years later and i just want to remember that and thank you and appreciate my admiration for the way in which you led the board in our community at that time all right uh colleagues i'm now going to ask if there are any questions for either staff or the applicant council member freeman and then council member freelike thank you mr. mayor i appreciate the presentation filled in a lot of the i guess the questions i had i noticed that there is a waterway on the backside of this property and i didn't notice any buffer um identified on that drawing and so i just had some questions about around that and then just noting that this area is is uh is a hugely county space with i'm noting that there's a there's the walmart in that area and then there's something else but i'm not sure what the plans are in that that community and so i have a lot of a few questions around that acknowledging all of the upgrades that were mentioned in this prop and this in this project for that area noting there's there are others and um i'll just let the first question be answered i think i can answer that i can this is alexander i can jump into um the buffer for the udo requirements would be required at this time of site plan approval so what you're saying is there's no buffer right now well there i think what he's saying is that there will be a buffer council member uh when the what you've been given is a is a site is a is a is an exhibit that shows primarily you know sort of where the building is going to go and where the parking is going to be in the road improvements most importantly we wanted to make sure you could see the road improvements but the um it's not a detailed site plan and it didn't mean to suggest that it was so uh there is a detailed site plan and on that site plan i believe you'll find the buffer a bill i can interject there if you don't mind everything shown in blue right now uh councilman freeman includes the 50 foot setback buffers then just a note um for staff i'm not sure if we've had the discussion about a plan for this area but i would like to hear some um feedback on a small area plan noting that this is a i mean this is if it's a non-contiguous city area that i'm am i am i hearing that there's some other projects that might be coming forward or is there not any projects coming forward that would would fill in this gap good evening council member freeman and other members of council sarah young with the planning department um i am not aware there may uh be some other site plans in the works in this area i am not aware of every single site plan that comes through our office personally however i can tell you that in terms of small area planning for this area this is an area that is going to get um a more detailed look at through the comprehensive plan um and while we are not doing individual small area plans separately we are doing them as part of the larger comprehensive plan process so this is an area that we'll get a closer look at because right now we don't have very much in terms of guidance other than the 2005 future land use map for this area just to follow up with that so noting that it's a satellite is there like an area or a part of a comprehensive plan that will address satellites on its own or would this be competing with other projects to get a look at sooner or later so what we're doing is we are looking at areas that are getting um a significant amount of development interest versus areas that are fairly stable and are not getting a significant amount of development interest and those areas that are getting additional you know uh higher levels of interest are areas that we will spend extra time doing small area planning for thank you i appreciate that sure thank you council member council member freeline yes thank you mr mayor um my question is for mr de berry uh thank you for your closing out the presentation it was great talking to you a couple weeks ago we spoke one on one and uh i just wanted to say i appreciate um you sharing with me and the rest of council all the work you're doing in the community i really personally appreciate that and think that'll be a big part of what gets us out of this violence crisis as mentors and brothers like you really care um my question for you is about uh you mentioned your board having um several folks in Durham and we got a email from someone what was it dave machado who who had a uh some contradictory information about the board uh they said the proposed governing board has no representation from Durham county and no professional educators um based on looking at your application and it sounds like uh that may have been incorrect you're you're saying yeah that's definitely incorrect we've got uh in the van who has 15 years experience here in uh Durham public school she was a special education teacher and assistant principal okay and then we've got dr derrick sols course he's on the uh college level at st all st august st augustin university and um but those on the board but we we've already have a principal who has about eight nine years of a principal experience and she's actually from Durham okay so yeah i guess the suggestion was that uh no one on the board like currently resides you know that they're from grandville and lee and wane counties but not uh are currently based in Durham um am i hearing that that folks are from Durham but maybe have moved out of the county or that you do have board members that are based here in Durham just curious yeah well i live in Durham and the van from what i understand i think she lives in the Durham and the principal lives here in Durham okay yeah okay yeah i hadn't thought about that until we got a letter about it and i said oh that's strange they're doing a Durham school and very little or none of their board lives here well i mean i'm almost sure that the majority of our teachers are now um employees would be from dirt uh council member freeman yeah if i may if i may just make a comment sure the materials that you that you saw are over a year old and they they go back to the original charter that was presented to the state and there were there were a number of of of misstatements of fact in the materials that were sent in and that were that were covered by a by a press article at the time and in any event they are it's it's it's it's it's not current information uh because at the time they didn't they didn't have a time they didn't actually have a place and they didn't know what the what property was going to be where it was going to be located so the uh and and and so the the issues that you raise are are no longer those are no longer currently accurate statements thank you for that thank you for that could i could i ask you another question as well uh again going to another critique perhaps this is kind of also outdated but um the letter also kind of mentioned something about uh you know heritage and and the extent to which that these um projects from other heritage projects specifically weight force charter academy has kind of increased uh some disparities in the in the school systems but you mentioned that there was another school in Durham that that heritage charter had you know been looking over or had been responsible for for the past decade so i was just kind of curious uh to hear more about weight force charter academy and in your opinion how that affected its community and how the other school that heritage has in Durham has kind of impacted the demographics i'm just kind of curious about those things i i'm not aware of the details related to the way to where what the weight force charter academy is doing now i know that national heritage has operated the research triangle academy here in Durham very successfully for 10 years um i probably ought to defer to bob dunstan uh who is with national heritage to talk about specifically about the details related to research triangle academy and generally you know the demographic makeup of national heritage schools my understanding is that the demographic makeup trend tends to be very much reflective of the area in which the schools are located but bob let me let me defer to you and and let and let you answer that question more specifically yeah bill i think that was absolutely spot on we most all of our schools generally reflect the surrounding population the demographics if you would um we expect the same uh you know at the the new oak charter academy as well so as far as specifics on effects on surrounding schools i'm sorry cotsman uh freeline i we don't have that kind of information okay the pinpoint that too everything's a little different every new school you open that's a whole new group of uh families and students um so it's very hard to answer that i think specifically how you want it answered okay um yeah thanks for uh thanks for that response i guess um i'm i'm looking at this email today and and uh i know this was up for uh discussion it's been an open thing since we talked about it a couple months ago but um i'm kind of seeing this email with some of these some of this feedback uh because it was emailed to us today so that's uh i appreciate your attempts to respond and understand that that's yeah that would be it would have been good to let you know ahead of time so you could have came with that information but thanks for giving it a shot thank you thank you council member other questions for the applicant or for staff any other questions for applicant or for staff all right hearing none i'm going to declare this public hearing closed the matters back for the council and i'll ask the council members if there are any comments that you would like to make Mr. Mayor i did try and throw up a finger i'm sorry that's okay i apologize go ahead and ask your question i'm sorry i'm sorry i didn't see you no no no good evening everyone uh firstly i i heard a familiar name uh during the listing of the board of directors so i i feel i should disclose one of the names i heard edna van is actually a member of my church um and uh she she definitely lives in Durham um so i because i visited her home so i i should i don't think there's anything that legally precludes me from uh participants matter but i thought just in the spirit of disclosure i should should disclose that um um the staff has um Mr. DeBerry this is this is for you sir it's good to hear you so the staff has recommended that we approve this annexation without any consideration of the vices of virtue of the academy they've they've cited filling in holes in terms of contiguous um annexation talked about it being revenue positive so so they've bracketed out the consideration of whether or not this is a you know the again the vices versus of the academy itself and have recommended but the fact that you put something in in this time Mr. DeBerry you said that the school would work not to exclude any students and usually when we when we talk about charter schools when we talk about exclusion usually the ways they do that is through transportation um ec services free lunch uh things of that nature so so could you tell us how how this school is is since you since you um spoke on it is not it's going to make sure the students are excluded if he's still on Mr. DeBerry can you uh are you still with us um let me just look on the i believe Mr. DeBerry is with us still Mr. DeBerry okay i'm here yes right did you hear did you hear council member mills's question yes i did we are going to offer transportation and we offer we are going to offer ec service and what was the third one um i believe i said free lunch yes yes all we're going to offer all those services thank you thank you council member all right uh the public hearing has been closed and now i'm uh asking if there any count any questions i'm sorry any comments by members of the council council member freeman thank you mr mayor i appreciate all that's been shared about the school but just acknowledging this is an annexation case i'm i'm a little concerned about um the way this annexation um is coming forward with road improvements and uh no buffer and i'm also concerned about the way this plays into the plan that we're working on the comprehensive plan and acknowledging that there are a lot of factors in play and where and where investment is happening and not and so i don't want to spur on investment in an area that's kind of stable right now and acknowledging that it's all county and so i think that it would be best to keep it county at this point um i do think that in a future conversation there might be some space to talk about what happens in that area and i would love to have like to be a part of that conversation with oak academy or whomever but i don't think that right now this is uh a good time to move forward with the annexation um noting that that subtle satellite is there and we're not looking like it's not going to be filled in anytime soon i don't want to create the disruption or unintended consequence of a disruption that forces uh investment in that direction so um i i do have to say that we'll be voting against this annexation tonight thank you thank you council member any other comments colleagues council member freeland i just have a question um i call it just a rookie thing but for council member freeman um when you mentioned uh the lack of uh i took a mental note when you asked um planning director young about the planning um is it that uh i guess maybe this might even be a question for for young as well is when is the plan when is the planning going to take place i guess i'm kind of curious if from your standpoint looking at this purely from the standpoint of does this fit into our plan or not is when are those plans going to take place uh i didn't kind of get a clear idea of that if or when sure so we are wrapping up the part of the comprehensive plan to develop the goals and objectives which as we all know was delayed by our current situation a bit um and that is supposed to wrap up late winter early spring of next year um we are working behind the scenes on some technical stuff um compiling information so that we can then immediately get started on the next phase which of the comprehensive plan which will be to look at specific land use patterns and issues throughout the entire county inclusive of the city so we'll start um probably next summer and take about six months to a year to work through so we're looking at you know at least i would say uh best case scenario a year year and a half before we have land use recommendations okay thank you sure and then just to add to that um councilmember freeline your question about my point i'm i'm particularly concerned about the planning needs right now and where they need to be directed and i don't want to force an addition to that plan to that planning list i've been on that list um in my neighborhood trying to get a local historic district pass that took seven years i don't want to do the same thing for projects that i know um have come forward already or already in the pipeline so i just want to make sure that we're we're doing a our due diligence and making sure that we're um coordinating our annexations or what have you in a way that makes it possible for staff to keep up with got it thanks thanks for clarifying thank you councilmember any other comments colleagues mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um to make some brief comments when we are brought these kind of annexations and rezonings and other land use cases the charge before us is to act in the best interests of Durham and i think that our planning department can give us certain information about you know things like whether the city would um would gain or lose money on the as a result of an annexation whether it meets our um all of our land use policies but i think whether or not something is good for Durham is much broader than that and in this case we know that charter schools are siphoning money from our public school districts effectively privatizing as well as segregating our schools um public schools are public good and they require public investment and public commitment the 772 students that would attend this school um would represent over two and a half million dollars and lost revenue from our public school district and that's based on a 2017 study by a professor at the duke sanford school that showed that for every student that leaves a public school district for a charter that $3,500 of public resources go with that student um and so this is not just a decision about whether the city um about whether this is revenue neutral or revenue positive or revenue negative