 I'm sorry. Good afternoon. I'd like to call the Durham City County Planning Commission meeting of October the 14th to order. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council and the County Board of Commissioners as an advisory board to the elected officials. You should know that the elected officials will have the final say on any issues before us tonight. If you wish to speak on an agenda item, please go to the table to my left and sign up to speak. For those of you who wish to speak, please state your name and address clearly when you come to the podium and please speak clearly and directly into the mic. Each side, those speaking in favor of an item and those speaking in opposition to an item will have 10 minutes to present each side. The time will be divided among all people's wishing to speak. If you're here posing a rezoning tonight, you should be aware of what is called protest petition. A protest petition can be very helpful to those residents who live in the rezoning area. Please consult the Planning Department staff for any details on the protest petition and they will be happy to help you. You should also keep in constant contact with the Planning Department as when your case will go before the elected official for final vote. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative. So if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is for denial. Thank you. Madam clerk, could we have the roll call please? Commissioner Bieland. Commissioner Busby. Vice Chair Davis. Commissioner Gibbs. Commissioner Freeman. Chair Harris. Commissioner Hollensworth. Commissioner Huff. Commissioner Hyman. Commissioner Miller. Commissioner Padgett. Commissioner Whitley. Commissioner Wonders. Madam clerk, for the record, Commissioner Hollensworth and Commissioner Huff have been granted excuse absence for tonight. Do we have any adjustments to the agenda tonight? Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the Commission, Pat Young, with the Planning Department, no adjustments to tonight's agenda, but I can certify for the record that all public hearing items before you tonight have been advertised in accordance with the requirements of law and their affidavits to that effect on file with the Planning Department. Thank you. And also, Commissioner Whitley will be leaving a little bit early tonight, so he's been granted permission to leave early. Thank you. Could I have a motion to approve the agenda as printed? All in favor of the agenda as printed, please raise your right hand. All opposed? The minute is approved, 10 to 0. That was the agenda. Now, could I get a motion to approve the minutes that sent out earlier, the minutes from our previous meeting? It's been motion and seconded to approve the minutes as printed, as sent out for our previous meeting. All those in favor of approving the minutes, let me know my sure of hand, right hand. All those in opposition? The minutes are approved, 10 to 0. So the first, well, the next thing on our agenda is a public hearing. Open the public hearing for a plan amendment with concurrent zoning map change requests for Irving Road at LaSalle Street, A130010 and zoning case Z130031. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the Commission, Pat Young again with the Planning Department. You will likely recall these cases were continued from your August 12th meeting. The Commission voted for the continuance based on concerns about affordable housing not being provided through committed element with this project. I'm advising you tonight that there have been no changes made to the project. So the project that was presented to you in August is the same as before you this evening. Staff is available if you have questions, but we had not intended on providing the same presentation that we provided in August. If you have questions, we certainly certainly be happy to answer those. Also, we'll reiterate that we had sent out an email yesterday to commissioners regarding staff's analysis of housing affordability at the Future LaSalle Station area. At our August 12th meeting, we had indicated that we would be working, we staff would be working to identify existing conditions for affordable housing in each of the 11 proposed station areas. Through the great work of Laura Woods of our staff, who was the primary analyst on this, we used the LaSalle Station as our pilot, did a detailed analysis based primarily on census data, American Community Survey data conducted by the US Census Bureau, and produced an analysis that showed that 79.5, approximately 79.5% of all for rent units within a half mile of the proposed LaSalle Station area are currently affordable to a three person household at 60% of area median income. And there was backup documentation provided in the email. Ms. Woods is here to answer any questions about the analysis. So it's staff's position at the intent of the council and commissioners adopted policy from May, excuse me, goal from May resolution identifying a goal of 15% of affordable housing, all units within a half mile of each transit area be affordable to folks at 60% of AMI is is met in the LaSalle Station area. So we'll be happy to answer any questions. And of course, I believe the applicants here to answer any questions you have. Okay, I have five people signed up to speak to an affirmative and I have three against. So we have the biker biker and Everett both have five minutes each to speak in favor of the project. I think it's gonna work. Good evening, Chairman Harris, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Patrick biker. I live at 2614 Stuart Drive. I'm an attorney in Durham with Morningstar Law Group. I'm here tonight representing Erwin Terrace LLC. And it's affiliated apartment management company, triple E apartment management or team. Team is a Durham based developer led by Robinson Everett Jr. And he has put together an outstanding group of Durham based firms to work on this project. The architect for Erwin Terrace phase three in the parking deck is due to pain located in downtown Durham. Also assisting with the development construction is Rob Everett with NEMA management, who's also overseeing the ambitious Liberty warehouse project. And then our landscape architect and the president of cultural Thames is Dan Jewel, who's here tonight as well. As was discussed at your August 12 meeting, we are requesting this plan amendment and rezoning so that Erwin Terrace can move forward with a first class mixed use development. During that public hearing a great deal of attention was spent on the resolution adopted by our city council and county commissioners supporting affordable housing around transit stations. We wish to review that resolution in more detail this evening. The resolution contains nine specific recitals the whereas paragraphs and we wish we wish to examine the last three sections. Looking particularly at the closing segment of paragraph seven we see there is a future oriented recital relating to an adopted program that as of today still does not exist. Quote, whereas an adopted program for the preservation and construction of affordable housing around the transit stations and neighborhood transit centers will enhance the likelihood that the application will be approved unquote. Accordingly is incumbent upon us as a community and upon our city and county governments to adopt a program to preserve and construct affordable housing around transit stations. In contrast, it is not responsibility of the Erwin Terrace development team to create that program. It is only through an effective partnership and program that it do that is duly adopted by our local governments that the goal of this resolution can be met. To review specifically this goal and how it applies to the location of Erwin Terrace, the resolution states that quote the city and county endure endorse the objective of achieving at least 15% of housing units within one half mile of each transit station be affordable to families with incomes less than 60% of area median. So let's look at the existing stock of rental housing within a half mile this proposed transit stop. Our research found that there are 3550 apartments within that half mile. Over 2200 of those apartments are affordable within the terms of this resolution and 371 are controlled by HUD. Therefore today 63% of the apartments are affordable and 10.5% are subsidized by HUD. Looking at these facts in the context of the resolution, there is a goal for at least 15% affordability. Given this set of facts, the goal of the resolution for this transit stop is met. And we appreciate the planning department staff corroborating our assessment. In fact, they found that almost 80% of the affordable housing units in the area meet this goal of the resolution. It's important to note that the planning staff did not even mention this in their staff report because the resolution sets a goal. It does not constitute an ordinance requirement. Another important issue we need to address briefly is the requirement that the resolution be achieved in a way that is consistent with state law. It is our position that the committed element that a committed element to mandate reduced rents will violate North Carolina General Statute 42-14.1. Since Erwin Terrace is privately owned, this statute applies. Furthermore, there is no financing structure in place for there to be any subsidized rental properties within Erwin Terrace. Accordingly, any committed element to require controlled rents at Erwin Terrace runs afoul of state law and does not comply with the resolution. At the close of our presentation, we respectfully request that Don O'Toole from the city attorney's office address any questions the commission may have on this issue. And we respectfully ask Mr. O'Toole to share his thoughts on this matter. What does comply with the resolution is for the Erwin Terrace team to take part in our community's efforts to ensure that meaningful business engagement occurs during the development and implementation of the housing needs assessment and program. This will, in fact, work towards implementing the resolution. So just to recap, rent control through an existing, through zoning condition is not consistent with state law. It would undermine meaningful engagement from the business community and Durham needs a well-conceived public-private partnership to tackle this problem. And now I'd like to turn it over to Robinson Everett, Jr., the lead developer of Erwin Terrace. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Robinson Everett, Jr. I was born in Durham, raised in Durham, and live in Durham at a chancellery place. As Patrick mentioned, my family has a long history of contributing to this great town. My grandfather, Ruben Everett, shown here was, I believe, Durham's first city attorney. My grandmother, Katherine Everett, was one of the first two women on the Durham City Council, serving for 20 years. My father, Judge Robinson Everett, Sr., was, if I'm correct, among other things, a planning commissioner like yourselves. When he developed Erwin Terrace in 2002, it was the first mixed-use project in Durham and helped revitalize Erwin Road. Dad cared deeply about affordable housing. That's why he helped found the Affordable Housing Group of North Carolina in 1966. Throughout my father's over 30 years as a founding board member, he advocated tirelessly in Durham and across the state for affordable housing when few people even talked about it. In honor of my father's effort, the organization and the Charlotte Housing Authority dedicated this building, Everett House, providing affordable and accessible housing to 10 disabled renters in Charlotte. I tell you this so that you will know that we are not some out-of-town, get rich, quick developers who do not care about this issue. On the contrary, I grew up in affordable housing built by my father, and I agree with the resolution's goal to provide affordable housing near mass transit. The question is how to do this effectively and legally. Patrick referenced earlier the Planning Department's excellent August 20th presentation. The key takeaway from that presentation was that enforcing developers to build new affordable housing is neither fair nor effective, so the city should instead encourage developers by providing a toolbox of incentives. The Planning Department is already hard at work on this Housing Needs Assessment Plan, which should be completed, I understand, by the end of the year. The Housing Plan, my understanding, does not call for what seems to be misinterpreting the resolution is requiring. It is not a mandate for developers to fund construction of affordable housing. Let me give you two reasons why Ermentares cannot commit to this misinterpretation besides those Patrick gave about the legality. First, new affordable housing does not make sense for this particular rezoning. Any construction on this site, which is very small, tight, and has steep grades and wraps a parking deck, would be extremely expensive and a huge financial risk. You can ask questions to my cousin Robert or Dan about that. Adding on a new affordable housing mandate on top without any help from the city, without any plan how we would be paid back if transit is never built is unreasonable, especially when, as we've heard earlier, over 79.5% of the housing at this proposed station area is already affordable. That's over five times the stated goal. Second, and most importantly, mandating new affordable housing would, at this point, undermine the governmental process. Denying this rezoning now would send the message that Durham does not support its planning department and imposes conditions that are not adopted in its ordinance. We cannot commit to that. So it's important tonight to not lose sight of the forest for the trees. This rezoning will create jobs, it will increase tax revenue significantly, and it will allow the kind of mixed-use development amenities in Durham across from a medical center and research corridor that other cities across the country dream of having and without any incentives. Perhaps most importantly, it will greatly increase the chance that a transit station will actually be built. And we all understand if the transit is not built, this resolution is meaningless. So for the reasons given, because the resolution's goal is already met, as you've heard, at this proposed station area. Because it is important to support not undermine the governmental process and because the proposed rezoning will do so many good things for Durham, I respectfully ask the commissioners for approval. Thank you. Okay, I have three people, Sybel, Armstrong, and Mack. Speaking in opposition, you have three minutes and 33 seconds each. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Larissa Sybel, and I'm representing the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit. And we want to thank you all for the opportunity to have this very important discussion of the goal of including affordable housing in developments around transit areas. And in this case, the development is proposed to go right next to a future rail station. So it's a great opportunity for Durham and for the developer to be able to provide housing that's affordable to all of the people who are going to be living and working in that area and to commit to keeping that housing that exists there or that would be created if that's replaced in this new development to keep that affordable long-term, at least for the 15 years that the city and state usually ask private developers to keep housing affordable. There is no requirement. We are not asking, we are not telling developers that they must provide affordable housing. But we are encouraging developers who want to have higher density developments next to transit to include affordable housing. Affordable housing is one of the criteria that the federal government, the state government, use before they provide funding for transit. So yes, higher density helps transit. They count people who live within a half mile of the transit station. But even more importantly, they count people who are transit dependent, who are low-income, who cannot afford a car. They count people who are living in legally binding long-term affordable housing. So we see this as an opportunity to engage with a Durham citizen who has a long history of supporting affordable housing, of doing good development. And we would like to have meaningful discussions with the developer and with the planning staff about the resolution, about the plans that the city is developing, and about the programs that have been put in place in other communities that allow a meaningful public-private partnership. And we certainly agree that that is needed here in Durham. One additional point, my understanding is some of the subsidized housing that the staff mentioned that belongs to the Durham Housing Authority is in the RAD program. I think one of the public housing has already been accepted, and one is applied to that program, which would create mixed-income housing, which is what we're talking about here today. But it does mean that there will be less housing affordable to people who are extremely low income, people who are disabled, elderly, and other extremely low-income people who are transit-dependent and who really need this housing close to a future rail station. So we hope you will take that into consideration as we move forward in discussing this project. Thank you. Thank you. Armstrong. My name is Kevin Armstrong. I live at 608 North Hardy Street. I guess my point is just simple, and I'll get straight to it. It's like I agree with the affordable housing, and I think it's very important that we have affordable housing with the new developments. I've been in Durham all my life, born and raised, and where I grew up at was, I guess, not the best place for most people, would say, and having affordable housing or subsidized housing and new developments around, like, era row and era one terrors. I used to work over there in that area, which is a very nice area, and I know that there's people where I grew up at or where I'm from would love to stay somewhere like that. They have single mothers, kids. They would love to raise their kids in a better environment, and staying somewhere, having a place for them to go or somewhere for people to go that has trouble, and they really want to make their self better, and they can't really do that in a bad environment. So I guess I'm saying that asking that we consider that the affordable housing or subsidized housing be implemented in the development plan. I hope you all agree, and that's it. Thank you so much for coming and sharing. Thank you, Selena Mac. Good evening. My name is Selena Mac. I'm the director of Durham Community Land Trustees, a non-profit organization here that develops permanently affordable housing. I signed up as being against these, but I'm not actually against so much against the development as I am against just the fact that we aren't going to be able to promote or to include affordable housing in this development. And I do want to commend the planning commission for taking on this issue of affordable housing in this particular development. And I heard what you said earlier, and I realized there is no, the city's plan is not in place, there is no mandate for you to include it. But I know for, I mean, we know it's being done in other communities very successfully, either the inclusion of affordable housing in existing developments or funding to provide affordable housing in other locations. And I would just like to see the city and commissioners and developers as they come to Durham to not so much look at how to say no, it's easy to say no. But the hard thing really is to try and figure out how it can be done. We know it can be done. And we as in DCLT and under coalition for affordable housing transit is more than willing to work with developers coming into the city on how to say yes and how to get to yes and provide the much needed affordable housing that is crucial to the city. Thank you. And thank you. Is it anyone else in the audience that would like to speak, either for or against this request? Seeing none, I'm going to close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners. Do we have commissioners who would like to speak? I see Whitley. I see Davis. Anybody else in there? I see Miller. And, and how? Okay, Commissioner Whitley. Pardon me. I want to applaud what has been done in an urban road. And each time I go there, I see diversity. You know, we need the same kind of diversity. We just taught the club. We need the same kind of diversity in other parts of the city to do exactly what you have done. What, what bothers me is that that private industry and private developers would want the government to, to trust them to do, to do this. And we've been doing that for years. Every developer is not like you. You know, and and I would, I would strongly suggest that you allow the government to give a little nudge, you know, to to encourage people to add that in their mix of thinking. You know, because it's real system going to bring a larger population and doing so we need all, all people, all developers close to the rail to say now, how would I say yes to affordable housing? You know, again, I want to applaud you for, for this. And when the time comes to vote, I'll vote yes. Commissioner Davis, I just want to thank the applicant for taking the time out to do their due diligence to explain to the commissioners how you care about doing them and how it's not legally or economically possible. Just want to reiterate that a lot of people that are against it because they don't see this applicant for affordable housing per se. They've been mentioning public private partnerships. And this is fully funded by a private person. And so what you really ask them to do is to do something that would take money out of their pockets and so what we really need to do is challenge which our planning department is doing is to think strategically long range and to look at where we're developing with jobs, new industries coming in and to buy those properties that would be prime real estate for developers and then sell off that land in an exchange for what we're asking for. And so we can debate. But this applicant has spent more time than I think they needed to get this approved into the day. Hopefully we can push this forward. Thank you. Commissioner Miller. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I actually would like to begin with a couple of questions. Procedurally do we not have something three elements? Plan amendment. Tier boundary change and then change of the development commitments in the mixed use. Is that right? Is that what's happening tonight? In short, yes, the technicality is the plan amendment includes the tier change so that the tier change and the future land use are both included in the plan amendment. So that is one isn't changing the tier boundary. Actually zoning action and not merely comprehensive plan matter. Our unified development ordinance specifies that it follows the zoning map change process. But we are considering that it is a part of the plan amendment for justification as part of that application process. So when we vote to change the plan we need to realize that we are in fact making a zoning map change. No. If we change the tier boundary we are making a zoning map change because what the regulations that apply change with the tier boundary. The performance of the various zoning districts change. I'm hearing you. Commissioner Miller, my understanding is that the there was a decision made years ago that the tier would be the tier boundaries would be included and modified through the future land use map process. The UDO references the tier boundaries and applies certain performance standards density standards site development standards that are traditionally associated with zoning for certain which I think is what you're alluding to. So it has many of the characteristics of zoning but it's that it's legally changed the change to our comprehensive land use map. Correct me if I'm wrong when a property that's zoned in a particular district the regulations that obtain for performance in that district will be different depending upon the tier. So moving the tier line changes the what what the property owner can do with their property right. That's correct. And which is why we insured that there's all the procedures for zoning map change case occur and take place and they have in this instance advertising notice etc. But the change is actually consummated through the future land use map modification process. So and so were we to vote separately for the plan amendment and the rezoning. If we voted for the plan amendment we would in fact though change what these developers could do with their property. I think that's a fair characterization through changing the tier boundary which is included as Ms. Wolff said with the the A 14 case the future land use map amendment case. And so with your permission Mr. Chairman my next question for the staff is so the resolution that the city council adopted in May concerning affordable housing calls upon staff to or the city and county to complete a housing needs assessment plan. And have we begun that and you when can you tell me what are the components of such a thing. What is the housing needs assessment plan beyond what's written in the Senate and the resolution. Sure. So as as we outlined at our August 20th kickoff meeting there's there's four components to the housing needs assessment plan. The first is identification of a toolbox of techniques financing techniques regulatory techniques that can contribute towards meeting the goal. So that's very broad that includes things like value capture that includes existing programs that can legally be used for affordable housing. The second component is looking at incentives through the UDO parking reductions density credits other things we currently have those as you know but they have not been used and therefore not effective. So drilling down on looking at effective incentives the third piece is through our community development department and assessment through the consolidated plan which is our five year plan that goes to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to look at how if at all our federal and state housing funds can be used to prioritize to contribute toward the goal. And the fourth and final piece is continued application of our design districts which allowed the density and intensity to that make in our contention make affordable housing more possible because of the ability to get more units in these areas with of course a robust public process with each of those four steps and those are all underway but not complete. Excellent thank you and then finally I have a question for Mr. O'Toole if he's available good afternoon Don how are you. I'm great. So let me understand we currently have an incentive built into the zoning code for affordable housing. It's not been used but it's there. That's and so if a developer availed himself of that incentive and if the the affordable housing that the developer was creating in order to avail themselves of the incentive was rental housing would it be with the developers commitment under that in other words what weight setup is is if you create so much affordable housing then you can do this much more development. That's correct. Would that be with if a developer said this is what I'm doing and consequently got the extra units or density that that goes without the density of bonuses that's associated with that incentive would that be enforceable under Chapter 42 or could the developer walk away from after having built the extra units with the developer be able to walk away from the the affordability commitment that's inherent in that incentive program. To give a complete answer I'm actually going to go through all of the law because it's not there's not a direct link between the Chapter 42 provision and then the UDO there are a bunch of intermediate steps there. Chapter 42 just so the rest of the planning commission knows what that says is it prohibits a city from enacting maintaining or enforcing any ordinance or resolution which regulates the amount of rent charged for privately owned single family or multi unit residential or commercial property. That's the statute that Mr. Biker referenced there are exceptions to that statute that are recognized that the statute recognizes and all of those exceptions involve when the city has a piece of the pie the city either owns the land it is subsidizing the rent or they've used community development block grants to create that housing. So this is the rule that the legislature has given us it's the backdrop for everything then separately and that statute was passed in 1987 in 1991 the city of Durham got a special charter provision and what the charter provision did was it allowed the city to incentivize affordable housing and it's particularly recognized two ways in which city council could do that it could either grant density bonuses or council could provide other incentives of value to a developer of housing within the city. What the charter provision recognized in section B the charter provision just so it's on the record is 94.2 section B of that said that city council could enforce what's in a so if bonuses were granted and the rents were restricted for 15 years the charter which again comes from the state legislature said that city council could enforce that then and and just to repeat that was in 1991 that the legislature gave the city that power then subsequent to that the city in its UDO put in place the affordable housing density bonus that Mr. Miller has referred to and in exchange for having a certain number of units reserved at a certain rent level the density of the project can be increased and then it also lays out how that can be enforced how the city could enforce it and this is in UDO section 6.6 F lays out what what the provisions are related to rental property G lays out what the way it would be handled for for sale properties and then H says compliance measures can be required at the time of approval of the density bonus including but not limited to contracts restrictive covenants deed restrictions and stipulated penalties. So the bottom line is you can't enforce rent controls generally but the legislature said to the city of Durham that it could do so in very specific in a very specific manner. The last thing that I would just like to add just to complete the picture one of our state senators with gully in the year 2001 actually did go to the legislature to to seek permission to include for the city of Durham actually it was a general bills public law