 Just that week. Let's see how far we are. We're ready. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council and the Durham County Board of Commissioners as an advisory board to elected officials. You should know that the elected officials have the final say on any issue before us tonight. If you wish to speak on an agenda item tonight, 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 your address clearly when you come to the podium. Please speak clearly and into the microphone. Each side, those speaking in favor of an item and those speaking in opposition to an item will have 10 minutes to present for each side. The time will be divided among all persons wishing to speak. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative, so if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is for denial. Also, and for your information, this is being broadcast on Spectrum, AT&T, U-Verse, on Spectrum, okay, I sent Spectrum Frontier, Google Fiber, and it is also streamed on the city's YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and additional ones are being added. So, needless to say, we are live. Thank you. May we have the roll call, please? Commissioner Williams is excused. Commissioner Morgan. President. Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner Brine. President. Commissioner Durkin is also excused. Commissioner Alturk. Here. Vice Chair Busby. Here. Chair Hyman. Present. Commissioner Miller. Here. Commissioner Ketchin. Here. Commissioner Santiago. Here. Commissioner Baker. Here. Commissioner Lowe. Present. Commissioner Agave. Here. Thank you. Madam Chair. Yes. I would like to move an excused absence for commissioners Durkin and Williams. Second. It has been moved and properly seconded that commissioners Durkin and Williams receive an excused absence. All in favor of this motion, let it be known by raising your right hand. All opposed. The clarification on who seconded the motion. Thank you, Commissioner Johnson. Any adjustments to the agenda? Staff has no adjustments to the agenda, Madam Chair. We do have, before we, I do have a question about the minutes or approval of minutes and consistency statements. Are there any issues with the minutes? The chair recognizes Commissioner Brine. Madam Chair, on the minutes or under adjustments to the agenda, staff wanted to adjust the meeting schedule and we took care of that right when it was presented. I believe it was Commissioner Miller who made the motion. I don't remember who seconded it, but it passed unanimously. We can make that correction. Thank you for catching. And then on page three of the minutes, about a third of the way down to page when the motion failed, the vote was actually zero to 13. And that's all I have. Thank you. Now, can I get a motion for the approval of the minutes and the consistency statements with corrections that have been identified? So moved. It has been moved by Commissioner Altur and seconded by Commissioner Brine or Commissioner Morgan. Thank you. Commissioner Morgan, that we approved the minutes and consistency statement with corrections. All in favor of this motion, let it be known by raising your right hand. Thank you. Madam Chair, if it's appropriate, I have a comment concerning consistency statements. Yes. The chair recognizes Commissioner Miller. It's actually a question for staff, if I may. Yes. Are we satisfied that we are actually complying with the requirements of North Carolina law and consistency statements? I just reread the two cases that have come out since the 2017 law change. And it really does want us to say, even if it's minimal, why? And just referring back to the staff report, I mean, that was the issue in the second case. And that seems to be kind of what we do. I think we're running a little thin on consistency statements and that we're exposed because of that. At some point in the, I'd like to fix that, if we could, and get something that has a one-sentence why that doesn't refer back. And it may mean that we may wind up debating a little bit about the sentence. I have no trouble with the staff taking the sense of what has been said here and crafting it. I realize that we each have our different reasons perhaps for voting one way or another. But the sense of it from the majority, a sentence or two on each case, I think, would make our consistency statements sounder under the expectation of law. And I don't know, I don't know if you've had a chance to look at 160D. I'm signed up for the course on that in January. But whether or not they, the General Assembly has said even more about consistency statements than they did in 2017, it just worries me a little bit. So I throw that out there. Thank you for your comments. Staff will certainly revisit that and check with our attorney's office and be sure that we are operating according with state law. We do, if you've noticed, a lot of the times we will go back and reference the reasons why you vote against something, because that seems to get more attention than when you vote for something. So we can revisit. Nobody's going to sue us over a consistency statement if they got what they wanted. So we do add those in addition most of the time. By the time it gets to city council, the consistency statement is beefed up quite a bit for the actual action at city council. So we'll report back to you on that and let you know. And that may be all the difference in the world. Right. Like I said, I just was in a CLE and it made me go, ugh. No, it's fine. Thank you for your question. We'll let you know what we find out. Thank you. While I'm here, can I speak to the record that all the notices requirements were carried out in accordance with state and local law and those affidavits are on file in the planning department? Thank you so much. We have a full agenda tonight and we are ready for our first public. Madam Chair, could I? Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Could I move to adopt the agenda as written? Yes. Okay. It has been moved by Commissioner Bryant, Commissioner Busby, and second by Commissioner Bryant that we adopt the agenda as presented. All in favor of this motion, let it be known by raising your right hand. All opposed. Okay. Thank you. Now we're ready for the first public hearing and the staff report. Guest road. If someone would bring me the list of individuals who wish to speak. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Emily's brothers with the planning department. I will first be presenting case A to case B. The applicant is Tim Syvers with Horvath Associates. This 10.14 acre site is a portion of two parcels totaling 43.09 acres. The site is located at 3871 Guest Road. This site is located within the city limits. The applicant proposes to change the zoning from plan density residential 2.0, PDR 2.0, and residents and residential suburban multifamily with a development plan, RSMD, to industrial light with a development plan, ILD. The applicant also proposes to change the future land use map designation from low density residential and recreation open space to industrial and recreation open space. The applicant proposes increasing the area of recreation open space designation. The proposal commits to self enforcement. The applicant proposes to change the zoning from plan density residential storage and permitted access for uses and a maximum of 150,000 square feet of building area. The 10.14 acre site is shown in red on this aerial map. The site comprised of two parcels is located off of Guest Road and located in the suburban development here. The site is primarily undeveloped with a mixture of pine and hardwood forests. The site is primarily undeveloped with a mixture of pine and hardwood forests. The site contains stream and wetlands as well as a portion of floodway fringe. Area photos here. The site is located in the Eno River watershed protection overlay district B. The site fronts on Guest Road across from prison camp road. The area includes a wide mix of uses including single family residential, office, industrial, multi-family residential and undeveloped land. The zoning context map here shows the site is presently zoned PDR 2.0. This area was part of previously approved crowsdale farm development plan which spans 973 acres in total. The area of the request was previously identified as garden apartments and condominiums on the approved development plan. The site is located in the industrial light with a development plan to allow for self-service storage. The property is designated low density residential and recreation open space on the future land use map as shown by this map above the applicant proposes to change this designation to industrial and expand the area of recreation open space as shown along the stream buffer. This area includes the building renderings commit to the specific architectural design. In lieu of a minor special use permit the applicant is seeking approval of a fence greater than four feet in height in the street yard of guest road. Key commitments include self-service storage and permitted accessor uses, maximum of 150,000 square feet of building area, maximum height of two stories, a range of architectural design. The applicant has requested to change to the future land use map in this area to industrial and recreation open space which would be consistent with the proposed zoning. The proposal is consistent with comprehensive plan policies including those shown above. Further detail is provided in staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances. Staff is available for any questions. Thank you. Thank you. I have a number of people who have signed up to speak both for and against that exceed the 10 minutes that we normally allow so I'm going to ask for a motion to extend the time to three minutes each for each side so if I can get a motion for each speaker I mean for each speaker but the total number of time for each side so that would be seven individuals have signed up so that would be three minutes each and then seven individuals have signed up against so an additional three minutes each. So move. Has moved by commissioner Miller and second by low commissioner low that we extend the time by three minutes for each speaker both sides all in favor of this motion let it be known by raising your right hand I'll pose okay we shall proceed the first individual I'm going to call the first three Amy Bartos Peggy Wright and Wesley McKenny okay I'm going to at least allow the developer to go first uh so this Jamie uh Jamie could you pronounce your last name it's Schwaedler but anything starting with an ass I'll take thank you if you'll just give me a minute to queue up our presentation good evening Madam Chair and members of the commission I'm Jamie Schwaedler with Parker what Poe 301 Fayetteville Street here on behalf of the applicant and developer this request for zoning and future land use amendment is for a 10 acre portion of a 40 acre parcel that's about a mile south of the Eno River in North Durham the site is shown in green with the project area the 10 acre portion shown in yellow on your screen Emily did a great job of summarizing the request and I would just note that the flume amendment is to industrial but with a portion for residential recreation open space so that the portion that's originally designated on the property can remain the site was zoned as pdr residential in 1987 as part of a large master plan for the area known as crowsdale farm at that time residential was thought to be appropriate but since that time the nctot storage area has been used for industrial use and you can see that this view across the site from guest road looking south shows the building that residential uses would be looking at this is another site showing the prison camp building another view of the prison camp building and the secu credit union building that would be directly across from our entrance on guest road we got asked through the process why self storage when there's some some very key issues there one it meets a demand of the needs of citizens of Durham we looked at a three mile radius which is typical in terms of demand and what people travel from their home in terms of looking for self storage and what we found was with this particular site there's only one self storage within that three mile radius it's an older version it's not climate controlled like the version that we would be proposing here and those other sites are just around the perimeter so there's no climate controlled self storage within the three mile radius to serve the residents within this area and what is self storage well ultimately it's a service use it's a use that people need within proximity of their homes so they can run and grab a family keepsake or a bicycle on the weekends and they're not going to drive 15 20 miles to do that they'd like service and demand in their area it's a low impact industrial use which means it's not crushing it's not vehicle operations it's a low impact restricted to self storage use and it also causes low traffic this type of use only generates about 32 trips per day which is significantly less than the 250 multi-family apartments that could be built on this site by right and the associated traffic that would come with that in the pdr designation i'd like to spend a couple minutes talking about our neighborhood engagement because it's significant in this in this site the concerns are listed on the left side of your screen and the adjustments we made after those meetings are listed on the right we had three neighborhood meetings for this project and one focus group we changed the plan after each meeting to directly meet a need that was expressed by the citizens and each of those meetings were well attended they were very well attended by the citizens that are directly adjacent to our property and most directly impacted the concern of the neighborhood second neighborhood meeting is listed on your left traffic concerns and loss of trees lack of neighborhood benefit and we went through the key text commitments i'll mention them here and then i'll leave the screen open for mr david by sure who will address the remaining comments okay thank you or or he can let you continue because it you know if the i'll let her all three minutes sure thank you thank you the key text commitments are listed there on your screen they mainly go to the appearance of the self-storage unit on guest road having the doors facing away from guest road limiting the lights of the property line committing to an architectural rendering of what the building would look like in direct response to concerns of orange and white and a 30 acre donation of a tree conservation this is in direct response of concerns we heard about what the future of the 40 acres would be the loss of trees in this area and the environmental impact on the eno river you can see that area there and essentially the area in green would be subject to the conservation easement that has been accepted by the triangle land conservancy and will be a committed element as well as these committed elevations and for these reasons the flume amendment satisfies a 3.4.7 criteria and that it extends the industrial designation adjacent to what is an institutional use but is essentially used as an industrial use across prison camp road in an area that's no longer ideal for residential use and would be compatible with the existing land uses with those development plan commitments i described earlier the staff report adequately shows the shape and size and the lack of adverse impacts and so the rezoning also meets the 3.5.10 requirements it's consistent with the comprehensive plan if the flume amendment is changed it's compatible with the zoning of the nearby property and its site is limited to limited industrial uses only for self-storage you can see the comparison of the existing proposed there and so with these commitments in place which are significant which respond to direct comments we got through the four neighborhood engagements that we went through i don't think you'll see another zoning with this level of participation for over a year with numerous meetings with interested groups and the response to that with a with a conservation easement is presidential i'd be happy to answer questions or to let dave finish up on the three minutes i didn't use thank you thank you my name is david by sure i live at 2904 trailwood drive i'm the master developer of crowsdale farm and also the manager of lakefield farm llc who's a landowner in this rezoning i just wanted to say that we've worked with trying a land conservancy before on a conservation easement which borders valley spring park and it worked very well so that was the impetus to work with them again on this possibility listening i went to all three neighborhood meetings listening to the neighbors that are most directly affected ordering the property and i kept hearing about the wanting to save trees and also the neighborhood receiving something for a rezoning of a of a storage area so that was the reason for this conservation easement it's the endowment portion of that has already been fully funded it's been approved and accepted by the triangle land conservancy board and also a letter of support is in the staff report from the eno river association so i available for any questions and just to ask for you to support this rezoning thank you thank you now i'll go to the next three individuals Amy Bartos Peggy Wright and Wesley McKinney good evening my name is Amy Bartos I live at 10 debonair circle Durham 27705 my neighborhood is Rosebriar we are across the street from riverside high school and about the acres being discussed tonight as it is now sorry I left the month floor everyone's opinion of beauty is different everyone's opinion of a good cup of coffee is different everyone's opinion of appropriating millions of tax dollars to multi unit affordable housing is different everyone's opinion of progress is different and so it goes everyone's idea of what a storage business across from an old prison facility should look like and act like increased traffic has been discussed at pass zoning meetings and on the next door lists serve some stated the numbers of cars on guest road was manipulated and staged I don't know about that but what I do know is traffic on guest road and Rosa Sharon will definitely increase if multi unit affordable housing is built next to my neighborhood I can see and hear the lodge at crowsdale the new apartments on hillondale from my kitchen window it is certain my neighborhood will be impacted by the decisions of the derm city council planning commission of that commission it appears only one member resides in 27705 thomas miller I don't particularly oppose storage units being built guest road is obviously already a hodge podge of buildings and dwellings and fried chicken what concerns me is the vague threat of construction of multi unit affordable housing on the acreage of the storage units aren't built I grew up within a reasonable walking distance of five multi unit affordable housing villages have any of you had the same experience I work for the county welfare department in Ohio for 25 years my clients lived in multi unit affordable housing villages we called those places the projects frankly I have if I have to choose between a multi unit affordable housing project or storage unit with 31 acres of protected in perpetuity by the likes of the triangle conservancy association I choose the latter thank you thank you Peggy Wright and then Wesley McKenna good evening my name is Peggy Wright I live on rose where I drive 30 36 my reasons for voting for or for speaking for the rezoning is because the storage unit itself the storage project is low impact I am impressed that the numbers of of cars would not increase significantly I am moved however most significantly significantly by the offer of the conservation of the 31 acres that would preserve the quality of life in a very quiet established neighborhood in which I have lived for since 1998 and it's very quiet the neighbors are very kind and concerned and helpful and that's why I am in favor of the reason of the rezoning to allow the storage project to go ahead because of the conservation offer that is on the table thank you thank you Wesley McKenney Western McKinney 3025 Rosewood circle I am in favor of the storage units I live right behind the apartments that have been built my first I didn't know what to think didn't know what to expect they're very nice it's not loud you don't have a lot of traffic coming over the trees to my house or nothing like that I mean it's it's not a bad situation a lot of people look at it as it is but it's not I am impressed with the details that they've put into this for the storage units I am impressed with how they've tried to save the 31 acres obviously I'm fine to that because I do go back there with my kids and we like to explore so that would keep it where we can continue doing that doing our family things and being able to enjoy life but I am for it and I appreciate it thank you I'm John Tushia and if I have mangled your name please pronounce that for me hello I'm John Tushic 3105 Rosebriar I'm in support of the rezoning I think the traffic and the road can support that type of a building the setting aside of the land for forest is a great addition and as I live on that street it would be nice to keep that the way it is so I support it thank you thank you Christian or Gara in an excellent job on my name so thank you oh voila I am also for the rezoning just to support all of the same statements that have come mainly because we our neighborhood has been greatly impacted by the housing that was built behind it on hillandale road and over the 11 years I've lived there I've seen that really change the the light pollution and noise pollution I would rather not have any more of that so I'd love to have the buffer and I think it would be a much better decision for our neighborhood so I support it thank you I think I have all of the vigil visuals who signed up for I'm going to start the next list Ken Ray good evening my name is Ken Ray and I live at 1416 Miramont Drive about a stone's throw away from where this development is being planned I looked up the definition of non-conforming use and there was a picture of this development and just kidding a little bit there as you can see the neighborhood around us around this place is not just a prison camp it is the landest road neighborhood there are a hundred about a hundred houses in there and I've been there and knocked on doors and not a single person who lives there supports this kind of rezoning as you look at that picture you'll see the black line that goes down the middle of that is approximately where an eight foot tall metal fence would be the plans that they put forth don't just call for greater than four feet they call for an eight foot tall metal fence that's just so far out of Weffield when the maps were up earlier you saw that there are other storage units available in our area there is a five-story public storage unit being built across from Trosa on Rocksboro Street that is 3.8 miles away from Rose of Sharon and Guest I've been to the meetings that the developers have had and at the closing of each one I've asked can you tell us please one positive benefit this project would bring to these neighbors and there's never an answer because there isn't an answer to that question there is no positive benefit to those neighbors the conservation land that's been brought up over and over again you'll notice as part of the riparian buffer it was never going to be developed for anything it's protected stream land so it doesn't matter who holds the title on that land it was never going to be built on so that's kind of a moot point I would also note that some of the people who have spoken for this development already did not state their addresses if you did look at their addresses as I did you'd find that many of them live much farther than 3.8 miles away from this proposed development if you are here to speak against this development would you raise your hand keep them up if you live within five miles of the development there you have it I ask you guys please just say no to this because every time we've met with these folks and I'm sadly we've heard it in a really kind of ugly way earlier when they say to us well you know if we don't get to build this storage building we'll put up all four double housing whoo like that's a bad thing the zone the land is zoned for residential the people of this city have put forth a mandate to the city council that what's important to us is housing keep the land zoned for what it is zoned for thank you very much for your time thank you William Ostag Ostag Mr. okay and then followed by Nikki Kagle thank you William Ostag I live at 1400 Meadston Drive I am against the rezoning at Goodwin Crossing for the following reasons first a little bit of background I'm a registered architect I spent 25 years on active duty as a Navy Civil Engineer Corps officer the CBs done construction and environmental projects and five continents I spent the last 20 years since I retired as a work as a construction project manager I say this only to let you know that I I know a little bit about dirt and site development and the resulting environmental issues that stem from that I also know the site pretty well since I run my dog through there what I can tell you is that that doing a site plan on a piece of paper flat piece of paper is very different than actually laying out that site plan on the on the site itself that site is very very hilly and it will require a tremendous amount of cutting and filling if the if the repairing areas and adjacent site adjacent properties are to be maintained on a secondary note the the county the cleaning department's report talks about traffic on Goodwin Road and Infinity Road but I can tell you that the shortest distance between two points will will be to get to those I'm sorry to get to Infinity Road the traffic will as practical matter go through Bartek Court and Venturia Street and then through Briardale, Meadstone Road, Shady Lane before they reach Infinity Road those are there's a residential streets they are not roads and that and that increase in traffic will pose a problem uh finally as a emotional thing that's a residential rural residential area if you're really going to build houses on the on the lots that they at least on a flat site plan are projected to be as small as they are it's going to be a relatively high density area if you look at the site plan and I've only had the opportunity to look at at the site plan the side yards the front yard setbacks by the time you take all of that into consideration you've got a tremendous amount of impervious area roof area and a lot of houses bunched closely together it is definitely not in keeping with the character of that area thank you thank you um Nikki Cagle thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is Nikki Cagle I live at 4112 Trevor Circle which is the neighborhood directly across the street from this proposed development um and I'm speaking against this proposed rezoning one of the things I want to point out is that this development was already proposed as a commercial rezoning and was rejected because there is a commercial node already within 0.25 miles of this area and so this is just the same plan but under under a different a different name we also at that commercial node which is a little bit south have a number of empty buildings which would be perfect for a project like this but doesn't mean that we want to have a self storage center in an area that should have been residential the other thing that I want to point out is that I am an ecologist at Duke University I really appreciate the instinct to conserve this property but at the same time so much of this land can't be developed anyway because it is in that riparian habitat um in addition in my conversation so I'm on the board of the Triangle Land Conservancy I am also in close contact with the Eno River Association and when I talked with my colleagues there they said they didn't realize that there was going to be a land use change designation as a part of of this deal I also feel that this isn't in the public interest as local residents we know that there are already a lot of empty buildings just south of our neighborhood you know CVS's that have come and gone an old bank that just sit in there empty it doesn't make sense for a new development to to be in this spot when there could be houses in this area and instead we have the opportunity to follow through with the comprehensive plan and ensure that that this sort of commercial enterprise goes where it's supposed to go which is at the corner of Guest Road in Horton thank you so much thank you uh Marion Horn followed by William Richards good evening my name is Marion Horn I live at 54 for Hallmark Road I'm about 2.5 miles from where they want to put this storage unit I am a native Durham person I have lived here most of well most of the majority of my life I've seen a lot of changes in Durham and I think some of them are really really good but one thing we love about northern Durham County is the are the trees and the wonderful things that we have near the Eno and it's just been a really nice place to live for a long time I am I live in the Graymaw subdivision which is about two more 2.5 miles I'm speaking to voice my opposition to the proposed zoning change along Guest Road from residential to light commercial this proposal was submitted in order to build a storage facility on the corner of Rose and Sharon and Guest across from the church the city and county have a strong planning department to protect residents against unwanted development I oppose this kind of growth Rocksville Road has turned into a commercial light industrial roadway it is a good example of this kind of growth these two parallel corridors going north in Durham County will change north Durham Rocksville Road already has please protect us from this fate and help maintain the semi-rural living enjoyed in northern Durham County thank you for your consideration thank you William Richards good evening my name is William Richards I live at 5116 Green Oak Drive here today to speak on behalf of myself and the north Durham Quality Development Association against the rezoning and construction of the self-storage facility the argument short and simple we don't need another self-storage facility in our area there are already two within about three miles of the proposed site and at least seven within 10-minute drive including one that is currently under construction on the corner of Hillsborough Road and Christian Ave which hasn't appeared on their map and the five-story behemoth across from Trosa which didn't appear on their map either additionally the request for the land to be rezoned industrial is not due to the nature of the business but rather to what they think they can get approved because of the proximity of other commercial nodes as their previous commercial rezoning application will attest to our groups meeting with the developers they attempted to flatter us steamroll us deceive us and scare us but at no point have they given us good arguments for the rezoning and construction of a self-storage facility they've consistently told us that the site would not crowd the road but in the artist's renderings they go right up against the road and