for the city or about road improvements or um just these land use pieces this is a really important public policy decision about the kind of community that we are building here and the investment in in our public schools that i think we need to keep front and center the the majority of Durham's children of color are in our public school system over 30,000 students um 80 of them black and latinx depend on our public schools and they depend on public school funding every day for their educations especially now with covid um and all of the challenges that are that our public schools are facing increasing the number of charter schools in Durham um is a bad policy decision and so i'll be voting against this annexation to protect that 2.7 million dollars of revenue in our public district that thousands of black and brown kids depend on thank you thank you madam mayor pro tem are there any other comments by members of the council council member middleton thank you mr mayor um i want to partially associate myself with the mayor pro tem's comments um you know and i struggled with this as well um when i felt out my paperwork i felt that my paperwork to run for the city council not the school board and and i think my purview um as a decision maker for the city um takes in a lot of things and a lot of considerations um i asked specifically about uh transportation and listen full disclosure and i'm on record i have serious issues uh with charter schools um and the way that they oftentimes no actually the way that our children have been excluded have been because they got to cherry pick because of issues like transportation and and and ec services and lunch and uniform assistance um the mayor pretends to precisely write that about the money that goes to these schools but you know attached to that money is an actual person an actual child it's not just abstract money and i don't know how many ips i've sat in with parents who were struggling because their kids were being promoted and could not read um because the achievement gap and the disparate levels and suspension rates happened under our watch and it's it's it's it's so i the the place that i have negotiated in between is one or the compromise if you will that i've made um is that if you're gonna do it and and it's it they're gonna force it upon us then are you going to do what's necessary to make sure that um you don't get to use the levers that that that operationalize your exclusion which is transportation which is the lunch which is easy which are ec services uh and things of that nature um i think that uh uh uh we have to be very careful because these students are not just dps students they're citizens and residents of Durham and we are charged to look out for all of them um listen i i appreciate the the the the robust policy debate that needs to be had had about charter schools but have we not learned anything about uh uh uh making decisions and telegraphing that we are politicizing decisions that we're being capricious uh with certain decisions uh uh because we're putting them to litmus test um that i think are appropriate i'm not saying that they're not appropriate to look at those things but at the end of the day uh uh to it implicitly suggest that somehow supporting this annexation would be anti public schools anti uh children of public schools is is is just inappropriate it's it and more of it's this factually not true um the staff bracketed out and the staff bracketed out those considerations and brought to us what we are supposed to do i totally agree that we need to be making decisions uh that take into account um the greater good of the city and their decisions we've made time and time again um that i think did not take it the greater good of the city i think they took in what we thought was our best view and and the best view of the city which is what a deliberative body is about so uh upon the strength of the staff's recommendation um i will be supporting uh the annexation but i reject any notion that in supporting the annexation that that can somehow be interpreted as being uh anti dps or anti public schools i did i do not think that that logically follows from supporting it so i just wanted to to say that but i do want to associate myself with the proposition uh that we are called to act uh uh in the greater good for the greater good of the city and sometimes that's nuance sometimes that brings in a whole lot of different uh variables um and i think that this is one of those times so and i will continue to have my my problems and my objections uh uh to charter schools uh and i will continue to get to try and make decisions for this city uh based upon a full uh reading of what is good for the city and not just through the strain of of my particular ideological address so thank you mr. mayor thank you council member colleagues any other comments on this item council member carbillero yeah i will be voting no on this item um and have um many reservations around especially where it's located in consideration you know a few years ago glenn elementary which is right down the road from this school was almost taken over by the state uh there was a huge community fight to keep it within dps and i do say that i find it interesting that um the school placement is is very close to the zoned school of southern and glenn um so that's just one observation of mine i also have a lot of reservations because this is a for-profit charter company if my research is correct i should have probably asked that um and apologize and that and i think that that is a very different uh outcome than what i think historically charter schools at least began which was folks who were wanting to create spaces for pedagogical innovation and and educational innovation parents and community members um asking the state permission and it was a very different um uh process than what is now happening in the charter school space which is often for profit charters so i just wanted to share some of my reservations uh we'll be voting no um and uh thank you thank you council member any further comments colleagues all right i'll make some comments um i appreciate very much uh the presentation i especially want to thank mr d barry for being here and for your community activism sir and for what you've brought to the discussion tonight um i don't think that an annexation um a petition uh is the ideal way for these uh topics to get joined but in fact that's the one that we have in front of us uh and so uh let me just say that after thinking about this a lot i'm also going to be voting against this and let me explain why i put a lot of weight on the fact that that the Durham public schools board um is in strong opposition to this uh per the communication that we got from uh chair umstead and that the wake county board uh also board of education is also in opposition to this school and i as i say i put a lot of weight on that i think that uh i don't i have no problem with any parent making the kind of decision that they want to make that they think is best for their child i understand that we have choices out in our school system and i have you know i know so many people who've made the choice to send their kids to charter schools and uh or private schools and i understand those individual choices but i think that's different than what is the important what's what's what's the what's the policy consideration that's best for Durham and i view this um and and that's how i think we have to think about every annexation or zoning case or any item that comes with what's what's the best thing for our community and i was on the school board for four years and the way i like to think about this is each decision is what's the best outcome for the most children in the most schools over time and from that standpoint uh in general um uh let's just say it's no secret that uh i believe that charter schools have been detrimental to Durham public schools in many ways i think that they have been resegregating uh and i think that they have also really taken so much of the good parental and a professional energy out of our public schools and that that has been damaging um and this school in particular um being in the in the as this as the school board noted uh being in the right there with with glenn school with the transformation efforts underway there i think is also just in particular a problem so um i think that uh as i say this is not an ideal vehicle uh in in which these issues are joined but it is a vehicle it is it is what we are faced with and i think that i have to think about each of these decisions in terms of what's best for the most students in the most schools over time and i don't think that's approval of this annexation all right any further comments thank you mr mayor thank you um any uh if there are no further comments um there are three emotions that would be needed to approve this item the first would be to adopt an ordinance saying annex i'm sorry an ordinance annexing national heritage academies into the city of Durham is there a motion for that it's been moved by councilmember freeman and i believe second i'm not sure who seconded mayor pro tem seconded by mayor pro tem that we adopted ordinance annexing national heritage academies into the city of Durham um madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul no mayor pro tem johnson no councilmember caballero no councilmember freelon no councilmember freeman no councilmember middleton councilmember reese no thank you thank you madam clerk the motion fails one to six um and uh i appreciate thank you all for everyone who was here to uh to comment on this item tonight and madam madam attorney i don't believe we need to take up the following motions is that correct that's correct mr mayor all right thank you very much and thank you to mr k hill well now move to item 21 i'm sorry we're now moving to item 22 uh per the request of the city manager we're going to consider this one first this is item z18 00032 1700 hillondale road and uh we'll first hear the report from staff and i see mr k hill again with us yes thank you mayor shul madam mayor pro tem johnson and council members good evening alexander k hill and with the plane department and i'm still happy to be here with you um so we did receive a request for case z18 00032 for a zoning map change this was received from ed helberg and jim anthony of hill and their partners llc for a total of 14 parcels of land almost 12 acres in size look at 1700 hillondale road the applicant is proposing to change the zoning designation of the site from residential suburban 10 to plan development residential 7.838 for a maximum of 85 mixed single family townhouse units no changes proposed to the future land use map designation of medium density residential which is consistent with the rezoning request as is the neighborhood association and this is a narrative here where the neighborhood association worked closely with the applicant to find a balance between what the neighborhood needs out of this project and what would make this project feasible for the applicant as well at the august 25th pc planning commission meeting the planning commission did recommend approval of this case 11 to 0 staff also analyzed the proposed development for consistency with the comprehensive plan policies and determined that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and it does exceed applicable policies and ordinance in the udo there are two motions that are required for this application the first is to adopt a consistency statement and the second is to approve approve the rezoning request thank you very much and staff is available for any questions thank you very much mr k hill colleagues you have heard the report from staff i'm going to declare this public hearing open and first i'm going to ask if there are any questions for staff on members of the council any questions for staff on members of the council all right um hang on one second let me get to my notes here i have a question for you mr k hill it says in the memo these impacts this is concerning the construction of the southbound lane these impacts will be addressed by the construction of an exclusive southbound left turn lane on hillondale road the construction of a second northbound lane i'm sorry northbound through lane on hillondale road along the property frontage southern property line and through the coordination of city project sw 46d c attached okay so what does it mean the northbound lane northbound through lane on hillondale road along the property frontage southern property line isn't along the hillondale road is not along the southern property line of that property it's along the western uh property line is am i wrong uh that's a great question um that i can look into here in just a second and i see mr judge coming to your rescue yes bill judge transportation the uh what we were trying to describe there is that the additional lane will start at the southern property line of the site so it will be along the eastern side of the roadway but we'll run for the frontage of the site that's what i thought okay but just getting that clear thank you um i think those are my that's my only question for staff all righty um so now we will uh hear from the folks who have signed up to speak on this item i see i believe there are two people uh saundra bach and dug hodges i believe both would like to speak on this item is there anyone else who would like to speak on this item and if so could you please raise your virtual hands i see tom miller would like to speak on this item uh or put it put your name in the chat and jim anthony would like to speak on this item all right um i know that mr miller and mr anthony are both proponents um mr hodges and ms bach um are you proponents or opponents of this and maybe we could make uh make them available to be heard madam clerk dug hodges douglas hodges and saundra bach this bach i believe you can be heard now are you a proponent or an opponent of this well that's hard to say i'm i guess i'm a opponent based on traffic patterns am i proponent for the mixed used um an increase of units affordable housing um but the my concern is the traffic on hillandale which has okay knows it's a problem ms bach hang on thank you that was helpful mr hodges how about you how would you characterize your uh are you uh similar to ms bach or do you um would you characterize yourself as a proponent as a or an opponent oh mr mayo i i'm neither uh having received a registered invitation to participate in this evening's meeting i felt that uh i should voice one concern i have and my concern i have is what if the city engineers have incorrect my property where i live is two hodges hang on one second um the reason i'm asking these questions is because we have protocol about people who are proponents and opponents you will i will will hear you out in just a minute okay okay great don't worry you will get to be heard i promise you and as well ms bach um okay uh so i see that we have two speakers uh who uh are proponents mr anthony and mr miller uh and we're going to hear from them first um madam clerk will you please make mr tom miller and mr jim anthony available to be heard mr may they're both able to speak right now yes they are thank you all right um i'm going to uh mr anthony and mr miller i'm going to give you both three minutes if you need more than that uh we can we can figure that out but let's start with that if uh that uh i hope that'll be satisfactory and we'll begin with you mr anthony thank you mayor shul almost three years ago actually it might be more than that we began assembling this property along hillondale road for residential development purposes and i must say that uh the number of meetings with the neighborhoods uh yielded uh some new friendships and a lot of refinements to plans that evolved over that period of time and as we added more lots to the property uh i thought it was a really wonderful process uh i'm thankful for the neighbors complete engagement uh in the process and how we are able to come to a place where um we had our differences we worked through them uh it took time but it was really worth it and i was um and continue to be very thankful for that um level of engagement uh and i'm ready to answer any questions that might come up during this conversation so thank you for considering this and we're excited about the project thank you very much mr anthony mr miller welcome you also have three minutes um and uh if you need more we can talk about that thank you mr mayor uh i