 Good evening. I want to call this meeting of the Durham City Council to order. Thank you, Tom, for Monday, February the 19th, 2018 at 7 p.m. We're certainly glad to have a welcome everyone here in attendance. Thank you so much for being here. We please now take a moment for silent meditation. Thank you. I'm now going to recognize Councilmember Reese to introduce the folks who will lead us in the Pledge to the Pledge. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Appreciate that. Good evening, everyone, and happy Presidents' Day. And on this Presidents' Day, we have Troop 451 from right here in Durham to help us with the Pledge. So if it is your practice to do so and if you're able, please rise and join us as the Scouts come up and help us with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. Troop 451, we're glad to have you here. And I would like to ask the city clerk to please call the roll. Mayor Shul. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Here. Councilmember Alston. Here. Councilmember Caballero. Here. Councilmember Freeman. Is it Councilmember Middleton. Here. Councilmember Reese. Here. I've just been informed that the Girl Scouts that we were going to recognize tonight won't be coming to our next meeting. Councilmember Freeman. So we'll do that. We'll do that next time. But tonight we do have a neighbor spotlight. And I want to ask if Vicki Clay is present. It could please come up here. How are you? We're glad to have you here. Thank you. Do you have family members with you? I do. Would you like to have them come up with you? Neighbors. Neighbors. Okay. That's my hood. All right. Awesome. Well, we're glad you're here. On one big child in the front row. Okay. Wow. He's a heck of a Boy Scout. I'm going to be introducing Vicki Clay, who's the winner of our neighborhood spotlight award, which is a really important award that we give in the city of Durham. And I'm going to read about her. Vicki Clay is the recipient of the neighbor spotlight for the month of February 2018. The neighbor spotlight award recognizes community members that have gone above and beyond in volunteering their time to serve the community. This month, Vicki Clay, a resident of the Creekside at Bethpage neighborhood, that must be you all, was nominated and selected because of the wonderful work she has done in her neighborhood, including, but not limited to, starting Pay It Forward, a neighborhood group where neighbors help neighbors in times of need, organizing neighborhood functions and events to the activities committee, developing creative solutions in partnership with neighbors, such as a medical loan supply closet where people can borrow supplies they may need. Mrs. Clay, congratulations on being the February neighbor spotlight for the city of Durham. And thank you for all the great work you were doing to improve our Durham community. And I would like to now ask your friends and neighbors if they would please stand. Thank you all for being here. I'm going to present to you this neighbor spotlight award. And if you would like to say something to the folks here, feel free. Come on, you can take our picture. How do we look? How do we look, Kevin? Is the sign right side up? Okay. Thank you. Kevin, don't go away. Ms. Clay, go ahead. Kevin, don't go away. You're talking to this microphone. Kevin, please don't go away. Nice try. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you to the city of Durham. I greatly appreciate this award and I'm really honored to accept this on behalf of Creekside at Bethpage and also the Pay It Forward organization that we have that's going now. A lot of this, most of this wouldn't be possible without Kevin Walls and his organizational skills. And you know, I mean, Kevin and I have worked really hard to pull all of this stuff together. I just appreciate the community so much. As I say, anytime we're speaking, that the world is tough right now. It's not a nice place all the time. And this is about being kind to each other, helping other people out, you know, picking up trash. Boy scouts kind of do that type of thing, but just being nice to each other. And Kevin, if you want to say something, feel free because we owe a lot of this to Kevin. So thank you. Thank you very much. Congratulations. Don't forget your award. Thank you, Ms. Black. Turn out. We now have one more ceremonial item that you won't find on your agenda, but this is a very special night because we are tonight swearing in our new city clerk, Diana Shriver. Let me just say, Diana, you can come on up. Let me just say briefly what my council colleagues know is that we had a long search process for our city clerk. Our city clerk is one of the three appointments that the council makes. We appoint our city manager, our city attorney and our city clerk. Diana has been the deputy city clerk in Durham for a number of years. She has recently been our interim city clerk and she's done a marvelous job in those roles. And we are thrilled that she is now going to be sworn in tonight as our permanent city clerk for the city of Durham. So Diana, I'm going to ask you to place your, is your husband here? Great. And so do you want to hold the Bible? Sure. Y'all come on up here. Y'all come right up here. All righty. Diana, if you would repeat after me. I, Diana Lynn Shriver, I, Diana Lynn Shriver, do hereby solemnly swear, do hereby solemnly swear, that I will support and maintain, that I will support and maintain, the Constitution and laws of the United States, the Constitution and laws of the United States, and the Constitution and laws of North Carolina not inconsistent therewith, and that I will faithfully and impartially, and I will faithfully and impartially, discharge the duties of my office, discharge the duties of my office, as city clerk of the city of Durham, as city clerk of the city of Durham, so help me God, so help me God. Congratulations. Good evening everyone. Mayor, council, I would like to say I am privileged and honored to be offered and given this position of city clerk. I have very large shoes to follow following Anne Gray, and I will do my best to take care of council in the city of Durham. Thank you. Thank you, Diana. I will just note that this must be, this has to be signed by our city clerk, Diana Lynn Shriver. I'll now ask if there are any announcements by the council. Council members, any announcements? Thank you. Are there any prior items by the city manager? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. No priority items this evening. Any prior priority items by the city attorney? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. No priority items. Madam clerk? No items, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. And now we're going to move on to our consent agenda. The next order of business is our consent agenda. All items on the consent agenda can be approved with a single vote, unless an item is removed by a council member or a member of the public for separate consideration at the end of the meeting tonight. And I'm going to read each of the consent agenda items. Item one, approval of city council minutes. Item two, cross-connection control follow-up performance audit, January 2018. Item three, FY 2018, transportation planning grant project ordinance. Superceding grant project ordinance number 15144. Item four, Durham Orange County Transit Plans grant project ordinance. Item five, watershed protection plan and authorization to participate in watershed protection projects. Item six, bid report for December 2017. Item seven, FY 2017, 18, capital improvement project budget amendment, capital improvement project closeout. Item eight, contract for construction of parking lots at Birchwood Park and American Tobacco Trail. Item nine, South Albury stormwater restoration building demolition services contract, SP 2017-01. Item 10 to 12 can be found on the general business agenda or public hearings. Item 13, contract with Mars and McDaniel to conduct promotional testing, assessment service and job task analysis. Item 14 can be found on the general business agenda. And those are our consent items. I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. Move to approve. I can. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda. Madam clerk, will you open the vote please? Close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. And now we'll move to the general business agenda. We have one item. Item 14, thank you. Amendment to city noise ordinance section 26-23. And I believe, do we have a staff report? City attorney's item. Yeah. Mr. Mayor, members of council, the noise ordinance that you have there, and we discussed this at the work session, is in response to complaints that were made from the, it was the Central Park, the Liberty, Liberty Warehouse, concerns about noise that was coming out of Central Park, particularly with a group called the Patala Durham. The ordinance amendment that I have in front of you is something for you to consider relating to sounds coming from Central Park, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. I did share this information with the folks at Central Park and got some feedback that they were generally supportive of the amendment, but did ask about potentially moving that, the back end of that exception from 8 p.m. to I believe it was 9 p.m. But beyond that, I don't have any other additional information. And I did give you all a revised document that has more of the ordinance formal language, should you wish to move forward with that today. Thank you, Mr. Attorney. Are there any questions for the attorney? Any questions for the attorney? Council Member Frieden? Specifically, I'm just trying to figure out exactly when the team or the group is practicing. Is it between 10 and 8? Patrick, do you know that? I don't know. I can help with that, Mr. Mayor. Okay. I can help with that. Their rehearsals typically end at 8.30 in the evening. And so the 9 o'clock time that was proposed by Central Park would be perfectly fine. Thank you very much. Anybody else? Okay. I just, I'm sorry, Charlie. I'll just speak just for a moment about the particular issues raised by the ordinance before we hear from, do we have someone here? We have someone to speak, but go ahead. Great. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First of all, I have a couple of apologies. I want to apologize to my colleagues for having been absent at the work session, which this item was discussed. I apologize because I was the person who raised this issue and asked the city attorney to draft us the revision that came before the city council that day. So I am sorry, but I'm very, very happy that my colleagues raised a number of broader issues relating to the enforcement of the noise ordinance in its current form. I never referred that matter back to the environmental affairs board. Look forward to that board's work on looking not only at how our noise ordinance is currently enforced, but also looking at other communities and how they tackle the issue of the enforcement of the noise ordinance. As I said, back when I first raised this issue, we don't have roving bands of Durham police officers with noise meters enforcing the noise ordinance by themselves. It is like a number of different laws in Durham. It complaint driven, and that can lead to some problems in enforcement. And I hope that the environmental first board looks into that