it has to be like that due to the nature of that lot they've refused to consider any other options and are insisting on a self-storage facility almost certainly because self-storage businesses have one of the highest profit margins of around 11% which means you only need about 60 occupancy to turn a profit this is mostly due to the small number of employees that are needed to run and maintain the building and grounds the average self-storage facility hires four people so there's no economic incentive for the area either as part of their attempted scare tactics they've trotted out the old malicious line of well if we don't get this we're going to be forced to put an affordable housing and you don't want that and I think that the city of Durham needs affordable housing we would much rather the land be used for its proposed zoning than another ugly unneeded self-storage facility thank you thank you um bill quarry respected members of the commission respected members of the audience respected staff members my name is bill quarry and I live at 314 ladder road now for about nine years and um my spouse has lived in north Durham uh and his family before him since the early 1800s um and we're very concerned about the um over development in the area do we want north Durham to be like south Durham who likes to go to south Durham in at traffic you know traffic isn't too bad here uh you know at rush hour um um I call it the the the ravishing of the shire if you know Tolkien you know how bad that was um I'm not very a good public speaker so I apologize for my inarticulateness but um the the one thing I want to say is the two things I want to say is when you add hard surface to a wetland that's bad news and we're right near the Reno the you know and I know it's downhill from the you know so but still um and the other thing I know I believe um that the conservation regulations uh uh in this state it doesn't mean that that land will be won't be developed in perpetuity it could be developed later they'll figure out a way to build on that stuff you know in a hundred years is it is it going to be forest in perpetuity that's the question I have for you Mr. Weischer I'm really concerned about what's what Crow Steele Farms has become in the last year that's what these that's what these storage units are for is for those people in those renting those people renting their units and and where to where where they can put their stuff um it would be very handy for them won't it um then the second thing I want to say is by the time me and my spouse die we're we've always rented we're going to have spent nearly a million dollars in rent now the quickest way for someone to get out of poverty or to enter the middle class to claw themselves out of the lower class is to own property why do we want to change this zoning it's it's a it's part of a grand plan it's a master plan we want there to be residences we want people to be riding their little having their kids ride their bikes around in the cul-de-sacs and and like what we have in our neighborhood we have small houses modest houses affordable houses and um okay set and then this is my big point and it was just made um a landlord makes a lot of a profit the second biggest a hotelier that means a hotel owner the third biggest per square foot storage unit owners thank you uh Gary Lipscomb my name is Gary Lipscomb I live at 314 Ladder Road that was my partner um part of the reason that we want to get um keep this affordable housing possibility is the amount of people that already live at North Durham um we live on three acres and right now we have more deer coming through our yard every time there's a new development I mean houses yes I mean the deer will come through your houses but if there is like concrete like a storage unit and more there's not going to be no place else for life for wildlife to go I mean and yes we do have West Point of the you know and you know park but that's a limited amount of space can we please try to keep the living of our planet alive and not paved over thank you thank you I do not have other people who have signed up to speak but I'm going to ask at this time if there's anybody who would like to speak uh for or against uh this particular yes I wanted to just take a opportunity there were several uh questions and statements raised about affordable housing on this tract that that has never been a opportunity we have certainly worked with other developers about housing but it always comes down to being across from the the old prison camp but there there are no affordable housing uh plans coming I've never worked on that on this tract and we certainly have not used that as a scare tactic I'd also like to just correct that while there are streamed delineation areas and riparian buffers on the track there's certainly a stream in the middle the entire 31 acres that would be under the conservation easement there are several pods that are developable and the entire tract is not in the riparian buffer thank you thank you once again are the other individuals who would like to speak if not I'm going to close the public hearing I do have one individual do um have you signed up to speak we'll get you if you can come forward we'll get your name and address on the sheet my name is Dale Strauss and I live at 10 debonair and it's in Rosebriar neighborhood and I just want to say that the three people that did speak first that were for the rezoning we all live within two blocks of that the rest of the people I saw that came up here that are against it they live a long way is away from this and I see the story to it as being a good thing instead of having housing in there for for one reason you put houses in there you're going to have a lot more traffic and the person was saying about the deer when you put all those houses in there the deer are going to move and that's all I have to say thank you thank you um at this time if there are no other individuals who signed up to speak or wish to speak I see one hand um if you will come forward please state your name and address please Adam Roberts 30 58 Rosewood circle I also live you speaking for or against I am for the rezoning okay I'd like to keep that area you know impacted the minimal as possible and I'd like to keep the neighborhood closed in we already have the apartment developments on the other side of the other side I would not like to be closed in in that neighborhood if it all possible so I'm for the rezoning thank you I excuse me could you state your last name we were we're trying to get it on our roster Adam Roberts roberts 30 58 Rosewood circle thank you so much okay at this time I see no other individuals who interest I see another hand um could you come forward please good evening my name is tamu graves Coleman and I reside at 1622 glass ghostry in Durham and that's about two miles from this development okay and I am in for I'm for the rezoning okay I travel through that area to take my children to school every day and traffic is horrific I can't imagine what it would be if we decide to put more housing so I'm in I'm for it could you could you say your name again for me please so that we can record it tamu it's TAM you graves Coleman Coleman okay thank you so much thank you okay I see no other individuals who are are being recognized to speak so I am going to close the public hearing at this time which is the comment period for the public and open the session for our commissioners to give them an opportunity to ask questions so I'm going to start to my right are there any commissioners who would like to speak or ask questions okay commissioner busby thank you madam chair this is a question for the staff and I'll probably have additional questions but just to help me understand because we've already heard it in the public comment period when we talk about this conservation easement and that's appears to be a benefit to this proposal but we've heard others talk about how a lot of that would be undevelopable in in a different kind of development can you walk us through how much of this in terms of the actual size of this property would be undevelopable undevelopable land if it remained in a residential program as currently zoned compared to what the proffer is just so we're dealing with an understanding of what what are we talking about here sure so I'm not sure that I'll be able to give you specific numbers but I can refer you to the development plan sheet that shows a large portion of that area under the conservation subdivision sorry I misspoke under the conservation easement and you'll see in that western portion of the site the riparian buffer and the tent foot no build zone has been hatched that area would be considered outside of the developable area I can't speak to any grading or those site constraints that they might have with regard to buildable area but specifically the riparian buffers and steep slopes or wetland areas as identified on the development plan or the existing condition sheet would be considered outside of their developable area great thank you and I don't know if the proponent has more specific numbers but if if you do have specific numbers available it'd be great to hear them if you don't if if your understanding is the same as the staff that's fine maybe with the applicant we don't have an exact number but we think it's about 12 to 15 acres would have been buffers and so that would be leave you a balance of 15 to 18 acres that would otherwise be developable some plans have been done in the past by a landscape architect here in town mr. joule who appears before you quite routinely that showed those development pods in the locations north and south of the buffer that Emily was was illustrating great thank you that's all for now uh commissioner brine thank you madam chair question for staff on attachment six under contiguous development the staff analysis you point out that urban services such as existing sidewalks and existing commercial node located less than a half a mile to the south which includes urban services such as grocery and pharmacy businesses would better serve a residential use and when i read that this is why i'm asking the question it sounded to me like you were waffling a little bit um uh whether you really like this as industrial it's not always black and white as far as um what which is best suited so i did want to call out both aspects of the adjacent industrial uses but also those services okay uh it might help people to know that i spent a little time out of the willedale shopping center nearest and vacant space out there available for lease just how much i don't know um another thing i've been trying to pin down are some numbers with respect to acreage uh on attachment for the plan amendment justification statement it talks about two parcels which had up to 42.693 acres and i actually went to the Durham county tax uh records and confirmed that that was correct and then if 10.14 acres is being used in the actual rezoning to me at least 32.553 acres left i assume is going to be what's in the conservation easement if this goes through is that correct they've only committed to a minimum of 30 total acres in the conservation easement only a minimum of 30 so there's some acreage unaccounted for correct okay um and with respect to conservation easements uh i'm assuming that the people who live away from guest road some of whom have spoken tonight uh will have access to this piece of property if it's placed in conservation but what about other people uh it seems to me that access to this property from guest road is blocked is that a fair assessment i can't speak to the proposed conservation easement um accessibility but i can note the the stream buffers and flood plain that would make access across that area from guest road uh not feasible especially as a crossing hasn't been identified on this development plan this development plan being a portion that runs uh largely along that uh frontage so somebody like me who wants to TLC who wanted to go out there and explore the property is going to have to intrude on somebody else's neighborhood to be able to go look at it i don't know what the uh details of the conservation easement would include as far as access okay thank you for that uh a question for the applicant uh mention has been made of this eight foot fence it's going to be a long guest road is it only going to be a long guest road or is it going to surround your develop property i'd like to have tim cybers answer that question um and he's he's our site plan engineer i would like to answer the question you raised earlier that while i'm up here that there is direct frontage on guest road for the conservation easement and the reason that there's a difference in balance is that um the easement will be recorded it'll be a publicly recorded document with a um legal description and that exact acreage has to be figured out and then recorded in connection with the easement so we're just leaving some wiggle room in terms of um TLC coming out there and and yeah it it just looked to me from the map that where there was it was touching guest road was also right in your flood plain etc and i didn't see that that was a good point there is a portion that does touch guest road there's like also an existing trail um through that area and so all of those details will have to be worked out um when we're at the site plans okay tim cybers wharf at the associates so the uh showing the fence uh for the uh eight foot maximum height is uh is included in this plan to um to one make sure we're showing the entire picture but also to provide that ordinance request to make that change uh the fence will be will be throughout the entire project um the but excuse me along the back on the stream buffers those details will be worked out at site plan but uh the maximum height is uh requested within 50 feet of the right away which is the ordinance requirement so that's why we're showing it along the right away only because okay change that's the request of the change okay so based on what you just told me is it a fair assumption that part of this storage area will be devoted to vehicle storage that is that's not in the plans for right now again that'll be worked out at the site plan stage but the uh the the the goal is to be able to have this as uh internal storage uh for climate control yeah i understand that but i also am aware of the facility off of hopson road that's correct uh which is another cube smart and this looks very much like a cube smart building uh which also has vehicle storage and it's got an eight foot fence around okay so that's okay we'll look into that sir thank you thank you uh i also want to just take a moment to thank everybody who came out tonight to speak and everybody who's sent me emails your input is greatly appreciated thank you thank you commissioner al turk thank you chair i'd also like to thank everyone for coming out and emailing and calling and i agree with commissioner brian it's very important i do have a couple of questions for staff so the number of my questions are about the text commitments so this is the first on page d 000 um so the minimum of this is number five so there's a minimum of 35 percent tree save area so is that um from what i can tell here the requirement under the edo is just 10 percent and the the applicant is committing to 35 percent is that correct yes their text commitment is above beyond the ordinance standards i would have to do a little digging to get the exact one i'm not sure if that tree save number has increased with the latest text changes i see okay but in general it is above and beyond ordinance standards okay great so that's 35 of the 10 acres which would be again so they're committing to tree save of 3.5 acres rather than the one acre that they were required to right um number eight about the illumination um i don't know anything about foot candles uh 0.25 foot candles is that good is that above the required yes uh any text commitments would be above and beyond ordinance requirements i can pull up the specific foot candles it's like it'll take me a minute okay but all right um yeah you don't have to give me the exact number but it is above and beyond the udo requirement right yes illumination okay and then there's 150 150 percent of the required street tree quantity um that's just yeah so 150 percent of what's required in the udo they're gonna that's they're gonna provide that right yes on guest road yes correct okay so okay i mean i guess the other question that has been batted around a lot is about the the conservation easement um for the and can you say more about that so i don't you know if accepted by the triangle land conserva conservancy it will be conserved for how long what what what will they do what's the process look like uh because i think there's some ambiguity about this so the language that we would have to hold them to that um is that it would be a permanent conservation easement that language is included in the text commitment um so that's what we as staff would have to work with as far as in it meeting the uh the development plan um so if they were to remove that conservation easement they would have to rezone okay so if they so it is permanent but if if they decided at some point no we want to we want to build on here they would have to come back to the planning commission and the city council that is my understanding okay that right okay okay great and it does look like to me that i mean just from the development plan it looks like that number that the applicant gave is about right about 15 18 acres it looks like about half of the 30 acres is already under the riparian buffer protected by riparian buffer but then there's the other part that would be part of this conservancy um i mean i you know this is a tough case i think because i i'm hearing a lot of different things from neighbors uh people want don't want traffic but it also some people want housing some people want uh you know more environmental protections and it so it is a difficult there are some tradeoffs here um i do think i mean it is true that something like this will generate less traffic than housing if it was up to me i i i would actually prefer multifamily affordable housing in this in this area on this piece of land but i that's not what's before us today uh and and i guess we could keep it at two units an acre or less if we don't rezone it but at least from what i can tell it seems like this is a a compromise development application so it's not whatever it's not everything that the neighbors want but i do think that the applicant has committed to some things that are above and beyond what we sometimes get with applications like this uh you know that this question of you know do we need another self-storage and i i don't have a good answer to that and i'm not sure that any of us up here know the market well enough to make that to you know vote based on that what i do think we need to consider is you know is this an appropriate piece of land for industrial light um it seems to me again because it it is a cross from some industrial zoning that it is you know it's congruent in that sense uh but then it does there's this other added piece of it which is conserving this 30 acres of land that would be a benefit to the community it's you know maybe it's not a benefit to everyone but i you know again i'd you know i think mr mckinney mentioned that the community benefits of that i think that's that's a nice added uh commitment um so again i'm i'm torn about this but you know someone else just another compromise or some commitment that i thought is helpful to think about is the the maximum building height of two stories you know someone mentioned a five-story self-storage unit you know this is not that so i don't think this will be completely just you know out of character from the with area uh so at least as of right now i'm kind of leaning to support it uh but i'm i'm interested to hear what other commissioners have to say thank you uh commissioner miller so thank you i have a couple points of clarification i'd like for you to address uh if the if the developer asked for this to be uh general commercial d it would violate the comprehensive plan would it not yes because it would run two nodes too close together yes that's uh the application initially came in as that and it's been revised to industrial light and and we want to have our commercial nodes especially on these arterials to have a certain amount of separation what is that separation currently in the comprehensive plan oh i don't have that one memorized quarter of a mile 600 feet no well whatever it is this would make it too close yes so that's why we're industrial but there is industrial across the street um that's okay because it seems like we're over zoning the property and then we're using the development plan to cut the use way back into something that's not industrial at all and we're doing that because our comprehensive plan which is incorporated into our udu by reference requires that there be separation with commercial nodes and to me this is the crux of what this is about is i believe that we should have separation of commercial nodes and i believe that our comprehensive plan doesn't have a big enough interval um so when we talked about public's and some of you were on the commission when we had the the the public's case what worries me about guest road we have a terrible example in land use planning on rocksboro road hillsboro road near where i live and even guest road south of this of where we have allowed usually don't blow the sirens when i speak i'll try not to set the house on fire the um but we don't need to do that anymore and there's no reason why guest road beyond this point could be one parcel of non-residential and another parcel of non-residential and another parcel of non-residential uh that gets all mixed up i called it slash and burn zoning because we already have a commercial thing that i don't think of willowdale is old uh but i guess in the commercial in the life of commercial buildings it is old because it's not running very well and we have the what's been built around there some of it's been torn like down and and new things built like the harris teeter where the theater used to be um i would like to see us reuse the uses the commercial uses that age out in our existing commercial nodes before we cut down trees and expand expand non-residential uses non-residential uses into green space um and that to me is the big issue in this case now that's not to say but i don't see the other side i do uh there is a prison in industrial zoning across the street from this uh and the folks on land is drive live next to the prison and that works out but i don't think necessarily if i were a developer of residential housing i wouldn't necessarily think that it's a great marketing thing to say and there's a prison across the street um so i get it what i want out of future development in this area is a clear line of demarcation that says what happens north of here is a different kind of development pattern in Durham because i hear you folks come and speak and although some of you were for because of this and some of you were against because of that but you're all saying the same thing is there is a quality of life that just derived from the the the pattern of existing pattern of development that you want to preserve and it was a choice that you made uh that when that when you decided to live out there you're driving a lot farther to go to a restaurant than i am you are driving a lot farther to go buy a pair of socks than probably i am uh even though i live in 2705 and my storage unit's in 2701 the um so i see that and so when we pull back a little bit i believe everybody who has come to speak on this is actually arguing the same thing they might be on this side or that side because of their particular location of their house but what you're after is is a conservation of the quality of life and the choice you made by deciding to live in this part of Durham County that to me is the most important consideration now what i would like to do and i've told the developer's land planner this um i get it and sometimes we uh are forced to compromise i think this is a case where compromise is possible uh i am looking at the whoever it is that lives in the house on Landis Drive closest to guest road it's on the south side it's two lots in it's going to see that house is going to see whatever happens is developed on this piece of property and so for and if it's going to be a a large storage unit saved it's only two stories tall it's 150,000 square feet of storage that's not a small storage facility it may not be four stories tall but it's this is big you know the Harris teeter is about 54,000 square feet it's three Harris teeters so that matters what i would like to do and if it were up to me what would turn my current no vote to a yes vote is if we could change this development plan a little bit add commitments i would like to see that no part of the actual developed part of this 10 acre parcel come up to and be opposite or across guest road from the the the in close proximity to the residential subdivision at Landis because i don't want what's built here to destabilize and make Landis Road a less attractive place for people to live uh they right now are on the boundary they are protecting everybody else and so i want to protect them so if we could shift what is built on this piece of property without regard to how many square feet it may ultimately be further south on the property than is currently committed that would tend to have me moved to a yes vote if we could make this building and i know they've gone back and forth and they've done the extraordinary thing if actually including an elevation saying this is what it'll look like full marks i love it when developers can and will do that but we have an example of self-storage self-storage doesn't have to be ugly uh and a self-storage facility has been built within walking distance of where we are right now that is remarkable in my opinion for its successful integration into what i call kind of a Durham style uh so and that's the one that's down here where the old carver cozart and current warehouse used to that was 40 years ago i'm where the mcdonalds is down here on the north side of town so if it looked more like that then i would be happier about it um i would love to see that this height limit would be more refined because it's on a slope i would i'm assuming that these buildings are probably going to be one commercial story which is taller than a residential story at the north end and they probably will be two stories with with the grade if they were two stories to three stories that's pretty tall uh so i would like to see this refined a little bit and i would like to to ask and and to understand a little bit about the way the street tree plantings would work uh right now we have a street tree requirement it would apply here and they will have to plant a row of of trees that in that with potential could be could be large uh most of us are going to see this development driving on guest road and we're going to see it at 35 miles an hour going north or south and so a row of trees looking at it obliquely that way as as drivers or passengers and vehicles uh we can do thoughtful planning there to organize the trees there meeting the minimum requirements of the code in terms of intervals and spacing that using extra trees that the sense of developer is willing to plant them in such a way that that the overall effect of the row of trees is denser and we can increase the size of the trees at the time of their planting um and so we could go to a larger caliper tree a diameter of the trunk at a certain height above the ground so and we can provide for these trees a larger area to grow in so that they don't stay the the wispy puny maples that I see in parking lots in suburban commercial development all over town some of these uh commercial developments are now 25 years old and the trees are still puny and tiny and that's because they have no room to grow we can fix that here uh with better uh commitments and so and I'm not speaking for you if you're still against this there are reasons to be against it and I'm not trying to convince you otherwise but I'm saying for me this could be with a little tweaking this could be a plan I could vote for but without that tweaking and without putting it in the in the commitments here I'm going to have to vote no tonight and I'm going to urge my friends on the commission to to vote no what I want is at the north end of this piece of property a clear signal a clear signal that the commercial area the non-residential area that exists where horton and and guests come together stops at the north end of this it's not an invitation to keep going and it's true there's a small commercial node there where rose of sharing comes in that's a one lot of neighborhood commercial and one lot of office institutional that's the kind of commercial node that should we should look at and allow and develop going north so that we can have uh the kinds of local services like the veterinary office and what have you when when the cat's throwing up on the rug you don't have to drive all the way across term to get to your vet that's the kind of thing that we need to have going north but we don't need great big developments we do not need uh accumulations of buildings of of more than a hundred thousand square feet so that's my view on this I'm going to vote no but with a little tweaking if the developer wanted to do it I could vote yes and that's what will appear in my uh comments thank you thank you commissioner miller and before I recognize the next commissioner to speak I have to offer a word of caution that we do not um will refrain from any applause or other responses to our commissioners while they're speaking and I thank you for that now I'd like to recognize the next commissioner would like to speak okay commissioner baker I'm not completely decided on this um I do think that uh as we consider any sorts of developments or development proposals that come before us here on the commission that uh an absolutely fundamental consideration every time should be the environmental and climate impacts of those developments or proposals in this case the developer is making a pretty extraordinary donation of land to remain permanently forested but I would ask is this um is this good site planning um when we when we think about this I think it's good to think about whether it's good site planning and whether it's good planning in general and I would ask is this good site planning I think in some ways in some ways it is the site by itself and isolated from the world around it will likely have a climate positive impact given the number of protected trees and the positive impact this would have on on stormwater in other ways it's not the design layout is certainly not walkable it doesn't define public space it doesn't provide the critical elements of walkability like transparency along the building frontage and and I think that commissioner miller made a very compelling case when he talked about the self storage unit that is located right around the corner from here on seminary avenue right across the mcdonalds that self storage can actually be uh can actually contribute to the feel of Durham and there are also no commitments for green building