don't need hardly any time at all uh i want to make sure that the council members uh know that in addition to being an advocate for the neighborhood and the speaker in this case i also serve you on the planning commission and i've provided you with written comments uh and so and those written comments encompass everything that i would say here tonight and i won't repeat them but i am available for questions i do urge you to approve this rezoning and the next item which would be the closure of those portions of of of chesterfield sovereign and drake that are necessary to make this project possible thank you mr miller i will say that we were aware that you were a member of the planning commission thanks i think some members in this council mr miller would say that they were only two aware that you remember the planning commission we're glad to have you here tonight is in in in another capacity as well and we're eternally grateful for your work and uh for that i'm and as i say that i'm very serious thank you all right um now we'll hear uh from miss bach miss bach you also have three minutes if you need more uh we'll figure that out but go ahead and and please express yourself and any questions you might have we'll get them answered thank you mr mayor um i'll try and be succinct i appreciate mr anthony mr miller also being here because i do have questions i'm on the hillondale side of this property i'm going to consider it an adjacent property across hillondale directly across from this questionable property at 1700 i um as i've said before there's a known issue for the one mile of stretch of hillondale between i-5 and 147 that goes from four lanes to two lanes and then back to four lanes my concern is that the traffic crossing from my side of hillondale on the hillondale common side crossing hillondale into what's hillondale commons uh what's hillondale area or taking a left to go north on hillondale is quite the problem this is our only exit out of the neighborhood currently there's just a stop sign on hillondale um on indian trail no stop sign on hillondale so we are fighting all the traffic on hillondale to get either across or northbound my option that i use frequently is to turn right and go through the golf course parking lot so i can turn around and turn right again to go northbound on hillondale but that's even that's getting difficult um i'm concerned about the danger to the safety of the people in this neighborhood um as we try and get across there's been quite a few accidents there was one last week um my suggestion would be traffic pattern change uh maybe a traffic circle that would help keep traffic flowing because i know that that's an issue here but it would slow down some of the traffic uh traffic coming off 85 coming south on hillondale tend to go quite fast either that or a light um so i my suggestion would be a traffic circle or or light um otherwise i'm in opposition of expanding any any further development that affects hillondale traffic thank you thank you very much miss bach i think now we'll hear from mr hodges and then we can hear from the applicant uh or staff uh responding to your concerns mr hodges we're glad to have you uh you also have three minutes and if you need more we can figure that out mr mayer well thank you very much i'm neither an opponent or proponent of the project uh my concern is i received a registered mail uh from the city of dorham inviting me to participate in this meeting uh my property is 2520 indian trail which is the low point of the area with uh you know with significant water runoff coming down the stream over into hillondale my concern is what if the city engineers have their calculations incorrect and and what would the recourse be if there is flooding on my property uh again i not a proponent or uh opponent just would like to know what my recourse would be if the engineers have the numbers incorrect thank you very much mr hodges um i'm going to ask uh staff first if there's someone here who could answer mr hodges question i think that um miss box question might better be addressed by the applicant uh miss young welcome could you answer mr hodges question certainly um i will i will start by saying that um i'm not a stormwater expert um so i can only tell you the bit that i know um which is that um the developers engineers are required to design and sign and seal um their calculations their designs for the property to make sure that they comply with applicable um regulations regarding stormwater and runoff etc um and that public works staff review those to ensure that they are active it goes through a fairly rigorous review i do know that um in the event that there is um uh flooding that exceeds expectations it could be for a number of reasons again i'm not an expert but i know that our stormwater folks in the public works department um work with folks all the time when there are um unanticipated um consequences one of the biggest challenges we know is that while new development does design to current modern stormwater standards old development um that predates that doesn't and so you can still experience additional flooding as a result of new development but not necessarily because of any design flaws um mostly because of existing conditions so i would say um that in the event that something should happen um the city would work with and here i am volunteering our public work staff but i know that they do this um on a daily, weekly, monthly basis is they try and work with folks in the community to find solutions to problems um even when they're on private property thank you miss yang i think it would also be beneficial for mr hodges uh if we could either hear from mr k hill or from the applicant about the stormwater treatment that is planned for this property yeah i think we can both jump in let me just add so this was a concern that the neighbor had throughout the process and something they worked very closely on with to add as a tax commitment to the development plan um so in the development plan you can see their items elements number 14 and 13 addresses but it was really designed so that the stormwater control measures for the project should be designed so there's no increase in the peak flow for the 100 year 24 hour storm and this is for downstream of the site um so this was to help protect residents such as Doug Hodges um and others um and if the applicant wants to jump in as well does the applicant have anything that they would like to add uh mr anthony other than what mr k hill has said regarding the stormwater i will simply say that having been through uh the stormwater review process with uh the city i can assure mr hodges and anyone else listening that it they are quite rigorous in uh how uh deep old that they are when they're examining the calculations and the measures that are taken to protect downstream properties so we have to go through that process when we come in with the site plan so in addition to making these commitments when the site plan comes in for review uh it's it's got a fine tooth comb that's coming at it thank you mr anthony uh mr Hodges i'm going to also suggest that um you be in touch uh with mr k hill uh after the meeting and he can put it i was looking at the folks on this call no one from our stormwater departments on this call but i think it would be beneficial for you to be able to talk to them and mr k hill could you uh communicate with mr Hodges and make that possible for him yes sir all right um mr Hodges let me ask do you have any further questions uh yeah i don't have a question mr mayer um i am just very very concerned uh the property is on a low point there i appreciate that we've had experts and i respect uh the professionalism of everybody on this call and in this meeting uh but i am going on record is expressing my major concern uh for flooding in this area understood and appreciate that um i'm going to ask mr k hill to reach out to you to get you in touch with someone in stormwater particularly who you can talk to further about that thank you mr mayer um mr k hill can you do that yes sir thank you um now i'm going to uh also uh ask either staff or the applicant to respond to the concerns of miss box this box concerns were of a different nature they had to do with the traffic uh on hillandale road especially where she comes out of her neighborhood which i can attest is incredibly difficult uh entry onto hillandale road uh and so uh her concern is that this is only going to make that worse and so uh my my uh could i ask either the applicant or mr k hill to respond mr ansy would you like to respond i see you're unmuted there sure i will lead off um we heard these concerns uh quite clearly uh beginning three years ago in our meetings with the neighbors in fact part of why the uh request to close these roads was made on behalf of the neighborhood and we agreed to it was the very concern that has been raised that the traffic coming into that particular intersection at indian trail uh was um it didn't need any help at all to get backed up down there and so to keep our traffic on hillandale road we have one point of access significantly to the north of the indian trail intersection and it is a right in only access so traffic coming out of our neighborhood is required to turn right and then go north to do a left turn up on those super street turns that are to the north of interstate 85 so i i want to reassure the folks that live in the neighborhood that i affectionately call the circle neighborhood uh that the um there will not be any additional burden placed on the indian trail uh intersection because all of our traffic has to go north in addition to that uh there will be widening of the road to accommodate the left turn into our community coming to the south um and uh and the um additional lane being constructed along hillandale road on the uh eastern border of hillandale road thank you mr anthony mr k hill do you have anything you would like to add yeah i'll just add that the this is one if if you had time to look at the development plan tax commitments this is one of the more robust cases we've had where the applicant really worked to address these concerns in terms of traffic mitigation strategies and if you look there are at least seven tax commitments that work to address this i just want to remind the honorable council members that these are in excess of the current unified development ordinance standards that the applicant has decided to proffer in the development plan to work to address and mitigate these concerns thank you mr k hill miss bach do you have any further questions yeah um thank you so much i i'm curious um for mr anthony whose voice is just spectacular um did you did you have a chance to work with the hillandale commons president and i don't even know who that is i i'm embarrassed to say i'm kind of new to Durham so forgive me uh the answer to that is no we did not and um that wasn't by any particular decision just just didn't happen thank you miss bach any further questions i guess um just quickly uh a question to mr miller i i know mr miller is very active in our community and i appreciate everything that he does um mr miller did you happen to reach out to the hillandale commons president oh certainly um we had a neighborhood committee that worked on this uh and then we held several gosh probably four larger neighborhood meetings um and then uh for three years i think we published long articles in our neighborhood newsletter 11 of those uh to keep everybody informed and of course one of the issues has always been with this piece of property is is that you've got these 12 acres back in there uh that have attracted a great deal of attention from the commercial development community and and we have resisted all the attempts to uh rezone and develop the property for motels and fast food restaurants and and office complexes all of which would generate much higher traffic volumes than uh the residential uh component that we ultimately agreed to so i think that our approach to uh settling the the future of this property has always been defined an appropriately sized and appropriate uh a residential development of appropriate density keeping in mind that a function of density is traffic generation it is a difficult problem we have been uh with hillandale commons uh to the north carolina department of transportation on a number of occasions to talk about uh controlling traffic at indium trail in hillandale then of course they've told us that there uh they use a term called warrants there isn't enough traffic on indium trail under their standards to justify a traffic light um and but ultimately it is a traffic light i think that isn't going to become necessary in order to have um uh a safe ingress ingress um there i'm i'm not sure where ultimately we will go um we do have to see this although the the traffic generated by this project is an issue i mean but ultimately this property uh canon uh should be developed and we feel that of all the possible ways it might be developed in the future this is the best best way to develop it and this is an opportunity that we can't pass up now um but i do realize that it's a problem especially during peak hours i use that intersection myself on a regular basis thank you very much mr miller miss buck i also want to add uh probably six or eight years ago uh your neighborhood did a great job advocating for a traffic signal uh but again dot uh denied that and said that there was not enough uh traffic there for the light uh but of course that could change all right uh thank you all very much uh for the the the the uh people who were here to discuss this and i want to now ask is there anyone here else here present who would like to be heard on the side all righty uh i don't see any i do have a couple of questions uh for the applicant um the memo refers on several occasions to the hillandale road bike head path is being completed in 2021 this is actually for staff as well i believe however that that project because of dot funding has now been put back is that correct um mr judge that is correct the uh the project's sort of in a holding pattern at the moment waiting to go to right away acquisition for mcdot to authorize additional funding so uh it will not be it will not probably go to construction in 2021 we don't have a exact date at this point but but it yeah it's likely not to make that date is it mr judge is it one of the projects that was put back to 2028 uh it is not yet the uh so this one is sort of frozen um it has not had an updated schedule adjustment yet the uh it's in the next round of priorities that we've asked to be unfrozen i guess um it's primarily federal funding that that the state has and as you know it's a long complicated way that they allocate that funding that's holding it up at the moment okay thanks i was just uh if it'd been one of those that later tier i was going to have another question for the for the applicant but i appreciate that uh bpac uh referred to a question for the developer about safety considerations as their driveway entrance crosses the eventual bike path bike path that's going to be built there and i would wonder if the applicant could comment on um the uh any discussions about that that have been held or any thoughts that you might have about how to make that exit safe for people on that path certainly uh it is our intention that the exit and entrance onto hillndale road will be marked very clearly with the bike crossing bike and pedestrian crossings there will be there is a sidewalk there today and um that sidewalk obviously will have to be cut out and replaced but the um there will be very clear markings um and most likely additional signage on top of the um usual stop signs that you would see at a corner identifying the crossing that is going to be there forever and there's actually a fair number of walkers on that sidewalk so we if we absolutely are committed to protecting um those those folks on bikes and on feet safely thank you all right colleagues any other questions all righty uh if not i'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is now back before the council we would need two motions we'll first will be to adopt the consistency statement so moved is there a second moved by council member freeman seconded by mayor pro tem johnson to adopt the consistency statement madam clerk please call the roll mayor schuall aye mayor pro tem johnson aye council member caballero hi council member freelon hi council member freeman hi council member middleton have a lie council