so it would have applied across the state. He saw permission for cities to employ inclusionary zoning and what that would be is rather than just incentivizing affordable housing like our UDO currently does if Senator Gully's bill had passed it actually could have been could have become a part of the city studio where it could have said something along the lines that this percentage of all new housing units shall be affordable that bill did not make it out of committee just to further complete the picture the very next year one of the senators from Orange County tried to get a local bill just for carburel and that didn't make it out of committee either. So I just I just want you to have the two bills were passed for Davidson and Manteo that allow inclusionary zoning. So I mean but we're really not talking about inclusionary zoning or whether or not because it's clear we don't have the authority to do that. Correct. But it is your position that under the local bill that was granted the city of Durham that the incentive program that's now reposed in the UDO is lawful if somebody wanted to take advantage of it. Yes I would agree with that. Thank you Mr. Chairman those are my questions. After everybody's had a chance to speak I might like to speak again. Thank you. Commissioner Hammons. Thank you. I think that a number of questions that I have have been answered. I really wanted to support an echo commissioner Davis's comments because the best predictor of future success is past success and we're dealing with the developer who has who has had tremendous success in this community. I noted that 15 percent goal for the LaSalle area for affordable housing has been met. The numbers are there. A lot of what I heard does not apply to this particular project. What I did hear was that the housing needs assessment by the planning department is currently underway which will more effectively address the city's issue of providing affordable housing. I think that there will be other opportunities. It will be necessary for us to give a lot of thought to to affordable housing for the community but in this particular case the due diligence has been done by both the developer and the staff and the first opportunity that I have to support this project. I will primarily because the project also has a number of positives. That are here needed for the community and a perhaps not being overlooked but when you discuss creating jobs and adding to a much needed tax base. Those things are equally as important. Thank you. Commissioner Weinders. Well I'm I'm also I want to commend the planning staffer for looking at the affordable housing issue and I hope that will come become part of the regular analysis. Will that happen when the after the plan is finished? It will Commissioner Weinders and not only that but I mean certainly any futures owning cases that are in future transit areas will have the full analysis that we provided yesterday for the LaSalle area. LaSalle area was the first one but we're in the process of completing that for the remaining 10 areas. And by the time you see another case in these areas you'll have that information in advance. Thank you. But I also I want to ask a couple of questions that of the of the developer of that there are some some of the units that are that this is an addition to an existing development as I understand it all that I didn't really read the material again from last time. So I'm a little foggy on it. But as I understand you are expanding what's already there and there's a lot of affordable housing that's already there right. That's that's the case. Yeah. So it seems that you know it wouldn't really that I'm disappointed that you weren't willing to make a commitment to to keep the some of those that are already there affordable. You know you were going on because we're expecting this appreciation to occur. And you know just by if we if the plan amendment takes place you know this that's going to be a great financial benefit I think in terms of land value and everything. It seems like it would be an honor to your father you know to make a commitment to keep 15% of your development affordable. And is it is it possible that you could do that. And by make a commitment I mean you know I think it comes to be a deed restriction kind of thing I don't really understand the you know how exactly how it's done. But I know there is experience with it because we have these taxing these tax credit projects you know that have to that make a long term commitment for affordability and it seems like it could be enforced in the same way that those are and I know that Selena Mack is very familiar with that process you know to know how it's done. Can't could you consider making and we're not negotiating or anything here you can't do that. But I mean it's a disappointing that you couldn't you know consider making a commitment to keep some of those affordable. Well I will say that I hope you're right that it is financially successful that some of the things we're doing that would be great because we're we're sort of going to put a big risk on that and try our best to build some wonderful things that I talked about for Durham that will provide the jobs and the tax revenues and the density that creates this wonderful corridor. So I do hope we have that success that you're predicting I very much do. I can't promise that. One question that was asked that we did not get to answer previously at the August 12th hearing was about committing you're talking about one of the one of the many things in the the city listed and it's seventy nine point five percent you know currently affordable housing is popular manner you may have been referring to that I think all or at least most of the units qualify under those sixty percent guidelines federal guidelines as we answered at that time Dan answered. I don't believe how it allows us how it ensures that loan and we would have to get. I don't think how it allows you to commit. So right off I take but to the sense that what I can commit tonight for many reasons I spoke about but will you trust that you know I believe my family does the right thing and cares about Durham I can tell you that. Commissioner Gibbs. Just a couple of comments. We are talking about this development. Is this thing making a lot of noise. This development that we're talking about. As these two. These two buildings is that true. Those are the existing buildings if you're talking about the buildings that front on Erwin Road there existing what the zoning map change pertains to additional construction. That that. As Mr. Everett just alluded to will will take place. If the market demands it. OK and this is to be mixed use. Yes sir. Sort of an economic engine for the area. Yes sir it's I think some of you may know I was an economic development for the Durham Chamber of Commerce this is a. Fantastic economic development opportunity for all of Durham County because it creates. Office space in a location where the chamber can attract new jobs and and new companies to Durham. So yes sir we viewed as an economic development. Project in addition to all the benefits that Mr. Everett referred to. And it fits with. Everything that's going on up and down. Erwin read. Yes sir and that's why you see the structured parking going up. Right. And LaSalle Street. Leads back into the south street and. What's the name of the road that goes back up into the other Louie circle. These are direct. Pass. Of access. To. This. Proposed. And I'm going to assume that it is going to go there. Well to make a long story short. I. Agree with the comments that. Commissioner Hyman made and. And I will be supporting this and. I agree with all the comments. That everybody has made. We all want affordable housing. How it's going to be. Implemented and how it's going to be intermingled with the marketing. Housing. So that. That can support. Those areas of. Lower. I'll say the sixty percent and below. Yes sir. And. And I appreciate Tom's. Questions too. It's. These are just some of the issues that are going to have to be covered. In the future. This is the first one. And it just so happens it's sort of an existing. Development I guess you could say or. And I do appreciate. Your work and the staff's work in. Providing the numbers that you have given us tonight I feel. It gives me more. I'm more comfortable with supporting it. I kind of suspected that. But the numbers are. Even more comfortable. So. And. That's all my comments thank you. Thank you Mr. Gibbs commissioner Gibbs. With all speakers please speak clearly. And directly into the mic as this is being televised. And the technicians constantly have to. Turn the game up and down in order to. For the people in the. View an audience to hear so if you would speak please speak. Directly into the mic and very clearly. Commissioner. Bexby. Thank you Mr. Chair. So I wanted to thank the applicants for bringing the additional information and the planning department I'm very encouraged to hear this type of information we will be seeing. From from here forward. And so I think this is the type of information we're going to need to be able to make really good decisions. I'm planning to support the proposal I think the additional information gives me. Additional level of comfort. One thing I did want to point out and Miss Seibel raised this in the email chain from the other day I think it's something that we just need to continue to. Keep an eye on. Is that while it's great that there's the seventy nine and a half percent affordable housing currently. Near this this transit zone. The the email from Pat acknowledged that only twelve point seven five percent is subsidized and we know over time there's going to be enormous pressure. Good pressure. But pressure on rents. And so. If we want to achieve the fifteen percent goal over time we're gonna have to make sure. That we continue to put tools in place. It's actually not. Clear to me if the intent of the city and the county. Is the is there fifteen percent goal. To be affordable housing that we know we can count on over time so. That's something I think that I would like to get more information on is the intent. Are we meeting the intent right now or over time is this something we're going to need to really. Grapple with but that's something I think we're going to want to continue to keep an eye on. And I can guarantee this is something that we'll continue to talk about as additional proposals come in. I also did want to thank the applicants for being patient because you were the first in in this unique situation. I'm sure it wasn't fun I'm sure it was frustrating. We appreciate that you brought this additional information back to make sure we could make informed decisions. And I think it will be beneficial to additional folks who are coming in with future proposals. Thank you. Okay and my last commit from a commission bill. Thank you Mr chairman. Mr chairman I'm going to vote against this rezoning. For a number of reasons. First of all I want to address the resolution. And the staff the information the staff gave us about how the market is performing currently. In its own report the staff acknowledged that current market rates. Can change. And that they're not commitments I think the only fair reading of the council's resolution is. For affordable housing if it's to have meaning. It has to be read that that there has to be a commitment to affordability. In other words not merely me having a market rate but one that will. Will be affordable. No matter what the market does. And then also I think that that the housing that is. Affordable has to be reserved for people who make at or less than. Sixty percent AMI. It's not good enough and it doesn't serve what the council's getting at. If people who make more than sixty percent AMI. Get a really good deal by renting a unit that's offered. That's ideal for families making less. So market rate isn't going to serve it. Just doesn't work. So that's the resolution. When these developers came to us in August they said that actually by moving the tier boundary they were creating a new tier. And I personally would prefer us to look and move tier boundaries only after a comprehensive examination. Of what the rules and regulations ought to be in that tier specific to that tier. And not do it parcel by parcel or piece by piece. Plan by plan rezoning by rezoning. For if as a community we're going to expand a tier considerably. And or add a new tier because there is a station. Now contemplated that wasn't contemplated. When we created the comprehensive plan. And I think we need to look at that comprehensively. And this property is currently zoned in a way I think allows reasonable development. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of expanding the tier boundary. Without looking and it's not just for this property we're expanding the tier proper tier boundary for other properties for owners who. I know that the these developers communicated with before they made their application. But I want to look at the whole thing and what are we doing and what are we creating. I don't want to have a situation where we have created essentially a compact neighborhood tier a new one. That isn't comprehensive in the way we've undertaken to look at it. That it's everybody just brings in a plan and then it's cobb together in pieces. So for that reason I'm uncomfortable with this proposal. I personally believe based upon our experience with the ninth street station and that comprehensive that that compact neighborhood area. And the design district that we created there. We've got twelve hundred new units coming in. May I finish Mr. Chairman. Just this just this thought. We essentially have twelve hundred units coming in. None of them are affordable by any measure. We. The the horses completely escaped the barn. I want to wait until we finish this housing needs assessment plan. We fill up our toolbox of the tools we're going to need to achieve a reasonable affordable housing goal. When we've done that then I'm going to be more amenable to looking at. Resonings around these transit stations. Especially those resonings that add as many as two hundred new residential units. But before then. I'm reluctant to look at zoning. Resonings or prove them I'm going to hold them to a very very high standard. No one is entitled to a rezoning. It's a legislative process. So I'm going to urge us all to hold back on this one say no to this rezoning. Ask the council to withhold it until we're ready really ready and in a position as a community. To provide for affordable housing. Thank you Mr. Chairman I appreciate the opportunity to to speak. Mr. Chairman we can have about thirty seconds. Yes you have a spot. You know looking at this project we ask to speak into the mind. Looking at this project we ask developers to do many many things. And when they come in here and basically handle and hand us a golden goose. I don't think we need to sit here and analyze. If the goose is big enough. You know they've come in here with a great project and a great development for Durham. Like anything you may come in here you give an inch somebody wants once a mile you give them out they want ten miles. There are certain organizations certain. Folks throughout the community. That growth will never be good. And that's just the way Durham is. But I want to commend the