practices or renewable energy I think that if we had appropriate design standards with those transparency requirements as there are standards in in downtown and other parts of Durham this proposal would be illegal if we had appropriate connectivity and block length standards this proposal would be illegal if we had appropriate green building standards this proposal would be illegal but if those stands were in place this wouldn't be the proposal that is before us we would have a more sustainable proposal so on the other hand there's good site planning but there's also just good planning and those aren't always the same green space for example there is a proposed offer of green space in what's before us but I think in the grand scheme of things green space needs to be thoughtfully and proactively identified needs to be prominent and needs to be celebrated and it also needs to be highly accessible so what's this green space thoughtfully identified as critical for protection not really it's kind of an afterthought as part of this case again different different things site planning and higher level planning is there market demand for self-storage clearly there is and I would encourage us to think or try to think more if possible more about form character design and conservation of land in a in a sustainable context rather than about the uses that take place within those buildings so our decision making is it's not about rewarding or punishing the development team never is it's not about rewarding or punishing neighbors or residents never is our decision making should be based on the merits of the application that is before us every time it is before us and the contribution to that that application makes or could make to the public health safety and welfare so I think that we always need to ask the question will this make Durham a better city a better place right now I'm not convinced that this is and I find commissioner Miller's argument very compelling and I look forward to any additional arguments that are made by other members of the planning commission are the other commissioners who would like to speak okay commissioner johnson thank you chair woman one initial question and whichever part of the staff are the applicant can answer it the quickest would be helpful I'm not a historian of prison so what not but do we know when that prison structure was actually built I don't have the date I know that it's no longer a prison the facilities so I don't have a date on that the the old limited security prison was built in the 1920s I don't know when it was taken out of service to become a ncdot storage area but that's when it was built so my next question is for the applicant so you can say so that leads me to assume and correct me if I'm inaccurate is that when you when you're a client or whoever the owner of the larger land parcel acquired a gain control of this site and the larger site that it was aware that this prison at the time or storage facility where whichever it was at the time was a part of the adjacent landscaping which the property was acquired of yes that's correct and so when the existing zoning that we're in asked to change when that was zoned residential was it what was the owner or whoever it is at that time if you're aware what they convinced are are thinking that they would actually be able to develop that as residential and if so what happened over time knowing that that prison or storage facility was there at the time what is what happened to lead you to recognize acknowledge that that was not you know the reality of what can happen on that site certainly when the entire tract of crow's dough farm was rezoned uh it was actually 1100 acres was rezoned in 1987 and got the development plan uh there's no question the prison camp was there in fact it was still a prison at that time and we did it get the residential zoning and looking out you know 30 30 years things do change we have gone and tried to engage other developers to take a look at this and every time they start looking at the site they look to the GIS map and you see prison camp road which even if you explain to them you have to re-explain that this is a a DOT storage area as you can see from the from the photos that are shown it's it's really not very great aesthetically currently even though it's not a prison camp but we have truly tried to talk to some different folks about doing a development there in fact the developer that built the lodge apartments originally they were looking at trying to make the apartments work on that site and there just wasn't quite a a good spot they wanted to be a little bit closer to the interior of crow's dough farm so that's why they moved to the other side of hillandale road but those conditions did exist but again that was over 30 years ago thank you thank you and so since mr miller just a commissioner miller just left the ideas i was going to ask him a question but i'll just make a couple comments so first of all secondly thank you all who came out tonight speaking for and against providing your feedback and thoughts what i think in taking and hearing everything and reading the case and knowing the the area in the site i think that uh it comes down to does this actual proposed development make sense for this particular community area i think what i've wanted to make sure i didn't find myself doing was justifying or rationalizing what is essentially a good effort at something that was is not originally a part of what's supposed to go in this particular parcel i mean if whether you're for it against it i would argue that the effort that has been made to present something that has merit is it warrant some kind of you know you know acknowledgement that there has been some actually like not negative effort but positive effort to present something that has happened for us to have a conversation around however i think the question becomes is this something that should go into this community this neighborhood and the question that i wanted to ask to commissioner miller is you noted so again i'm trying to summarize what i heard you say but if i'm an accurate please correct me is that you're a you're seeing this as an attempt to essentially put something that can be deemed as commercial use in an area that is zoned for residential but it's being attempted under a light industrial designation that's correct because of the way the comprehensive plan the requirements the comprehensive plan on node separation right and so it's about node separate right and so and then so this is what i'm trying to reconcile but you are willing to make an exception given some certain things happening even though you're acknowledging that you don't believe that it's appropriate for commercial type activity even when there's a according to policy that you know we don't want close commercial nodes but you're willing to make an exception of certain things are done under what you presented to basically your comment says there's something that can be done that could sway you back to the other side to a yes even after acknowledging that this is essentially a commercial effort under the guise of light industrial yeah so what i'm looking for here is adjustments to the development because i acknowledge what they're i'm not suggesting that what they are proposing doesn't conform to the plan as a matter of fact if they came in and asked for commercial they couldn't do it and we'd have a node separation problem and i would be just as concerned what i'm looking for is using the device of the development plan to give us space here so that we can have some sort of node separation i wouldn't say an exception i'm looking for compromise i acknowledge that there are other considerations i didn't list if you'll notice when you look at the site plan i mean at the development plan map you'll see that a stream runs right along parallel to guest road and leaves a very narrow narrow strip that's this 10 acres we're talking about um it's going to be difficult to build for anything uh quite frankly there uh and i am not one of those people who believes that anybody it's reasonable for anybody to expect another landowner to hold their land empty for the benefit of the neighbor that's that's not reasonable so some sort of correct development on this piece of property is appropriate what i'm trying to do is balance interest and balance and achieve to the extent possible a policy goal which because of the way the policy is written doesn't actually have to be achieved i believe that the policy goal of node separation is node separation but we've written the policy to make an exception when we stick in industrial zone between nodes and so you wind up and because we allow allow commercial uses in industrial zones we wind up with node separation of nodes our policy defeats itself what i'm trying to do is overcome the defeat and wind up with some sort of separation recognizing that compromise i'm i'm a compromiser and so that's what i'm looking for okay so so thank you for that that kind of those comments and so my response in part taking that into account is goes back to my initial question to the sponsor so given what the existing platform is in regards to the residential zoning nothing has changed in regards to what was in place when the initial pdr zoning was so it's not a read it's not a reaction it's not a reaction it's a it's not a response it's a reaction to something that they that the the project sponsor realized that that can't happen for me i think a compromise would be it doesn't necessarily have to be a storage you know self storage or again we're acknowledging that we're you we're pursuing a commercial oriented development under the guise of fight industrial a compromise one could argue in my estimation that a compromise could be something that's not under the requested zoning or under the the residential zoning we don't know i i i met with the sponsor and i asked you know if this request does not go through then what's the plan and the response i that i received if my recollection i don't have my notes with me is that he he doesn't know yet so is is have we really thought through you know the conservation issue is we know right now from the conversation tonight that at the minimum between 12 and 15 acres will still be there because that's what's required with the repairing feature that's on the site so it's not like we we go to zero in regards to that conversation based on not getting this approved tonight so again it just leads me to ask the question you know rhetorically or feel free to provide responses is that are we creating a framework in which we're saying that if we don't look for something to happen under this what's being presented to us that we put ourselves in a position where there are no other alternatives have we really has the developer or have we in our thought process really explored what could be a compromise or somewhere in the middle it doesn't have to be directly in the middle in which these neighbors and community members can get something that they can live with negotiation is that if one side of the part of the negotiating tables leave feeling great about the situation then it wasn't a good negotiation you're supposed to you're supposed to feel a little uncomfortable but you get to a place where you say this can work and i don't think that necessarily this is something where i think it's a i'm sorry i think it's a win for the project sponsor because based off the information that i've given i don't think we've explored what all could potentially happen given what we've stated are some of the goals here in derm we know that affordable housing is something so with affordable housing comes the trade off of possibly more traffic but at the same time we understand there's a prison across the road so maybe you're not going to get the housing product or type that you necessarily want but that is that guided by what derm says that we're trying to achieve and so i i say that to get to the point of i'm not in support of this because i don't think that this particular development and the product should go in this community in this area but i don't think that that leaves us to saying this property this this site can't be developed but i think that more exploration is is something that should be the next step so i'll leave it at that thank you commissioner johnson i need to recognize commissioner morgan okay thank you thank you miss okay madam chair i had a question for the applicant it's really more of a technical question i did notice that on the actual site itself there's like a 50 foot elevation change from the north to the south do you anticipate any kind of grading or what is your as you have started to kind of kick around a site plan what's your do you have any thoughts on that just so i have a better understanding tim cybers with four best associates yeah so we've we've researched that and the the preliminary idea is to have multiple buildings that step down the slope because there is a large slope across it to have minimal impact on into that slope so as i believe it was commissioner miller mentioned earlier the the concept idea of limiting it to two stories right now is on the north facing wall of the of the buildings would potentially only be one story kind of like and the south facing wall those buildings would be a two-story building almost like a walkout basement and those multiple buildings would step down the slope as you had north to south do you see any kind of development plan where you're phasing this in over time i mean as as commissioner miller has talked about as size and square footage it's it's rather large but is there something where you could actually adjust your plan or tweak it to where it could be more in a phase type approach we haven't looked into the into the phasing yet but we'll research that okay thank you thank you thank you commissioner um Santiago thank you manager you know my concern with this property is that by voting for this tonight we might be limiting ourselves a little bit um as we all know there's been the ongoing discussion about housing or should be and this particular property is within city limits on the major transportation corridor that could mean future transit options that can mean just higher traffic in general just because of what it's a state road already so my concern is if we change it now that we can't you know we've had this discussion about if the server interior should and it will absorb most of our growing population so if we limit ourselves now what do we do five ten fifteen years from now we've done a poor job of deciding what the vote looks like on major transportation corridors then that brings with it the the cost environmentally and the cost materially of extending infrastructure further and further out into the suburbs to gain get more housing this is already in the future learning use path I'm just concerned that changing it now is the main ourselves thank you other commissioners who would like to speak yes I commissioner low thank you the question is for the applicant I believe yes um the question came up earlier if I heard correctly uh will you be storing vehicles at this particular storage unit and I thought the applicant said that they do not know and I was wondering wondering at this point why we would not know know what type of vehicles even what size on my mini scoop to a tractor trailer what have you I was just curious to hear that answer that you did not know so if you could address that for me I would appreciate that sure um part of the reason we don't know is that this case is unlike any other and that involves a significant amount of compromise to where we are today and every time that we add conditions or change the plan that impacts lots of things circulation access um details that will be figured out at the site plan stage and so until we know kind of the limits of what that is um and what our final approved project is uh that will determine the exact layout and where exactly the buildings will be which type of uses will have the the double story on the the lower side and the um and and the single story on the north side so there's a lot about the program that can't be decided until we get to a final vote um but each time you know Mr. Miller mentioned the shrinking of the building envelope we've already done that we've already brought it down we've already lost several buildings and so each time you do that you have to recombinate re re look at your um ultimate plan for the project what will go there and um we we've continued to tweak that uh for the last year and two months and we're at this point we're just not prepared to say exactly what will will be stored there in terms of vehicles because um the height condition for example impacts that thank you thank you are the other commissioners who would like to speak if not I think we're ready for a motion chair I'd like to move that we send case uh should we start with a amendment yes a 180 00012 it's forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation second motion by commissioner al turk the second by commissioner busby that we send um and we we have two we'll do them separately that we send item z one eight zero zero zero three six forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation um question you should always move the a case first we did okay I just was making sure all right didn't we oh the game we did in the motion thank you and that would be item a one eight zero zero zero one two forward with a favorable recommendation um may we have a roll call vote please mr morgan no mr johnson no mr brine no commissioner al turk yes vice chair busby no chair hyman no commissioner miller no mr ketchum no commissioner santiago no commissioner baker no commissioner low no and commissioner macgyver yes motion uh fails two to ten now the second part uh madam chair yes if i may have a move case z one eight triple zero three six forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation second i heard busby with the second commissioner brine thank you uh motion by commissioner busby and second by commissioner brine that we send item z one eight zero zero zero three six forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation um may we have a roll call vote for this item please mr morgan no mr johnson no mr brine no commissioner al turk yes vice chair busby no chair hyman no mr miller no commissioner ketchum no commissioner santiago no commissioner baker nope commissioner low no and commissioner macgyver yes motion fails two to ten thank you let's move to the next item uh staff report uh fox crossing okay one gotta wait just a few minutes as the audience um clears out you might want to be here one two hours yet yeah that was that was it yeah okay you mean in the back good evening i'm emily struthers with the playing department i will now be presenting case a zero zero zero eight and z 18 00029 fox crossing the applicant is tim cyrus with poor bath associates the area of the rezoning request is 12.02 acres and the area of the future land use map amendment request is 0.7 acres the site comprises six parcels and is located along us 70 between lin road and pleasant drive this site is seeking annexation to become located within the city limits the applicant proposes to change the zoning to commercial general with a development plan cgd from commercial center with a development plan ccd residential suburban dash 20 rs 20 and residential urban dash 5 r u 5 the applicant also proposes to change the future land use map designation to commercial from medium density residential and commercial the medium density residential portion is a small portion um in the northwest portion of the site the proposal commits to a maximum of 170 apartment residential units and permitted accessory units as shown on this aerial map the site is is shown in red uh and located in the urban development tier the site is adjacent to us 70 where ncdot plans conversion to a freeway the site is primarily undeveloped with a mixture of pine and hardwood forests the site contains streams and wetlands and electric towers and easement these area photos show that the site uh the site is located in the falls jordan watershed protection overlay district b and a large portion of the site is adjacent to us 70 otherwise the site is primarily located along a narrow unopened right of way to the rear of single family houses that front along pleasant drive and lin road there are also commercial development and places of worship located in the vicinity the site is presently zoned commercial center with a development plan ccd residential suburban suburban 20 and residential urban 5 a large portion of the site falls under a development plan which committed to a commercial shopping center with access onto us highway 70 the applicant seeks to change the zoning to commercial general with a development plan to allow for 170 apartment residential units the property is designated medium density residential and commercial on the future land use map as shown here on the map the applicant proposes to change this designation in the northwestern portion to commercial development plan provides side access points tree coverage area the location of building and parking envelopes stream crossings riparian buffers and project boundary buffers additional commitments include maximum building heights the commitments include apartment residential and accessory uses closure of an unopened right of way within the project limits transportation improvements and transit improvements the proposed cgd zoning designation does not comply with the current medium density residential destination on the future land use map the applicant has requested to change the future land use map in this area to commercial which would be consistent with a proposed zoning the proposal is consistent with comprehensive plan policies including the policies outlined on the powerpoint further detail is provided in the staff report staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances and staff is available for any questions thank you thank you um i do have three individuals who sign up to um to speak and we'll start with the applicant tim cybers thank you chair hyman uh tim cybers whoreveth associates thank you to emily where she sneak off to uh for her work on this project um you guys get uh get to hear me from me uh one more time tonight and then i uh i'm done for the night i promise until next month uh the uh the request in front of you tonight is for zoning excuse me changing the zoning land use as well as the annexation the zoning is rs 20 r u 5 and ccd with a request to change the cgd the land use is a change of just under three quarters an acre of the site to change to commercial and 17.62 acres of this land is being proposed in the annexation which includes right away adjacent to the site so you notice the project area is actually just 12 acres but it's a little over 17 acres in the annexation application the majority of the site is currently zoned commercial center based on the development plan from 1996 that development plan includes just over 96 500 square feet of commercial development which would entail potentially could entail grocery store drugstore shops and future out parcel development it also included access points to lynn road pleasant drive and miami boulevard also known as us 70 it did not accommodate for the current stream buffers which are shown on our plan today uh this project's located directly adjacent to us 70 miami boulevard the widening project well known as the east end connector the widening project that sorry the east end connector widening project has previously taken land from this project area and will also eliminate the access onto us 70 on the which is shown on the previous development plan in addition the stream buffers and utility easements has eliminated the potential for a commercial center on this property furthermore ncdo ncdot project number u 5720 is proposing to convert us 70 from lynn road to south i'm sorry to west of tw oxander and raleigh to a controlled access freeway even though ncdot currently has this project on hold there are two development options for that project the northern option has no impact on this project on our our project in front of you tonight well the southern apart option does provide us an impact to the development area we've reviewed both options with ncdot and they have reviewed the development plan that's in front of you tonight and have agreed to allow this project to move forward with further reviews at site plan it's our team's opinion that that northern project will be chosen however that decision has not been made by ncdot yet the proposed development plan includes rezoning this of this project area to cgd to allow up to 170 residential unit apartments apartments will vary in size to provide a mix of units within the apartment development they will average in size and the average size will exceed 1,000 square foot and include one two and three bedroom rental options rent forecast in this area will also will depend on the final market analysis likely averaging around $1.25 a square foot so therefore a thousand square foot apartment will cost approximately $1,250 in rent the slights location and proposed apartment development provide a great transition that's more compatible between the highly used freeway of us 70 directly to the east and the adjacent single-family residential homes to the west and southwest in addition the earlier mentioned stream buffers and power line easements make this site ideal for apartment development develop the development plan illustrates commitments to right-of-way dedication landscape buffers tree preservation area 70 maximum per face area maximum of 170 units as well as accents points on lin road and pleasant drive road improvements will be constructed on pleasant drive to provide a left turn lane into the development and construct a three lane section towards us 70 as well as providing bike lanes developer also construct a bus stop along lin road or pleasant drive adjacent to the site if required by go Durham at the time of site plan in addition to the development plan comments uh excuse me in addition to the development plan text commitments that are on the on the development plan I have a few additional comments a few additional text commitments that planning has already reviewed and and and reviewed previous prior to this meeting prior to the issuance number one prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy the developer will provide a one time $18,000 contribution to Durham public schools number two prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy provide a one time $17,000 contribution to the city of Durham affordable housing fund there was one other additional text commitment that we worked through with the city and unfortunately uh were directed by transportation that we could not include we did attempt to include an internal bus stop as I know uh commissioner baker has requested on multiple projects however this being a private parking lot a public bus stop and public access into the private parking lot transportation told us we were not allowed to do that which I understand the reasons behind uh the future future land use map associated with this development plan is for 0.71 acre portion of the land that connects to lin road that portion of the development will not can't will not contain any apartment units will have a maximum building height of 20 feet as shown on the development plan as requested by the neighbors at the time of the neighborhood meeting neighborhood meeting was held prior to submittal on September 25th 2018 at Bethesda Baptist Church approximately 15 neighbors were in attendance there were two primary concerns at that meeting one neighbors did not want affordable housing at the back of their houses the neighbors felt strong against against this so we've made a commitment to a donation to help help fund affordable housing developments in Durham the second item was an increase in traffic to the area in comparison to what exists today this development will increase the traffic area and I've discussed the associated road improvements that will be constructed with this proposed development however when come when compared to the commercial center that could be constructed without input of the neighbors without input of this board without input of the city council the traffic will be greatly reduced to certify this josh rankee with ramey with ramey kemson associates completed a trip comparison letter that's been reviewed by the city including transportation department as well as ncdot they compared a reasonable 50 000 square foot retail center to the 170 unit complex they found that the proposed department complex anticipates to generate 29 fewer daily trips excuse me 2900 big difference 2900 fewer daily trips during a typical 24 hour weekday josh is here tonight if you have additional questions on that specific item I did did have the ability to meet with some of you and I appreciate you taking the time to come and meet with me in closing I ask that you vote in favor of this rezoning to allow proposed development of 170 apartment units on the site that is no longer achievable as the current zone commercial retail center it will provide a great transition between the surrounding neighborhoods to us 70 and allow an under allowed to use the underutilized portion of Durham to be developed as a gateway to our city I'm available for any questions and if there is any remaining time I don't know if that was working I'd like to reserve that for answers thank you for your time thank you um josh rankee uh staff would like to know one item if possible yes um the applicant referred to no building being proposed to the west of the the line right now the development plan just specifies a maximum building height of 20 feet west of that line so what um for clarification no apartment unit buildings will be north of that line and if we need to include that on the development plan I'm willing to do that but but it's it's clarifying is no apartment building units we can add that as a text commitment in order to to commit to that at this time that's not a commitment made we can I'm willing to make that commitment that's not a problem if that's okay with staff that we can review that uh but I'm willing to make that commitment that that was the intent okay thank you uh now josh rankee josh or rankee with ramy camp and associates 5808 faringdon place raleigh north carolina um tim kind of stole my thunder uh we did a trip generation letter for this one it has significantly less trips associated with it than the previously approved development plan and is well under the threshold typically requiring a traffic impact analysis um in 2900 less daily trips was the correct number I nearly had a heart attack when I heard 29 but um also far less peak hour trips I'd love to answer any questions but I won't take up any air time you don't have any questions thank you I do have another individual who has signed up uh Wanda waiters good evening and I thank all of you on the commission for allowing me this opportunity to speak my name is Wanda waiters and I own a property on 518 pleasant drive I did attend the meeting that was held at Bethesda Baptist church last year and some of those concerns have been included in tonight's presentation the first presentation um