aspect of it as well. In addition to the issues raised by the mayor pro tem at the work session relating to other residential areas, other areas where this type of activity has been long enjoyed by the community soon becoming more residential in nature and the ensuing conflict that that can bring. So I really appreciate that. The other apology I wanted to make was that I was not present to propose a broadening of the of the exception period in line with what Durham Central Park asked or the city attorney for us to consider. And so at an appropriate time, I would amend the proposal from the city attorney to extend the exception drafted to end at 9 p.m. rather than 8 p.m. Thank you. I think we'll wait on that. This is not that time. I understand. Speaker. Yeah. Thank you very much. Any any other comments at this point from council members or questions for the attorney? If not, I want to ask Mr. Justin Anderson to speak. Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson, you're welcome to be here and we you could you have three minutes. This work. Please give us your name and address and you have three minutes. Thank you. My name is Justin Anderson. I live at 3209 Oxford Drive Durham to 7707. I'm one of the founding members of Batala as it was as we were discussing earlier. We're a local Samba reggae group. I wanted to thank the council and city attorney and everyone present for taking up this issue and you know, amending the noise ordinance for Durham Central Park. Our group has been rehearsing in the park for the past two summers and we're looking forward to the next summer. And last summer didn't go quite as well as the 2016 with the new Liberty lofts opening. And for this summer, I went ahead and applied for another permit. We were grand temporary permit for the end of the last summer to continue our rehearsals. And I think that the amendment being proposed tonight is much more permanent and concrete solution, in my opinion. I think that the when we were dealing with it last summer, the noise ordinance came down to one person's opinion of what was reasonable and versus another person's opinion. And so this would sort of dictate, you know, in clear concise manner what we were allowed to do and what we weren't allowed to do. So I appreciate that more clear language with the continued development of the park and other buildings near nearby the park. So the condos apartments, there's another building up to the east. There's another one behind the pavilion that I believe is either open or opening soon. We need to sort of stake out some of these areas in Durham that are allowed for people to, you know, meet and congregate and do community events and use these high traffic areas for things that are not just, you know, having conversations, you know, to be able to be creative and be artistic. Let's see. So last Friday, I noticed in Councilman Reese's Facebook post that he proposed that we, or that this would go continuing on to the Environmental Affairs Board. And while we stand to benefit from the vote that's taking place tonight, I think that's great that we're going to be allowed to, or if this passes, we would be allowed to reverse unencumbered. But I think we need to sort of stake out some more areas around the city to be able to say what is acceptable and what is not acceptable for other areas. So yeah, that's great for Central Park for us. But what about other organizations that want to do Forest Health Park or other areas in the city? So people can be in public areas creating and being social without the risk of police enforcement like we were subjected to last summer. So again, thank you to the Council and everyone here. And I look forward to rehearsing in the park again Monday nights. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. We look forward to hearing your music. I'm going to ask Councilmember Reese if he has a motion. I do have a motion to amend the proposed revision to the noise ordinance at page three, subsection E paragraph seven at the end where it currently reads between the hours of 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. I would move to revise that to 9 p.m. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we amend the proposed noise ordinance as stated by Councilmember Reese. Is there any discussion? If not, Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. All right. We will now move on to item number 10. Yes, I'm sorry. I believe we'll need to make a motion on the underlying matter. But also before we did, I forgot to let folks know I took the opportunity to reach out to the co-facilitators of PAC-5, of course, the area and around downtown to get some feedback from them on this proposal. There are, believe it or not, five co-facilitators for PAC-5 heard from one who said that this seemed completely reasonable. I heard from another who said it should be that the exception should last much longer than 8 o'clock. She didn't think that 8 o'clock was nearly late enough for this kind of joyous event. And so I just wanted to let folks know that we've reached out to the folks who live in this area and done our due diligence. Thank you. So your original motion was just to amend not to pass with that amendment? That is correct. And I'll move to my misunderstanding. Do we have another motion? Yes, I'll move to pass the ordinance revision as revised tonight. Okay. It's been moved to second that we pass the ordinance revision, ordinance as revised. Any discussion? If not, Madam Clerk, would you please open the vote? Close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. And now we will move on to the public hearings. The first item is Item 10, Unified Development, Ordinance, Tax Amendment. Omnibus changes 11. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council. Michael Stock with Planning Department. Before I begin, I would like to certify that all public hearing items before you time from the Planning Department have been unnoticed according to state and UDO requirements and on file for review. Text Amendment TC-17-0005 includes technical revisions and minor policy changes to various provisions of the Unified Development Ordinance. Amendments are identified as necessary corrections, clarifications for organization rather minor changes to more accurately comply with the intended regulations or codify interpretations of regulations or to reflect minor policy changes that are not solely technical in nature. The details are found within your memo packet. The JCCPC was presented with a draft for review and comment on October 4, 2017 and no revisions beyond technical corrections were requested. The Planning Commission did recommend approval 13-0 on December 12, 2017. As a reminder, City Council will be required to take two actions. The first would be an action on the appropriate statement of consistency, which is found in Attachment A in your packet, and the second would be an action on the Ordinance Amendment itself, which is Attachment B. Thank you. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. I appreciate your report from the staff and I will declare this public hearing open and ask if there are any questions or comments at this point from the Council. Council members? Any Council members? All right. Is there anyone who wishes to speak on this item? If no one is signed up to speak, is there anyone who wishes to speak on this item? If not, let the record reflect that no one else, no one is requested to speak on this item. I now declare the public hearing to be closed and the matter is back before the Council. Mr. Mayor, I'd move to adopt the appropriate consistency statement in the manner directed by the agenda. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the consistency statement. Any discussion? If not, Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote, close the vote? Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. And now, do we have a motion on the second motion? Yes, Mr. Mayor. I'll move to adopt an ordinance amending the Unified Development Ordinance as specified in the agenda. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Let me just add one piece of discussion, which is this is always my favorite moment of the year on City Council. The omnibus reconciliation. And it's one of those things. I'll tell you seriously why I like it. It's one of those unsung, unheralded, but really important pieces of work that our excellent staff do all the time. Mike Stock does this every year with the help of many other people. And it should not go unappreciated. It is appreciated. And I do enjoy it and you never know what the heck's going to show up in this item. And you certainly had the kitchen sink in there this time. It was my honor to bring you such joy. Thank you, Mike. We have a motion. We have a second. Any more discussion? If not, Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. All right. Thank you very much. Now we'll move on to item 11, the Unified Development Ordinance Text Amendment Technical Updates regarding sedimentation and erosion control and state legislation. And I'll ask for the staff report. Well, if you like the first one, you're really going to like this one. Very awesome. Text Amendment TC-1706 includes proposed amendments based upon changes to state law regarding the following. Modification to exemptions to subdivision requirements per session law 2017-10 and modifications to performance guarantees for infrastructure improvements associated with development projects, which is session law 2015-187 and 2017-40. Additionally, to update requirements based upon the Sedimentation Act of 1973 updates to that. Amendments requested by sedimentation erosion control are also within that set of amendments. Again, details are within your agenda packet. The JCCPC was presented with a draft for review and comment at its October 4, 2017 meeting. And again, no revisions beyond technical corrections were requested. And the Planning Commission recommended approval 13-0 at its December 12 meeting. And again, as a reminder, the City Council will be required to take two actions. First would be an action on the appropriate statement of consistency, which again is in attachment A for this item. And second would be an action on the ordinance amendment itself, attachment B. And again, thank you and I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. You have heard the staff report and I'm to declare this public hearing open and ask if there are any questions or comments by Council members. Council Member Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I don't have a question for the staff, but I did just want to make the public aware that some of these changes, which were made to comply with new state laws, significantly weaken the controls that the city had in place prior to the passing of these state laws. And so we are once again being put into a position by the North Carolina General Assembly where we have to weaken our own environmental and other protections in order to comply with state laws that are being imposed on municipalities by our legislature. So I just wanted to make that point. Thank you. That was a very important point and I'm glad that you made it. Any other comments or questions by members of the Council? No one has signed up to speak on this item, but is there anyone who would like to speak on this item? So public hearing, is there anyone who would like to speak on this item? If not, I'm going to declare this public hearing closed in the matters back before the council. Do I have a motion on a consistency statement? Motion to adopt the consistency statement. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the consistency statement of discussion. If not, Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Close the vote. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. Do we have a motion to adopt the ordinance? Motion to adopt the ordinance amended in the UDO. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the ordinance to amend the UDO. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Close the vote, please. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mike, and it's going to be hard living this whole year without that item, but I'll look forward to it next year. Now we'll move to item 12, the Unified Development Ordinance Text Amendment Compact Neighborhood Interim Affordable Housing Bonuses, and we will hear from staff. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. My name is Hannah Jacobson with the Durham Planning Department. The Text Amendment TC-1605 proposes amendments to the Unified Development Ordinance that are meant to encourage the development of affordable housing in compact neighborhood tiers through the use of density and height bonuses as well as relief from minimum parking requirements. Incorporated into the Sex Amendment are other technical changes to Section 6.6 of the UDO that were originally a part of the Omnibus 11 Text Amendment that you just approved. Before getting into specifics due to some late-breaking policy changes that were discussed at the work session and some technological difficulties, a new version of the memo and of Attachment B were updated only today, so we apologize for any confusion. It might have caused and we're happy to clarify any of those questions that you have. Could you go through all those, Hannah, as part of your presentation so there's no misunderstanding? I wasn't aware of that. As you all know, in 2015, the City Council adopted a resolution that was in support of affordable housing in late rail transit areas. In support of this goal, this Text Amendment seeks to offer density bonuses that are up to 75 units an acre, up to 90 feet in height, and zero minimum parking for development projects in compact neighborhood tiers, where at least 15% of the total number of units are affordable to households earning 60% of area median income or less. That is a change that was discussed at the work session. We had originally proposed an average of 70% of area median income. It was discussed at work session to make that a 60% threshold to be consistent with the City's resolution. Projects are also required to meet some basic urban design standards, which are meant to encourage walkable neighborhoods. Finally, if a development project meets the requirements for affordability and design, the affordable housing bonuses would be applied administratively through the site plan process and would not need to come to this body for a rezoning hearing. Additional changes are proposed to section 6.6 by staff. These deal with minor and technical changes to the affordable housing bonuses in the urban and suburban tiers and were originally part of the Omnimus 11 Text Amendment. The Planning Commission voted to recommend approval 12-1 on December 12, 2017, and as a reminder, the City Council will be required to take two actions. The first would be an action on the appropriate statement of consistency found as attachment A. The second would be an action on the ordinance amendment itself, which is found in attachment B. Thank you, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much, Hannah. Council members, you've heard the staff report. I'm going to declare this public hearing open and first ask if there are any comments or questions about members of the council. And quickly, Council Member Alston. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just for everyone's benefit. Yeah. Can you just speak? I just want to clarify that the income threshold is 60% or less than not an average of 60%. That's correct. Thank you. I'm sorry. So would you speak specifically to the changes in the memo? You and the ordinance. The ordinance or the memo? So let's hear about the, were there changes in the ordinance as well? The ordinance and the affordability requirement has been changed from 70% to very median income to 60%, and the definition of an affordable housing dwelling unit again specifies that 60%. And we saw, but that's what we saw already previously. Is that right? Or was that also corrected? It was also corrected. Okay. And the memo? And the memo is just to be consistent with those changes, describing what the affordability requirement is. Okay. Thank you very much. Any other comments or questions? Council members? You mentioned the council, the commission voted 12 to one. Was that on the 60 or 70? Or was it just specifically on? It was specifically on the set on the draft that reflected the 70%. Although many in their comments, you will note recommended a preference for the 60% to very median income. Other comments or questions? I'm now going to ask if there's anyone here who would like to speak on this item. No one has signed up to speak. Is there anyone? I'm sorry. Apparently someone has signed up to speak. Thank you very much, Donetta. Thank you. Now we have one person who has signed up to speak, Jim Svara. Jim, you have three minutes. Good evening. Thank you. My name is Jim Svara, 1114 Woodburn Road. And I'm here speaking on behalf of the coalition for affordable housing and transit. We recommend that the council adopt the interim