developer. And the community. For standing fast. And making this project an excellent project for Durham. And I will vote for it one hundred percent. Okay the chair will now entertain a motion. Commissioner Davis. I like to move approval plan amendment a one three zero zero zero one zero. Okay it was second by. By commissioner Whitley. All in favor of approving. Plan amendment a one three zero zero zero one zero please raise the right hand. That was an opposition. Here the motion has passed for a one three zero zero zero one zero nine to zero. Nine to one. Nine to one I'm sorry. Okay and the zoning. I like to move approval zoning case the one three zero zero zero three one. Second. Motion is second by Davis and second by Whitley. Zoning case one three zero zero zero three one all those in favor please let it be known by the right hand. Motion has passed. For case Z one three zero zero zero three one ten to zero. Thank you. Now we will open the public hearing for. Item six zoning map change for Grandin Terrace Z one three zero zero zero three five. Good evening Amy Wolf with the planning department. Presenting the staff report for zoning case Z one three zero zero zero three five. Grandin Terrace. The applicant for this case is Regents Development LLC. It is within the city's jurisdiction. The request is from the present designation of rural residential to the rural residential with development plan as well as the plan development residential at a density of three point three two two units per acre. The total site is twenty point zero five acres and the proposed use would allow fifty four single family units. The sites within the suburban tier it has frontage on Herndon Road and Granddale Drive is south of Barbie Road. There are eight parcels encumbered by this request. Three of them are partial parcels. The site is within the FJB watershed protection overlay. And it's generally south of Interstate 40 which is just off the top of the graphic of the map shown. This request has two sub areas or two sub zoning districts to the development plan. The first is the plan development residential. The density for that is three point three two two dwelling units per acre which would allow fifty three units. The total site is 18 or of this portion is 18 point nine one acres. That is a adjusted gross acreage. The density is actually calculated taking out some environmental features and again that would allow for fifty three units. Maximum height in the PDR district is thirty five feet. In the rural residential proposed district the site is one point one four or this portion of the project is one point one four acres and the applicant is committing to maximum of one dwelling unit per acre on this portion of the site. The existing conditions of the site are shown here to the left of the screen is north. So we have Grandale along the north and Herndon on the south. I will outline generally that outline the site area as I can understand it might be hard to see with the topographic lines shown but it's generally this L shaped property. There are parts of the site that are cleared that were in agricultural use the remainder of the site is either in a stream buffer as you see as this dark portion on this graphic or it's forested. And there are a couple structures as a barn structure on Herndon road and there's a couple other structures on the site proposed to be removed. The proposed conditions are shown here. I want to hopefully clarify the distinction between the two districts being requested. There is basically the width of the arrow of the mouse is the RRD portion of the district which is again one point one four acres along the western portion of this of this line. The remainder of the site is the plan development residential district. There's a number of commitments shown on this plan. I'll point some out that are shown graphically here. The shaded area is tree preservation committed tree preservation. We have the stream buffer which is also tree preservation. There are two access points one to the west and one to the east. And there are a number of other commitments of the maximum dwelling unit for the rural residential portion would be one dwelling unit. The PDR portion would be 53 dwelling units. There's one potential stream crossing to two side access points that I pointed out. The applicant is committing to a maximum of 35 percent impervious surface with a tree coverage of three acres or 16.32 percent. The location of the tree preservation areas and access points are committed as well. There's some text commitments. The PDR portion will be limited to single family residential and accessory uses. There's some traffic commitments which is two through six on the scene that are tied to different processes. So prior to the certificate of occupancy constructing site access to which was the western access prior to building permit dedicating 10 additional feet of right away along both road frontages or current road frontages of Herndon and Granddale prior to building permit to close Amanda Road adjacent to the site I will comment that Amanda Road has already been approved for closure. It is still within the 30 day period for recordation. Again Amanda Road has already been closed but not recorded. Number five prior to certificate of occupancy provided turn lane on to Granddale Drive and Huntsman Drive and that may include north and or south bound turn lanes with adequate storage and tapers and then finally number six prior to certificate of occupancy provide four feet of additional asphalt for the bicycle lane adjacent to the other required roadway improvements which is along the west side of Granddale Drive. This request is consistent with the future land use map of our comprehensive plan which designates the site as low density residential which is four dwelling units an acre or less. The orange just above that is low to medium density residential which is four to eight for some context. This request is consistent with the applicable policies of our comprehensive plan outlined on this table and in your staff report and staff determines this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances and staffs available for any questions you may have. Thank you. I have four people signed up to speak to. For and to against. I have be a Ripley and Senator McKessick to speak in favor. You have 10 minutes between the two of you. Thank you chairman Harris fellow commissioners. I'm Bill Ripley 50 11 South Park Drive here in Durham. Representing the applicant for this zoning request we are asking for your approval as per the staff report for a single family neighborhood in South Durham. Want to tell you a little bit about this land the land is the each Herndon is the most notorious name represented with this property it was the Herndon homestead for since the early nineteen hundreds. Each was a builder he developed and built homes the two communities he's he's best known for our Emory Wood and Irvingwood in South Durham. He has his family now owns the land his brother his sons and some nieces and nephews. And as Amy dressed this was many years ago 50 years ago this was mostly a tobacco farm. It is now some pastures and grown up in some pine timber which has been parts of the land were forested or cropped about 10 to 15 years ago. As this neighborhood is as far as Granddale Drive goes a infill development everything to the south on east and west side of Granddale Road is developed there is until you cross the Durham County line into Wake County there is no additional land that I know of that is available for development where to the east is a established neighborhood where our mayor and former chair of the planning commission George Brown live called Hunters Wood to the south is a neighborhood built in the late 90s early 2000 Lakehurst point and to the north is Wellington Forest which is home to one of our county commissioners and I guess I should mention to adjacent to the property to the west and a little bit north is of course Senator McKessick's home and he is here to speak as well. We want to feel fit in the community and build a neighborhood that fits within what is around us. We think our proposed density is within the comp plan two to four units and it's while it is three point two three calculation of density is changed from previous zoning to UDO and that now our zoning is a net net of environmental and other features that are set aside is so it's not a straight twenty acres times two point five as it used to be in the past so the zoning's don't quite match up with the two point fifteen or to the south that it is within the same general range. I wanted to mention that we do have Mr. McKessick I've been working with him for two things that he has requested that we can work with him on we're in agreement and that is to provide him with sewer service and there is a on the plan a graphic commitment of a boundary buffer that's on his south side that we are I just want to make it an additional committed element to that that works with his his desires for what kind of plants he wants within that buffer what kind of trees and bushes and I'm a hundred percent agreeable to meet his request we will get a committed element we have drafted one but we will get a committed element to the staffer approval that just better outlines the plant material except while we're not changing the buffer or any of the standards to the required buffer we would like to get back and give you a written additional commitment that addresses the specific plant material I appreciate consideration of this quest and I'm here to address any of your concerns and chairman Harris if I could reserve any remaining time thank you thank you senator McKess thank you chairman Harris it's a play going to be before you this evening as you know I've one time set as a member of this commission so I understand the task that you're all charged with as Mr. Ripley indicated I do support the development I have no objections to the proposal as it's been set forth it is compatible with the plans for this area in our community I purchased the property out there 20 years ago I have enjoyed the setting that it provides but I also never anticipated it will remain the same unchanged indefinitely so I think it's good to have a responsible developer come along be willing to set forth reasonable parameter in guidelines for its development that's compatible with existing development as it is today certainly there is a sewer force main that runs from my property back over to Herndon Road that creates an easement across his lands which will have to be addressed and accommodated he has agreed to do so with an appropriate committed element black wise there's appropriate buffer that needs to be put in which is joins the common property line that we would both have with those conditions and of course I'm looking forward to see what the actual product would look like that goes there and I know that's not on your table tonight I'm certain that in appropriate time Mr. Ripley and I will be examining those details in further detail but I do support the project I think it can be good for this part of Durham and providing a nice compliment to the area thank you thank you I have two people signed up against former chair of the planning commissioner Brian chairman Harrison commission members my name is George Brian I reside at 6505 hunters lane in Durham I am speaking in this slot because of a concern the hunters would neighbors have about traffic from the proposed development and earlier I left copies of my previous email to you together with copies of several pages from the reference T.I.A. at your seats for the record the T.I.A. to which I refer is the one prepared in February 2012 by Rami camp and associates incorporated for the original metas at south point proposal which was case Z one two zero zero zero one that T.I.A. analyzed the Granddale drive Barbie Road intersection among others today I want to call your attention to some numbers something I failed to mention previously was an existing conditions finding in the T.I.A. the finding was that about 50% of the peak hour traffic approaching Barbie Road on Granddale Drive turned left on the Barbie Road with 50% of the traffic wanting to turn left and no left turn lane it is perhaps not surprising that the intersection functions at a level of service F. I now turn to traffic volume according to the staff report the original metas at south point proposal was projected to generate 6,373 average trips per day according to the reference T.I.A. 5% of this traffic was projected to be on Granddale Drive that works out to be 319 average trips per day on Granddale Drive again according to the staff report the proposed grand and trace development is projected to produce 590 average trips per day right now the only access to the development is off Granddale Drive does the 590 average trips per day most pass through the Granddale Drive Huntsman Drive intersection where will that traffic go obviously if it turns on the Granddale Drive if all of it turns on the Granddale Drive it will represent a greater impact than that projected for the original metas at south point proposal if it is assumed that half of it turns left on the Granddale to go toward Barbie Road the result would be another 295 trips impacting the Granddale Drive Barbie Road intersection that is similar to the impact projected for the original metas at south point proposal admittedly we have no T.I.A. to tell us which way the Granddale trace traffic will travel however my point is that the Granddale grand and trace traffic on Granddale Drive has the potential to have an impact on the Granddale Drive Barbie Road intersection that is similar to or maybe greater than that projected for the original metas at south point proposal that proposal required improvements at this intersection we believe the intersection improvement should be required of the proposed grand and trace development and a minimum a left turn lane on Granddale Drive is needed at this intersection otherwise we are concerned we will see a considerable increase in the amount of traffic cutting through our neighborhood and closing I just want to note to maybe save a question Hunters Woods is generally the support of this rezoning we just think that a little bit more work improving the intersection that Granddale Drive and Barbie Road would make it an even better project thank you very much thank you George and we have Lane Sawyer good evening commissioners my name is Lane Sarver I live at 4411 Granddale Drive which is at the corner of Huntsman and Granddale I've lived there for 40 years when I moved there old apex highway was a one lane dirt road that people got stuck in the mud whenever it rained needless to say I've seen a lot of changes in my front yard I live in the old massy homestead in which Fred Herndon's mother was born and we are very of course very much love our rural setting we do know however that the cows we look at across our front porch are not going to stay there forever however the traffic on Granddale Drive is really horrendous particularly rush hour in the morning when traffic from the Barbie Road intersection with Granddale Drive backs up past my driveway and it's almost a half mile further up adding another the traffic from another 40 or 50 trips per hour in the mornings will be a tremendous problem for our neighborhood