I do not want to say that I'm here against I'm here on a strong request for pause there's been a great amount of due diligence in the report in Emily Struthers I thank you for sending the report for review because the first zoning sign that was placed on pleasant drive was for North Carolina Central I look up all the zoning signs when I see them I was very concerned about that and they came and put the appropriate zoning sign there so it gave me an opportunity to review I think a 96 page document very quickly for tonight my first concern is there was one meeting at Bethesda Baptist church regarding this request however the whole area which is not inclusive in this um presentation as far as the overlay zoning is the Little League Creek now Paul I can't pronounce his name correctly Wibke here with the planning department and I spoke with the upper noose river association which said that they had not received any information on that and again to request some calls on this particular project this whole area is is within the Little League Creek watershed protection so I would like to have that more clearly it states that there are two streams but it does not state that that is part of the Little League Creek watershed plan and it is to my understanding so I think that there needs to be some more extensive review of that and what impact that would have I did ask that when I sent the email to you Emily it says the League Creek and and they speak on that but I want to know the overall impact on the Little League Creek watershed also they've talked about transportation and if that transportation um assessment Josh was done uh within the last two years then it would not be an accurate representation of Pleasant Drive because as you know East End was closed in order to work on the East End connector what does that mean it means that you still have some additional time because we we have divided the time up for at least I appreciate that and you were signed up against so you have all of the time well the the street the East End street has been closed off for traffic so any traffic Pleasant Drive has been extremely busy as a result of that street closing for the East End connector so an assessment of what the appropriate transportation would be in that area is not available now because that is the street that is used in lieu of the fact that the street for normal traffic has been closed for some time so I'm just asking for some further clarification of what impact it would have yes I do have extra time however this is a 96 page document the meeting at the Bethesda church at that time it was not clear that they would have to have the street coming through Pleasant Drive what was stated to me at that time is whatever you'd like to see happen or some type of protective fence in that area was casually acknowledged I do not see that on here okay it also states that there are three parcels on Pleasant Drive however on the parcel listing it only states two parcels so I'd like to know what the clarification is on that because that is 510 512 and 514 518 is the parcel that I own and that is prior to the issuance of certificate of occupancy construct an exclusive eastbound left lane turn lane on Pleasant Drive at site access point number one with adequate storage and appropriate tapers I'm seeking further clarification on that thank you as far as the transport issue of a bus site there is currently one on Pleasant Drive and there's also one currently at Lynn Road at the corner so I want you to know that those already exist on the annexing the policy 23b the efficient provision of services through annexation um I'd like the planning commission to also take into consideration what is under counting jurisdiction and what is under city's jurisdiction at this time okay thank you thank you I do not have anyone else who has signed up to speak on this issue if there are other individuals who would like to speak please do so at this time because this is the public comment period and the public hearing seeing no other yes you can't even though I have a feeling you're going to be asked quite a few questions okay as the applicant for clarification thank you to thanks to Mrs. um Josh Ranky again Rami Kemp and associates so what we did is a trip generation and that is essentially saying here's what the expected site would generate in terms of trips we then provided a comparison to what was previously approved it was significantly lower and that's what Tim was referencing where it was 2900 daily trips lower over 100 peak hour a.m trips lower and um about 140 p.m peak hour trips lower these this is far below a typical threshold for what ncdot or the city's development ordinance would require a traffic impact analysis and that I think is more what was being referenced there where we'd go out and collect data of what's going on out there project the volumes into the future run analysis and provide a big overall report so our trip generation doesn't take into consideration in like what's going on on the roadway there this was more for comparing it to what was previously approved and also seeing is this below the threshold for essentially further research which would be a traffic impact analysis and since it was well below what was previously approved and well below the typical threshold we didn't go out and collect the data which would be impacted with road closures and such thank you any other questions I can clarify while I'm up here at this particular time this is the comment period from the audience are the other individuals who would like to comment okay during the comment period yes yes a few clarification items if I may okay okay um the uh the site is is in the little creek and uh further further exploration of that will be at site plan stage during the development plan we simply say that the site is in the falls Jordan basin and the impervious areas that are associated with that so there's more detail at the time of site plan with those items come and play the concern about traffic and what will be connected in the future the east end connector will have connections um at Lynn road and pleasant drive so those connections will will remain with the with the development of the eastern connector um and to clarify in the bus stop there are existing bus stops um at the time of site plan when we go and work with uh go triangle and go Durham if there's an existing bus stop that is for example maybe it's just a sign and I don't know what's out there today we may be required to put up a bus shelter or a bench um so we would improve that bus stop if there's a bus stop already there today thank you thank you for the clarification um at this time seeing no other individuals desiring to speak I'm going to close the public hearing and give our commissioners an opportunity to ask questions I'm going to start to my left are there any commissioners who would like to speak at this time yes you um Commissioner Baker and then Commissioner Miller yeah I have one question for the applicant mr cybers my question is uh is there a is there a buffer between um 70 and any of the development um on below between between what meant sir between where development can occur and 70 70 um there is a landscape buffer there are no landscape buffers required because of the width of the right away there is the required building setbacks I'll be through okay that's that was my only question I think what we're seeing is of course um the outcomes of an automobile oriented society where everything is broken and we just build for cars and we have to take people's land so that we can if you ask ncdot how many lanes do you need to build they'll always say one more and so we're seeing the consequences of that um I think uh if we want to go in a new direction we need to start thinking more about how do we create the type of living environment based on form and based on character and focus more on a mix of uses um and less on separating uses the caveat to that is that we should always separate incompatible uses whenever that may occur and I think the best example of two incompatible uses is residential uses and heavy industrial uses where you have a lot of toxins this site um is directly adjacent to an industrial use with a lot of toxins emitted it's that is us 70 and it also does not include a mix of uses clearly it's a challenging site for the developer based on the events around us 70 um I do have a major concern with putting uh with putting a large number of people living directly next to a high speed high traffic road like us 70 there is a lot of research about breathing in toxins for people who live close to that to those types of places um we can probably imagine the kinds of people uh who are the people that live uh along busy corridors high traffic corridors that are allowed um and um so I I just wanted to um I wanted to bring up a little bit of information according to the American Lung Association quote in January 2010 the health effects institute published a major review of the evidence put together by a panel of expert scientists the panel looked at over 700 studies from around the world examining the health effects of traffic pollution they concluded the traffic pollution causes asthma attacks in children and may cause a wide range of other effects including the onset of childhood asthma impaired lung function premature death and death from cardiovascular diseases uh the area most affected they concluded was roughly the band within 0.2 to 0.3 miles of highway children and teenagers are among the most vulnerable kings college revealed uh that living within 164 feet of a busy road may increase the risk of lung cancer by 10 stunt lung growth in children by 3 to 14 according to the national institute of child health and human development uh university of california uh printed environmental research journal in 2019 compared to children living more than a half mile from a major roadway children living from roughly uh 164 feet to 0.3 miles from a major roadway were twice as likely to score lower on tests of communication skills compared to those who live farther away from a major roadway you could go on and on there are a lot of studies about that and I think that that's something that we should be thinking about and something that we should be concerned about when we're considering whether to change this from commercial uh to residential um it's just one thing that I think is important and one thing that I'm certainly thinking about uh there are a variety of other policies in the comprehensive plan that I uh do not think uh this is consistent with but um my main concern is with health welfare and safety thank you commissioner baker commissioner miller so I have a question this is another instance where we're building residential in a non-residential zone it's certainly allowed but it's it's one of those things it's that you have to jump over a counterintuitive hurdle to get to where we're we're going but I do want to know when we build multifamily in uh GC what's the height limit one moment while I look that up take your time so for residential development uh in non-residential districts um and we are in the urban tier here let's see height is just inside yes um let's see for single family it's specified as 35 but for all other housing types it is consistent um with the rum district um which I can pull up as well to get an actual number for you uh that height would be 55 feet 55 feet so Tim I have some questions for you I wish if I had had my materials when we met I would have asked you then so overall our density here is about 14 units an acre right 170 against 12 acres but when I look at the site plan just guessing it looks to me like about four about a third of the acreage is is not going to be buildable for one reason or another uh so we're down to about eight acres which runs our practical density up to about 21 units an acre how are you going to fit 170 apartment units with a 55 foot height limit on such a small area how is the parking going to be organized and are these buildings going to be how tall are the buildings going to have to be in order to get 170 units in there okay uh Tim cybers Horvath associates so one clarity I would urge Emily and she's shaking her head that maximum building height um I'll let Emily actually answer the question because that's incorrect the number before oh I'm sorry yeah I need to dig a little bit deeper into the ordinance um so the development plan you always have to that is true uh the development plan specifies 70 and I'm sure that is taking into account some um adjacency that I can't find right now but Tim may know off the top of his head well it's nice to know that you and I look at the code the same way is it what is the height limit to 70 feet yes 70 feet okay with 70 feet what are these buildings going to look like so they'll most likely be in 70 feet and get five stories so some of them could potentially be a four or five story split but majority of maybe a five story building um there'll be buildings and and parking lots developed throughout um on both sides of the stream buffer we're showing the stream crossing as well as our access point up to Lynn of course the area um on those residential parcels are not going to have apartment buildings as I mentioned earlier right so they'll be what will go there um so we'll have assuming you're talking about some sort of amenity structure there could be an amenity structure right there could be most apartment complexes may have a shed just like these residential units have a shed in their backyard um they'll also be the access point so there could be the the access points required so we need our second point of access so there'll be a road the private driveway if you will potentially some additional parking spaces in that area closer to the apartment complexes because my next question was about parking is it uh structured or with a five-story building or is it going to be uh no it'll be it'll be surface parking so we've done some preliminary layouts and that's where that maximum number comes in so uh and and uh staff please correct me if I'm if I'm wrong here but through the since we are in the urban tier we're automatically automatically provided a 10 percent reduction in parking that is ordinance allowance so that helps with the the amount of parking um and you know studies have shown that the two units per acre aren't excuse me the two parking spaces per unit um is a little high for what apartments really need so that 10 percent reduction allows us to get down the surface parking but it is designed to be surface parking um the amount of uh buildings surface parking still allows for the tree coverage which obviously is within the stream buffers but also storm water controls etc that are required through the site plan stage so does that answer your question sir yes I hope very well thank you those are just the things that I wanted to know uh and this is for whoever can answer it well Tim you've looked at it you said you did so in the new plans for highway 70 that would be controlled access uh if I live in one of the apartments that's built on this piece of property after this rezoning is approved and I and I want to get out and go uh under the the two versions of the highway 70 plan will I be have access at Lynn or Pleasant sir we pulled up will I have to drive all around to find a way out or drive over to Andrew because this piece of property is a little difficult to find in a way so you can look into it it's it's behind everything so um now granted I will put a qualifier on this answer if I will I'm looking at a level in the map of the entire east end connector so my this is my best guess I will put that um it it it appears um that there is there going to be a bridge at Pleasant um once one of those decisions are made and again this could change DUT could change this in the future it appears that there's a bridge going to be a bridge crossing Pleasant and connect over to Lynn uh Lynn road will still have an access um and the current plan is that the current us 70 the current design where the pavement is now will be a service road so there's still service access to that um does that answer your question yes it does okay in other words you won't be complete even though it's right next to 70 you you won't be cut off that is correct and that's all it's the only benefit of 70 won't be it's the view of it that's correct so that also plays into the the role of why it's uh why it has been commercial since 19 uh 20 years and why it why it hasn't been developed on that previous development plan did have an access point on onto us 70 which is now not allowed not allowed right not having not having access to us 70 not having that direct access to a highway quote unquote eliminates the possibility for a commercial development all right thank you so uh my concern here one i appreciate mr baker's question which was my first question is is where's the buffering uh against the the highway um i had not checked uh to see what the health impacts were going to be i would just think that i wouldn't want to live right on top of uh controlled access freeway um but my concern is here well i drove out there and i looked and i saw essentially uh residential development that had uh slowly developed between gosh it looked like 19 uh late 1920s right up through 1980 uh all around it uh on kind of standard uh kind of country suburban uh lots and then all of a sudden in you know on a piece of property which although it's right on 70 it doesn't access 70 it's going to be behind everything you're going to have five-story buildings and to me that's a compatibility issue and i don't see that as being consistent uh with the policies in our comprehensive plan now i also acknowledge that it's currently zoned for a shopping center um and i know that what's being proposed recognizes that it can't be a shopping center and it shouldn't be a shopping center it shouldn't have been a shopping center a long time ago uh because highway 70 was becoming another one of those corridors where it was just an endless driveway connections with um uses kind of again slash and burn commercial development uh so this is a hard one for me i think 170 apartment units is too many for the site for so constricted the site uh and given what the neighborhood is like um but i acknowledge freely that it is better than what is currently planned and allowed for there and and since that's never going to be built uh um referencing back uh to what mr johnson will say in connection with the last case maybe we need to step back and say instead of looking at what's there on the ground and what's proposed what is actually best without regard to either of those two things so i think that's a it's nice to be reminded that that actually is the question always thank you um other commissioners who would like to speak commissioner busby and commissioner al turk and then i'm with you i don't have any questions i just wanted to share my thinking and i mean my highest level thinking is i don't think there's an easy item on tonight's agenda just reading through this packet it came pretty late and every single one of these has tough questions and challenges so uh i'm struggling with some of these i will say on this particular proposal what i like about this are a lot of the things commissioner miller just raised i voted against the previous proposal for a number of reasons but one big reason is the thing our community needs is additional residential housing so if we have zoned property for residential housing and we're looking to change it even with a number of good proffers that we had we really need to see the benefits and i would like to see more universal agreement from the residents of that area that this is this is a net positive this is the the opposite so we're going from commercial which i agree with commissioner bakers concerns on health but what's interesting here is i take a different outcome from your proposition which is we will have less traffic in this area by moving to residential and there already are neighbors right there so i see that as a potential positive i don't think this property otherwise it's definitely never going to be a commercial property given what's going to happen along that road but i think providing apartments while i have concerns about the height and the number of units and you actually make it all work i think that's that's a net positive that's a net positive for air quality that's going to be a net positive for our community to actually provide residential property apartments in particular i think is is a good use so i'm still listening and i appreciate the additional text commitments and and i hear the concerns of miss waders as well but i think this moves us in a better direction and recognizes that what we need in our community is more residential and to have commercial there would just create more traffic and really isn't feasible at this point so that that's where i stand thank you commissioner al turk thank you chair um i have a question for staff this relates to the first thing that commissioner miller mentioned in his comments which is that we are um the the proposal is to go from to basically to rezone the future land use map to commercial and this zoning designation to commercial general with the development plan uh but we're talking about apartments right and so yes in the commercial uh future land use designation we're allowed to build apartments um but why i mean why not suggest to the applicant or is that up to the applicant to to uh propose to move this to medium density residential like much of what is to the west of this property it's up to the applicant to make their decision on what they would like to request staff then reviews it for consistency with the comprehensive plan okay i don't like that i think i have a follow-up question the can you tell us what the public notice looks like so when someone gets a notice in the mail that lives nearby what what information is on there um do they have can you just say yeah what's what's the information that yet sure so um two parts to that the first one would be um any required by the applicant prior to submitting neighborhood meetings are required um if there's a change to the future land use map as there was in this case so prior to submitting the application the neighbor um neighbors would have been invited to a meeting held by the applicant um as far as staff's notification for public hearings such as planning commission and city council um it's in court in accordance with state uh law and statutes um as far as what our process actually looks like we mail a letter um to neighbor um to property owners within 600 feet that identifies the uh general information of the request as far as the zoning designation the date of the meeting um who to contact for more information um additionally planning has a notification tool an email option um to they can be sent to anyone who subscribes to it that includes a little bit more information um and the agenda so let me ask a more specific question is there anything in that zoning notice in this case that would say that there will be the proposal is for 170 apartments no it does not specify the uh details of the request if I live there I get this notice that it says it's the proposal from medium density residential and commercial to commercial correct yes uh for the film for the film and then it would include the rezoning request as well yeah I you know I've said this before I don't I think this is this is a lack of clarity that I I think kind of muddles the process and kind of um you know I I think residents should be it should be very clear to them what is being proposed here and of course they can look it up but if if I if I'm getting a notice and it says from commercial to commercial with and the designation is proposed general commercial with a development plan I'm thinking oh there's going to be a commercial development here and I'm okay with that I may not go to the meeting I think to me it's I understand that it is allowed for you to put apartment units in a commercial designation but I think we should be encouraging and pushing developers to be more clear in the process from you know the first step up until city council or county commissioners and I I think that to me is a is a big mistake um yeah I so that's that's one one comment um the other uh I mean I guess just to follow up on commissioner baker's point about the the buffer so there is this 150 foot right of way so could the developer have street trees in this area or any kind of other uh buffering that would that would help with some of this the noise and is that allowed would that be allowed are you referring to I guess I'm referring to right on highway 70 is that um I don't know there's a buffer there but there is area reserved for um it's loading right of way reservation is that what you're referring to yeah so within that they could they could commit to trees or something that would they would provide a buffer is that or could they not do that I would have to discuss that one further with uh someone I guess I haven't seen that come up before so I would have to do a little more digging to answer that all right okay um okay thank you chair all right thank you commissioner brine thank you madam chair um I agree with uh commissioner al turks uh comments about clarity I yeah do not really appreciate putting residential in a commercial general zone however um I have some questions about the uh us 70 improvements and I believe sir mr cv you mentioned that there were two alternatives being discussed the northern one and the southern one is that correct or the us 70 or the us 70 um not the east end connector but no I know the us 70 that's correct and that's what do t refers them to as the two options no I know I have their maps here and uh I also believe you indicated that you thought of what might be the northern one that's a choice that's that's my opinion that's not from do t that is strictly my opinion okay there's reasons behind that but it's but I'm that's fine that particular option based on my playing around with these maps for a few hours to where I could finally blow them up and see what was on them puts a service road right in front of this property that is correct and that doesn't impact the decision to put apartments there as opposed to commercial no the the plan for that is to take the existing asphalt of us 70 or the eastern connector minimize that down to a two-lane to a service road that's correct okay but no that has we are aware of that okay and I agree with what you say about pleasant drive will cross us 70 one way or another I couldn't tell whether it went under or over I believe over I agree with you on one of them I wouldn't sure about the other but on land road as best I could make out land road will no longer have any connection to 70 it will have a connection to the service road to the service road yes but not to 70 and I just wanted to be clear about that is that is correct that's for the ultimate design if that project takes place in the next x number years the east end connector development which is under construction right right will have the connection directly to us 70 right right um I believe that's all I have thank you very much I can I answer your other question that actually was brought up by a few ones so um while we were speaking we're actually able to pull up the email that the we sent out to the neighborhood um prep for our meeting back in september and we did clarify that it was actually for a residential development we didn't necessarily clarify apartments but it was for a residential so that was for our meeting back in september of 2018 prior to anything that was submitted that was so that yes those are not requirements we didn't have to say that but we did clarify that in the letter in the neighborhood meeting letter that we we provided to the neighbors does that answer that question I think clarifies that okay answers the question it helps yes um part part of the other item was that I believe um uh commissioner miller mentioned about the the height one thing I wanted to clarify about the adjacent residential development um single family developments to the a seat to the east those uh those homes those existing older homes that you mentioned are set up a lot higher in elevation than our site uh so it's um you know when you first when you first think of it of apartment buildings right next to a single family residential home you're thinking this well it's not necessarily this those apartments um will be set well below in elevation of those single family homes so I just wanted to clarify that item it was there's still some buffering and they'll still be visible because of the height but they're not looking straight up at those buildings yeah you're building down not uh that's correct good thank you thank you commissioner john sir is it possible for me to respond to the question that was raised um I believe I have an answer yes thank you um so with regard to the area reserve for right of way uh well staff's preference would be that nothing that's required be placed in there um anything but the building can be placed in that area um our reason for concern would be if there was a case taking that anything within that area could be removed um but we would allow it thank you thank you thanks okay commissioner john sir thank you again and thanks again to the project sponsor and the individual who spoke so I want to I just want to make one point based off of uh comments made by commissioner baker and maybe I'm supporting your argument or I don't know but when you you made the uh point about the environmental and health impacts of the people who live in these high-corder areas where there's residential I think it was interesting you made that point because when we look at what's being presented I think it's showing the impact of development and how we're doing it and that we've been informed that the price point for these apartments are going to be starting around 1250 a month right and when we look at that the median household income in in Durham it's just under around $50,000 so when we look at the middle household in Durham we're saying that this product is going to take 30 percent of your pre-tax income so we're creeping up the socio-economic ladder in regards to issues that we've always thought about was greatly impacting you know people at the bottom lower ends of the socio-economic ladder so I just want to make that point in the sense that the decisions we do we do may is having impacts that are going to test the size more than just stay concentrated. My question to the project sponsor is I'm curious just to know like what was what was the process that you took to get to the 170 units in regards to the density and what make the program other site works versus say 100 units or 125 units what how did you arrive at 170 and prior to answer in that I want to clarify the 1250 is an average across the board so that's the average price some of the single family um sorry some of the single one bedroom units would be a smaller would be a smaller rate or maybe the three bedroom unit is a is a higher cost for rent but that 1250 is an average across those three bedrooms so there will be a range of that and to answer your question so when a developer comes to us and looks at a project we do a research analysis and sketch plans so there