member riz hi thank you thank you madam clerk the eyes have at the motion passes unanimously the second motion will be to adopt an ordinance amending the udo so moved second moved by council member riz seconded by mayor pro tem johnson madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor schuall aye mayor pro tem johnson aye council member caballero hi council member freelon hi council member freeman hi council member middleton have a lie council member riz hi thank you thank you madam clerk the eyes have at the motion passes unanimously i want to thank miss bach and mr. Hodges for being here and expressing your concerns which are very important concerns um and i want to thank uh the applicant and the neighborhood uh for working so long and hard together to come to a conclusion that the planning commission could actually support 11 to nothing well i won't say this is unheard of i'll just say that's unusual and i want to express my gratitude uh for you all for having these difficult discussions and coming up uh with with with just with something that both the neighborhood and the applicant uh could could support so thank you mr mayor yes council member before we move off this item i just wanted to say a special word thanks to commissioner miller uh whose service to the city um is something we all appreciate i know in addition to serving on the planning commission he's active in other civic and community organizations but i just wanted to take a special moment to say how grateful i am for his work in in kind of bridging the gap between the developer here and the folks who live in this neighborhood um and the very forthright way he explained how this process unfolded and what he saw is the benefits to the agreement that they reached with the neighborhoods in his written comments as i've often said i don't necessarily always agree with commissioner miller's written comments or the positions he takes from like on the planning commission but i always find them well reasoned thoughtful and and they always helped me understand the issues that that come before us and so when we don't have a written comments for whatever reason from commissioner miller i find my own personal consideration of these types of items is always poorer for it and so i just wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you to commissioner miller not only for your broader service to the community but also for your work on the specific project and getting to any answer that we can all live with thank you mr mayor thank you very much let me second those thoughts and say that even if i don't agree with mr miller's comments they give me something really powerful to argue with so thank you very much councilmember for those comments all right we'll now move to item 21 z 18 0 0 1 3 chest of fuel avenue street closing staff has recommended that we take up after the last item for obvious reasons uh and i see mr others is here to uh to uh to uh start us off good evening thank you i'm Emily struthers of the planning department presenting trustor field avenue street closing case sc 18 0 0 0 1 3 a noting a correction to the agenda where the case letter should be sc rather than z for the street closing um ed helberg i want you to know mr others that i caught that no no i actually i didn't i just uh ed helberg with the anthony and company with anthony and company request to permanently close chester field avenue and portions of drake avenue and sovereign street west of tampa avenue the total area of requested closure encompasses 77 768 square feet and is currently unimproved the streets proposed for closing are within the area of the 1700 hillndale rezoning case which was just heard if this rezoning is sorry if this request is approved the closed right of way acreage will be added to adjacent parcels owned by hillndale partners llc as shown on the street closing platt attachment for the platt also proposes san terry sewer easements and recombination of blocks this request to close chester field avenue and portions of drake avenue and sovereign street west of tampa avenue meet applicable ordinance requirements the staff recommendation pursuant to north carolina general statute 160 a-299 a street closing should not be approved by council if the proposed closing is contrary to the public interest however staff recommends approval of the request to close the 77 768 square feet of chester field avenue thick avenue and sovereign street following the recently recommended rezoning for the hillndale case staff is available for any questions on the street closing request thank you thank you very much mr others colleagues you have heard the report from staff and i'm now going to declare this public hearing open i see that mr anthony has signed up to speak on this item mr anthony would you like to be heard mr anthony sorry about that that's all right so very briefly the streets that are subject to this closure request are in fact in the middle of the neighborhood they were never built the neighborhood really didn't want them to be built and we're waiting for a project like ours to come along so that they could be closed and we actually closed the stubs to these streets um like two years ago and uh so that piece has done the streets actually don't go anywhere now and um for for the reasons that we discussed earlier uh we wanted to make certain that the that this new project only exited onto hillondale road so thank you for your consideration thank you mr anthony this is a public hearing is there anyone else present who would like to be heard on this item if so could you please make yourself please raise your virtual hands or let us know in the chat i don't see anyone else and so i'll now declare this public hearing closed and the matter is back before the council we'll take one motion to approve this to adopt in order permanent closing the Chesterfield Avenue madam i'm sorry council member freeman thank you mr mayer before i make the motion i just wanted to know to comment and just saying that this is a a great example of undoing um the harm of placing a street over a stream buffer and the thing that this is the type of work that we're i'm hoping that we'll get to and having some of our small area planning conversations because there there have been some um i guess some decisions that have been made in the past based on i guess limited understanding or limited information that i would love to see correct it thank you and i'd like to make a motion to close the street thank you council member i'm sorry i heard a second but i'm not sure who from second mayor pro tem was moved by council member freeman seconded by mayor pro tem johnson that we adopted in order permanently closing uh 77,768 linear feet of Chesterfield Avenue madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul i mayor pro tem johnson i council member caballero i council member freelon i council member freeman i council member middleton i vote i council member east i thank you thank you madam clerk the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously uh we'll now move to item 23 unified development ordinance text amendment various amendment related to affordable housing the pdr district in the falls jordan lake district a watershed uh and we will first hear uh report from our staff thank you very much mr mayor uh michael stock with the planning department um text amendment tc 19 0004 is a privately initiated request by uh again mr jim anthony um to amend provisions of the unified development ordinance regarding the affordable housing bonus the plan density residential or pdr zoning district requirements uh some parking standards the definition of family and uses within the fall falls jordan district a watershed overlay i do want to note a few uh noteworthy things for this request uh the application has gone through some changes the application provided in the agenda packet reflects the one initially submitted to the planning commission um during planning commission hearings it was revised by the applicant to remove proposed changes to open space and tree coverage areas thus they are not they were not considered by the planning commission's final recommendation and are also not before you tonight the second change involves the two versions in front of you tonight um there's an applicant version in attachment c1 and a planning commission recommended version in c2 it's a little bit different than what you've normally seen in the past uh the applicant has actually accepted uh predominantly most of the planning commission recommendations except for two items i'm just going to walk through those quickly with you um and those two items represent the only differences between the two versions uh the first is that the applicant is maintaining uh his request to remove minimum parking requirements for only four affordable housing units and a suburban tier uh the pc version did not recommend that and thus it is not found within uh their proposed changes and secondly the applicant maintains a request to amend the definition of family from three to six unrelated persons where the pc version recommends a change from three to five again those are the only two differences between the two versions and also council may also wish to adopt a different version if it so chooses but um we don't want to make things too complicated um it's late in the night uh the planning commission did recommend approval 11 to three of the planning commission version on august 11th as a reminder two actions are requested first is the statement of consistency found within your agenda pack and then the ordinance for adoption either tatrin a tatrin c1 c2 or if there happens to be a separate version uh thank you and um the applicant is available uh and is in attendance tonight thank you very much um mr stock uh you all have heard the report from staff and i'm now going to declare this public hearing open but first i saw a comment i saw a i've got it i received a note from uh miss yong uh that this is miss struthers last meeting that she's leaving us miss young would you like to make some comments we've so appreciated miss struthers work yes thank you mayor um and i didn't want to interrupt the meeting but i didn't want uh miss struthers to leave without an acknowledgement of her dedicated service um to the department to the city um for being at many many meetings presenting to you all and i wanted to publicly thank her um for her service with us thank you and i want to agree very much yes applause is definitely warranted uh we've really appreciated you miss druthers thank you so much i hope that you're going on to something wonderful um we're going to certainly miss you in the city of durham um and thank you so much for your service we really appreciate you thank you so much i've enjoyed my time here great all right um we're now back to our business and um the the public hearing is open and i um i don't see anyone who has signed up to speak on this item but let me ask is there i'm sorry i do i'm wrong i see mr anthony yes uh who's the applicant in this case is there anyone else here who would like to speak on item 23 i see mr harman is here as well is there anyone else who would like to speak on item 23 all right um i'm i'm going to uh and mr miller okay we have three people who would like to speak on this item um um mr harman uh i see that you're you can be heard can i ask first of all if you characterize yourself as an opponent or proponent of this on this item or whether your uh you have a more complicated uh view of this i'm a proponent all right thank you mr harman um okay um um and mr miller uh how would you characterize your uh your position here from thinking through about uh speaking time uh mr mayor i was the chairman of the committee of the planning commission that drew the report that appears in your packet yes you were an opportunity to read that those are the comments that i'd ask i make myself available for your questions all right thank you that's perfect thank you all right colleagues um we're first going to hear um from mr anthony and then mr harman and i'm going to offer each of them three minutes and if you need more than that we can talk about it mr anthony would you like to get started madam clerk could you make mr anthony available to be heard there we go so thank you mayor schul and counselors um a little bit about the genesis of this uh list of requests uh some of you know well you certainly do now that i've been working on many different properties throughout the city and i was encountering um roadblocks uh in the unified development ordinance that we're impeding our ability to get uh projects approved and um projects that i think uh the city really needs uh that would increase the housing stock and the particular type of product that i wanted to develop is a co-living product that is going to dramatically enhance the accessibility of of brand new really attractive housing options for a broad audience at prices that are affordable and when i went to my meetings with the planning staff they would tell me well we can't do that because the udo doesn't allow it and we can't do that and and i said well how do we address that do i need to do a special use permit the recommendation came back and this was a year and a half ago maybe two what we started on this well we think that you ought to consider amending the ordinance and so that was the path that we chose and um and we actually found that there was broad support and i think tom will talk to this for the vast majority of the items that were suggested some inequities for example between the urban and the suburban tier just little things like you had to have at least four acres to do a pdr rezoning which really made no sense at all to do infill sites less than four acres in the in the suburbs seems to make a lot of sense to increase the housing stock yet you were not allowed to use pdr if you didn't have four acres so we went through a series of things and they are sitting before you if you have the patience to read through them um the net was that there were a couple of things uh with respect to um open space and and uh tree coverage uh items that we negotiated to take out of our request because there was um opposition to uh reducing uh open space and tree coverage in a couple of situations that we requested and so those were removed as you heard earlier and and let me just stop with my two items that i didn't change were very close on five unrelated parties versus six but i believe that the city of Durham has many different residences um scattered throughout the city where there is no compliance with the current three unrelated parties rule and that raising the unrelated parties rule to six would actually make it possible for um homeowners or um apartment owners uh to increase the occupancy of their units and their of their buildings and thereby uh facilitate a reduction in the rent per person uh so that i still am believer that um that the six person cap will have the effect of facilitating um more housing in infill properties so um i would ask that you consider raising it to six one of the things that was an obstacle was recognizing the North Carolina State Building Code had a five person cap uh even though cities like Charlotte had a had raised their cap to six technically they were violating the North Carolina Building Code so when i found out about that i went to the North Carolina Building Code uh through the Department of Insurance and made application to change the North Carolina Code and it has been approved now so um it's now six unrelated parties in any um dwelling so the second thing that um uh we had a disagreement about uh at the planning commission was over the issue of whether a parking could be exempt new parking spaces be exempted in the situation where affordable housing units were being developed legally defined affordable housing units defined as per the UDO and i think the pushback came from wait a minute uh poor folks should be able to have a parking space too and there was a misunderstanding at that point that i didn't seem to be able to break through in the conversation that ensued uh that in actuality we're simply asking for a reduction in the required parking spaces and parking spaces are not assigned in apartment communities so you know the the affordable units don't go without a parking space it just means that there's not additional spaces burdening the cost of the project as many of you probably know most apartment communities have more parking than they need because they are