for the adjoining Hunterswood neighborhood and even for the projected residents of this of this new development we think that that the density needs to further needs to more closely reflect the adjoining density of of the adjacent neighborhoods and not be a step up in increase to have an additional 54 units there we think that would add tremendous traffic problems and we would ask the consideration for having a lower density to preserve the lower to medium density of this neighborhood we're creeping creeping up to a higher density a higher density area I am a planner and an architect so I appreciate the planning the the planning staff planning commission work that has gone into this and I do note that they do have some improvements on the intersection of proposed for Huntsman and Granddale I also hope that the additional right of ways required for those left turn lanes use the land of this proposed development rather than incur into the land selfishly said the land that I own in terms of making the road wider it would affect the historic house that I live in and the remnant the only remnant that will remain of what was the South Durham agricultural area thank you thank you or there any additional comments from anyone in the audience if not then we'll close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners do we have commissioners wishing to speak on this item I have Miller winders did I hit will you hand it no no Gibbs okay Commissioner Miller thank you Mr. Chairman I would like to ask the gentleman who just spoke is there a way that we can project the the context map on the screen so he can point out exactly where his property is thank you Amy and while she's doing that Mr Ripley can you answer a question for me so along the backside of your property we have this strip that remains owned are are can you tell me why yes sir that will remain undeveloped that is speaking I'm sorry I'm afraid to get too close and the Herndon family that owns the large parcel there we are on the backside the only west side the Herndon roadside we are acquiring half the property though that's why it's so linear he is keeping the cows and the rest of the farm so that is so that we don't zone residential and then we somewhere down the road and I don't know if it's two years or 15 years when he wants to do something with that property this leaves a strip in there so that he can zone it and not have to come back I think our ordinance is kind of encumbered where you come back to rezone a part of a property and you've got 50 homeowners they all supposedly have to sign the new petition to rezone so this was left so that the 50 new homeowners don't have to change the plan so because I can't see how your lots are laid out will this property be you say it'll remain undeveloped will it be divided up though no it will not be divided up it will actually be to the rear of the lots all right so it's kind of like a buffer strip but it's of a different zone correct and you've dealt with that to everybody's satisfaction in the committed elements in your development plan correct all right thank you that was the answer to the question that I wanted there and then finally Mr. Brian has raised the question about this left hand turn lane what is your position do you have anything to do you have a response for that well tonight so first I've heard of it we went through the report and the study during the review for several months with the staff and DOT did review our points of ingress and egress and requested a left turn lane at Huntsman where our entry will be and that left turn lane was a southbound left turn lane which is a service to the folks that live in Hunterswoods because folks entering our new neighborhood would obviously come in south would only have to turn right so the left turn lane is a improvement feature for folks entering Hunterswoods that does not and necessarily benefit my development the left turn lane he is requesting or speaking of at Barbie road is something that I have not has not been discussed with DOT or the city and I have not heard of that request or need until tonight I did want to mention that Grandle road is serving at what the city rates fifty percent of its capacity of about five thousand trips per day with a rated capacity of a little over ten thousand and while we we are we are estimated at about eleven trips per household or five hundred ninety trips that is a twenty four hour period so it's really about if I would use my common sense would say let's just use twelve hours because that's really when all your traffic is we're only talking about fifty trips per hour so it will we're increasing that our trips at that intersection of huntsman and our street a will effectively be less than the trips that Hunterswoods is currently producing but I do not have a plan or the the size of this project does not allow for an offsite turn lane I can't tell you half mile to the north so to speak not my property and then can you because I'm can you estimate what the average lot size and square feet would be for your property when it's developed knowing that I can't hold you to this and I won't we we in the in the development world today lots are as you know shrinking and as far as square footage or acreage that it's really dependent on the builder of the width of the lot and that's what we're working with different builders on whether we're going to have a 60 foot product and the trade is 60 foot product or 70 foot product I have a active adult community developer or builder that I'm working with that only needs a 54 foot wide product so the square footage of the lot of course it depending on the frontage but they will be approximately for rough number 60 by 150 I think that's 9000 square that's 9000 square so that's that's a general it could be a little bigger that could be a little smaller depending upon where the the particular lot is that and which builder whether it's an active adult that's trying to build a home that's for old people like me so we don't have to go up and down a lot of steps and can have a master on the first four their product is is narrower sometimes and a little bit more shotgun shaped great and one final question before you sit down you reserve right of way kind of across that the stream there what are the circumstances that are going to cause you to build across that and connect to Herndon road as you the committed elements are the errors for ingress and egress so far committed elements and required on our plan there is no ingress and egress off Herndon road you're not planning that I just saw that there was a in there there is a plan to cross the creek and that will be a cul-de-sac okay it will not connect to her so you're not planning to connect to Herndon road and and the the connection to the larger Herndon track that's their that's for a future yeah that they'll build the rest of that road when they're ready to do it that you won't that's correct you're not planning to cross their land don't have an agreement to do that no sir thank you mr chairman those are my questions if I could while you're at mr server had asked about the right away if I can address that while I'm here that's a good idea thing we will stay within the right way we will not be in the ditch or where your home or bamboo and other plants are so I just want to let him know that thank you very much commissioner winders I wrote Mike was asking the same question why do we call that an access point if it doesn't go anywhere but to the cal pastor commissioner winters pat young with the planning department the intent of that policy is to allow for the future development of that to connect to the stub they'll have to stub it there at that location so that when that's developed the street can be carried through to Herndon we have no legal mechanism to and really no need to require that connection now for only 54 units so but what what will happen is that will terminate at the property boundary and when that property is developed in the future that developer will require to connect through to Herndon road which will help the intersection because if you're going to go if you go across there and go on Herndon road you wouldn't have to turn left from granddale the Barbie that's true commissioner Heinz yes I am trying to understand how since the developer is hearing about this the addition of a an additional turn lane at this particular time are you asking this body to consider I'm trying to understand how it would be folded in since it's not a part of the initial project and and also because extensive traffic analysis has already been done and I guess the other question is why wasn't this identified as a need so I'm just well as Mr. Ripley indicated the intersection is slightly off of his property so that may be one reason why it wasn't considered and as to what should happen next my purpose in being here tonight was to bring this to everybody's attention you can ask I can't ask we can only let Mr. Ripley know what the situation is and I think it's really going to be up to him as to make a decision as to what he may want to do prior to going to council he can decide to add the committed element for a left turn lane on Grand Eller he can decide to go forward as it is and that's that's really up to him and then it'll be up to council decide whether they like it that way or whether they want to see the left turn lane okay so the next part of the question will be if this body decides to then you know move this forward there's still an opportunity for you to for this to happen I believe that there is I mean I think there's enough time between now and the city council hearing for a decision to be made by the applicant on that matter and staff can correct me if I'm wrong if I might put him information for commissioner hyman the rest of the commission so Mr. Brian is correct I mean if if this body if you all want wish to consider any additional committed elements we would ask for a deferral so we can evaluate the legality and and enforce ability of those Mr. Ripley alluded to a possible commitment on above for we're not considering that committed more seeming that's not part of your deliberations unless you tell me otherwise but as I think Mr. Brian just alluded to as long as the applicant gets us any revised commitments that are above and beyond what you're seeing tonight the planning director can review those I want to say it's 10 days I need to check the policy but a reasonable period before it goes to council we can review those and allow those to be entered to council at council if the applicant so chooses thank you commissioner Gibbs well this is just a brief comment about what we're talking about with this improving the roadway any improvements to traffic control and especially in a joining neighborhoods can only enhance the quality of life and that's not moving this thing forward nor backward I just wanted to make that comment thank you commissioners I'd like to talk to Mr. ask a question to Mr. judge do so what does it mean when the intersection operates at the level of F and is there a possibility what kind of improvements might we possibly be able to get like a three way stop or something bill judge transportation the level of service analysis is based on average delay and at an un-signalized intersection such as this since granddale doesn't currently stop that we just measure the delay on the side street which would be I'm sorry Barbie doesn't stop so all the delay would be measured along grandale at the T intersection and then the criteria varies for un-signalized intersections I believe it's 80s once it reaches 80 seconds of delay it's considered level of service F in the peak hour that's the average delay take someone 80 seconds or more to exit from grandale onto Barbie that is not uncommon at an un-signalized intersection or a driveway particularly in a peak hour typically the first improvement that you would see or either left turn lanes on the main street such as Mr. Bryant has suggested or requested or an additional lane on the side street so that the folks turning left and folks don't hold up the folks turning right type of situation so those are typically the first improvements once those are made typically that will also help the delay but eventually the signal warrant or three-way stop or basically just based on volumes when the intersection volume gets high enough for enough hours of the day that point signals become warranted and those improvements are installed and what's the process for doing that for a signal those are based on upwards of eight hours a day typically they'll collect data for really about 12 to 14 hours a day from early in the morning through late in the evening and there's federally mandated criteria that are utilized for when the volumes reach a certain threshold for a certain number of hours they become warranted and then if that's determined to be appropriate that request gets started in this case since it's two state intersections it'd be the North Carolina DOT's responsibility our office works with them closely on a number of locations to determine whether or not signals are warranted and then to get that funded and scheduled through them. So is there anything citizens could do to move the state the DOT along? Yeah they can request through our office at any time to begin that evaluation for instance the intersection of Herndon and Barbie just to the west here currently meet signal warrants and North Carolina DOT has agreed rather than installing a signal they're actually constructing a roundabout which I don't believe is under construction yet but very soon will be. Thank you. One further point of information Bill can correct me if I've got it wrong I know there's at least one other development plan that has committed to signalizing this intersection if the warrants are met. And if the project develops to a point where it trips those warrants which is the SM51 South project. Commissioner Buxby. Thank you Mr. Chair. Very briefly Mr. Brown I wanted to thank you for coming and sharing your comments I have had a level of service F experience at that exact intersection. So it strikes me as a very reasonable request and good for the quality of life of that area and for safety and public service. So thank you for coming. Okay Tom. So I want to make sure I understand the staff position. Would a I'm not saying I'm advocating it but would an exaction for a turn lane there be lawful in the view of the staff as a condition of approving this rezoning. Pat you know the planning department I would say only if it's voluntarily propped by the applicant as I think Mr. Judge and others have alluded to the threshold for the exaction through our site plan process or through the zoning process is not met. That requires that a certain threshold peak hour trips associated with the TIA transportation impact analysis be met that's not met with this project. So it's not going to happen at the administrative level. That's correct it will not. So if it happens at all it's going to happen at the legislative level. Or through activity of NCBOT. Yes I'm talking about as a part of this the development of this project. That's correct it doesn't meet the threshold for us to require it administratively. Right that's good. Thank you for helping me. OK and before I receive a motion to approve this Mr. Ripley offered a commitment