there's some general design layouts based off of GIS information with Topo with property lines and what we did is actually this developer has worked on projects in the areas doing a project in Raleigh right now so they have their building footprint we took those numbers and actually laid them out on the site laid out the parking did it did a sketch plan design trash paper if you will quick layouts that come up with where the buildings are how much open space how much tree coverage how much area we need for stormwater controls and how much parking we need that is on this site of course going around the streams as well as going around that duke power easement that duke power easement you can park under it but you can't place buildings next to it so we worked through that design and came up and that's with the building footprint numbers with the building footprints that the developers currently constructing we're able to lay those on the site and that's the number that's where our number came up from which I'm assuming the goal is to get to the maximum amount of units you could get taking all those other assumptions into that that is correct most most apartment developers apartment developments are at least really 225 to 250 is typically the low end of an apartment development to really make the numbers work this one is below that primarily because of the constraints on the site that we couldn't we just couldn't get that much to fit so we wanted to bring a realistic number to you today right thank you so that's helpful and and the prior comments you may address one of the other issues that I had regarding I think commissioner miller or someone raised regarding just the fact that there's residential on the other side and then we have this so it's kind of like we don't know what it would look like but given the topography I'm hearing that it necessarily won't be all a mold but it you know so so that's in part part of the reason why I was curious how the 170 come just to make sure that it more conforms with the neighborhood versus bring something that makes it look different you know there's a tall building when you drive into Durham you can see it before you even get here or you rope or something but you know you know we don't want to keep creating those type of you know features where it's a landmark but a landmark probably for the wrong reason in particular neighborhoods but those are my only comments in regards to thinking through I'll finish by saying again this is like the last case again it's like we know what the existing zoning is for it's not going to happen so the question I think or us as a body is what's the best alternative and is this it and if not you know how can we get to something that's a compromise that works for what the developer would like to do but for what Durham it's trying to do on on multiple levels but in particular with meeting some of the goals and the opportunities and challenges so I'll keep I'll plug that thank you other commissioners would like to speak if not we'll Commissioner Elter thank you chair um just a quick comment on what Commissioner Johnson said about the price point and I appreciate the applicant kind of giving us a sense of how expensive these will be or how what the cost will be per month you also mentioned affordable housing and I appreciate the commitment to the housing fund but I I would you know I think this is an area and where affordable housing units on site would be my opinion preferable to just you know committing to the the trust fund because you know first of all there's public transportation nearby and I think we should and I know that the neighbors maybe said something about that I respectfully disagree with that point of view but I you know I I think providing some affordable units here would you know be a positive for the city and even if it's you know a few units here and there so that's and that's not withstanding some of the comments that Commissioner Baker mentioned about you know the the health impacts of of living close to a major corridor like this but that's just just something I think we should consider when we think about where affordable housing is going in the city I think somewhere like this would be you know a good place for that thank you uh Commissioner Johnson I'm thank you chair well it's just so one comment today and that's a question that I failed to ask is that when we say affordable housing it's such a broad term there's low income housing there's unaffordable housing for workforce so that's an affordable housing issue and so when we're talking about affordable housing I think we get caught up in this larger box in which in that we really don't understand who are we actually trying to create affordable housing for you know the housing bond will focus on and this is to hopefully pair on to what Commissioner Turk is saying and so when I heard that the neighbors didn't want affordable housing what came to my mind was not low income housing is their teachers and firefighters and other people in the city of in County of Durham who can't go to the bank and get a $300,000 loan or $250,000 loan for a house or who can't pay $1,250 a month for rent but they need a housing product that works for them like caught in the catch in it you know in this little in that that area where we're not directly focusing on bringing a product that works for them in their budget and so that's why you know I make the comments that I'm when I always ask about price points because when we when I'm saying affordable housing I'm not only focusing on the low income you know population here in Durham that is critically needed but there are people who go to work and earn a paycheck but they can't pay $1,300 a month for an apartment or they can't pay $300,000 for a house that everyone I meet when I'm asking and that's where we're looking to that's the entry point now for building housing here in Durham so I just want to make that point so when we hear these these comments about the need for affordable housing and this this taste for affordable housing in particular communities is what are we really saying when we say affordable housing and so I'll put that plug in and with that I'm done thank you commissioner Johnson are the other commissioners who would like to speak if not I'd like to entertain a motion chair I move that we send case a 180 0008 forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation said okay motion by commissioner alter and second by commission on buzzfeed that we send item a 180 0008 fox crossing forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation may we have a roll call vote please mr. Morgan yes mr. Johnson yes commissioner brine yes commissioner alter no vice chair buzzbee yes yeah hyman yes mr. Miller no mr. ketchan yes mr. Santiago yes mr. Baker no commissioner low yes and commissioner MacGyver yes motion passes nine to three thank you ma'am chair yes I would like to move that we send case z18 00029 with the three additional committed commitments forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation second great motion by commissioner brine second by commissioner alter that we send item z18 00029 fox crossing with uh appropriate three appropriate proffers forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation may we have a roll call vote please commissioner morgan yes commissioner johnson yes mr. brine yes commissioner alter no vice chair buzzbee yes sir hyman yes mr. Miller no mr. ketchan yes mr. Santiago yes mr. Baker no commissioner low yes and commissioner MacGyver yes motion passes nine to three thank you moving right along to our next public hearing fairington towns our staff report please forward to your name good evening i'm least brothers again with the playing department i will now be presenting case a 19 00008 and z19 00023 fairington towns the applicant is jim anderson and jared edens the area of the rezoning request is 3.87 acres the site comprises two parcels and is located at 419 old chapel hill road and 4115 fairington road the site is within the city limits the applicant proposes to change the residential suburban multifam let me slow down the applicant proposes to change the zoning to residential urban multifamily with a development plan rsmd from residential suburban dash 20 rs 20 the applicant also proposes to change the future land use map designation to low medium density residential from low density residential the proposal commits to a maximum of 25 multifamily residential units the site is shown in red and located in the suburban developments here the site is at the corner of old chapel hill road and fairington road the site is primarily undeveloped with a mixture of pine and hardwood forest and contains areas of wetlands the site is located in the falls jordan watershed protection overlay district b the site is adjacent to the paris in place compact neighborhood tier which has recently been adopted into the compact suburban design district the surrounding area includes a mix of residential unit uses including multifamily apartments condos townhouses and single family houses a place of worship and school are also located in the vicinity the site is presently commercial center with a development plan is that true no the site is currently rs 20 and they propose changing to rsm sorry i've done a lot of these power points today the applicant seeks to change the zoning to commercial general no sorry the property is designated low density residential on the future land use map and the applicant proposes to change this designation to low medium density residential the development plan provides site access points tree coverage areas the location of building parking envelopes and project boundary buffers key commitments include multifamily residential and accessory uses a maximum of 25 units and transportation improvements the proposed rsmd zoning designation does not comply with the current low density residential designation on the future land use maps for that reason the applicant has requested a change to the future land use map in this area to low medium density residential which would be consistent with the proposed zoning the proposal is consistent with comprehensive plan policies outline of the power point and further in the staff report staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances and is available for any questions thank you thank you i do have one individual who has signed up to speak i do want to just get clarification i have a name that has been marked through so is there james evans okay if not then um our first jared eden's who has um for the applicant and so we'll just start you with 10 minutes uh good evening thank you appreciate your time this evening jared eden's with eden's land uh i won't take anywhere near 10 minutes we've been here a while already i know uh i feel we've got a simple request before you this evening as emily mentioned we're proposing only 25 units over about four acres i think it's a fairly straightforward project the road widening roadway improvements are in place at the intersection already which is convenient we have one driveway proposed old chapel hill road that's been vetted by dot they're okay with that location um there's a pond on the side on the southern part of the site that will remain untouched so really most of your development is going to be concentrated on the northern portion of the property uh we had a neighborhood meeting in june of this year had no attendees um no opposition i'm aware of and again i said i'd be quick i'll be glad to answer questions that you have thank you okay i do not have any individuals who have signed up to speak so i'm going to close the public hearing at this time and give our commissioners an opportunity to ask questions i'll start with commissioner brine and then commissioner busby uh thank you madam chair one question for the applicant um what would be the price point for these multifamily residences and so the short answer would be that i i don't know for certain um we're proposing townhomes but you know often when we stand here as developers and in real estate people we often don't know the end user when we're here it's uh more often than not we don't know the end user we don't know the builder we don't know the architectural specs and things like that and that's no different with this case tonight obviously this area is a you know nicer nicer area and um i'm sure there'll be price appropriately but i don't know the numbers tonight thank you okay commission about speak thank you madam chair mr eden sorry to bring you right back up so you mentioned in in our meeting and you said it here was well i believe that the the bigger pond on the southern i guess is that the southwest portion of the site would be left intact and so on the existing conditions map it says that it will be removed and so i assume that that should be changed and then it's not shown on the proposed site improvement plan so should that also then be shown on that plan as well i think that's an appropriate change to make before we go to city council because the intention is definitely to keep that pond there great that's just a typo and i'll have to fire that person tomorrow just kidding thank you and then the smaller the smaller pond though is also shown that it will be removed and that is the plan yeah that's a small pocket of wetlands that um it's fairly easy to remove with a nationwide permit from the core of engineers so that that pocket will will be removed with the larger pond will remain and is the larger pond it will that be the stormwater feature or there'll be an additional stormwater feature on the site correct yeah there'll be additional we're not allowed to use inline jurisdictional features and ponds like that for stormwater treatment so we'll have a separate pond outside of this one so it would be totally just native untouched great thank you okay are the other commissioners who would like to speak commissioner baker a quick question for staff um sorry to come all the way up here just for one question um if they wanted to uh if the applicant wanted to uh rezone to the design district would they be able to do that we would have to evaluate that request uh to determine if we were comfortable expanding uh the design district um future land use map uh compatibility there um i don't know that we have an answer off the bat on that one okay thanks uh quick question for the applicant uh are there any green building elements um like solar panels green roofs recycle materials and anything like that no i can't make any of those commitments tonight okay that's all i would um i would support uh a rezoning to the design district and i would encourage and support development that promotes green building that's all thank you are the other commissioners who would like to speak if not i would like to entertain a motion madame chair i move that with regard to case eight nineteen zero zero zero zero eight we send it forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation i'll second but we do with the additional property well that's in the zoning case oh i'm sorry thank you thank you um motion by commissioner miller and second by commissioner busby that we send item a one nine zero zero zero zero eight fairington towns forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation uh may we have a roll call vote please commissioner morgan yes commissioner johnson yes mr brine yes commissioner alturk yes vice chair busby yes chair hyman yes commissioner miller yes commissioner ketchum yes mr santiago yes commissioner baker no commissioner low yes and commissioner macgyver yes motion passes 11 to 1 thank you um may we have the staff report for no god it's not about oh that's why i'm sure i move in connection with case z one nine zero zero zero two three concerning fairington towns that we send that forward to the city council with a favorable report including the additional proffer made tonight okay commissioner miller second second by commissioner busby sounds like i'm in a real harry motion by commissioner miller second by commissioner busby um that we send item z one nine zero zero zero two three fairington towns with the additional three proffers with the additional one proffer forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation may we have a roll call vote please commissioner morgan yes mr johnson yes mr brine yes mr alturk yes vice chair busby yes chair hyman yes mr miller yes commissioner ketchum yes mr santiago yes commissioner baker no commissioner low yes and commissioner macgyver yes motion passes 11 to 1 thank you now we are ready for the next public hearing godwin crossing staff report please and any signups to speak thank you i'm getting my steps in today i'm emily struthers of the darin planning department i will be presenting case z 19 00010 goodwin crossing the applicant is anderson marlowe and jared edens uh the site uh let's see the area of the rezoning request is 75.43 acres the site comprises two parcels and is located at 1301 and 1312 goodwin road the site is located within the city limits the applicant proposes to change the zoning to plan development residential 2.167 pdr 2.167 from previous plan development residential 2.310 pdr 2.310 the future land use map designation is low density residential and the proposed rezoning is consistent with this designation the proposal commits to a maximum of 149 single family lots the site is shown in red and located in the suburban development tier the site is located on both sides of goodwin road the site is undeveloped with a mixture of pine and hardwood forest the site contains streams wetlands floodway floodway fringe and steep slopes the site includes cabin branch creek wildlife habitat by the little river corridor open space plan and natural heritage inventory program the site is located in the falls jordan watershed protection overlay district b single family residences are located in the vicinity as well as a water treatment plant and duke energy parcel the previously approved development plan 0531 committed to a maximum of 155 single family lots the legacy development plan included a number of commitments more fully outlined in the staff report and attachments if the proposed pdr 2.167 rezoning is approved commitments on the legacy zoning case would no longer be in effect the property is designated low density residential on the future land use map proposed zoning is consistent with this designation proposed conditions include the development plan provides site access points stream crossings tree coverage area and project boundary buffers a summary of key commitments key commitments include single family residential and accessory uses up to 149 maximum of 90 units without a second access point 300 foot wildlife protection buffer along cabin creek 50 foot perimeter boundary buffer in some areas greenway easement and transportation improvements again more fully outlined in the staff report let's see with regard to comprehensive plan policies the proposed rsmd zoning designation does comply with the current low density residential designation on the future land use map the proposal is consistent with comprehensive plan policies those outlined on the PowerPoint further in the staff report staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances and staff is available for any questions thank you thank you everyone i have i do have one individual who has signed up to speak for and to against so i'm going to call on the applicant first jared edens you have 10 minutes thank you good evening jared edens again with edens land thanks Emily for your time worked on this project we worked a little bit longer on this project than the previous case but the main purpose of the rezoning is really to what i would say modernize an existing application because we have an application that was approved in 05 that has several conditions on it that maybe in 05 we were talking about those things and they made a little bit of sense but in 2019 and 20 current building practices they don't so the goal here was to basically make the project better you know the the density we're seeking is there the use we're seeking is there you know those are the main things you know density and use so we have the things we're looking for it's the other things we're trying to modify to make a better overall project for both us and the neighbors so i'm just going to highlight maybe two or three i know staff did the chart where they compared the which i thought was very helpful um now i'm just going to talk two or three of those speak to two or three of those for a moment if i can masquerading there's two commitments on the existing zoning that basically restrict masquerading and in the early in late 90s early 2000s masquerading was a topic of conversation here i mean we were designing multiple projects i'd say 50 50 projects in early 2000s were masqueraded versus not masqueraded and by not masqueraded it doesn't mean that the lots themselves won't be masqueraded also it just means that the grading has to occur in phases so per the current plan we would have to in the current conditions we have to go build the road but all the roads balance the earth work for all those roads in those just in those corridors and make all that work and then when that's done then we can go and clear and build houses but the end result between those conditions and what we're proposing today are the same it's going to look exactly the same the houses are going to be in exactly the same location the same number of trees and street trees are going to be on the property with that proposal versus ours except when you eliminate the no masquerading restriction and you allow everything to be graded at once we can balance all your dirt earth work at once and everything and when we're talking about affordable housing there's i can't think of anything that would add to cost of housing more than requiring separate construction for roads and homes when you've got homes on parcels that are six and seven thousand square feet in size you know no masquerading makes sense for 70 and 80 foot wide lots that are half acres where you can grade the roads and then you can go and selectively clear on each lot and say i want i want to keep this tree and that tree and whatnot homes that are you know this size home on these size of lots that's just not typically how it's done so if we eliminate the masquerading provision it will definitely lower the prices of these homes i mean i feel a hundred percent confident in saying that that it will definitely lower the price of these houses another thing i want to talk to is excuse me i was to mention about additional bmp's and and previous restrictions and things i didn't notice in the the existing condition says that additional bmp's will be added quote where space allows unquote which is a commitment to zero additional bmp's because the space doesn't allow it there's no extra bmp and that condition goes away so that condition in itself doesn't have a lot of teeth to me as far as as i can tell the 24 maximum pervious that's just again not consistent with present day practices your modern day bmp's have been you know modified over the years and and made better and they can easily handle much higher percent purposes the end result is the same as far as stormwater goes durham has the same stormwater goals whether i have 70 percent pervious 50 percent pervious or 30 percent pervious i've got to look at my quantity and my quality and i've got to meet their thresholds and whatever it takes for me to get there that's what i have to do but arbitrarily maxing the impervious to 24 percent again i don't think that has a net effect change between existing and proposed and also i want to talk about neighborhood protections we had a couple of neighborhood meetings um uh first one you know general presentation talked about some concerns i came back with a second one and proposed some additional protections but as you see we look we looked at all of the perimeter properties and every adjacent parcel that has a home on it that's occupied we applied a 50 foot undisturbed buffer adjacent to that parcel that's all around the perimeter so you'll see on the develop on a d2 sheet you see those little 50 foot undisturbed buffers all around everywhere we found an existing home we tried to add protection that is definitely better than what's existing now easily better than what's existing now um so again those are just three things i wanted to point to um i'm sure there'll be some questions i'm glad to answer them but uh i appreciate your time thank you okay it's a reasonable time i have two individuals who have signed up to speak against um ashley dale and nancy magmare start with ashley dale you have five minutes thank you very much this is my first meeting of the sort um we're happy to have my name is i'm really tired now uh my name is ashley dale i live at 13 to 03 goodwin road um i moved to durham two years ago from riley i lived in the same house for 20 years in the mortikey area um i loved it except when all the development started it just got way out of control and it was i realized it was just the time to leave and i wanted to get someplace where there was more breathing room and that ended up being northeast durham and so far in the last two years i have absolutely loved it it's dark um i can hear the coyotes in in the woods uh the deer uh i have probably hundreds and hundreds of frogs that live in the yard and that's just fantastic coming from downtown riley um one of the things that i wanted to mention is that there are no lots at all on goodwin road at all that are under 0.43 acres none um the uh the the the legacy plan that was proposed i'm not exactly sure a year ago um but there are 16 light items in the presentation that was or the document that was put online and there were 16 light line items and of those 16 light items the current proposal 11 of those proposals are less strict than the legacy 11 um one is equal and so there are only four that are considered uh improvements so out of the 16 11 are the legacy the legacy proposal had more stringent uh regulations so that's one of the things i wanted to point out um my lot is 1.8 acres the other lot that's adjacent is two acres the other lot that's adjacent is 12 acres 14 acres 1.6 acres 1.6 acres um when we're talking about development especially in some place that's more rural in nature like northeast Durham um i think we have to be really considerate of how many houses we decide to put in what lot and in what conditions um like i said i came from riley where the development is just astronomical traffic is horrible um i came to get away from that not to have 150 houses right beside me um even with the 50 foot buffer i that's a great idea and it's nothing against um any development we need development but we don't need this kind of like mass housing in this one particular area uh nothing else on goodwin road supports that kind of development um and i have some really bad dry mouth i apologize the other one thing i wanted to mention that uh doesn't seem to be mentioned much of any place is the cabin that's on the landing question there's a cabin that was built in the 1800s um and originally this land was a part of the paul cameron land and paul cameron of course owned uh the stagville plantation and uh owned the snow hill land which he had sold uh before the snow hill plantation took off and there's a cabin on this land that was a part of the snow hill plantation and it it's actually called the snow hill snow hill tenants house and uh nobody seems to mention that the house is there and that at some point some overseers lived in that house and um 36 seconds back and i want to say 2007 maybe 2006 the Durham historical preservation said that that house was listed but it was not protected and that they thought that it held some extremely valuable archaeological information and uh i don't think that we should just plow that over i think that somebody needs to take a look at that before we make any kind of arrangements on building 150 houses on this land that's it thank you thank you mr. dale i'm nancy mac murray hi i'm nancy mac murray i live at 13 13 meadstone drive that's in um bryer dale that's the adjacent neighborhood my 90 year old mother also lives there she lives at 1316 bryer dale lane and she did receive a notice it was only one week ahead of time in the mail so if you would like to see what's what's sent to the residents i can offer that to you um i don't know if you're familiar with the movie groundhog day but this is groundhog's day to me because i stood here in 2006 before the planning commission and asked that this property not be reasoned from rural residential and rural residential 20 because all the reasons that a neighbor mentioned this is a rural area there's no public transportation it's solid hardwood trees it just doesn't support this kind of neighborhood unfortunately your predecessors agreed with a developer and did allow this high high density zoning to go in but the concessions that were calling legacy were in deference to the individuals that own property there um we have committed great resources to purchase homes in this area this neighborhood i've been there since 1994 i still have the original file from 2006 i have the petition signed by all my neighbors and most of these people are still in this area there's very low turnover in homes um it just doesn't go with the neighborhood so as somebody who backs up to it and they have a half faker lot or somebody that has larger property they really don't deserve to have the rules changed over and over again how many times do you set up ordinances and zoning laws and then somebody comes in and wants to change them i don't hear anybody from the planning department saying it doesn't fit it's not consistent we had people from guest road worrying about storage facility well storage facility is necessary because people are putting these tiny little places and people have no place to put their stuff people on guest road where the storage facility could be going should you know they are asking for a storage facility that zone residential that property would be more appropriate for something like this to go in so i ask you please to not um negate the legacy because i am part of the legacy and it's very important that we have some rules and that we keep them where we have a little bit of chaos in our society so thank you for your consideration and um my neighbor Bill Ostag is still had signed up i guess on the different sheet yes William Ostag i live at 1400 Meadstone Drive and i did sign on the wrong sheet and i apologize for that the error was entirely mine um that's going to sound redundant but um i've had a great deal of experience in the construction business i spent 25 years on active duty as a civil engineer core officer cb was responsible for construction and environmental projects both planning and restoration uh in in asia europe and throughout the continental united states i'm a registered architect um i've understand the i've had the opportunity to look at a site plan just briefly and in very small scale so i can't comment in particular on what was discussed earlier and what the proposal is exactly except to say that yes mass grading will be required to to make that site uh buildable um and when it's after all is is said and done and the roads are put in you're going to