built to meet a parking code that uh addressed a world that existed 10 years ago but today the number of cars uh that are being used by individuals is actually shrinking there's more and more ride sharing uh and um and folks using alternative modes of transportation and we want to encourage people to use um a mass transit and alternative modes of transportation including ride sharing and so um not having to build parking spaces which simply adds to the cost of building units uh enhances the ability to create affordable housing so i i dug my heels in on that one too and i would ask that you would uh stand with me on that uh the planning commission uh disagreed and uh so you can decide here tonight how you feel about it that's my thoughts and thanks for listening thank you mr anthony i gave you a lot more than three minutes but i thought we needed to hear that and appreciate it um now we'll hear from mr harman mr harman welcome you have three minutes if you need more we can figure that out thank you mayor um my name is scott harman i live in uh downtown Durham and um i want to thank you mayor mayor pro tem and members of council for letting me speak tonight about the definition of family i don't think a progressive city should concern itself with how we define family or home i don't trust the underlying systems of racial and class oppression that created zoning a hundred years ago and which still in my opinion give affluent white communities a disproportionate influence over housing policy our definition of family looks like an attempt to keep certain kinds of families out of our neighborhoods and i think it's wrong i think the current family definition is too restrictive there are thousands of builders landlords homeowners tenants and practitioners like myself that are responding to the housing crisis in innovative ways we should encourage this instead our planning process has become the defender of the privileged status quo if we want to solve the housing crisis in Durham we have to stop talking about what we can't build and start talking about what we can build but the best reason to allow six humans to create a family and legally occupy a home is that the leaders and activists in each Durham asked you to last year you passed the expanding housing choices initiative after leaders in eastern organized with building practitioners like myself to carefully negotiate the right balance of innovation incentive and protection the neighborhoods wanted the family definition changed them staff and council were supportive but asked us to bring the issue back rather than further complicating and delaying EHC so i'm here tonight to remind everyone of this lingering loose end to expanding housing choices and ask you to allow six humans to create a family and a home if they want to i also want to put in a plug for the uh reduction of the parking requirements there are eight parking spaces created in this country for every passenger automobile automobile i think that statistic speaks for itself and it's time for us to get serious about sustainability and walkability by stop requiring parking to dominate our projects thank you for your time and item for letting me speak i appreciate it very much thank you very much mr harman we're glad to have you with us all right i believe that we have heard from everyone who is here to speak on this item mr miller's comments as he said are he chaired the committee of the planning commission whose recommendation is the planning commission adopted and of course we have those uh those comments in our packet um colleagues i'll now ask if there are any questions uh for staff uh or the applicant by members of the council council member freeman thank you mr mayor i appreciate uh the i guess the detail the details that were added tonight i know i raised the issue at our work session about the housing um or the tent the housing for families being increased to six and i appreciate mr harman's point and i do agree that that is hugely been an issue but i've also noted that i i would really like to hear if there are studies that reflect what was stated because i've seen the opposite occur um and pricing for apartments and communities across the country and so i'm really hopeful that there is something that reflects something different and um that mr anthony or mr harman could share that if they have it thank you very much council member um mr anthony mr harman or any member of the staff like to comment on council member freeman's uh question i'll go first and simply say that uh i do not have any hard data studies that i can share with you i'm sure that i can find them uh i i know intuitively and from my day-to-day research as someone who's been in commercial state for over 41 years i see this trend of uh parking space uh use reduction uh in office buildings and apartment communities um there are certainly some shopping centers that get you know restaurants and bars and other types of users that have very heavy parking uh that spills into adjacent properties at times but i don't see that happening with uh apartment communities uh i don't see it happening with office buildings um it's uh it's interesting just a quick story the 1990s building office buildings with five spaces per thousand square feet was all the rage because everybody was going to move into cubes and um they never ever filled up those parking lots uh it was it was just almost an unseen thing and so there's these vast parking fields uh completely undisustainable as scott said but there they are and we have them all around us and and in durham i see vast numbers of apartment communities where the number of residents who live in the bedrooms match up but there are certainly as as we just heard um there are other situations where they're doubling up uh folks in uh bedrooms uh that that does burden uh apartment properties and uh they're out there i'm not going to say they don't exist that's that's that would be a lie um but uh it is it is the exception rather than the rule particularly for those that are building uh new uh that have professional management and they don't allow um you know lots of people to live and pack in bedrooms thank you miss yon would you like to add something yes thank you we did look into this issue after the work session um and we're also did not turn up um any conclusive data one way or the other we have with us tonight um Karen Lado from community development as our um resident expert who can provide a little more um if nothing else anecdotal um context for what she's seen so i'll see if Karen wouldn't mind uh talking for a moment there we go welcome is Lado thank you very much mayor shul um Karen Lado assistant director community development um and i really wanted to speak and um as director young said really anecdotally to the issue of um the impact of um increasing the family size which i believe is one of the concerns that council member freeman had articulated unfortunately i do not also i do not have good data i did some research to try to see if i could come across data on the impact of um co-living and family size on um housing prices and i was not able to to come across anything what i can say is that in some ways this is an example of undoing things that we have done um there used to not be a requirement on family size and we used to have things like rooming houses and boarding houses that now in their in their modern um um incarnation are now called co-living arrangements or shared housing arrangements and this is a a missing part in our housing stock um certainly that we feel very much in the affordable arena um we have a great um interest in the community development department in supporting um some of these shared housing arrangements to serve very low income people including formerly homeless people folks living on um disability income um and we've been very limited in our ability to do that because we um currently with the family size at three projects just don't work um they simply can't gain enough rent um for it to be viable even as an affordable housing product for it to to um to function or especially as an affordable housing product for it to function and so if we see it from the affordable housing protective that it would be valuable to have the ability to do a larger number of people in a home as a way of providing of really replicating what used to exist and then was kind of zoned out of existence um I would also just make a point that um one person households constitute a very large portion of the Durham population it's about a third of all households in Durham are one person households um I cannot say it because the census don't cut the data um this way what the proportion of low income people is who are one person households I can say that when you look at the very um low end of folks who are struggling with homelessness that over 70 percent of our homeless households are one person households um so it or non-family households in general so um there is a need for a shared housing product um there is a concern in certain neighborhoods where there will be demand that this will drive up prices because you could potentially make more money renting by bedroom than you could renting the entire home and that's that that's very much of an economic possibility I think um as Mr. Harmon noted on or Mr. Anthony that's probably already happening in in a number of neighborhoods as well it's just um kind of masked under only three people on the lease so it's a challenging issue to decide but I would I would just know from an affordable housing perspective this is something that we see as potentially a valuable tool thank you Mayor Schultz. Thank thank you um Karen Lotto I I appreciate that because it highlights I guess what so what is concerning and you do give very good context I would like to note that without having any type of tenant rights or tenant associations I'm not sure how this will impact folks on the lower end of the spectrum I understand that based on the comment that uh that I think it was Mr. Anthony May that the increased occupancy will create um could create for for landlords that were interested an opportunity to lower the cost is there anything in there that you think could drive in that direction I guess is what I'm so so yes because you know what what will happen is that um what can happen is that even though the overall cost of the building is higher in some cases the cost to an individual household is lower because you're now having more households in that building um you know the price is is it going to be possible you know for everybody to live in highly desirable areas no those are those are places where the per-unit cost the co-living arrange especially if we get the luxury buildings you know the luxury those are not going to be affordable but those neighborhoods in their entirety are probably not affordable now and they're certainly not trending affordable so the question really becomes in other neighborhoods does this become a vehicle or does this legitimize what is already happening because these arrangements already exist in a lot of neighborhoods and in some ways allow tenants then at least the rights that currently exist under law because they are now legal they're not they're not you know they're not at risk just by even reporting a violation um but it's a I mean councilmember Freeman it is attention and I and as I said I don't have data to say is the the benefit that outweigh the benefit of being able to house more people and lower the individual's cost even if it raises the overall revenue that the owner of the property makes the individual costs or does that outweigh the the pressure on prices I don't think we have data on that I what I can say is that there is a growing focus on shared housing arrangements as a way of meeting the needs of very low-income households particularly of one person households because we simply cannot afford to build the number of units that are going to be needed to you know if we think about them as studio one benefits this is never going to happen um so this is a way of providing decent quality housing at a price point that we otherwise can't reach thank you I appreciate that thanks thank you councilmember and thank you miss lotto thanks sir miss lotto you didn't um you didn't give us an opinion on the five versus six question um do you have an opinion on the five versus six question looks staff is is recommending uh you know supporting this do you have any thoughts you want to offer um I obviously simply from a very narrow vantage point of affordable housing um when there is sufficient space in the building to put six people it will be economically more sustainable um when you're trying to to house very low-income people to be able to do six rather than five thank you all right um other questions for staff or the applicant by members of the council okay I have a few um I want to start by thanking the planning commission committee that worked with the staff and the applicant to come up with a mutually agreeable solution to most of these issues we do have the two outstanding issues here but I do want to just appreciate that you all were really able to come together on most of the issues there before us and I thank you for that because I know that this started out as quite a there's a lot in here um this covers a big piece of ground um I also want to appreciate the applicant for withdrawing the proposals for reducing freak tree coverage in open space I understand that this proposal and on the proposals here are all motivated by the applicants has mentioned further reduce the cost of uh of housing endure I mean to try to create a truly low-cost product which is laudable and important uh but as Mr. Anthony knows when we first began talking I made clear from the get-go that I believe that open spaces and trees are critical to the quality of life we want for all of our residents and we can't compromise on that so I appreciate the fact that those are no longer in this proposal and I think what we have before us is absolutely excellent and we are down to these two remaining issues uh the two areas where the applicant and the planning commission majority differ as as we've been discussing one the elimination of parking requirement uh and the two is the applicant's proposal but the number I'll be allowed to live in one house from three to six while the committee prefers the Mr. Ross from three to five so let me ask if the staff um staff on page four of the memo states his preference for the applicant's position about parking parking requirement can we hear a little bit more uh from the staff on that sorry trying to unmute um always seems to be a problem um yeah it's been well documented and and council has over the years removed the impediment of mandatory minimum parking requirements for affordable housing units it started with the compact neighborhood tier and then it slowly expanded to the urban tier and then the request um uh that Mr. Anthony brought forward for just including it also in the suburban tier seemed reasonable um because it's really focusing on those affordable housing units uh as defined in the UDA we're not we're not talking about uh somebody just claiming up it's an affordable unit I don't have to provide any parking um parking is a cost factor in development um and Karen can can correct me if I'm wrong but I know that um they struggle with with state funded projects of getting parking requirements reduced even for those two uh to remove to reduce the costs uh for parking um they take a lot of money and they take up a lot of space that could otherwise go for units um so uh the the concerns that were raised not quite sure understanding the concerns that were raised by the planning commission for not um allowing it to just extend into suburban tier um we did we did suggest that if if you wanted some sort of compromise that that um the projects that were located within a quarter or a half mile of mass transit stops would be a reasonable compromise if there was some concern of a of a subsidized affordable housing unit that was placed somewhere away from mass transit I can't think of that ever happening there hasn't been one that I'm aware of um that we don't get that many anyway and they're usually located more in the urban or downtown uh locations um but that's that's generally our stance thank you Mr. Stock I see Mr. Miller has his hand up Mr. Miller would you like to comment on this um item on this on this aspect of this item certainly thank you Mr. Mayor I can tell you our concern