and I believe we have to motion to receive that Senate to the planning commission. I mean to the planning department. So if you want to have that any any additional commitments including something he mentioned something about a buffer as part of your deliberations tonight we would ask for a two-cycle deferral so we could review the language to make sure that it's legal and enforceable. If you want to essentially take the applicant and his word that he's going to work on that and provide it to staff prior to council that's also permissible. You could act tonight and then the applicant could submit information to the planning director who would review it for legality enforceability prior to council. So it's really at you all's discretion but if it's something you all want to consider we would need as we asked consistently at least in the last year or so time to evaluate any language because again we essentially can't accept conceptual commitments. So. And he's. I don't think the applicant is in favor of the delay. I know I know I know what you. We would. Not seek a deferral if we could. I will make sure that the committed element is appropriate and accepted by senator kiss it. Or else he will be at city council objecting to my point. Is that acceptable to you. Yes it is I've known bill for twenty five years. And I've known to be a person of integrity when it comes to working with him so I feel as if he has made that commitment. And I know that he can't really proceed without going over an easement that I have going across his property anyway. So. So I think we'll get something worked out. All right thank you very much. Could I get a motion. I'll make a motion. Can you hear me now. I'll make a motion that we support the case. Z one three zero zero zero three five. Motion by commissioner. Pageant. Do I hear a second. Second by commissioner gives all in favor of. Proving. Z one three zero zero zero three five please let me know am I raising your right hand. Opposition. Case Z one three zero zero zero three five has passed ten to zero. Now we will open the public hearing for. Waffle House at NC fifty five. Zone in case Z one four zero zero zero one nine. Good evening again Amy Wolf with the planning department. The case before you Waffle House. NC fifty five case Z one four zero zero zero one nine. Is. The applicant is stocks engineering. It is within the city's jurisdiction and the request is from the present designation of office institutional to. CN or commercial neighborhood the site is one point five acres in the proposed use. Is one thousand eight hundred and seventy five square foot restaurant. There is no development plan associated with this request. The site is one parcel in the suburban tier at forty two or three NC fifty five highway which is south of carpenter Fletcher road and north of meridian parkway. It is also north of the interchange of. Interstate forty and NC fifty five highway. It is within the MTC. Overlay which is major transportation corridor overlay which essentially. Is intended to protect the aesthetic integrity of the area essentially it will limit the sign height on the property. There's a mix of non-residential zoning in the vicinity vicinity and the typical uses you would find at an interstate interchange. The site and request meets the minimum standards of the commercial neighborhood district the site is one and a half acres. And the minimum site for the commercial neighborhood is five thousand square feet. The CN district would limit the project floor area to twenty thousand square feet and. This is a proposed not committed project floor area of one thousand eight hundred and seventy five. And the commercial neighborhood district limits the height of any structure to thirty five feet. This request is consistent with the future land use map of our comprehensive plan which designates the site as commercial you'll see designated on this map. In the red. The request is also consistent with applicable policies of our comprehensive plan as outlined in this table. And in your staff report for elaboration. And staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances. And staff is available to answer any of your questions. Thank you Amy. I have zero people signed up to speak. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this. If not. I'll be closing the public. You want to speak. Just want to say I'm Kevin Varnale with stocks engineering. And I'm the applicant and open to any questions you may have. Okay. Hi thank you. And I'm Jenny Myers with Waffle House. I'm the real estate representative. And I'm from Gainesville, Georgia. Okay. We'll close the public hearing and bring it before the commissioners. I have Commissioner Davis. Commissioner Davis. I just had a question for the applicant. So you are, is the future plans to put a Waffle House in this location? Because I know there's one like 50 feet away. So I'm trying to figure out why you put two in the same unless that was going away which I'll feel sorry about. Well the reason why we're doing this is because we're going to eventually we're going to close the one at the understate. Thank you. That's what I wanted to know. Thank you. Commissioner Miller. So we don't really care whether it's a Waffle House or not that's up to you but this is an extremely funny shaped piece of property. If you get your Waffle House on there, will there any of the rest of the property be usable after you work your plan? I'm trying to envision what this property would look built out. If you look at the property on the context map, the widest point is like 100 feet in depth. And our site plan will actually only occupy that end of the property. And then when it narrows down based on the given setbacks that are required, I don't think you can even get a building in there. Our plans are not to develop it. We only bought the property because it was just one parcel. And we were able to make it doable by putting it on that far end. So your plan as far as you're based upon your experience in real estate and engineering is pretty much going to max out the practical, buildable area of the lot. Yes. And if I'm not mistaken to the east, there's railway in there. How will this, are there, are there any special requirements with regard to railways? We don't see those very affecting. As far as zoning in, as far as site development, does not affect us at all with the actual railway behind it. I didn't know whether the railroad had rules or things like that that made life harder for you. The railroad has dedicated right away, which obviously we have to stay off of. Other than that, we can do anything we won't own outside of the property. Thank you very much. We might have to put a little extra steel in the building just because of the vibration, but other than that, I don't think we have any, any requirements. Are the other questions, comments from commissioners? If not, could I receive a motion? Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve or send to the council a recommendation to approve the rezoning requested in case Z 14 0 0 0 1 9. Moved by Commissioner Miller. I'll second. Second by Commissioner Padgett. All those in favor of approving Z 1 4 0 0 0 1 9, please raise your right hand. All those opposed, please raise your right hand. Z 1 4 0 0 0 1 9 has passed 10 to 0. 9 to 0. Mr. Chair, your rules and procedures that you actually have to vote to excuse a member or else they're if they've been counted present or else they're voting in favor. Okay, so 10 to 0. And could I receive a motion that we excuse Commissioner Whitley? So moved, Mr. Chairman. Motion and seconded. Motion by Commissioner Miller. Second by Bugsby. That we excuse Commissioner Whitley. All those in favor let it be known by showing me the right hand. Opposed? Ayes have it 9 to 0. The motion has passed to excuse Commissioner Whitley 9 to 0. Okay, now we go to item 7, Public Hearing, Text Amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance Unipo TC 1 4 0 0 4. Thank you very much, Michael Stock with the Planning Department. Text Amendment TC 14 0 0 0 4 is a privately initiated text amendment by Morningstall Law Group to the Unified Development Ordinance or UDO to allow a unipole or also known as a slick stick freestanding wireless communication facility to be considered concealed in all non-residential districts except for the commercial neighborhood district and planned districts except for the PDR district and all design districts. A unipole just for a little educational purpose is a type of monopole wireless communication facility or WCF that contains all the antennas within the pole of the tower itself. That's only a tall pole is visible and the antennas are hidden. There are pictures of it within your agenda packet if you haven't taken a look at that already. This type of monopole does not or wireless communication facility is not currently considered concealed based upon the definition of concealed wireless communication facilities in the UDO. The draft ordinance prepared by staff attempts to provide clarity to the request while maintaining the intent of the applicant instead of attempting to categorize a unipole as concealed or non-concealed, staff has simply just created a separate category called unipole that is consistent with the intent of the applicant while also providing consistency with other types of the freestanding towers. Both concealed and non-concealed WCFs are allowed within the RR and RS20 zoning districts and therefore staff believes it prudent to also allow unipoles in those districts but only with a special use permit consistent with non-concealed WCF approval standards that are currently within your ordinance. Finally, staff does recommend approval of the request but as indicated in the staff report would prefer to incorporate the amendment into the overall revisions of the wireless communication facility ordinance standards that have been under consideration by the Joint City County Planning Committee for the past year and a half. I think Commissioner Miller could attest to the timing to that. With impending, there will be impending public hearings to that when it's ready to come before the planning commission to it with that their own public hearing and approval process. The applicant was provided the options to either incorporate the request into those overall revisions or to move forward with the request ahead of those revisions as you're seeing tonight. The applicant has chosen to initiate the approval process ahead of the overall revisions in order to take advantage of both the current setback standards and the current exemption of concealed freestanding wireless communication facilities from the minor special use permit process. The pending overall revisions would propose changes to both of those current standards. I'll be happy to answer any questions. And the applicant is here to also answer questions. Thank you. I have two people that signed up to speak both. It's in favor of it. I have Patrick Bakker and Matthew Daniels. Give me just a moment, Mr. Chairman. I promise we'll take less than five minutes of your time, assuming I can get another PowerPoint to start up. All these years, I don't think I've ever had to do two PowerPoints on the same night. So let's hope that doesn't happen again. All right. Good evening, Chairman Harris, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Patrick Bakker. I live at 2614 Stuart Drive. I'm an attorney with Morningstar Law Group in Durham. I'm here tonight representing Durham Tower, LLC, for the text amendment that's before you tonight. With me tonight from Durham Tower is one of its founding partners, Matthew Danielson. And he's just signed up in order to answer questions that may come up. You've just heard the staff report. And we appreciate the staff support for the terms of this proposal. We're here tonight to request your support for this text amendment that will promote the installation of unipoles or slick sticks through an administrative approval. We want to stress that we are only requesting this administrative approval in non-residential zones. In short, we think this is a text amendment to incentivize good behavior. Now, before I start, we realized to pick up on comment Mr. Stock may we realize cell towers have been a time-consuming issue for the Plain Department staff. And so I just wanted to share this cartoon which illustrates this issue has, in fact, been around for a very long time. And now to show you what we're talking about with the term unipoles, here's a picture from Cary, North Carolina. This picture was taken on the Triangle Expressway, the extension of the Durham Freeway going into Wake County. You can see there's 195-foot tall unipole in the center of the picture, just to the left of the automobile. To give you a point of reference, this is probably about a half-mile north of the USA baseball complex in Cary. What distinguishes a unipole or a slick stick from the other types of cell towers is that the antenna hardware is inside the pole and nothing is mounted externally. To be very frank about this proposal as before you tonight, we essentially borrowed the concept in its entirety from the Cary zoning ordinance. I'd like to contrast this unipole and Cary with some pictures I took while going around in Durham. Here are two towers with external antenna. The one on the left is on the Durham Freeway at Alexander Drive. I drive by it just about every day. It's in the heart of research Triangle Park. The other one's on Hillsboro Road next to the Wendy's that's just past the 15501 interchange. So these are cell towers in non-residential zones. However, you can see these types of antennas are also in residential areas in Durham. The one on the left is an apartment complex on Highway 55 just north of Cornwalls Road. And the other one is on an apartment complex off of Marine Road. So I'd like to contrast the visual appearance that you see with these antennas with how the unipole and Cary looks when it's viewed from a residential neighborhood. That was as close as we could get without trespassing. But you can see it presents much less visual clutter. Now, what's currently allowed in Durham by administrative approval is the monopine. Maybe it's just me, but I think it would look odd to have this monopine type of cell tower in a non-residential zone. And here's a picture of a shopping center on Miami Boulevard. It's a place I like to go to eat lunch often. And you can see a tower in the bottom right corner. And you can imagine that as a monopine. Now, to conclude, we have a specific location for the unipole we wish to install. It's along Pettigrew Street and Industrial Zone close to Durham Technical Community College. I hope all of you had the opportunity to review the letter that's in your agenda package from the president of Durham Technical Community College to Plain Director Medlin. We think this is a great location for implementing this type of cell tower that will minimize visual clutter. In addition, it will improve service for Durham Technical Community College students and staff. There are approximately 20,000 students on their campus every workday. And the new tower will enhance safety because 75% of 911 calls currently come from cell phones these days. Also, in terms of community appearance, we can avoid installing a monopine at this industrial location. And so for all those