have lots that are too tense of an acre maybe less and given the nature of the site and the grading that's going to have to be done and the grades that are going to have to be maintained not all of that site will be not all of those lots will be buildable it's only a relatively small or a portion of that of each lot will be buildable and in order to maintain the riparian areas there's going to have to be an awful lot of environmental action taken it's not as simple as is being portrayed in my opinion i don't pretend to be a civil engineer but i've moved around a lot of dirt and i think i know what i'm talking about i'm familiar with the site as i mentioned before i run my dog through there on on occasion um second thing is traffic and this this uh this also affects the uh this is going to affect i'm sorry forgive me um the way that the traffic is portrayed in the report that i read uh it talks about traffic on goodwin road and traffic on infinity road what it doesn't say is that um access to the site will also be through the bryer dale area both through bardak court and coming up from from goodwin road to uh via ventoria road and then on to shady lane and i don't have to go through it but it it it it accesses is via city street or residential streets outroads streets in order to get to uh in order to get to infinity road that's the shortest way to get to rocksboro road uh from that area because it goes through bryer dale and because the traffic and along meadston drive is very likely to be increased that poses a problem for me right there are a lot of kids that live in that area a lot of kids that play in that area the last thing we need is for the traffic that is gonna folks are gonna take that shortcut um through those residential areas uh bryer dale and advantage point in order to get to infinity road finally i have to agree with what uh with what nancy said um that's a it's a rural area there's a lot of a lot of land it's quiet there's there's a lot of wildlife uh the last thing we really need in that area is uh is a very high in my opinion high density uh housing there are gonna be small houses on small lots and i don't think that's consistent with the uh nature of that area thank you mr edens would you like some additional time to respond to as i went over a bit on the again so i appreciate that thank you um and i appreciate the neighbors concerns and um i understand them honestly i just want to say just because a commitment exists doesn't mean it's a good commitment and some commitments that are on here now are really not good i don't think they're they're not in line with what we're trying to do here um another thing i did mention before was you know we're dedicating a 300 foot wide wildlife corridor along craven creek undisturbed that's not on the current plan 300 feet i mean it's like five to ten acres of my client's area that we voluntarily said here let's preserve this and it just makes us compact things even more but that's the goal see when you've got seven like a minimum lot size of 7 000 square feet that might have made sense in 05 when the homes were 55 feet wide or 60 foot wide or whatever homes now are there people want smaller homes and smaller lots that's the market i think that's what we want in the city i think we would like that uh smaller homes and smaller lots don't require 7 000 square foot lots it's just it's just not sensible so to me the more things are compacted in the middle of the site like which they are the more we can preserve on the perimeter of the site which we have so in my opinion i mean traffic and things like that someone can go build 155 homes on here tomorrow and in this residential market i don't think it's going to take a long time for somebody to come along and say okay i'll do the phase construction i'll just make the homes more expensive and do it that way i mean the ability to develop 155 homes is here now so we're just we're actually lowering that by six homes and adding more restrictions to it in my opinion so i think it's a better project again i'll answer your questions thank you thank you um i do not have any other individuals who have signed up to speak emily do you have something for us uh staff would like to clarify about the good wooden ruined log house uh looking at the maps that's located on lot 17 reference in the development plan um it's outside the development plan request it's uh one of those lots that's kind of um surrounded by but not part of the good wooden uh request so it's not on the subject proper correct thank you thank you you you'll get a chance we'll give you an opportunity to come to the mic to speak but speaking off camera you know we're being recorded and you really cannot hear so thank you emily sure staff can clarify that wow we pulled up the the maps and that's not identified um on them what was the map we were referring to thank you state historic preservation the state historic preservation office maps thank you uh that those maps only identified the one which is located off site thank you um i do not have other individuals to speak during the public hearing at this time i'm going to close the public hearing and give our commissioners an opportunity to ask questions i'm going to start with commissioner brian thank you madam chair um one thing i just want to emphasize to the people who spoke in opposition and i appreciate your point of view the damage has already been done this has been rezoned you can put 155 houses out there now the question is how will this property be developed uh if we deny this rezoning you're still going to get houses out there whether you know you like it or not that's the damage has been done um would it be possible to get a the slide with the development plan on it put up i can pull up a uh screen clip of it but it won't be the entire uh area um that's this is i think good enough um i have some questions for the applicant history you talked about 7 000 square foot minimum walk size is there a minimum walk size that you could commit to um yeah i think we we could probably do 5 000 as a minimum um i wouldn't want to go lower much more than i mean 5 000 i think is a good number it's consistent sort of what we're doing now okay so 5 000 uh square foot walk size another question that was raised in the staff report was the question of an off-site sidewalk and i would like staff if they could point out exactly where this sidewalk was supposed to be the off-site sidewalk the the area that it has um let's see looking at the map that's it's up there right now it's the area that's outside of their quest but located in between the request along that frontage okay um another question for you mr. edens uh would you be willing assuming right away was available to construct this sidewalk off-site i think that would be that would make sense i think we could do that again subject to available right away with the standard language that we use okay and another question another comparison between the legacy plan and this one is some open space but i know that the ordinance does require a certain amount of usable open space which i'm assuming you'll have to provide um a question also came up about uh disturbing steep slopes but with the uh 50 foot undisturbed perimeter buffers and the 300 foot uh wildlife quarter buffer it looks to me like most of your steep slopes are now in the buffer areas is that a fair assessment yeah that's that's correct i appreciate you pointing that out because some of the conditions may be more you know legacy may be more restrictive technically speaking but if you look at if you look at the overall overall application we're protecting steep slopes more than the existing application because we're undisturbed in those areas okay we have i think slightly better transportation improvements we've got the the buffers we're getting the trail dedication the one thing that you know i go back and forth on is the mass grading because i've never been a big fan of mass grading but i think in this particular instance whether it's mass graded as mr edens wants to do or not is going to make a difference in the price of the ultimate product i think with mass grading it will be less expensive i agree with his point on that uh and since we like to talk about affordability of housing up here i think here's a chance to uh give in or for me to give in and allow mass grading to swap off being that the final product will be less expensive thank you madam chair thank you are the other commissioners who would like to speak staff would like to make one comment with regards to the off site sidewalk um we wouldn't be able to accept that commitment at this time with the um the subject to part we would like to see the applicant do that due due diligence um before committing to it so that we know that it is an actual commitment okay thank you so we can't accept that tonight but we could uh work with them um okay so sooner or later it can be worked in is that what you're saying yes we can't accept it now but they we can revisit it once they've done that due due diligence so we don't know if um having completed that due due diligence if they would be able to commit to it or not okay thank you yeah okay commissioner miller so this gentleman i'm sorry sir i don't remember your name would you come to the mic so we get your picture i do not have a look shot please state your name again if you would show the site plan so that he can see it we can see it but i would like for him to be able to see it okay thank you my name so looking at that map realizing what i was having him state his name again please oh all right ashley dale 1303 good one road okay thank you mr dale yes looking at the map that's now displayed behind us uh or in and behind you can you show me where the structure is that you're referring to the cabin that you talked about that you think is on the subject site yeah so how can i point the mouse the oh the mouse so for yeah oh thank you okay put my glasses okay can you see the mouse yeah so excellent this is my house right here okay the structure is right here and and so say again what that structure is that structure is a what's it called snow hill tenants house the snow hill tenants and tell me what you how old is that house do you think and what and tell me where you've gotten your information it was estimated uh sometime 1800s finding information on it was extremely difficult um the only map that i saw that had the correct drawing location was a night it was from the original plat book when the land was owned by Clyde Goodwin and they did a survey of his land and uh my house was not there yet but that little you read them was there you read some sort of historical assessment of that somewhere i have done so much research on this land it would make your head spin yeah but just just this house just this one cabin yes sir so what have you read um trying to discover the source of your information so i read the original request for the rezoning and i'm not sure exactly what year that was when pictures of the cabin were taken by Nancy um and actually have those on my phone but i don't know how to get them to you it's all right but what i'm trying to and that's the end of my question for you what i'm trying to understand is whether or not this is a structure which it falls in the category of resources which are comprehensive historical resources which our comprehensive plan favors protecting is this in the county historical inventory i mean i know it's probably not a national register site so it's not showing up on the shippo site but i'm talking about the county inventory so sarah young the planning department we have we rely on shippo to have displayed all of our mapped county inventory sites national register local all historic resources are mapped on the shippo website that's why we use it because it's our most comprehensive resource i'm on there now and i've searched for snow hill farm tenant house that is mapped but it is mapped on snow hill road it is not according to shippo located um on goodwin on goodwin of course the only historic snow hill road snow hill farm being eight square miles probably had a number of tenant houses that's it's we now call that trayburn uh so we can certainly look into that further i'm sorry my just died literally right now so the um so i'm really concerned i don't if we have a site which is covered by the comprehensive plan that we have neglected to include in our analysis of this rezoning i'd like to know about it grace smith planning department we will certainly look into that but we're going to use the same resource that we just pulled up during the meeting and it does not show another resource that's protected other than the other one that's off site so we can certainly look into that did you want the case to be continued and we come back to visit you about that or would you like that looked into between now and council or what did you i'm not sure so let's go at this from from what we do know remind me what the comprehensive plan says about our policy with regard to historical resources so normally um i can't say it verbatim but normally in a situation like this the applicant would provide the resource to be available to be moved or relocated or someone else could take the resource um like fendle bevers well i mean we say something and then we knock it out i don't if you remember the cornwallis case years ago there was a house on that property that they had made a text commitment to provide it to be moved and they were even going to i think pay part of the moving fee that if someone would take it right but that that's the extent that i'm aware of that we can that's the extent of our policy and we would have to verify that it's actually protected resource before that would even apply so yeah and according to what we just saw it it is it does not look like it is but we could certainly dig a little deeper just to make sure if every that would make people feel better here comes sir young yeah from the planning department uh my device may not have battery but i still got a little left yeah um the energizer bunny so just to clarify that um historic resources that are not uh they may be inventoried that are not designated to be protected um essentially we're in a mode of trying to be proactive with applicants about what they might do with that with those resources so that's certainly something that we you know can do a little more field investigation and verify and then discuss with the applicant what what options they may have but there's nothing that requires that i realize there's nothing that requires to make sure that it's a policy question exactly in other words i would be because this is this is something that really matters to me i would be more inclined to vote in favor of a rezoning that protected historic resource at the developer's option than one that it doesn't i realize that that we don't have a rule that requires them to protect everything but we do have a policy in favor of that my problem is is i i failed to notice this houseman i went out there so and of course i can't always tell where the property lines are and this is this is like several of our cases this time odd shaped pieces of property thank you for coming to for drawing entire attention i'm not sure what my response is yet but i'll be thinking about it um see the house on the uh the gis pictures the 2000 about the 2007 um back in 2007 you can actually see that there's a little road right there and you can you can see the house it's got a tin roof but you can't see it it's it's covered after 2007 the pictures you can't really see it can't see it in the aerial that's provided to me and and uh anyway um thank you for for that thank you um jared we've got an old house on this piece of property what can we do to protect maybe we haven't i mean i mean i'm not sure i agree that we have but if we do what can we do to properly yeah um because historic by whose measure i mean i we're just sort of assuming it's historic just because we're just assuming that i mean i understand my my client about the property and about 10 years ago and he's aware of it but my understanding is that the roof is basically the thing is the lap to collapse i mean i don't know what there is to move well and i don't know either uh i mean honestly you're at this point you're not proffering uh you're not coming up and saying oh yeah i know what house that is we can shift this over here and make it the community center i don't think that would be a wise i just don't think there's much to move right thank you thank you thank you that's all i have okay are the other commissioners who would like to speak okay commissioner baker and then i think commissioner brine often brings up um uh wise statements such as the damage has already been done and i wonder how often uh when cases come before us we might be doing that very damage as well i think in general um this specific application is actually going in the right direction when it comes to uh reducing lot uh minimum lot um minimum lot requirements getting rid of this setback requirements i think that that goes in the right direction um i think that uh in particular combined with the wildlife protection buffer um that's important one policy in uh the Durham comprehensive plan that i'm looking at is um this is in the suburban tier right policy 222c suburban tier conservation subdivision promote the use of conservation subdivision provisions in the suburban tier especially where conservation by design methods would protect environmentally sensitive lands preserve historic and archaeological sites protect scenic views and conserve prime agricultural lands while encouraging more efficient use of the land and permitting up to one-third increase in the density for projects that utilize these provisions i dream of uh following many other policies in the comprehensive plan and i look forward to uh maybe maybe with the new comp plan we will we will do that that's all okay thank you uh commissioner brian um thank you um i was looking at the development plan from the legacy case and reading as fast as i can uh the small print with my poor eyes i see no mention of this historic structure uh in in that plan either that was 2005 but if you look at the attachment to the aerial view that came with this particular case at the piece of property the gentleman pointed to it looks like there might be a building there but i can't tell you anything about the condition of that building thank you they're debating i think they found something so um let's let's see what mr miller has to share it's at his house uh mr miller we were asking if you had something to report back to us on the structure okay we just go with the same ground again all right well it looks like that's enough yes um mr eden would like to offer this might clarify something i mean it's my understanding that the whatever structure would whatever it is is close to the parcel line i know it's very close to our property line we have a 50 foot undisturbed buffer proposed in that area so anything inside that 50 feet is not going to be touched so whatever is there now we'll stay there thank you that's a committed element on the plan okay thank you yes uh fairy young so one quick thing that i wanted to add um is that had this been identified as a historic resource at the time originally when we reviewed the plan and we just identified that the plan has teeny tiny little rectangle that's hidden among all the other stuff so it's um almost impossible to see but had it been identified to us we would have reviewed it against the one applicable policy from element five the historic preservation element of the comp plan which says um historic resources and compatible development promote new development that is compatible with significant historic resources by addressing impacts through the development review process so the question to us would have been is this a significant resource um so that's kind of what our assessment would have been i appreciate that right are the other commissioners who would like to speak yes commissioner alter thank you chair this is a question for transportation um so uh the bicycle and pedestrian advisory commission you know they often ask for off-site improvements uh like this sidewalk um and but the the city's transportation department you don't always also request that can you say why you did in this particular case because i'm sorry can you repeat the question so um attachment nine bpac they they asked for a the sidewalk the off-site sidewalk improvement and in this particular case you also requested that right you asked the correct in other cases so i think two cases ago uh i can't remember which case that we had earlier tonight bpac also asked for this but you didn't also you didn't request it i'm so i'm curious why did you request from the applicant uh the sidewalk improvement in this particular case is there something about it so groaning thomas transportation um we specifically requested the proffer to avoid um to basically fill in a gap that would exist in the sidewalk system um sometimes that's not the case of a gap it's just off-site um sidewalk that is being requested i guess i i think bpac usually also asked for that when they're they they think there's a gap but so is it because the gap is between two parts of the same property of this property and not a gap between this property and a intersection yes that is correct requested yes this site will be required to construct sidewalk along the frontage which will leave a gap okay in the sidewall and so that's why you requested in this case and not others okay thank you that's that's helpful um well i'm i'm glad that you're uh jeer that you're wanting to make this commitment you know subject to right away um i i was on the fence about this case but i i think i've been convinced by commissioner brine that there are a number of things about this that are probably maybe better than the legacy uh case um thank you all right are the other commissioners who would like to speak if not i think we're ready to entertain a motion chair i move that we send case z19 000104 to the city council with a with a favorable recommendation so i'll second with the with the provision of the one committed element that was accepted okay uh motion by commissioner question actually i do uh although the staff can't accept the sidewalk in uh if there's right-of-way commitment uh we're not making a final decision we're making we're giving advice to the council yeah uh and so i'd like to go ahead and include that in there as a condition of our favorable recommendation i agree i'm in my second okay i can i can revise it to to make that sub yeah so the maker of the motion if you revise it yeah so i i move that we send case z19 000104 to the city council with a favorable recommendation subject to the applicant making a commitment to sidewalk improvements if the right if the right of way is available okay plus the one commitment that they have already the additional commitment they made tonight uh for the uh minimum uh lot size of 5 000 square feet coming second there we go motion by commissioner el turk uh second by commissioner brian that we send item number z19 00010 godwin crossing forward with a favorable reckoning uh recommendation subject to the inclusion of sidewalk provisions subject to the inclusion of one proper as identified all in favor of this motion roll call please commissioner morgan yes mr johnson yes commissioner brian yes commissioner el turk yes vice chair busby yes chair hyman yes commissioner miller yes commissioner ketchum yes commissioner santiago yes commissioner baker yes commissioner low yes and commissioner macgyver yes motion passes 12 to 0 thank you moving right along we have arrived at glenn road town homes which was continued from november 12 2019 meeting yeah that was it thank you imagine good evening i'm jamie sonyak with the planning department i will be presenting case number z19 00018 this is the continuation of the glenn road uh town home application subject to the november 11th 2019 planning commission hearing the applicant has offered um the following text commitments which are listed on the slide uh staff has reviewed these text commitments and found them to be legal and enforceable i'm just going to read them into um the record a minimum of 25% of the townhouse uh townhouses shall be alley loaded sure again a minimum of 25% of the townhouses shall be alley loaded the development shall have a maximum block length of 800 feet all townhouse units shall have a habitable heated square footage that will not exceed 1700 square feet prior to the first certificate of occupancy the developer shall contribute 41 850 to the city of durham affordable housing fund prior to the first certificate of occupancy the developer shall contribute 4500 to the durham county public school system in addition to these text commitments the applicant had also shifted the northern access point to the east which was shown on um attachment five again staff has determined that uh this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and all policies and ordinances and i will be happy to answer any questions that you have thank you i have two individuals who have signed up to speak four and three against the first one is the applicant bahati matissia okay thank you good evening my name is bahati matissia uh with parker po adams and bernstein at 301 fable street here representing the applicant um ashton woods uh who'll be the developer and bob micheler is here with ashton woods and we also have our site planner charlie oakley i believe charlie is the other person that's signed up to speak so i will i will speak and he and i will tag team and handle questions if that's okay um so yeah as jamie mentioned and thank you very much for that great summary um we were here before you all on november 12th um and continued to today's date we took under consideration many of your comment all of your comments as well as comments from some of the neighbors we evaluated those comments and to determine how we can incorporate them into the development at this time if possible um we added those additional proffers in response to some of those comments and for some of the comments we realized that while we would like to accompany or accommodate some of those requests into the development we either realize that we were not able to or we're just not able to commit to those particular requests at this time given this early stage but we do think that the additional proffers um helped to provide a bit more clarity of what the development will look like for the community um and ultimately um for the commission as well so i will just go through an overview and then we'll also go briefly so that we can then open it up for questions but as you know we're requesting to rezone from rr to a pdr with a max density of 7.046 units per acre um and this is a particular development um that is between um residential community and the commercial node in i-85 to the south and looking at the zoning map we believe that placing pdr on this particular site will provide a nice transition between those homes and the commercial node in i-85 to the south and as you know the site itself is designated as modern density residential moderate density residential in the flume which requires a density of between six to eight units per acre and we were advised early on in this process that we should maintain um the flume as it is and keep the density on the site as mdr and so that's how we have arrived to a town home development um but going into the different comments and how we arrived at the different additional proffers one of the many comments that were made is that there was a preference for a mix of single family and town home units in the development as i mentioned previously we initially wanted to do all single family and then we considered doing a mix but we had to keep within that six to eight um units per acre density on the flume as i mentioned staff advises that it would be um more appropriate for that given that the flume um calls for a higher density in this area um but looking at the different ways that we played around with the site plan we were not able to incorporate single family into the development and stay within that six to eight units um density on the in the flume so but one of the reasons that we were asked to incorporate single family is for variety can we have some variety and some some difference within the within the development so we decided to incorporate that by adding a proffer that a minimum of 25 of the units shall be alley loaded and alley loaded means that the access and the garage would be located in the back of the house and that means that the the unit itself will be brought towards the front and so that as you're driving down the street or walking down the street you're not going to see the same frontage on every single unit there will be some variety in that way um so we're committing to at least a minimum of 25 of those units being alley loaded um that will also provide some variety in unit sizes um because alley loaded are typically larger than front loaded units um there was a comment that it would be helpful to make the development more walkable for the residents for that reason we added the proffer that there will be maximum block length of 800 feet um there was also comments about making the development affordable or some type of concrete um commitment to making the development an affordable development um to address that we have added the proffer that all units will have a maximum heated habitable square footage of 1700 square feet um and we spoke with and we believe that that would yield um units that would be around the the low 200 000s that would be the price point and I believe I mentioned this before but we did confirm with the city's um um the community development department that that price point of 230 000 would make the units affordable to those who make 80 percent or below of the AMI in this area so we are making sure that the development itself all of them would be at least affordable to people making that much um but we do hope to have the units be varied in sizes but they will not go above the 1700 square footage so that will keep the development generally affordable for for this community um and then of course we are making the contribution to the Durham Affordable Housing Fund and then the fourth um one of the other comments that were raised was a concern about student capacity or the school capacity in the area land elementary being over capacity um or at its maximum capacity currently um so we are contributing $4500 to this to the school system townhomes generally yield a smaller student yield than single family homes do and in this case our student yield is only nine students so um we we are we are aware of that and we are making a contribution to address that and so the next slide I just want to provide a summary of all the commitments so that we have them all listed out there as a reminder looking at this picture here as um Jamie noted we did move the access the northern access point away from the neighbor's property so it's been moved further east I believe it would be if it was oriented properly um so the total that list of commitments includes 279 townhome units as a max maximum pervious surface area will not exceed 70 percent um we are dedicating additional right away for the glenn