affordable housing density bonus as a very helpful incentive for the addition of affordable housing units in Durham when future multifamily developments are created close to light rail stations. This incentive would offer developers significant benefits in reduced parking requirements, much greater density and profitability, and a shorter, more certain review process. The community would benefit from the addition of new affordable units and the developments incorporation of transit-oriented development characteristics for the first time in Durham, this incentive links upzoning with the inclusion of affordable housing. We commend the staff for responding to the comments from the community, including the coalition and the planning commission to define the affordability requirements as a project that provides at least 15% of the dwelling units as affordable for households earning 60% AMI or less. This makes the density bonus consistent with the affordable housing resolution that the council adopted in 2014. The 60% or less AMI focuses the benefits on residents who are having greater and increasing difficulty finding decent affordable housing. There are many persons in Durham with serious housing needs. In the slide presentation made at the work session, slide 22 compared income and housing costs and it showed that the maximum 40 housing costs for a two-person household with a 60% AMI income of just under $34,000 would be $750 a month. That's what 30% of their income is for rent and utilities and other expenses. Think of the wide range of jobs that pay less than this amount and how few housing units are available at this cost or lower. These lower income persons need access to light rail. Let us recall that a tremendous public investment is being made to construct the light rail system. Access to stations should not be an amenity that is reserved for high income persons. In addition, this public investment produces sizable benefits for property owners, for developers who build housing and can charge high rents in station areas. They should make available 15% of their units to persons with incomes just under and substantially under 60% AMI. This is an important step forward to incorporate the private sector in expanding affordable housing in Durham. Let me just note that we have had very fruitful and interesting discussions with planning staff over a couple years and I'd like to commend Dick Hales and Becky Winders who are here along with Wibgallee and Christine Westfall for their contributions to this project. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jim. I appreciate your comments and the work of the coalition and Dick and Becky and Jim and the others as well. Thank you so much. Council members, any any other questions or comments at this point? I just have council member Freeman specifically to the 60 and 70%. So just can you break down for me exactly what it what it means if we move from 70 to 60 and the difference between the two? So I know the average is out and you're just saying 60%. Yes, we've done, you know, a fair bit of talking, discussing with the coalition, looking at some basic financial proformas for development projects and there exists what's called kind of an equity gap or a revenue gap in a lot of these projects that are affordable housing that you try to incorporate into market rate projects and typically they work when you have area median incomes that are you're trying to serve higher area median incomes. So one of the reasons that we had originally floated the 70% of area median income is that we we felt as if there might be a better chance that a developer might be able to take that project up. However, we don't have site specific market level data that kind of justifies that but we do believe that there are certain projects that will be able to take advantage of this bonus that are able to serve 60% of area median income specifically. Perhaps Fayette Place could be could be a good example of that. So we still think it's worthwhile to continue with this with a 60% of area median income with the other understanding that within one year if it's not effective we'll come back and we'll reevaluate the policy. So within that one year the current zoning that's on those lots if they were to build as is that could be commercial, it could be industrial, it could be whatever is set currently and that would be no affordable housing at all. Right, every property is zoned for something and so they're able to build to what they're entitled to build. By right. And I just want to make sure that I'm hearing you didn't speak to developers, you spoke to the coalition about the density bonus conversation. We had a couple different groups, we did have a developer's focus group that helped us to kind of understand some of the market dynamics as well as the members of the coalition. We even I think we even had a couple joint meetings or where representatives from the coalition were present at the developer's table too. Thank you, appreciate it. Heather, could we look at slide 17 permitted and bonus density comparison? Are you with me? I am with you. At this point? I am with you, I don't know that we have the presentation loaded. Okay, all right. I am with you. Well, then maybe what we'll do is I'll try to get you to explain it. Looks like Vivian's trying to get it loaded. Thank you Vivian. I'm sorry I didn't give you a heads up. Thank you. Thank you Vivian. I really appreciate that. Hannah, could you explain this chart because this is where we show the potential density gains or that a developer could achieve. And I just think it's important for people to understand this. So could you explain this chart to us? Absolutely. So