was is not whether or not projects that include affordable housing have reduced parking no one objected to that it was as written the proposal would allow a developer to reduce the parking uh uh or eliminate the parking requirement for the affordable units while providing parking for the market units that's what we objected to and now if there was a way to rewrite this provision to say that an overall reduction was allowed but that you couldn't uh uh you couldn't discriminate against the affordable units by eliminating their parking or treating their parking rights differently than the than the market units uh if you could if you could fix it that way I believe everybody on the committee and the planning commission would have supported it and I'm aware of projects that do include uh more affordable units even if they don't meet the definition necessarily of affordability in Durham uh in the urban tier where in fact the one of the economies achieved for affordability for those units is that they have no parking while market rate units in the same project uh do have parking and uh well that might be practical in the urban tier where there is usually pretty ready access to public transit and the suburban tier we were afraid that you would wind up with people who would be essentially have no park could have no parking uh and would either wind up parking their car somewhere away or uh essentially be in constant conflict with management of the project over parking where they uh wouldn't park uh and this thing does happen uh I experienced it in my professional career as an advocate for uh housing consumers with the Attorney General's office. Thank you Mr. Miller. As I understand this conversation uh Mr. Miller and Mr. Anthony are actually in substantial agreement on this it seems like more of a wording issue than it does as I understood you Mr. Anthony you said that uh you I endorse what Tom just said that that you were you were in favor of of of having uh that that the that the parking spaces would be available to everyone whether or not they were in the affordable units or in the market rate units and as I understood Mr. Miller he is also in favor of that. We are good to go. We're not good to go because I think there's some concern about the wording. Yes and if I may Mr. Mayor that's exactly right and because this the work of this committee was COVID caught we ran out of time to do word smithing um and if there were a way to add that language either now or at some point in the future I know that the heartburn associated with this would completely go away. Thank you well this has been helpful um I'm going to uh Ms. Lotto. Yes sir I it's a temporary measure I did want to um note that um this applies to units that meet the affordable housing definition in the UDO. Typically that is going to be units that are um proposing to use the affordable housing density bonus. Those units in order to use the affordable housing density bonus um will have to execute a contract with the community development department and we will not allow for parking discrimination or any other access um any other discrimination access to amenities um in any projects that are using the bonus. I recognize that doesn't cover the universe of of cases but it does cover the ones that are coming through right now. Thank you that's very helpful. All right colleagues I'm going to let us all cogitate on that one for a little bit. I think we have a lot of unity if we can get the language right so why don't we move now to uh if there are any questions uh on the especially uh on the well any other questions at all especially on the five versus six people uh or any other concerns that colleagues want to raise I'm not trying to limit your questions. Any other questions at this point um all right I think we've had a lot of good discussion uh Ms Young could you uh pop up on the screen here thank you uh I think that uh the council needs to make a decision on the five versus six I think we've heard on that I mean I understand that a proposal has been floated that we allow only five and a half people but that doesn't seem to be that wise the um but we do have here sorry Mayor Pro Tem she gave me she gave me the the chop uh you know the later it gets the worst my joke gets that's I was chopping an imaginary person in half so that we could max out the the number yeah thank you yeah that's a bad idea. Mr Mayor the lightness of the hour does not thank for your sense of humor that's not thank you yeah I know sorry um Ms Young uh I think you heard uh Mr Anthony and Mr Miller uh I have substantial agreement if we can get the wording right do you have any suggestions in terms of the uh wording for the parking yeah yeah um I think we can clarify that um and this is actually our practice and probably something that we should clarify across the board which is that parking in terms of UDL calculations is not assigned so anytime that we allow folks through the existing measures to reduce their parking by not having to provide parking for affordable units we already do not assign it so we can clarify that um generically but I can tell you that it's my interpretation as the planning director that that is how it functionally works okay so if you're comfortable with that moving forward um I would suggest that we proceed and then in a future omnibus for uh for clarity's sake we can we can make that clear but the long-standing interpretation of the application of that all right that's helpful and I bet you Mr Miller will hold you to that should we pass this tonight um would that come back during mic stock yes okay great um colleagues any more questions or comments for staff just one I just want to know if a review of I guess those units that were mentioned earlier would also come before mic stock or come in with mic stock all right but there was there was a note uh I made a note that uh apparently there were some that weren't I guess that that are not currently fitting in and if that was known I wanted to know if this was something we were tracking could I get clarity on that one I'm still missing absolutely explain a little bit more council member sorry are we tracking family units and any planning or zoning or development or any other department so where would that even be so I will say that it's one of the most challenging aspects of applying a rule like this um which causes us um a lot of difficulty from a zoning enforcement standpoint um and um I will say that um professionally I do not think we need to be in the business of tracking family units as a planning department and with that said I think we're leaning more towards I'm leaning more towards the six I want to be clear thank you council member um okay uh colleagues thank you if there are no more questions um we will I will declare this public hearing closed um I'm going to make sure that I'm sorry council member Middleton I did it again I'm sorry no it's okay it's okay thank you um I actually just wanted to I also lean more towards six as well I wanted to just give a word of commendation I was I was pretty excited when this was first presented to me um strengthening this notion of kind of codifying the dormitory uh approach and communal living of black and latino folk were doing this for years we've been having an extended family on the one roof for generations this is how we got over um shout out to Asian families to do it as well so so I think this is a wonderful way that many of our people have survived through the years unofficially it's good to see it coming into the light and being codified so um certainly whatever wordsmithing we need to do um will do but but I I am excited about this this proposition action this initiative and I'm leaning more towards six as well um that's how we grew up thank you thank you council member let me see if I can try to define where we are with some help from Ms. Young Ms. Young the proposal we have before us includes the uh the parking language that we've discussed and it includes the six uh people as the limit that's if we vote for this we're voting for the six person limit is that correct going to jump in go ahead Mike I think I'm sorry I'm sorry that's okay that's okay that's okay options right so uh option c1 which is the applicants version would cover everything that the planning commission recommended plus it includes the parking eliminating the minimum parking requirement and includes six that's c1 I'm sorry I didn't I didn't realize that now look at the motion I understand it thank you thank you and c2 uh includes doesn't include the parking requirements and includes five is that correct that is correct all right okay thank you um colleagues any more comments uh before we uh the councilman Freeman just really quickly I just wanted to hear from um Karen Lotto if there was any thoughts she had about maybe setting up uh resource I guess like around making sure that folks weren't I know that the housing discrimination um I think I think office sits in nis yes or fair housing and I just wanted to make sure that there was resources that could line up or if there aren't any resources if we need to line up resources to make sure that if there is um someone who's been pushed out of the unit because they're not at or will have you like some way to make sure that we're there's a there's going to be a gap in there of when we were or when we have six and when we don't have six and just making sure that there's some overlay in uh preventing anyone from losing their house and that's all um so thank you Karen Lotto community development um there are limits to what we can do if you know if rents rise and an individual can't afford to pay the rent unless they're able to get some kind of rental assistance from voucher then um there's not a mechanism legally that we can prevent that person from having to move out what um what we can do and what we would do is to channel resources into creating um using this mechanism to create affordable housing opportunities the income restricted affordable shared housing opportunities and I believe and but would need to confirm that um most rental assistance programs um allow you to use a voucher in this situation I um I know that Mr Scott from the Durham the Durham Housing Authority is is on a later item and he might be able to clarify that with regards to housing choice vouchers um so that would be another way that people this would create because one of the challenges we have right now for example in housing folks through our rapid rehousing programs is finding affordable units to put them into this would potentially expand because even though the overall you know all six bedrooms are all five bedrooms collectively might cost way too much one bedroom would be affordable or could be affordable and it would give us a kind of more places to put our one person households and ideally higher quality units if they're if they're you know well developed and well maintained but I can't guarantee that those are going to be adequate to address all of the concerns that you have because this is a market economy and and owners of property can make decisions about what they do with their property thank you I appreciate that and steering me in that direction will probably be better than trying to put a restriction in place thank you thank you councilmember all right colleagues any more questions or comments I'll just councilmember cabillera yeah are we just are we just going to put up the one are you just going to ask for a motion for c1 and leave c2 alone I'm just asking for clear because that's the one I want yeah that's what I'm going to ask for first because I sort of sense that's where we're going but I first want to just make sure I have one comment and anybody else have any comments just that I'm excited I'm glad that we're moving towards the six and I'm full support thank you you know what I would say just in general is appreciating Mr. Anthony bringing this forward appreciate the planning commission all the work that you all did to improve it and I the thing that I you know that we that I really have appreciated from community development from Mr. Johnson Miss Lotto and others over the last few years saying to us again and again we're not going to help we're not going to solve the affordable housing crisis by building subsidized housing by itself we got to do a lot of that but we have to work on these market market driven structures as well and this is another step in that direction as Mr. Harmon said and I agree all right and with that the first motion would be to adopt the appropriate consistency statement is there a motion I'll move second second moved by councilmember Freeman seconded by councilmember Freelon madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor proton johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freelon hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton i've all died councilmember reese hi thank you thank you very much madam clerk the eyes have it in the motion passes seven to zero i will now for the second motion if we adopt ordinance c1 amending the udo we would include the parking language that mr. anthony has proposed as well as the the six person limit let me just add that this is with the understanding that we would did the planning partner would come back to us during mic stock with the with the appropriate language to clarify that all parking any development market rate or or affordable is shared so can i have a motion to adopt ordinance c1 so moved second moved by mayor and mayor pro tem seconded by councilmember reese madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor proton johnson hi councilmember caballero councilmember caballero hi councilmember freelon hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton i've all died councilmember reese hi thank you thank you madam clerk the eyes have it in the motion passes unanimously um thank you very much colleagues thank you for uh mr anthony thank you mr miller mr harman thank you all for being here tonight on what i think is a very important and complicated issue and i want to express my and the council's appreciation for all you've done and thank you for the planning staff in this lot as well all right uh we'll now move to item 24 approval of the multifamily housing facility known as ugly square apartments and first we'll hear from staff and i see mr johnson is with us greetings mayor mayor pro tem members of council reginal johnson director of department of community development this item is a public hearing that we're asking for the approval of multifamily housing revenue bonds for the durham housing authority for ugly square this is not an item that will have any financial implication to the city but the rs code requires that the municipality approve the uh uh durham housing authority to issue these revenue bonds and so what we're presenting before the council is the resolution to uh providing the for the approval of the the bonds for the ugly square and the financing uh of the revenue bonds and mr anthony scott uh ceo of the durham housing authority and ray parks the consultant uh both on the call thank you very much mr johnson uh colleagues you have heard the report from staff and i'm now going to declare this public hearing open and i'm going to ask if there are any questions uh for staff by members of the council council member freeman thank you just quickly the bond council is not in place or the is it a i'm not sure how to call the affordable housing committee is not in place yet did they is this a bond that they would would have reviewed no ma'am this is not this does not would not come before the housing uh affordable housing implementation committee okay thank you thank you council member um mr uh any any other questions for mr johnson i don't see anyone here to speak on this item so i'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is before the council uh we are being asked to adopt the resolution providing approval of the multifamily housing facility known as ugly square apartments and uh we'll start with that we'll do this in two motions to have a motion that we approve to adopt the resolution providing the approval i'm sorry who was that council member caballero second and seconded by mayor pro tem johnson madam clerk we please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi council member caballero hi council member freelon hi that's member freeman hi that's member middleton i vote i that's member east i thank you thank you uh the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously we'll now move to approve the financing uh of thereof with multifamily housing revenue bonds and an aggregate amount not to exceed 12 million dollars is there a motion so move second moved by council member freeman seconded by council member freelon to approve the financing madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi council member caballero hi council member freelon hi council member freeman hi council member middleton i vote i council member east hi thank you thank you madam clerk the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously all right we'll now move to item 25 which is the last item on our agenda this is the approval of a multifamily housing facility known as j. j. henderson towers and i will now ask for a report from staff welcome again mr johnson thank thank you mayor uh likewise this is also multifamily housing bonds not to exceed 15.4 million dollars for j. j. henderson towers this is a rat conversion project uh and again the city is being asked to approve this because of the irs tax code that's reason is being presented before you and we recommend uh approval of this uh of this item thank you mr johnson colleagues you have heard the report from staff uh and i'm first going to ask if there are any questions for staff by members of the council council member freeman thank you i actually had a question come in from a member in the community and i just wanted to make sure i verified the way that these these bonds are set up for projects that will go through the derm housing authority and i guess those projects would be like i guess rfq'd or rft through the derm housing authority not through the city i just want to mention that is that is correct uh council member freeman these do these do not come through the uh these bonds do not come through the city thank you thank you council member and thank you mr johnson uh before we hear from the speakers is there any are there any other questions from from council members for staff all right we have two uh speakers here with us tonight a jack i'm sorry this is a public hearing yes it is yes you have did i miss saying that yes i'm so sorry mr johnson thank you for reminding me i will now declare this public hearing open uh thank you and i will we will now hear from our speakers uh ajax woolly and heather lad and i want to thank you all for hanging with us uh past 10 o'clock and grateful for you all uh for still being with us um madam clerk can you make ajax woolly and heather lad available to be heard they are mr mayor all right um we'll first start with ajax woolly uh and you have three minutes and if you need more than that we'll figure that out go ahead thank you good evening mr mayor madam mayor pro tem uh members of city council and staff on the eve of this historic election i want to personally thank you all uh for your commitments to public life and your continual devotion to hearing all of our divergent voices in these strange remote rooms and i hope we will all stand together in person again one day soon it's been great to see each of you out in the community at last and can and other public events that are very important to me personally uh the agenda item before you is just one mechanical step in a long and laborious process that's intended to eventually lead to the betterment of housing for vulnerable citizens who largely largely rely on the collective conscience of dha and city leaders to do the very best thing where their future housing outcomes are concerned and this is especially true during a complex redevelopment project that includes relocation derm can submitted written public comments in opposition to this item to the work session leading to this council meeting and i won't reiterate those but i'm personally curious whether council has considered those comments prior to this vote and if you and staff will soon respond to the questions that were contained in that document my own volunteer organizing work is varied boots on the ground with dha resident leaders and it yields many stories that can provoke a strong emotional response but tonight i will simply state a few facts for your contemplation and i'm happy to be publicly corrected if we know of any of these facts to be untrue uh at present dha does not have an acting director of development since the recent departure of miss uh meredith as a council member freeman stated or or queried the affordable housing implementation committee is still not completely formed because it still lacks the required participation by another two dha resident leaders and the fact that they don't need to review this item is less relevant than the fact that they have not been found among the many qualified brilliant committed resident leaders in the communities by my observation and by consistent reporting of residents at the hoover road apartments the dha property manager listed for dj hinderson during this transitional period has in fact been situated more or less full time at hoover road community since around june when a roofing replacement project first began there a key residents at hoover road report feeling deeply disrespected and mistreated by that property manager since she arrived prior to her arrival there was no on-site property manager at hoover road for several months these details are uncontroversial clues about the current internal state of affairs at dha and a brief firsthand account of organizing by the Durham camp housing team and offer them in the hopes of increasing the council's curiosity about the readiness of this crucial entity in dha to both interface with the community and successfully manage residents individual outcomes here at the outset of a period of intense change thank you thank you very much mr willy appreciate your comments and i will have some comments about them but first would appreciate hearing from this lad this lad are you available to be heard yes i am thank you thank you you also have three minutes and if you need more than that we can talk about it okay no i think three minutes is more than enough thank you mayor shul madam mayor pro tem and council members my name is heather lad and i'm a member of derm can and i'm speaking tonight as an opponent to this item to call attention to some of the problems that i've seen with the derm housing authority over the last year and including one the lack of transparency with respect to its plans to convert dha's public housing community into privately managed ones and number two maintenance issues going unaddressed until they're taken up by the news media so in september we provided written comments for the significant amendments to dha's annual plan and spoke at the public hearing that was announced on their website unknown to us at the time though there was also public hearing being held regarding the sale of jg henderson we didn't know because the hearing wasn't published on their website and no agenda was published prior to the hearing during the hearing i made a request for documents related to the sale and conversion um but despite not receiving those documents several weeks later that request was passed along as a memo for this agenda item with the appearance that our document request had been resolved when it had not we've we have since received documents and i want to thank mr shanti brown of dha for sending them and also for responding to our written comments um and we've also been assured that dha will work on increasing their transparency however i feel that what happened is emblematic of the larger problems with dha it shouldn't take the news media to get infestations and people's homes dealt with and residents shouldn't have to wait months for doors and exterior lights to be fixed especially given the rise in violence mold should be eradicated not painted over public hearings should be announced and comments at public hearings should not be written off as resolved if they weren't so i'd like to ask that agenda agenda items related to dha especially future items that will provide the affordable housing bond money to dha for redevelopment be tied to a city designated benchmarks around transparency and quality of life standards for the families that currently reside in dha community and i also look forward to receiving your comments or your responses to our written comments that we submitted thank you thank you very much miss lad we appreciate you being here um i think that uh i'll ask uh if mr anthony scott is with us i believe he is mr scott with us hi mr scott welcome mr scott would you like to respond to some of the comments that you've heard um i guess i can i can respond to a few um i believe mr willy mentioned that there was no director of development um and that was true miss day left i believe in august or maybe yeah i believe in august and so we immediately advertise for replacement for that position um that position in fact has been filled the gentleman was intended to start today but he had a family emergency so he was not able to but he should be able to start uh this week um mentioning about a manager at hoover road again employee left left our employee and we have advertised for a replacement manager we have not found an adequate replacement as of yet but that position was immediately advertised for and we are looking to get a replacement as soon as possible but of course we're looking to hire qualified staff to do so um and i believe miss lag spoke about transparency as as various things have come to our attention in terms of saying how we could be more transparent we are certainly doing our best to do so um she spoke about the uh advertisement not being on our website we follow the normal process we follow for uh these types of transactions because this is not a normal rad deal that determines the bond aspect of this so typically what we do is we we are required by by law the advertising the newspaper that's what we did and it was more of an oversight in terms of thinking it was something that needed to be specifically put on our website because we just hadn't done that in the past but in light of these being dha specific properties versus like the oakley square project which is not really one that belongs to dha um we certainly will make sure that we do that going forward which is something that we express the dorm camp and obviously the maintenance issues we are working very hard on trying to resolve uh those issues and no we don't need uh media to address those things but we are we are asking just as we've asked cans to continue to make us aware of of issues that arise that we haven't been able to address adequately so that we can get to those particularly in light of you know the current state of things with the pandemic um but it is not our intent that we really need to have these sort of interactions in order for us to be able to address things we want this to be much more regularly dealt with and there are a number of changes that are being employed to make sure that on a regular basis we can do a better job with our maintenance and that is something that we have been discussing with our board for example and you'll see a lot more um efforts around that in the in the coming months in terms of talking about what we're doing so it's more publicly known exactly what is occurring behind the scenes which isn't so evident on the surface so with that I'll pass back to you sir thank you mr scott um i'll comment just very briefly miss lad and uh mr woley thank you for your comments and i did receive your written comments and if not had a chance to respond yet but i will um sometime in the near future um and and and before tonight's ever i'll have a couple of comments about them as well all right um other uh is there anyone and there's nobody else here to speak so i this will be the only two so now council colleagues uh mayor protam thank you mr mayor um and thank you everyone for your words tonight i just wanted to make a comment some kind of still formulating and it's late so i hope this uh makes sense i feel like whenever we talk about public institutions like dha or like during public schools um that we are that that our attitude toward public institutions is um is often is often related to often comes back to this idea that we should benchmark performance in order to provide funding and i've found that happened with um with lots of other you know when with lots of other conversations around public goods and public institutions and i kind of just want to caution against that i think that it's very important for for dha to meet the standards that we have for our community with regard to maintenance um and make sure that all of dha residents have have have safe and healthy places to live but i don't think the reason that they don't is because of failings by any particular person at the dha which would then be remedied if our funding was based on performance benchmarks i think the reason that they haven't been able to keep housing up to the standard that we expect is because funding has been cut every single year for decades by the federal government um and so i i kind of just wanted to bring that context into the conversation when we're talking about an institution that does not have the resources that they need to really do the things that we want i'm concerned that the conversation turns then to um that that we somehow improve that that that institution by threatening to give them even fewer resources which is not effective what we need to do which is what i think we're doing as a city is to support the Durham Housing Authority both with public funds and um and through public action and that that is the way that we improve housing in our city improve quality of life for dha residents not by some um threat of starvation which we think will then somehow motivate people to do better i think the folks at dha are doing their absolute best with the resources that they have and our goal should be to come together as a community to provide more resources and more support um and so i just wanted to make that point lots and lots of public institutions are are in a position where they are um are really being abandoned by by our federal government and are being put in position are being put in the position where where it is just more and more likely that they will not be able to meet the needs of the communities that they're trying to serve because of decisions that are being made at much higher levels than any of us are at um we need to do all we can to support the Durham Housing Authority um and provide the resources that they need to adequately take care of their properties and residents and that should be the way that we approach our interactions so that's all thank you thank you very much madam reprotam other comments other comments at this time i don't want to miss a council member middleton like i have been if he's if he wants to make a comment thank you good thank you mr mayor actually i i uh i actually want to want to associate myself with the mayor for attempts uh comments and i first i want to thank my my friends from from derm can um for the work they've done and for the heightened attention they brought uh to this issue i do not i think we're i think both things can be true at the same time that um we need to be diligent and and double our efforts to make sure that our residents that live in in public housing our public housing here in the city get the responses responsiveness that they need and at the same time keep moving forward uh with the plans to to retool and rethink what affordable housing or low income housing looks like uh in our country the conflation i believe of denying this uh this pro forma vote really it's a pro forma vote to allow them to to move forward with this bond issuance to conflate that with what we think is not going on or what should be going on at uh derm housing authority i think is a is not the conflation we want uh all we should be uh doing um you know i if i might speak freely i i'm i'm heartened by the number of people uh present company excluded who was spoken tonight in this council but i'm i'm heartened by the number of people that have in recent months discovered just how bad public housing is um and how tough poverty is um and these issues have been festering and going on for generations i grew up in public housing um so i know firsthand some of the struggles and challenges of it and the neglect uh that that predates anthony scott that predates this this this board um but i also understand the frustration and and i understand a little something about the culture of derm can