school road realignment we will be providing an exclusive eastbound left turn lane along glenn school road at the site access three which will help with um traffic that's going along glenn school road we are providing a minimum of five feet of additional asphalt for a bike lane along glenn school road and then of course the new proffers that we've added 25 percent of the units will be alley loaded maximum block length of 800 feet maximum unit size of 1700 square square feet and then the two proffers um the two proffers contributing the the donations to the affordable housing fund and the school um system and then I also wanted to point out again we will be meeting the 20 percent tca requirement and the 17 percent open space requirement so 37 percent of the site will be preserved and not developed so that kind of goes into the reason why we had to consider if we're going to be keeping within that six to eight density um six to eight units per acre density for the um mdr flume designation we have to consider what's going to be preserved and if you look at this picture here there's a there's a large pond there that will be preserved and that will be cleaning up that area around it so it can be can it conserve as somewhat of an amenity for the residents and of course the stream buffers there that will be preserving also um and of course just going into the criteria that will be measured against compatibility with surround with with nearby properties again I talked about the transition between the residents up to the north and the commercial node and i-85 to the south suitability for the project this town home development is suitable for this particular site it is meeting a specific housing demand in Durham and as staff as the staff report noted an attachment six and eight the existing infrastructure um are it do exist to support this particular development and then of course as staff mentioned the particular um comprehensive plan policies of this this development is consistent with and of course it is consistent with the flume map designation as well um so i will just reserve the rest of my time for to answer any questions thank you i'm charlie um yokely who was tag teaming with you if you okay very good thank you then um we'll move to those individuals who signed up to speak against i have three individuals um joe joey sharyl rodney porter and joni brown and um looks like we have three and a half minutes each three and a half first of all i would like to thank the commissioners for allowing me to speak tonight um my name is joey sharyl and i reside at 2805 darrow that's the community just north of where this development is going to be i've been there for over 20 years and over the time i've seen the traffic increased tremendously out there it's a rural road and i think with this development being built it's going to put a lot a lot more traffic out there um i'm more or less against this i would rather see single family residential houses out there compatible and suitable for the area rather than town houses so i'm against this project thank you thank you uh rodney porter hello and thank you for the opportunity to speak um not absolutely against it but what i've seen more and more frequently occur particularly in northeast Durham is that we're trying to cram a lot of housing up there simply because there isn't anything there well that's a fairly good reason to put something there but there's no infrastructure there's no transportation for instance the subdivision i live in there's a sidewalk that we put in because we had to to build the subdivision but it's not connected to anything on either end so it's a bit foolish and if you have these townhouses that are built beautiful you put a sidewalk in front of it what's it connecting to there's no bus service out there there's no grocery stores out there there's nothing decent to get to and there's no uh provision to get us into the city so when you're considering these things also consider the cost of what the city is going to have to do to truly make that part of the city of Durham because i don't see anyone that's living out there that's going to be able to do anything except drive and that is inconsistent with Durham's uh projection of trying to have affordable housing because everyone doesn't have a car and if you're if you're on the low end of the income spectrum you have a higher chance of not owning a car owning a car is expensive you have insurance you have maintenance now you're going to offset the housing the affordable housing by building these structures but it something doesn't mesh it doesn't reconcile in my mind so um i just ask you to bear these required city services in mind as we expand and we try to fulfill that obligation of affordable housing thank you thank you so much um joni brown hi i'm joni brown i live at 38 22 alameda street same community where um joy lives and a couple of houses down so i've lived there about i think it's been about 33 years somewhere like that moved out there because um i wanted property for my kids to grow up and be able to play were sports oriented um didn't want houses on top of me uh wanted some land and um i was disappointed to find out i'm not against developing that that area that used to be a tobacco field um but i'm disappointed that it's going to be townhomes um it doesn't jive with the rest of the area there um i'm i'm i'm concerned about you know we don't even have a park out in our area so the land was really important that my kids had a place to play baseball in the backyard and play soccer um and now i hear that they're putting townhomes up which means pavement and um so i'm disappointed about that and i i just really wish you would reconsider i mean i moved to the county for the reason of not being on top of people and um so that's the main thing the other thing is is been mentioned by the others the schools um the roads i mean it's a two lane road glenn road is two lane glenn school school road is two lane i hope there are plans to to widen those if we're going to put this many housing units in there and i don't understand why there's a minimum uh what what was it that she used um six to eight units i i don't know where that came from i i'm not a i haven't looked at the plan or anything like that but uh why that particular property has to have so many units per acreage or whatever um i don't understand where that came from and why it's it is that so anyway that's all thank you i i yes since you had reserved some time so um i think it was three minutes left yes if i if i could just to address some of the comments that were made yes um so first i think i misspoke when i said six to eight it's the mdr six to twelve units per acre so i wanted to make sure i corrected my statement there and then of course we're proposing a pdr at seven point zero four six units per acre which is closer to that range to the bottom half the bottom part of that range we're not going all the way up to 12 we're going much closer to the six but we're at seven point zero four six and the mdr allows six to 12 units per acre um i wanted to touch on traffic um at at this time we have spoken with transportation and um the tia has not required for this development so it's not as significantly large of a development that would require a tia um but also we have complied with all of the transportation all the recommendations are requirements from transportation at this time and if transportation comes back at site plan and requires additional road improvements we would be happy to address those at that time so it's it's not um it's not the end of the conversation regarding those with transportation department um going to the the housing type um townhomes are generally a more affordable product than single family homes townhomes um yield less traffic than single family homes i believe the the stat is that townhomes yield a half a trip compared to a full trip um that single family homes produce and of course townhomes also yield a smaller number of of students so i think that i understand that that the neighbors want something that looks like what they have on their properties but when we consider germs in need for more housing and placing a development here that would meet that need um without having as great of adverse impacts as we possibly could be having i think townhomes meet um that goal and i think that's all of oh and i also wanted to touch on the point about bus service um so there was a comment made that there's no bus service here and that there are no um preferable commercial uses in the area so there is a commercial note to the south with a super wall mart of a rising store a game stop in other restaurants i mean we have heard comments from neighbors that they are not um they would prefer to see something better there and i think that as more development grows in an area more commercial uses will come um and as as far as the bus service there's no bus service in this area currently but we did speak with staff and the city will be constantly looking and evaluating whether or not bus service should be brought to this area and i think having more units in this area would help with that um but until then we have recognized that there is enough space along glenn road in order for us to dedicate an easement for a bus stop um but at this time that that would have to be evaluated at site plan whether or not um the bus service would be brought to that area and if it is at that time when the city does decide that then the um the owner of the property would be able to dedicate an easement to to have that service built there but that would be something that would be decided later um and having more units in that area would help with that decision thank you thank you um i do not have other individuals who have signed up to speak so i'm going to close the public hearing and give the commissioners an opportunity to ask questions i'm going to start to my right commissioner johnson thank you chair woman so um i won't get into the whole design elements because i'm sure that'll come up as we go down the line so the point i want to raise is is i think the challenge that we're faced with as a commission so the future land use map has this area of derm and this particular site as being more dense in an area of derm that has been known to be less dense so the question that i find myself as i've reviewed this and re-reviewed it and trying to come to some trying to rationalize myself which way i could go to sleep and feel comfortable with but it keeps kind of keep coming back to the question of what is the road map that derm is trying to to go so we're undergoing a revision of the comp plan i don't know if this area of derm will continue to be envisioned as becoming more dense to this level so to answer the question to the the the individual who asks well where the six to it came from the future land use map is it the developer is creating a product with that being the road map your concerns are based on what's existing today and that there's existing neighborhoods that it's not compatible with what the future land use map is saying that derm will be supposedly be moving towards and so without knowing when we get that final road map in two three years whenever it comes how do how can we be comfortable with bringing something through this community that is going to look differently even not from a hideaway not but it's you go from single families to you're going to have a compact little community that's going to be visible and noticeable and it's going to put more traffic on the roads and the reality is is the people who are who are going to buy this more affordable product they're likely going to own a car because they're going to choose to live in this part of derm and you wouldn't move to this part of derm knowing that you're going to have to trans to travel to get to the grocery store to go get your hair cut to it's going to put more cars on the road and and so is I feel like having lived in Atlanta it's like what we're challenged with doing is exactly what created the Atlanta sprawl it's like we built houses and then we said oh we got to figure out the transportation infrastructure so my thing is I'm struggling with this because it's like building and the infrastructure will come but we don't even know how we're going to fund the current capital improvement plans here in Durham so the concerns from the existing neighbors are warranted and at the same time the developer is trying to request something based on what the city is saying is right now it's a roadmap for the city and so I don't have an answer right now but I put that on the table to see what the subsequent feedback and comments are but I've struggled with this so thank you commissioner brine thank you madam chair this may or may not help my colleague here one of the problems I have with this area is that I think there's been a whole bunch of mistakes made on the flume the medium density residential 6 to 12 dwelling units per acre is one that can be used in the suburban tier and in the urban tier and I question whether it was really wise to put it in the suburban tier at a point that is so far removed from the urban area so part of my answer is I think this is wrong I don't think it should be there I think it should be something different uh there is shopping uh at the walmart center and the surrounding stores but they're over on the other side of 85 you're gonna have to drive to get there uh the I think the applicant made a mistake in not recognizing that this flume designation would lead to such a what I consider a really gross incompatibility between the density of seven units per acre up against rr to me that just doesn't fly you've got that to the north you've got it to the west and based on the buildings down here and what's on the flume industrial uh you've got it a little bit to the south uh I think had you tried to get a lower density flume designation then you could have easily done some of the things that have been suggested which is maybe put single family homes adjacent to single family homes and maybe put a few town homes somewhere in the middle where they're not really up against rr development so uh I think you know that was an error on your part I also think as far as transportation is concerned a mistake was made probably by ncdot who does occasionally make a few of them in not requiring turn lanes on the entrances off of glenn road because potentially if you look at your three entrances uh and assume that they all handle about the same volume of traffic you're putting about 900 additional cars additional trips per day on this rural road which I don't think is designed to handle it and without having turn lanes there I think you are not helping to help safety and welfare of the people of this area I think you're putting it in jeopardy uh so those are my comments thank you thank you commissioner brine our other commissioners would like to speak okay okay commissioner baker and then commissioner miller yeah I think um going back to something that commissioner busby said at the beginning of this meeting we have a lot of very challenging cases tonight in particular um you know this is just our we're just reacting to two kind of suboptimal options every time something comes to us um and I and I I do feel I do feel for my commissioners at the end who are trying to rationalize using the existing feature lane use map you're going to get a headache trying to do that uh there's arbitrary and capricious is built into this map so uh you know the need for this new future line use map in the new comprehensive plan is great and I hope that coming with that will also be criteria and or a growth related map so that they're both layered on top of one another this is something that we talked about previously so we can have a list of criteria that says this is when you grow your future land use map or place type map whatever it ends up being called we'll say this is what you grow at this is what the development looks like and so we do have a site that is on the outskirts of the city and you know if we look at it today should it develop today no you know absolutely absolutely not it doesn't make sense to develop this property today but but it is currently under the current future land use map sort of labeled as this higher higher density higher density property one thing I want to say about this is and this is a message to the development community is that this developer did respond to a lot of really important things that have been stated by the planning commission more than any other develop more than any other development that I have seen come before us now I also think that there are a lot of best practices that weren't necessarily followed so I just want to run down a list of best practices sort of having the compact dense integrated variety of housing types this development proposes one housing type having connected streets with short walkable blocks preferably 600 feet long and this does actually have a commitment for 800 foot long locks having sidewalks and street trees having a variety of accessible appropriate uses this only has one use having a centralized public civic open space I didn't see anything about that protection and access to green space connection to anticipated future bus and transit which is something that we that's something where the connectivity comes in and you know if we look at if we look at this map if you look if you pick up whatever you've got on your desk and you look underneath it you look at the map of Durham and you look at the street connectivity you know just south of 85 you know in this triangle area here to the west of 70 to the east of 15501 you can see that pattern you can see the difference in the pattern in these pre-war war two neighborhoods versus if you look further south if you look further east north everything around that is disconnected low density doesn't will never support transit very well it'll never get as to kind of the direction that we want to get to so some of the things the 25 percent alleys the 800 foot block length these are very very laudable that I'm going to emphasize that when my in my comments to city council just how important that is and again and I keep saying this I just want to stress it I do think that it's important that we adopt those as standards not just because it's going to provide improvements for the community at large but also because it will eventually provide a less volatile and a less volatile and more predictable process for developers who are coming before us and are saying why are you guys coming out with all of these commitments for us so my one issue my the biggest issue that I have with this development is related to policy 231a contiguous development support orderly development patterns that take advantage of existing urban services and avoid and so far as possible patterns of leapfrog non-contiguous scattered development this is not contiguous with the city limits so there are a lot of things to balance in this case again if if we always approve developments that are not contiguous with the city limits you can imagine and gentlemen sitting on the front row here made a really good point you can imagine the impacts that that will have the fiscal impacts and all the other types of impacts that that will have on city services solid waste has to go out there police fired they will have to cross over land that is outside of our jurisdiction to go to land that is in our jurisdiction and you can imagine and sort of death by a thousand paper cuts situation I said a lot and I'm still undecided and I want to I want to hear more from my other commissioners about what they're thinking about this project thank you commissioner Miller so first I want to begin with a question so in your design commitments which are pretty good design commitments it just says siding can you tell me what kind of siding or any kind does that mean any kind of siding or so this is what it says materials but materials will be brick or stone masonry siding or parged concrete what kind of siding are we talking about do we have anybody who's going to be able to respond yeah we do but they're conferring okay thank you for your patience so at this time we have not narrowed down the particular material the siding so at this point it could be vinyl it could be cement it could be brick stone accents it's it's not determined at this time at this early stage we have not narrowed it down so you have siding in there so that because if it wasn't in there it would have to be brick or stone masonry I'm sorry say that again I said if you did not have the word siding in there then the houses would have to be brick or stone masonry okay so I get it I was just wondering if you had left out a descriptor or if I had misunderstood design commitments and material commitments are important to me because that's an aspect of compatibility we tend to think of compatibility in terms of dwelling units per acre but there's lots of elements of compatibility and I think they can you can trade one against the other a little bit another question I had is how many units for building and would you be willing to make a proffer about mixing those up I mean because if this is going to be a whole bunch of buildings that are all eight units per per building all of a sudden you've got a lot of pretty big buildings there and that in my opinion compounds the compatibility problem but if you mix it up then I'm more interested if some some buildings have four units and some buildings have six units and that provides at least some visual variety that that essentially I don't want this to look like scofield barracks I'm going to let my colleague Charlie take that one evening Charlie Oakley with the academy's company here in Durham there are three different building types so there's a building with three units up to a building with five and they are mixed throughout the development so you won't see would you be willing to make a proffer that says that there will be a variety of of of a mix of building sizes in terms of how many units are in the building I mean I can't craft that but somebody can that's that's a writable thing and then ultimately I wanted to note this isn't a question so I wanted to note that the actual density here according to at least one allowable way and the one then the way that we most commonly do it here is only 5.2 units an acre and that's because we allow developers that their option to include in their density calculations their buffers and what have you or they can opt them out here the decision has been made to opt them out so the actual density is 5.2 and here again this is another dimension of compatibility and I think we need to take it into account but also taking this into account I find it hard to believe although I've heard the developer say it in at the microphone twice now at two meetings and to me in meetings is that there's no way to mix unit types but at this density I just find that hard to believe that you can't mix townhouses and some single families in here this is a piece of property that's pretty flat and while it does have some some stream buffer issues and things like that and then there's the pond there's a lot of buildable space here there's lots of acts well there's you know the practical access points are there's two or three of them I just find it really hard to believe that we could not mix unit types and work in some small single families that would certainly come in under 1700 square feet we had another speaker tonight talk about the importance of of of people buying houses and what have you but I think in order to integrate this into the larger community I don't think it's although I frequently rail at what I think are mistakes in the future land use map I I don't think I think we can overcome that with this and I can understand why it might be more expensive to build some single families and it makes it certainly would complicate the organization of how this is developed this is a big site and that has got lots of buildable space and if we really mean that a variety of housing types then we need to start really leaning into this and to me if if 20 percent of this was single family homes or perhaps a mix of single family homes townhouses and something else even I could vote for this because I think we could organize this in a way so that this notion of transition from the from the commercial node there at 85 up to the the less dense rural residential I think we could make that even more effective instead of you know it's like a staircase are the stairs are we going to do this in two steps that are great big ones or can we more subtly create a graduated change and I I believe that it's possible at the at this level of density where you know we're down actually below arguably the actual density is below the minimum called for in the future land use map I can't believe there's a room for variety I'm not a developer I'm not a land planner and maybe you can show it to me but I will see these other projects that come in in much higher densities and I just can't believe there isn't room there maybe I'm wrong and we have land planners on the panel and what have you and I'll and if I'm wrong then tell me so and I'll take that into account when I decide to vote thank you commissioner michel I'm looking over at our at commissioner kitchen and mix his name with us so we're all confused we're tired thank you I wanted to first of all thank the applicant because I think you know we said to continue it and we had some concerns and comments and I appreciate you all going back and in good faith trying to figure out a way to make it work so thank you for that I do have a question in regards to traffic I heard some comments about increased traffic on that road I think you said to us that because it's going to be townhomes there's going to be fewer trips and less traffic can you talk a little bit about that you don't mind to kind of clarify those points if you don't mind what's that for I'm sorry they have a trip I don't know who it's for I don't know if it's for me I was going to then say that I should probably hand it over to transportation for them to address that because they're the experts on it so thank you sorry early in Thomas transportation so the way traffic the number of trips are generated we use the industry standard institute of transportation engineers where they have trip rates that are associated with each type of land use and townhomes generate less trips than single family homes typically because they're larger families multiple vehicles things of that nature thank you thank you did you have any additional no no thank you commissioner alter thank you chair you know part of the frustration I'm hearing is about the the flum designation of you know six to twelve units I think miss brown you know seems like an arbitrary number or why is it so high compared to the surrounding area and I think you know commissioner johnson and brian mentioned and mentioned it as well and I mean in some ways it doesn't make I don't know if it makes sense or not but I I do think that I would like to get away from just talking about density as the only way that we can have compatible development and so you know commissioner Miller meant said that there are other ways to talk about compatibility than just units per acre and I and from what I understand from the you know upcoming comp plan we might be going in that direction I don't I don't know if that's true or not but you know based on what we've discussed it seems like we're going to be in you know we're more interested in the form and of the development and I think that's something we should consider in this particular case you know it's I like you know I like this commitment you know aside from the the two commitments that commissioner baker mentioned the the the block lance and the what's the other one number two alleys the alleys the the one on square footage I think is a nice commitment to I think it's a commitment to a modest size home that will you know we cannot ensure that it will be affordable you know it is not going to be affordable the developer is not going to uh check you know a a renter or a homeowner's income but it does ensure that it will be at a modest price and I think that is a that is a laudable commitment and I think that's a it's a good commitment and it it's not just about affordability but I do think that it one of the things that I've heard from a lot of the emails that we've gotten is that this is a modest neighborhood right or they you know they are trailers and single family homes and again I think this one commitment you know again it doesn't it's not a perfect commitment to to ensure modesty but I think it does go a long way and I really appreciate that one so I think it addresses both affordability potentially and you know this this question of modesty or this you know this compatibility with neighboring neighborhoods right so I I like that um I think that the you know kind of to echo what commissioner kinship said I think that the applicant has made some some commitments here that are above and beyond what we usually see um and you know and I think we should at least in my opinion you know we can signal to city council and others and the development community that you know these kind of things get rewarded and it's not maybe perfect I understand that but I think they can go a long way I want to just address the or maybe I have this is more of a question to both commissioner commissioners baker and miller because both of you have mentioned housing types right a mix of housing types is what we prefer so yes there are not a mix of housing types within this development but it but because there are going to be town homes here and there are single family homes around it would that be I mean to me if you zoom out right that that that's a mix of housing types what is the benefit of housing types uh why should we be focusing on this and why would this not actually contribute to that it and I'll let either start and then he's going to give you the real answer okay I want the fake answer first uh to me I think you've hit on a really good point it's a question of scale and you said zoom out and that's about scale so I believe that you can have the a desirable mixture of housing types in different projects when they are all relatively small in other words it doesn't have to be one development they don't all have to vote in the same homeowner association meeting in order to get a desirable mix of housing types uh because it is a question of inclusivity uh and housing types a mixture of housing types to me can also mean mixing big houses and little houses of the same type um but to get the variety but when we start talking about projects that are bigger that are 50 acres and uh then I believe you get concentrations that that are contrary to variety in other words big parcels each divided into unit into monotypes uh of all the different ways you can measure variety in my opinion argue against variety if we have a whole bunch of of five and ten acre sites then you can variety can be achieved across project boundaries but when you start talking about great bit when we start talking about farms then uh then variety I think to get what we want in variety we have to start creating it inside the the projects of of acreages of that size um and of course there are examples