you'll see the dashed line at the top. That is representative of 75 units per acre. The colored bars that are in the chart represent the zoning districts that are currently available that are in these compact neighborhood tiers. So the yellow bars represent the residential districts. The red bars are commercial districts that include some multifamily housing. And the blue are mixed use districts including the compact design district. And the ranges show the available ranges of density that are currently allowed within each of those zoning districts. So if you look at say the red bar for commercial neighborhood, CN district, you can build multifamily in that zoning district anywhere between zero units per acre and 14 units per acre today. If you were to take advantage of the density bonus, you'd be able to build up to 75 units per acre if you included affordable housing. That's a great explanation. Thank you. What I want people to understand who are looking at this and if you are a developer who's thinking about developing affordably in Durham and you would like this density bonus, this is another developer said to me recently, we really need to go up in our density bonus. We need to have at least two units or maybe three units per additionally. And you can see that in, for example, that you said Hannah, where you could go from potentially 14 units to 75 units in the CN district. So we're offering an extremely large density bonus. We are also offering the parking policy exception, what would you call it Hannah? Waving minimum parking fee. Thank you. Waving the minimum parking as well as you're able to come in and do this without a rezoning. You can do this by simply meeting these requirements. Jim pointed out and I agree that this is very, very significant. It is definitely, as I think Pat said during our work session, the most progressive housing density bonus in the state of North Carolina. I do think it still begs the question. And I think Deidreana, my council member Freeman was getting to this with her questions as to whether or not, as to under what circumstances this will be able to be successful. Will developers even given these large density bonuses still desire to take advantage of this? And of course, this is something we'll find out. I appreciate staff presenting us with alternatives at the work session. And I think we've landed where we need to be. And I think it's, it's, it's, you know, we will be able to test it and see. And Hannah, I wanted to add, as I said to Mike, Mike's doing a lot of the unsung work. I would just say that this is kind of the opposite. You've been doing some work here in the eye of the storm, shall we say? Something that everyone in Durham has been paying a lot of anybody. Everybody in Durham is working on housing has been paying a lot of attention to. This brings with it its own pressures and difficulties. And I want to thank you for doing such a great job being the point person on this. And thank the people in planning have supported you as well. So awesome. Council members, any other comments or questions? Mr. Mayor, I do. Yes, sir. Ms. Council, you go first and I'll get council member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mary. And you sort of touched on it. And thank you, Jim, for your comments. I was intrigued by the part of the memo that talked about it just doesn't work. And spoiler alert, I'm going to vote. I'm going to vote to approve the interim strategy. But there were some points and I thought some salient points made in the memo. First of all, we're doing this within the context of the market forces still apply. And this may or may not be palatable to developers. I found, Hannah, you may want to speak for the sake of the public. There are some things that also could happen if developers do not respond to this density bonus in terms of just taking the development somewhere else and then impacting prices outside of the compact district. So I guess what I'm saying is I'm inviting the coalition to stay engaged and citizens to think about this and send us your ideas because this might not work. And if it doesn't, then we could potentially have around our transit stops lower density and higher prices because of less supply. And I don't mean to rain on the parade, but I'm going to put that out there. So we still need your brainpower to talk about what happens if this does not work. And that's the part of the memo that I found most intriguing. With that, I'm going to support the, of course, support the strategy, but I just want to put that out there that we've still got some work to do. Thank you very much. Council Member Freeman. Thank you. I would concur with Council Member Middleton and Councilman Schultz. I mean, Mayor Schultz, sorry. Comments. And I think that the coalition has done a lot of great work, but I do want to highlight that we've been down this road a number of times around many rail stations across the country. And what I'm most concerned about, and I continue to push on, is the first station stop where we're seeing the development occur around Patterson Place. We've already seen what happened at Irwin Square. I mean, yes, I want the most affordable housing available at all station stops, but if this doesn't work within the next year and five or six developments are done at, by right, the current density, which is none, we're at a loss. And you can't take back what's built. I mean, it takes a long time before that property deteriorates, and then there is redevelopment. This is the one shot at it. And I just impress upon, I really, I really was, I want to be supportive of whatever we put forward, and I don't want to just support because. I want to believe that it's