as well so i i i think that uh you're spot on to keep holding our feet to the fire uh to keep insisting that we we we pay attention not just pay attention but do what we can uh as a municipality to make sure that the derm housing authority has all the needs but that the mayor pretend is spot on that there has been a sister systemic uh disinvestment uh in housing and public housing we have a housing authority in in washington that looks at public housing with contempt i mean the people that are supposed to be most championing for these folks actually look at it as as as deficiency on your part like there's something wrong with uni public housing and that funding has you know been contoured according to that content and to that view so i do not think that again and i'll put it i'll put a period on at the end of this um i do not think that conflating this particular vote tonight with legitimate advocacy and spot on concerns that derm can't have uh about our brothers and sisters that live in these conditions uh have our our is of inflation that would be the best um way forward um but the advocacy advocacy needs to continue and we also need to continue with our our long-term strategic plan of rethinking and really having a paradigmatic shift as to what public housing looks like long-term housing looks like in our city so thank you mr mayor thank you mayor pro tem thank you councilmember councilmember freelon yes i just had a quick question for ajax and heather thank you again for your advocacy and for being here for the work uh you and derm can't have been doing um i'm just kind of curious in light of what mayor pro tem johnson and councilmember middleton have stated i'm just kind of curious what accountability looks like to you and uh i agree with i agree with their statements uh about you know withholding funds as maybe a you know counterintuitive or not necessarily to conflate those two but but i wonder uh how to what other options are available to us as councilmembers to aid in a in a bet in your efforts to hold them accountable and it sounds like you're you've kind of levied a bit of a charge that you know the media is a factor um in your opinion um and i want to know a what accountability looks like to you and be what if anything else you think we could do beside withholding funds to uh to achieve the goals that that you'd like in terms of you know in terms of accountability for the things that you mentioned thank you councilmember uh mr woolly or miss lad with either of you all like to comment i imagine we both would um but i'm happy to jump in for the sake of time um i think we're all smart enough to know that this is a pro forma vote and we didn't imagine we'd be interrupting a funding source um i think that we need to take every opportunity to solicit the attention of council uh to find ways to increase the the bandwidth of this conversation until it includes the resident voices directly which is not really practical in this forum but it's also not happening through the internal mechanisms at dha and until that does that path does become smoother i think you can expect us to um honor your your you know your request to keep the pressure on and look for ways to amplify those voices and it's really difficult right now we understand that the pandemic makes it nearly impossible but it also increases the urgency and the and and the priority of that issue um i don't know if that answers your question but i'm sure heather can can do an even better job thank you miss lad uh yeah sure um i guess the the first thing i'd like to say is just about um uh you know uh tying funding to benchmarks as i as i said and i i guess i don't um i i like the opposite situation in which you just hand over all the dollars and not expect um and not and not provide any kind of oversight is is the opposite of that and i so i have to disagree that you know you you can't tie funding to certain requirements um and then the second thing i was going to say is that you know you know these these these communities are in durham and durham has minimum housing code and you know if you go through you know durham's housing code and you compare them to violations that that they may receive from HUD through their react scores you know you'll see that they're in violation of durham's housing code so so you know so we do have ways in which we could and and we have neighborhood neighborhood improvement services that we could use to um provide inspection so uh i guess those would be the answers that i had to the to your question thank you miss lad all right um i just have a couple of comments thank you all miss lad and mr woolly and your commitment to these issues is fantastic and to the people that you are working on behalf of and with and whose voices you seek to amplify i want to thank you for that um i hear what mr woolly said about not you know not really wanting to interrupt the flow of funds i think i'll just say for myself that when i received your comments and that's certainly not the way i read it you you advocated that we not support this and i took that at face value i know you wouldn't want to deprive the people at jj henderson towers who's if we if we didn't do this renovation uh would be uh you know are already in not in the shape we want them to be in and would be in much worse i know you wouldn't want to deny that and so my suggestion is that you know say what you mean uh because what i thought you meant was that you were against this and maybe you are i i'm a little confused about it but we'd love to talk about that another time just in terms of strategy and what you are thinking um i just say i thought what the mayor pro tem said and what councilmember melton amplified is so important and i just really want to give those comments my full-throated endorsement uh we certainly hold the Durham Housing Authority uh you know to uh when we we we funded a lot of Durham Housing Authority projects Daymark Court and Maureen Road wouldn't have been renovated uh they'd be looking like Hoover Road if it wasn't for what the city has done uh we provided funding for that and provided oversight as part of that um and uh the same is true and will be true anytime that the city provides funding we have lots of oversight from the community development department work very closely with that with Housing Authority so i want to be clear about that the other thing i want to say is this i really believe in our uh the staff and our Housing Authority and Mr. Scott that they are really changing not only the culture of the Housing Authority but they are in in five years we're going to have so many more of our Housing Authority residents housed in good housing than we have now through the bond issued through the Housing Authority's plans and they're driving that as hard as they can and the fact that we have the tax credits now for the additional housing additional units at JJ Henderson the fact that we have the 9% credit now for one of the downtown developments these are crucial to the future of affordable housing in our city and without them and without the work that the Housing Authority is driven forward to make that happen we all of our affordable housing all of our Housing Authority housing will be crumbling we have to do that and it's been very hard and very difficult and i just want to say to my friends in Durham can really deserve your support um i don't in any way take your foot off the gas and advocating for residents of Hoover Road and elsewhere um keep doing it it's super important but i hope you'll also add your support to the Durham Housing Authority for the great things that they are doing and there are many okay those are my comments any other comments council member Reese thank you mr. mayor i want to thank all my colleagues for their remarks so far on this important issue um and especially just say how grateful i am uh to the folks who spoke tonight um i think what you're hearing from council members in response i think you know council member Freelon really said it best is that we really need to think about what accountability looks like for an organization like the Durham Housing Authority um and as my colleagues have said i don't think accountability ought to look like cutting off money that the Housing Authority needs to do the work that it has to do in the community uh and so i think we need to imagine together uh but elected officials and the community need to imagine together what that looks like instead you know during the time that um mcdougal terrace was being renovated uh after the carbon oxide scare and the other um significant maintenance problems that result that that were identified um during that time i had a number of Durham residents reach out to me and say we shouldn't be giving dha millions of dollars with no strings attached they need to do xyz yes they definitely need to do xyz but by golly we got to get people back in their house i mean we we got we got to we got to pay to replace the stoves and the and the and the HVAC systems and the and pay for the all all the things that the city was supporting and funding during that time were absolutely essential emergencies we you know we pushed funding through in essentially a not transparent way because it was so important to do quickly and those are things we all agreed were important um and so i just don't i don't i don't think that the normal way that we hold organizations accountable can work in this context um and the mayor pro ten brought it up but i think uh our public schools are a great analogy um you know do do we um you know if cutting funding to our school system because our kids aren't learning as well as we want them to or not i guess that what i should say is they're not achieving testing benchmarks that the state uh says are important you know that's that's certainly an approach um but i don't think it's the right approach uh because that is a they our school system before provides a public good that we need to cultivate and nurture and support um i think dha is very similar in that way obviously huge differences but ultimately we need to figure out together systems of accountability that continue to because frankly what the what derm can is advocating for in terms of you know consistent staffing that that treats residents with dignity and respect you know basic maintenance repairs done uh at some time other than when a news camera uh shows infestations of of insects those are things that that are all residents of the city of derm deserve uh including our residents of our public housing communities we just need to figure out together what that how that accountability looks like in a world where there is no other organization in the world that will do what the derm housing authority is doing for the city of derm and for our people and and that's why we are supporting them more than just about any other city in america is supporting their housing authority and we will continue to do that as long as i have a vote on this council but we also absolutely positively need to hold them accountable for doing all the things that derm can is demanding because those are all important how we figure out how we square that circle is something that i hope that we can imagine together so thank you mr mayor thank you council member uh council member freeman thank you i i truly appreciate my colleagues um noting all of the things uh that continue to to kind of keep us moving in the right direction i um truly appreciate uh mayor pro tem's comments and and noting just how how public goods and public services are uh critical to what we do and how we do it i also want to note and just bring into the conversation that there there does have to be a level of um not just accountability but just understand and i even with the deficits it's almost like we we're forced to do three times as much and so noting that you know the the city knew going into the housing bonds that the derm housing authority needed 544 million to actually complete the projects that they had on their list and the bond was passed for 95 million and we all acknowledged that as a community together and i mean the passage of the bond itself sent forward a mandate to to note that it would be through incremental measure or incremental process that this would happen so this is what incremental looks like and unless we're going to figure out how to find the other millions to push more of the projects through and to actually get all of the housing up to a livable standard um we're all living in a community knowing that our our neighbors and many of the housing authority locations face those those pictures that we saw on facebook or on on the news and it's it's uncomfortable and so i really do appreciate um ajax and heather and the derm can community for highlighting that because that that uncomfortable tension that we're all feeling is just the weight that we feel in knowing that our kids are unsafe or the you know like it's just not what we want for our community and i'm okay with that but i do appreciate my colleagues acknowledging that we can do better and we can do more and how we'll do more is what we're looking at inside i do want to say that i i know that uh the director scott has been making a lot of shifts and changes and he has a plan which i do support um i just don't see how we're going to get there which is which is the hard part and um i'm i'm more cognizant of just what it what it is when it is your unit so if it were my unit in that condition the angst that i would feel and and what the kids are facing and all and all and so i just know that the the human side of this conversation is is what's making us uncomfortable but the the reality of the logics of or the logistics of how much can we actually pour into this is limited and so i just wanted to note that um that's just that additional point that we've got to do three times as much and with far less money i i appreciate the imagining but i do want to i do want to hear because i do know that there are units that i'm still concerned about um what they look like and where they are in the process and just how much like a real number um to move us forward especially in the deficit side of it so yes on the on the bonds and everything that we've done but where are we in the plan for what where it was not included in and and that initial 544 a million so thank you thank you council member all right colleagues uh i'm now going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is back before the council uh where are the action that we've been requested is to authorize the jj henderson towers multifamily housing project and bonds in an aggregate amount not to exceed 15.4 million dollars so moved i can move by council member reese seconded by council member cabillero madame clarkby please call the roll that wasn't mere sure it's okay what i said you wait a minute what what did i say wrong you said caviar but it was me that did the second okay mere pro tem johnson sorry madame clark were you calling the roll sure mere sure i mere pro tem johnson i council member cabillero i council member freeline i council member freeman hi council member middleton i vote i council member reese i thank you thank you madame clark the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously colleagues thank you for your dedication tonight it was a long night we did a lot of work and i think we did a lot of good work uh and i just was you know sometimes i i just want to tell you all how much i i was sitting here thinking how much i appreciated each of you and all the wisdom that you all bring to this individually and i think we did some some good thinking tonight and had some great discussions so thank you colleagues i will see you all on thursday between now and thursday there are some events um there's something tomorrow that's happening one of the problems with the adjourning so late is that at nine o'clock i gotta be out hitting some doors uh so uh i'm gonna eat something go to bed colleagues uh good to see you i'm gonna declare this meeting adjourned at 10 49 p.m one day more one day more one more dawn at the Bethesda ruritan center at 6 30 a.m is the inside partisan poll observer so um i'm going to all y'all beat i'm going out carolina federation at five in the morning if anybody is still listening and goes to vote Bethesda ruritan please don't think i'm being rude when i don't speak to you i feel positively lazy with my 8 30 shift now i'm not you're better than i knew noon now we're talking absolutely everybody good night good night y'all