reasons, we request your recommendation of approval to move forward tonight. We'd be happy to try and answer any questions you have. And we thank you very much for your time. Just here to answer questions. OK. All right. I see no one else out there, but I will ask anyway. Is anyone else like to speak on this item? If not, then I'll close the public hearing and bring it back. Well, before I bring it back before the commissioners, I represent the Plain and Commission and the JCCPC, which is a joint city planning committee. And this was brought before us. And our task was to review this report from the staff, review the received report from the staff, review the report, provide comments, and provide policy direction to the planning direction. As such, we recommended, well, we don't vote whether to approve or disapprove, but the general sense is that we approved it, but we did have one concern. And that was the fact of not having to go through the special use permit. So that was a concern that the JCCPC had, and they wanted to let you know that that was their concern before we proceed with the discussion. Now I will bring it back before the commissioners. We have people like to speak. Miller, Commissioner Miller. So the first question I have actually is for you, Michael. In this version, this is not the way it was originally submitted. Is that correct? Right, Mr. Stark. We were very comfortable with the changes Mr. Stark made. So that was one question. You're cool with the staff's revision, and you've revised it so it will sleeve into the proposed changes if we adopt them. That's correct. Can you tell me just once more for my peace of mind, if someone proposed to, under this, if we approve this, and if it's adopted, if someone proposed to erect a unipole or a slick stick in an area that is zone residential under this proposal, would they or would they not be required to go to the Board of Adjustment for a use permit? And if the answer is yes and no, what's the break point? The answer is yes, they would need to go for a use permit. I need to clarify that it's actually not allowed in all residential districts. The only residential districts you could possibly go into is the RS-20 and the RR district and would require minor special use permit, and that's consistent with current requirements for non-concealed towers. So I felt, the staff felt that consistency was warranted. I thought so. But thank you. That's exactly how we viewed it. So I appreciate the clarification. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a question for staff. It mentions in our document that the overall revisions to the WCF ordinance standards are under consideration. What's the timing of that process? Well, a draft ordinance has been released out for public review. JCCPC has done their deliberations with it, and they asked staff to move on. We drafted and document consistent with their direction and has been out for public review for the past three or four weeks. The timing of it is actually going to take a little bit of a hit. The FCC is actually going to be introducing regulations, new regulations or rules regarding wireless communication facilities. So we kind of want to see what they have to say before we move forward with any of our own ordinance regulation so we don't have to kind of go through an adoption process and then immediately have to readop something like that. But we're looking at a few months. And part of what I'm trying to figure out is how long would this need to wait if we wanted to incorporate this into the overall process? I'd be surprised. The timing's a little bit influx right now. I'd be surprised if it was more than a year before the overall revisions were changed. Probably around six to eight months based upon what we're waiting for with the FCC. Still needing to come before the planning commission and actually before coming before the planning commission kind of meeting with industry and neighborhood representatives to iron out or hear any comments and then also to get it before the governing bodies. Thank you. Okay, so I have a comment on this particular one. The Durham Planning Commission rules a procedure. Section 1.3 functions of the planning commission. The planning commission should have the duty of proposed review policy and procedures for encouraging broad public input on all comprehensive areas, sub areas, neighborhood, and functional areas. By removing the special use permit requirement from this we're actually, how should I say, violating our first function, which is to encourage broad community input, because this is one avenue that the public would not have input of. And for this reason I'm going to vote against this and as you do, likewise, I remember just a few years ago the planning director made a decision that actually divided the entire neighborhood, the Durham community where it possibly could have been avoided had there been public input on the front end and that's the 751 South Project. So administrative decisions are good, but the more diverse opinions around the table you come out with a much better product. So I'm going to vote against this project. I was just going to ask Mr. Baker if you could lay out your reasoning for coming in advance, especially on the timing issue, because I'm inclined to agree with the chair about going through the standard process, going through the public hearing process, but would like to hear your thoughts on why now and why not just waiting and wrapping this into the overall process. Well, because if you, I appreciate the question very much, if you take the process that Mr. Stock outlined, that's 6 to 8 months, and then you put a special use permit on top of that, then you're talking at least 10 months, probably closer to a year before we can provide service to the students at Durham Technical Community College. They have a serious problem there right now, and Mr. Danielson and his partners need to be responsive to their customers, and I really view this as an important, we talked about economic development with Erwin Terrace and I'm going to talk about it again now. For the new jobs that are coming to Durham, it is very important for people to get training at Durham Technical Community College, and if this is a problem, it is a disincentive for people, and so we respectfully ask for the ability to move forward now, and again, it is something that with all due respect, it seems to work well in Cary, and people in Cary are not bashful about participating in the process, and what's before you today is, again, we looked at the Cary ordinance and said, let me get this straight. I really don't like to emulate Cary, but in this case, plagiarism is a sincerest form of flattery. It seems to work well there. We looked at their ordinance and what we put forward to Mr. Stock and the planning department was right out of the Cary ordinance. It's to, again, to incentivize good behavior. These monopoles cost a lot more. If I can go back to the ones that you see around Durham all the time, those types, you know, a monopole costs a lot more money for Mr. Danielson and his team, but it's a much better product, and if we're putting it in a non-residential zone, then we're doing the right thing. And if I can make an observation, I worked on the first cell tower ordinance which was 1996. I worked on with Bonnie Estes. So I've been looking at this for a long time, and I would like to see us really grapple with, and ironically, it's like the affordable housing issue, we need to incentivize good behavior. Mr. Danielson and his partners have to spend more money to put up a slick stick, but that's a lot better looking tower for those of us who drive through Durham or have to shop in Durham or have to look at it. So it's a better outcome, and in return for a better outcome and a higher level of investment, you get a more efficient process. And so that's why we're asking for the Planning Commission to approve this today. And again, I wanted to, again, reiterate that letter that President Ingram sent to the Planning Director in regards to the need for this specific location that we presented tonight. Thank you for your question. If this change in the ordinance as text amendment were not adopted, by what procedure would Mr. Beiker's client have to follow in order to erect a free-standing wireless communications facility in the vicinity of where he wants to put it? Just a quick question. Patrick, it's IELZoning? Yes, sir. And we have an approval to put a monopine there today. And I really don't think that's the right outcome for our community. I don't think you have an approval. No, I have a plan. Do you have an approved site plan? No, I have an approval from Steve Medlin on a monopine being a, with a site plan approval. Again, the process we're talking about tonight. So you can put a monopine there. There's a couple of options the applicant can take under the current ordinance. Go through an administrative approval to put a monopine. And that is through a site plan approval process. That is, I know there is an application in. I don't know if it's in a, it's not an approved site plan. So I don't know if it meets all ordinance requirements. The other option is to bring in a unipole under the, under the non-concealed provisions, which means they would go through the use permit process and for not only establishing that type of facility, but also if they needed to reduce setbacks, they could also seek the use permit to reduce setbacks if they needed a relief for that. So those would be the two processes. You know, it still needs a site plan approval for that process also. And that's under the ordinance as it stands today. And because of the FEC and our own processes, that process, those rules will obtain for some months now. It looks like. Correct. And so if I can, if we adopt this, though, we will be essentially making rules that will obtain sooner. We won't be waiting. That will say unipoles will change their character from unconcealed to concealed. But their performance, unlike other forms of cell towers, will change based upon what zone they're in. So we will actually be excluding them all together from those zones that history has told us are most apt to excite public opposition. In other words, you won't be able to put up a unipole or a slick stick, not a unipole, yeah, a slick stick in a residential neighborhood with the exception of the RS20 and our R zones, which is a big part of the county. But in those zones, you would have to have a use permit. If you were to do a unipole under the current regulations, you wouldn't be able to put that down? No, no, I'm talking about if we adopt this. Correct. If we adopt this, it's no slick sticks in residential zones accepting RS20 and our R. Correct. But if you wanted to put one in those zones, you would have to get a use permit. Correct. And if you wanted to put them in some zone other than some commercial or industrial or non-residential zone, you would then become an administrative process. Correct. With a height limit. Correct. And if you went over the height limit, then you'd be back in front of the Board of Adjustment. What's that height limit? 199 feet. OK, pretty high. So what I'm trying to do is weigh out if we send this to council and urge them to approve it. Are we improving the ability of the constituency that is most likely to care to participate in a way? Or are we, as Mr. Harris was concerned, discouraging it? Since we are protecting them all together, a large part of that constituency, in my own view, and others may agree or disagree, that it's residential neighborhoods that are going to care most. I mean, I suppose it's possible that a commercial neighbor next door may come and say, I don't want this. But it seems less likely that that will occur than a residential neighbor coming and saying, I don't want it. It seems to me that we could either wait, which is an inconvenience to these folks or may cause us to have a monopine, which is undesirable from my point of view under any circumstances. I'm not sure that I don't actually favor this. How difficult will this? Please wrap it up. Yeah, the last question is, is if this gets approved in advance of the WCF, the overall WCF rules, will we be creating an implementation difficulty? In other words, something that's halfway between fish and fowl? No, I don't anticipate that. Any generally, the rule procedure is that any application that's currently in, for instance, that's under review would still be able to be reviewed under that ordinance that it came in under. So if the rules changed while that application was under review, they wouldn't be affected by it. So you're not anticipating trouble because we have special rules for a particular type? I'm not anticipating it. I can't guarantee it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Miller, just to be perfectly honest, if there is any concern about Mr. Miller raised commercial, we'd be willing to limit this text amendment to just IL zones. I mean, talk about putting it in where the likelihood of people objecting is almost zero. We don't want to do that. We don't want to just spot. I hear you. But that's at the end of the day, if the concern is that issue, since we paid for this text amendment, we'd be willing to concede that we just need it for IL. My concern is the elimination of public input. That's my main concern. And that's how one of our functions as a planning commission is to encourage public input. OK. Motion? Come on. I would just like, before we make the motion, but the public had a chance to have input now. And there's no public here for one thing. And then also, this thing seems far superior to monopine, which they would have an option of doing. And Durham Tech needs it now. So I'm going to vote for it. But it's important for I'm sorry that in this particular case, we're kind of going against maybe our goals or our purpose. But in this particular case, I think we should go with this development. Give me a motion, someone? I'll make a motion that we support the case TC140004. Second the motion. By Commissioner Patrick Patchett and second by Commissioner Miller to approve Unipole TC140004. All those in favor, please by now, please signal by raising the right hand. All those in opposition, signal by raising the right hand. Case number TC140004 has passed seven to two. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Okay. We're now to new business. S-A-S-I update. Ms. Hannah Jacobs. Good evening, commissioners. I'm Hannah Jacobson with the Planning Department. I last came before this group in April of this year to introduce the Station Area Strategic Infrastructure Study or what we've been calling the SASE. It's been six months since then, so I'm here to give you an update on what we've been doing and some of the direction that we're heading in. Right off the bat, I would like to apologize. I noticed two minutes ago that one of the pages from my memo was missing from your packet. I will send that out to the group tomorrow. Apologize we did not catch that beforehand. To back up a little bit, for those of you who may be new to the commission, the goals of the Station Area Strategic Infrastructure Study are to coordinate and identify infrastructure projects that are around our regional rail transportation, our regional rail transit stations. Those are the proposed Durham Orange light rail line. And the goals of the project are to improve access to transit facilities for all users. We're doing this through recommending sidewalks and bike lanes and intersection improvements and roadway reconfigurations, things like that. Another goal is to help to catalyze investment in these areas through some public investments in water and sewer capacity, some streetscape amenities, things like that. And then another goal is to look into ways that we can finance and implement those infrastructure recommendations, either through value capture strategies, looking for grant opportunities, and through integrating projects into our existing capital improvements programs. I would just like to make the distinction between the station versus the station area. The station is the area that's going to be developed by Triangle Transit, which would include a station platform, bus bays. If there's park and ride, it would be included there as well. The areas that this project is looking at is generally the station area, or half mile or so, from the station area, from the station itself, so that we can drop people from the neighborhoods, from businesses, from universities or other institutions to use the station more effectively. We have divided the project up into two separate phases. The first phase that we're dealing with right now is these urban stations. They have somewhat different infrastructure needs, more repair and infill than some of the suburban stations, which we will get to in a later phase. This is generally the process that we've been following, started with a review of some of the existing conditions, mapped a lot of different aspects of sidewalks, land uses, roadways, those types of things. We then looked at identifying what the barriers and what some of the potential solutions are to those barriers for these different station areas. And we got together with a group of what we've been calling the technical oversight group, which is a collection of people from various city county departments, outside agencies to try to identify what projects might be needed to improve the access to the stations themselves. We're now focusing on prioritization, and that's what the memo was supposed to be about. And then, like I said before, we'll then be looking at some financing and investment strategies. But I wanted to focus on the prioritization tonight. Like I said, we have been identifying with this technical oversight group projects that are necessary, that we believe are necessary to improve the access. These are things like bike, pedestrian, roadway, bus stop, wayfinding, those types of things. There are over 200 of those projects. And we recognize that that's a lot, and that's probably not a realistic goal that every single project will be funded prior to opening day of the light rail. So we've developed somewhat a methodology to score these projects. The first step in that is to further define and assign what these projects might be. You'll notice in the previous map, there was noted the need for a bicycle facility. Well, what type of bicycle facility are we talking about? There's a lot of variety. Everything from a shared roadway, maybe a wide outside lane with the pavement marking or a share on it, to a bicycle boulevard, which is a street dedicated for, well, not dedicated, but where bikes are prioritized. So there's a variety of types of bicycle facilities that we could move forward with recommendations for. We've looked at the North Carolina Complete Streets guidelines and other guidelines like the Urban Street Design guidelines done by NACTO for places where these types of facilities might be most appropriate. So we've looked at certain characteristics, average daily traffic, posted speed limits to help define where these types of projects might go. So for instance, a residential street with a posted speed limit of 25, and low average daily traffic might receive a shared roadway or a share row versus another street that has high traffic volumes and high speed limits, they would definitely need a dedicated bike lane. The second step in the prioritization of projects or in scoring these projects is to look at a framework that would reflect both the costs of a project and the benefits of a project. So for the costs of the project, we're calling that a degree of difficulty score. These are things that typically make projects more difficult to build or more expensive to build. For the best example is probably available right of way. Space limitations, there's a lot of demands for our streets between bicycle, pedestrian vehicles, buses, emergency vehicles, everything like that. So streets that can easily be restriped perhaps for a bike lane, those have a lower degree of difficulty than streets that need to be widened or even right of way acquired. Then our priority scores, all of these things vary depending on the type of infrastructure that we're looking to employ. So these are just examples for the bike facilities. For this, we're looking at things like the proximity to the station, whether or not it connects with an existing bike facility. And you'll see that I've highlighted and read the community scoring. And I'll come back to that in a minute. So once we have these inputs figured out, the next step is to create a model using GIS that would help to generate these priority scores and these degree of difficulty scores. And we're working on that right now. But I did want to come back to the community score. We are having a series of community meetings coming up here in late October, later this month in early November, where we've designed a game, essentially, called Connecting to the Dots. It's a monopoly-like game that will challenge participants to decide how they want to spend a limited amount of money, which we're calling Sassy Bucks. You can see them on the screen. And so this is intended to help us prioritize and get a sense of what projects are most important to people living, working, visiting these areas. These are the dates of the upcoming meetings Tuesday, October 28, at the Parrish Street Forum Saturday, November 1, at the Holton Career and Resource Center. Thursday, November 6, at Asbury United Methodist Church. Of course, planning commissioners are always welcome to attend these meetings, and I hope you do. And I also hope that you would be willing to help spread the word to people that you know, groups that you're involved with, about attending these meetings. I'm happy to distribute flyers to you all if you would be interested in sharing. To go back to our next steps, we're going to be looking at coordinating with the Water Management Department for Water and Waste Water Capacity Planning. We'll finalize that framework. We'll, of course, be researching those funding strategies, and then finally we'll begin our suburban stations or phase two of the project. Happy to answer any questions you have. Commissioner Miller. Commissioner Buxby. Commissioner Miller. Hannah, thank you for your updating us on this. What I want to know is a new member of the Planning Commission. As this moves forward, this whole rail thing moves forward, what role will we, as a body, actually have other than collateral or attendant rezonings? Is there some point where we're going to hold a public hearing on some aspect of this, or in other words, are we part of the process between now and building lane tracks? I think you will, I believe you'll play a very crucial role in the land use planning of the station areas. I don't know if you have any authority. It's usually through the MPO board where decisions are made regarding the light rail infrastructure itself. If I might just supplement that answer, I think Ms. Jacobson is right on point. Any of these subcomponents that would be going to council for approval would come through you all for review. But well, and that's a good question. So most of the components would go to the MPO board. But I can contemplate, maybe Hannah, you can help me with some examples, some subcomponents of this that would go to council as either a standalone plan. Well, for instance, oftentimes the stations themselves are located on properties that will need either rezoning or, well, I think a number of them will need to be rezoned to accommodate that use. So certainly the station areas that need rezoning. And if I may, Mr. Chairman, as this moves along, will you come to us and tell us, I'm interested not only in understanding this, realizing that it started before I got here. But I also want someone to tell me if hot buttons develop and people really care. I'd like to staff say, and here's a place where we're meeting opposition or there's misunderstanding or here's a role you can play. And the reason I ask this, I was recently watching a couple of neighborhood listservs and something kind of got loose in two of them, which revealed, to me, what surprisingly, how many people who were chose to participate in the string of conversation no longer believe that this is actually ever going to happen. And I wonder whether I should be worried about that. I mean, it's clear that you're doing a lot of work based on. And so if I haven't asked whether you believe it's actually ever going to happen because I believe you think it is. But I feel like if I'm going to play this role, I need to have my finger on that pulse. And will you come and tell us, OK, here's where we're having trouble. Or this is the two sides of a public question that has arisen. Yes. So let me give let me give a broad answer to that. And then I'll maybe more specific one. I think one of the things we recognized about a year ago and certainly Commissioner Chair Harris and many other members were on the board when we did this, I think there were two things happening. There were strategic plan, big picture visionary planning processes that were very much like this one where the vast majority of the planning efforts didn't go directly to land use decisions. So they were going to the NPO board. They were going to the CIP process and you all were not providing your critically important role of informing the process. And another subcategory was projects that did have a land use tie in, such as the Fayetteville Street quarter plan, that you all weren't seeing until very late in the planning process. So I think we recognized that as a problem. And Aaron Kane and Hannah and Sarah Young and our other staff members that are on that side of the house agreed to come to you all on a periodic basis kind of as needed to give these updates. And I think we've tried to, I feel like hopefully we've improved significantly on that. I think you've heard in the last 12 months at least four updates, I know, from various projects from the strategic planning side. Yeah, don't misunderstand. So there's a long answer to you have our commitment to continue to come to you and update you. Yeah, I'm not asking for a role that we're not supposed to have. I just want to make sure that I know what's going on. And certainly you can always... Because it's big. This is a big thing. Well, and you all can be, as Hannah alluded to, certainly advocates or at least ask provocative questions, help us make the process better in a lot of different ways. So we want you to have that role. It's free willing to accept it, which it sounds like you are. And we would like to be a resource to you if you do have questions that arise about the light rail. Don't hesitate to contact us and we can put you in touch either with the right person at Triangle Transit or answer your question ourselves. Yeah, Chair Harris, can I real quickly... If this isn't a good time, I just wanted to add two other pieces to what Hannah said that I think are important, particularly given our discussion tonight. I'll be brief. Hannah alluded to one of the priority items being looking at financing strategies for this critical infrastructure. I think we are going to be, as you all heard on August 20th, that attended our kickoff meeting in the affordable housing component. We are going to be working with the infrastructure finance group to essentially be working hand in hand to look at value capture strategies, particularly, that can be applied to both critical infrastructure and affordable housing. So that's going to be kind of essentially a consolidated effort. Obviously not every tool will be able to do both, but many, many will. And then the final thing I'll say is we're right in the middle of developing in coordination with our transportation department staff and TTA, a grant application to the federal transit administration that will be focused on looking at, in detail, at projecting what the value capture really will be based on best market data, best economic data, and how that can be at each of the 11 station areas, looking for a grant funding to assist in financing that, getting a firm that specializes in that kind of analysis and to assist us. So I think that's very fruitful and we'll keep you updated on that. Commissioner Buggs. Thank you. Thanks for the updates. It's great to hear that there will be periodic updates. I can't wait to read page 2 to see how this ends. The main thing I was going to say is you mentioned giving out information on the three hearings. If you can provide that electronically, that'd be particularly helpful just so we can help spread the word. Sure. Absolutely. I'll send that with my staff report. Thank you. OK. Any other comments? Thank you so much. Next thing is the report from the chair. The only thing I want to say is there were four documents that was sent out. I think it was sent out to everyone. There were the rules of procedure, the new code of ethics, the interlocal to the interlocal agreement between the accounting city and the development plan guideline that you guys receive that. And I hope you have an opportunity to look through it. And also the North Carolina General Statutes 160A 360 through 368 and 153A. But those are the guidelines that we follow here. And I want each of you to be aware of what we're following. Announcements, the only one that I have Durham can on Thursday night would be meeting at the Chapel Hill Street. It's the name of the Catholic Church, Immaculate Cossack Church. And they will be going over affordable housing what they're going to be proposing over the next year of what they can do with affordable housing. And you all are welcome to join them. Will that be the trailer again? No. It's going to be. I'll look it up here in just a second. Like last time? It's not in the Emily case. Yes it is. It's in the Emily case. So it's not an Immaculate Cossack? It's all on the same campus. Yeah, but there are two institutions. So it was confusing last time we looked at that program. That's OK. OK, I'll find it while. There's another meeting. October the 28th. And it's about the housing. OK, I'm sorry. The meeting that I'm talking about is October the 28th. It's not this Thursday. It's October the 28th. I'll send you guys the invitation. I'll email it to you. Scott, next month? We're on vacation? Never know. But should we all be here? We have one zoning case and an update on the urban open space plan. Where's the zoning case? It's 751 and 940. Any other announcements from any of the commissioners or planning or staff? If not, the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved, Mr. Chair. Motion to adjourn. I'll approve. Ayes. Thank you. We're currently in adjournment.