going to work. And I do believe that at 70, as an average, it would work. Because I know that there are local developers who are interested in doing affordable housing. The increase in the availability of capital for that equity gap can be addressed if we support with a by right 70% average. I don't know that it will happen at 60. And that's all, I mean, I'm not trying to say that it won't. Anyway, I'm just. Councilmember Freeman and Middleton, I want to thank you all both for adding the necessary complexity to this issue, which it deserves. I completely, I think I think you all have really nailed the question that's in front of us and agree that we're going to find this out. But I think your points are very, very well taken. All right. Thank you very much. Would you like to speak on this item? Miss Peterson. Thank you, Miss Peterson. You have three minutes. Thank you. I just want to, there are some concerns also with some other areas, some other things coming into the community. Oops. Sorry about that. Go ahead, Miss Peterson. You want to start it all over? I don't need three minutes, Mr. Mayor. Okay, go ahead, Miss Peterson. There are some other concerns that is going on and that we really need to be very careful when we're bringing in the bus and the light rail for affordable housing and some other development. There's been a change about where even the light rail is going to come in. It was supposed to be coming in on Fayetteville, down on Fayetteville Street. Now it's being moved over. So we're also going to be looking at dealing with the busing as well as the light rail. There needs to be some development also going out on Austin Avenue. I don't know if you are aware of that, but on my understanding the light rail was also supposed to be going down Fayetteville Street down to North Carolina Central University. That has been changed. And we who live in the area where it's going to be new, down on Austin Avenue going towards Central, no one has talked to us about our housing and about the housing area over in that area also that needs to be developed and those who may would like to sell their homes or whatever. I'm sure there's a lot of people who do not want to live in the middle of our light rail. They're going to already put a light rail in the middle of an African-American community and there has been very, very little dialogue about it. Because my understanding when I was going to the meetings, Mr. Mayer in the beginning, that light rail was coming down Fayetteville Street down towards Central. Somehow it has been changed. Now it's going to come down on Austin Avenue going all the way to Central. Well on the left hand side of Austin Avenue is a residential area over there by Russell Memorial Church. If folks, if you know that area on the other side, you have some commercial stores, but you also have housing in that development. So if you folks are talking about remodeling and putting in some new housing and some new development, please also look at that area also because it's going to be looking terrible once they stick that, once they put that light rail up in there as well as the busing. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Peterson. Just to be clear, the original light rail proposal was to, and you may be seated Ms. Peterson, thank you, the original light rail proposal was to end the light rail just around Grant Street up around Pettigrew and Grant. And so now as you're correct, it's now going down Austin Avenue and but the good news is that assuming that the light rail does everything we would like it to do in terms of timing, the construction would begin in a couple of years and we would be building it for 12 years. There's a lot of time and discussion that needs to happen and you're absolutely right about the importance of these discussions in terms of residential neighborhoods near the light rail. So thank you for raising that. Mr. May, can I add to that side? Please. So I just also wanted to add to that. Ms. Peterson, please be seated Ms. Peterson. You've had your three minutes. Thank you. I just want to let you know that the actual meetings for the light rail were held at Russell Memorial and a lot of outreach was made to residents in the community. I know it needs to continue and understand that you might not have been at the meetings, but I do know that the outreach has been done and it has been very. Ms. Peterson. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Freeman. Are there any other, is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this item? This is a public hearing. There are anyone else who wishes to speak on this item. Is there any member of council who has any more questions or comments on this item? Any questions for Ms. Jacobson? If not, I'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is back before the council. Let's see. I believe we need two motions on this as well. The first will be to adopt the consistency statement to adopt the consistency statement. Do I hear a motion? Move to adopt. Second. It's been moved and it's seconded that we adopt the consistency statement in discussion. If not, Madam Clerk, could you please open the vote? Close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you. And now the second motion to adopt the ordinance amending the UDO. So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the ordinance. Madam Clerk, can you please open the vote? Close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. Hannah, thank you again for your work and thank you to your colleagues. That is our last item for tonight and I'm going to declare this meeting adjourned at 7.54. Thank you for coming. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.