uh in Durham that we've done this and not recently I mean Woodcroft is a place uh where the intentional and deliberate mixing up of rental and single family and big big single family and relatively modest single family and it's true it's kind of done cul-de-sac by cul-de-sac uh and and uh we haven't seen anybody who has done you know four townhouses and then three single family homes and then three townhouses that would be interesting I would like to see a project that was done that well I say we haven't we have actually approved that very thing in the pinecrest development all at the very high end uh but it's like it's like nothing we've ever seen before so I have a lot to learn and Nate's going to teach me no I think that's a really great question because I mean there you can have a situation you can walk down a street it's a great street in a great neighborhood uh that does have one housing type but I think commissioner Miller hit on a really important point which is the scale it's so easy to get to lose sight of what the scale is at these 50 acres it's so much you could do so much with 50 acres and if you only have one housing type in all of 50 acres I mean that is really true I mean you you should be able to have a lot more housing types in there and I want to hit on a I want to hit on a really important planning concept which is the concept of aging in place and the importance of creating built environments that are amenable to all ages so that everyone and that also makes it more amenable to a variety of different income levels and so you might imagine a block or two blocks or three blocks in an urban area or in a neighborhood that includes a single family house where you know maybe maybe a middle-aged family lives there with their kids then their you know their kids grow up and go to college and they can rent an adu in someone's backyard that's another example of aging in place they grow up they want to move into a town home starter home something like that that could be in the same neighborhood and so it's a really important concept it's certainly falling in line with best practices it's certainly a trend that we're seeing throughout the United States and really when I when I talk about trend I'm talking about going back to the old to the way of designing places before places it's not a it's not a risky thing it's it's something that's well established something that benefits pedestrian oriented nature of of cities and so I I think it is important to think about what Commissioner Miller we're saying in terms of scale of development thank you that I mean that's helpful but I again I yeah and I think we should continue to encourage that but at the same time yeah think about the scale of it so you know if it we are if we do now have town homes here close to single family homes I do think that that you know is a mix of type housing types it may not be the ideal but I think it's a step in the right direction and I I don't know I think that on the whole this this development has more benefits than than than costs and I urge us to vote for it thank you are there any other comments Commissioner Johnson thank you chairwoman I know you're hanging in there with us tonight so I just want to make one comment based on the difference of housing types within so within a site or like you said zooming out so when I talk to developers about you know the feedback I've gotten it may not be germane talk developers you know when coming I get is you know it's more costly right because if you're doing town homes and now you do single family you can't get the density I think that in Durham this may actually be an experiment that we can get some good insight on I think that to prove what actually occurs when you approach this I think that we should start trying to see this because I think one of the trade offices offices that these areas our communities are not going to be as if this is the case that my development project costs will increase relative relative to say a single product that affordability may be one of the trade offs I think we need to see it so it won't be anecdotal so it's like when we look at you know both sides of the arguments and some may be willing to accept that this is probably not something that will be a reality or come to market for us because oh it may be more costly and affordable well when we start doing it and we see it maybe someone would be like someone who started out pro maybe like well I see that one of the intended outcomes is not going to be a reality and so we'd be more mindful of that but I think at this point right now we're still it's in our heads because we haven't seen it and we don't get proposals where we're seeing this and it actually becomes a product here in Durham where we can go to a community and experience what what Commissioner Baker highlights but then see oh a townhouse is more expensive because now you're building single families because I had the price at a certain point to get people and in here in Durham people will come so I had a conversation with two developers recently I was like the thing about Durham is if you build a particular upper end product I think that will get them because we have people coming into the city yeah so we have to be more mindful of like the people who are already here are we providing for them but I think we're in a situation where we may be a case study to get some actual actual like real-time information and beyond the anecdotal so I just want to raise that point thank you Commissioner Santiago thank you Madam Chair so one thing I'm sorry give some more so one thing that we have to worry about being commissioned I believe is setting precedent but I think in this case it's a little bit of an exception when it comes to precedent for the area and I agree with Commissioner thank you Commissioner Johnson that this could be a good opportunity for a case study or something because if you look at the future land use map as it is if you zoom out which seems to be the phrase of the night if you zoom out in the area current industrial industrially zoned areas become recreation open space past that some becomes industrial but there's not much residential out there in terms of the current for future land use maps so this might be the one opportunity or the one case that comes before us in the general area so this might be a good opportunity to let the developer who's done a great job of trying to compromise with us and the community to see what it could look like just one small thing chair thank you I just wanted to make sure Baker thank you I just want to add one one additional thought there is that in addition to sort of single family and town home and ADU that you could also incorporate small-scale multiplexes and multi-family I think that that is included in the variety of housing types and I also think we're only going to get any of this stuff and all this stuff if we code it if we put it into the requirements if we put it in the UDO and it's not very difficult to do that and so we're obviously not going to get a lot of volunteers out there to do this and quite frankly it's not it's not a risky thing it's it's not risky to do it's just a lot easier if you go around from community to community just stamping down your typical single family or whatever type of development so we need to be thinking about that is coding this stuff into the UDO thank you Commissioner Busby thank you Madam Chair I've been really quiet on this particular case because I was thinking really hard and listening to everyone I was I was on the fence I would have voted against this last month I appreciate that the proponents took the time to I believe improve the plan even coming in tonight I think my main concern is still is this orderly development pattern it still strikes me that it's a jump and as Commissioner Miller has said it would be I would be more comfortable with a stair step at the same time I've been on this commission a number of years I've never seen this many commitments and many of these are quite good I believe this is just enough to exceed the bar so I am going to plan to vote for this but I still do have some level of concerns about the location if you if this was further south and you were talking about this number of townhomes with these commitments and it was closer to transportation this would be an easy vote in my opinion and I agree with the neighbors who have legitimate concerns but I do feel like we've put in enough commitments and safeguards I hope that will continue to be the case as this moves forward to City Council but again I think these are good steps in the right direction that give the existing neighbors some level of certainty about what will be coming and I think it does begin to help with the transition that was my biggest concern but I do plan to vote for this thank you thank you do I have other commissioners who would like to speak if not I think we're ready for emotional Madam Chair if it's appropriate this time I move case z19 00018 concerning the glenn road townhome project that we send it forward to the city council and this is this an annexation case too okay send it forward to the city council with a favorable favorable recommendation second motion by commissioner miller second by commissioner al turk that we send item z19 00018 glenn road townhomes forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation all in favor of this motion may we have should we mention in the motion the additional commitments that were made certainly thank you which were well there's a whole bunch of them let's go back to jamie to see if they were recorded yeah they're in the report Amy Soniak with the planning department they were the list of the proffers that I stated in my presentation that were put on the record okay yeah those are in the plan yeah yeah we don't okay so then we can move forward uh motion by commissioner miller and second by commissioner al turk that we send this item forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation um may we have a roll call vote for this item please commissioner morgan no commissioner johnson no commissioner brine no commissioner al turk yes chair vice chair busby yes chair hyman no commissioner miller no no commissioner keensham yes commissioner santiago yes commissioner baker yes commissioner low yes commissioner mckyver yes um motion passes seven to five thank you we're ready for the staff report for the next item south mineral springs and pleasant good evening i'm jamie soniak with the planning department i will be presenting case number z one nine zero zero zero eighteen i'm sorry nineteen south mineral springs and pleasant road um the applicant is jared edens from edens land the property is located primarily generally speaking at the intersections of south mineral springs holder road and pleasant drive it is currently located within the county jurisdiction and they're seeking an annexation the site is just over 52 acres the request is rural residential and residential suburban 20 to plan development residential 4.001 the property is currently located within the low medium density residential future land use designation and there is no change to that the proposal on the development plan is up to 191 single family lots i didn't want to mention before i get into too much detail there were two um corrections that needed to be made to the staff report um one dealing with um um top of the first page first line requested correcting the requested zoning district um there was a reference to rsmd which was not correct and then um i believe it was on page five there was also a reference to um a hundred uh 19 units and it should be 191 units thank you well not sure why the aerial map is missing here but in your staff report there is the aerial map um that shows the property in red um these are some of the site photos um the property is located uh within the suburban development tier and the falls jordan watershed protection overlay district um as you can see and if you've visited the the area the property is mainly undeveloped and heavily wooded um there are two existing dwellings located along south mineral springs road frontage which will be removed um as noted on the development plan there are also areas of wetlands flood plains um streams and associated buffers um it's getting late so i'm not going to go through all of the names of the various developments that surround this site um the staff report goes into a lot of detail in terms of the number of units uh and what surrounds the area in terms of this um subdivision names um i would note however that um as shown on the development plan there is an existing roadway stub at the end of red robin road um which would connect this site to additional 41 single family lots as part of the handover point residential uh development um this is the my apologies this is um the wrong context map um the property is located within um as mentioned before the rural residential and the residential suburban 20 zoning district and the applicant is proposing to change the designation to the plan development plan residential development 4.001 the correct map is in your staff report again the property is located within the low medium density residential future land use designation which is consistent with the zoning request a portion of the site is within the recreation open space um at future land use designation and there is no change to either that designation let me just see this is the um development plan provided in the staff report okay provides site access points project brand new buffers riparian buffers the 10 foot no builds um the building and um building envelope um and parking envelope as well as the tree coverage areas and the maximum impervious coverage in terms of the i'm just going to keep going it seems this i must have a duplication of the previous application for this power point and i'm not going to go back through the other one that's on here i'll just keep going um in terms of the key commitments on the development plan the development plan is limited to single family units up to 191 there were other key commitments included additional asphalt for the construction of a future bicycle lane and dedicated right of way for roadway improvements in terms of consistency with the comprehensive plan and its policies this proposal if approved will increase the density and commit to residential units while still remaining consistent with the future land use designation of low medium density residential um as stated before the proposed residential development is contiguous with adjacent single family um development it serves as um in my opinion it serves as an infill site to the built environment and the areas residential character um which includes uh Fletcher's Hills residential neighborhood the Grove Park residential neighborhood Hanover Point residential subdivision Ashton Hall residential subdivision um ox uh Orchard Ridge townhouse development um and several several others as well as the roadway stubs that were put in to accommodate interconnection uh to the red robin road um development to provide for um interconnectivity to the site there is existing infrastructure including roads water and sewer capacity to serve the site and the proposed development is consistent um with policy 1111 a uh relative to the school system capacity so staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances and I will be happy to answer any questions that you have thank you um I have two individuals who have signed up to speak the applicant Jared Edens and then one other individual who is signed up against so Jared you have 10 minutes thank you Jared Edens with Eden's land thanks Jamie for your help on this project um summarize a couple of things 191 units total single families what we're proposing barely conforms with the land use plan of four to eight we're at 4.001 on a four to eight land use plan but it's very consistent with stuff immediately south of us we have pdr 4.0 immediately south and pdr 4.76 just southwest of the site so it's sort of conforms to that um I do want to point out a couple of public improvements being made and this is rare I've had a lot of single family zonings this is the first one it's been all single family that's proffered to a traffic signal that it's fairly rare that just a single family only project will be generating enough traffic to cause that but we are going to add a signal at mineral and holder which I think will help quite a bit in that area we're also improving there's some sewer improvements we're doing just downstream of the site um required by about city utilities department some sewer improvements um really again that's all I have I've got to answer your questions thank you thank you so much um I do have one individual who has signed up to speak um um noor yeah last year did we outlast um mr noor or was it miss okay well are there any individuals here who would like to speak during the comment period to this issue um south mineral springs and pleasant if not I will close the public hearing the comment period and open um the give our commissioners an opportunity to ask questions am I right they're yawning okay to to my left are the any commissioners who would like to speak if not I'll entertain a motion oh she hit me so madam chair I move that we send case z19 00019 concerning the property at south mineral springs and pleasant forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation second second it um motion by commissioner miller second by commissioner morgan that we send item z19 00019 south mineral springs and pleasant forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation may we have a roll call vote please mr morgan yes mr johnson yes commissioner bryne no i'm sorry no commissioner alturk yes vice chair busby yes chair hyman yes commissioner miller yes commissioner ketchan yes commissioner santiago yes commissioner baker no commissioner low yes and commissioner mcgiver yes ocean passes tend to thank you and we have one final item text amendments to the unified development ordinance signs welcome michael thank you michael stop with the planning department um myself and dono tool with the city manager's office um we'll want to go through this with you in a brief powerpoint presentation we'll try we'll try to be as expedient as possible at the late hour um and understanding the topic at hand just as an overview we'll do a project background um don specifically we'll get into legal issues i'll run through a quick summary uh overview and then um the next steps um the a lot of most of this is based upon uh the supreme court decision to read versus tana gilbert that don will get into uh momentarily in short it focused on non-commercial temporary signs um uh and it focused it on very much on time place in manner aspects um we consulted with a consultant um back in 2017 um and we uh staff took over in the late fall of 2017 we had a jccpc review in april of 2018 public review in may of 2018 and then we did present an informational item in august 2018 um and then uh and now we are here um i will now turn it over to don to go over more of the legal background thanks mike hey everyone i'm don otul from the dorm city attorney's office i hope you all are not as exhausted as i am at this point um but i did we previously came before the planning commission and gave a brief summary of the read v gilbert case i'm basically just going to summarize that very quickly again without uh belaboring the point as mike said um i guess the first thing about this case is i think this is a situation in which bad facts unfortunately upset the way most municipalities in the country regulate signs but we're now forced to deal with that um the town of gilbert arizona regulated um what they call temporary directional signs and their ordinance define those signs as signs directing the public to a church or other qualifying event so question why you would need a sign category that specifically dealt with churches but the town of gilbert felt that that was necessary the um town's ordinance also defined other qualifying events as any assembly gathering activity or meeting sponsored arranged or promoted by a religious charitable community service educational or other similar nonprofit organizations so as you can see it was a very narrow care category of signs that the town of gilbert wanted to regulate in a specific way and i think it's unfortunate for the town and the rest of the cities in the country that they further regulated those signs by saying that there could be no more than four of those signs limited to six square feet on any single property at any time and they could only be up for 12 hours and that that ultimately was the real problem um the plaintiff in this case was a church a small church they didn't have a building and so every weekend they had to put up temporary signs so that the parishioners could figure out where the service was going to be held they did the heinous act of putting up 15 to 20 signs every weekend and the church members would post the signs early in the day on saturday and then remove the midday on sunday and the town of gilbert saw fit to cite them for violation of the sign ordinance because it exceeded the length of time that the the signs should be in place um so the court looked at this regulation and um it basically said that it would apply what's called strict scrutiny which is the most onerous kind of first amendment constitutional scrutiny that the court could have applied and because of that it said that the the rules of the town were not that there was no compelling governmental interest and that the rules were not narrowly tailored to achieve that interest essentially um another kind of ordinance if it only if a sign ordinance only regulates time place and manner without going into the specifics of naming different categories of sign that would just be subject to what's called rational review and typically um when something's subject to rational view it it will pass first amendment muster so uh justice thomas wrote the majority opinion although there were there were many different opinions that were written by the court and um one of the print justice thomas basically said that this ordinance didn't pass strict scrutiny and um justice thomas indicated that if this if the sign ordinance regulated size materials lighting moving parts or portability then that sign would be acceptable um he also went on to say that governments are free to regulate signs that are on government property and um that signs that are narrowly tailored to protect public service uh safety sort of like street road signs speed limit signs that those would likely pass strict scrutiny um there was another consenting opinion and or concurring opinion and it was written by justice alito and his opinion is very helpful it's been cited by most lawyers around the country because he gave a list of um sign ordinance provisions that likely would be acceptable so he went on to say that local governments can regulate the size of signs the location of signs whether they're lit or not fixed message versus electronic signs and that um there could be public versus private property distinctions for sign ordinances um he also recognized that uh commercial and residential property distinctions could be recognized um that a city might be able to regulate the number of signs allowed in the right of way per mile um on-premise versus off-premise distinctions could be recognized and that there could be time restrictions placed on signs generally everything that justice alito listed would fall into the category of time place and manner restrictions so as mike and i um and the other planners have looked at our sign udo provisions that's been the focus of what we've done with the ordinance is try to only have time place and manner restrictions and mike so thank you so one of the big things that was that in your thick list of changes is that a lot of um the changes are more organizational than anything else um a lot of our ordinance actually already fell into a lot of time place and manner uh uh standards and thus didn't really require many changes um so uh although you see a lot of strike-throughs and cross-outs a lot of it is just replacing and restructuring how that section works um as it's noted uh in the report and on the screen um uh we didn't really change or made very limited changes to the standard general standards themselves uh prohibited signs and off-premise signs um and the sign types that require sign permits uh wall signs restating signs and such we didn't make a wholesale changes to those um so but what is changing um we did revise the purpose statements to make them more meaningful and relevant um to um the regulations themselves and to um in consideration of Reed Reed Gilbert um we took a look at the definition of signs and compared them to other jurisdictions uh signage uh definitions uh we did create an exempt category that took into consider government and safety signs and then other signs that were already regulated by other uh statute or organism or um ordinances um we did add some real time uh sign changeable copy allowance for parking structures based um based on uh safety justification for that um we did create new temporary and permanent sign sections um and as we as noted in there to um it replaced a lot of other sections such as signs allowed with permit signs allowed without permits and signs within right away right away distinctions were built into the temporary and permanent sign categories um specifically with time the probably the biggest changes that you would see are with temporary signage um we did assign a specific sign budget to properties focused on time place and manner we did limit um uh one of the biggest concerns was temporary signs in right of way um we took into account um the ghost bike or other memorial policies signage policies that the city um has already uh followed um we tried to stick to um signage allowed in right of ways following election periods as a window of opportunity for any kind of sign um following time place and manner procedures and we relocated sidewalk signs that are allowed per certain zoning districts um permanent signs uh we added a new minimum signage allowance for any property for permanent signs that didn't require a sign permit um again we maintained most of the current sign types um and most of those standards again are were already time place and manner TPM we did do a little clarification of the definition between monument and pylon signs we did pull out um from previous drafts further changes to monument and pylon signs because there we felt that it was getting a little bit beyond it was more mission creep and and um if we really felt that we needed to change those standards that can be handled in a separate amendment um we did modify a little bit of residential identification signs we did get an email I just want to mention this um about reconsidering how we allotted the square footage for that um we didn't really change any of the square footage we just changed how that square footage was assigned to single family and two family developments versus pdr districts and we said that we would take another look at that um not committing to anything but I just want to make sure we got that out there um we did remove wayfinding standards and off-premise non-residential signs uh the wayfinding standards are found through exempt sign handled through exemptions and we relocated the landmark signs section into the actually the landmark designation section under the historic preservation section so it's all in one place um and then we did make some as you see some modifications additions to the definitions uh related to signage um other notable changes um we did delete um some larger allowances for changeable copy that were associated specifically just with theaters um and we clarified how the change in displays are uh the timing for that was calculated and then we got rid of a section that took in a consider consideration of aggregate sign area conflicted with individual sign type allowances and and um uh we felt that that that that was a necessary removal um but other than that those are the changes and I'm sorry I'll be happy to and Don and I will be happy to answer any questions thank you I do have uh five individuals who have signed up to speak against um and I'm going to just go ahead and um open the public hearing so we can allow these individuals to comment during this period Jared Eden's Tammy Brooks thank you Jared Eden's game of Eden's land I'll be very brief and again like most cases I've signed up against but that just means I have a couple questions doesn't mean I'm completely against the code obviously uh no doubt staff was forced into this by the Supreme Court and and from my reading it's a very well written code and we're very capable people working on it my main issue is just with the real estate signs directional real estate signs and things like that uh the report says that part the decision was partially made uh to avoid clutter along our streets uh was one of the reasons but I was thinking do we have a problem with clutter now because if we don't have a problem with clutter now I don't know that we have a problem with clutter later with the new code because I think it's a little bit more restrictive I understand there's a concern of opening up a can of worms and things like that but my understanding is most of the objections and concerns are coming from the real estate industry there aren't other industries who are rushing to put signs in the right of way it's just us mainly so really I just look at you have public roads and public right of ways built maintained with public dollars I think you could argue that real estate signs are for the public good and in those situations I would just hope we would err on the side of allowing more than restricting more and that's all I have thank you thank you Tammy Brooks esteemed commission members thank you uh for this hearing this evening thanks for sticking it out it's way past my bedtime my name is Tammy Brooks and I am here on behalf of Durham regional association of realtors which I served as president in 2018 the revisions to this signed ordinance before you today first came to our attention in April 2018 and our local state and national association have been analyzing these revisions and offered our feedback to the planning department we emailed all of you copies of this yesterday and I hope you received that I hate speaking in public so I'm in my nervous mode right now so forgive me temporary commercial and non-commercial signs are a vital and affordable form of speech I am here before you representing the 1600 plus members of the Durham regional association of realtors who work in this community but I am also here representing the nearly 300 000 citizens of this community our clients who work for nonprofits who attend churches and run small businesses and we all use this form of speech temporary signage to communicate small businesses need temporary signs as the community gets to know their businesses and their locations schools advertise summer camps and their much needed revenue volunteer firefighters point the way to their fish fries churches host bazaars and nonprofits point the way to their calls to action these are all amazing pluses that require our community tolerance of the mattresses for sales and we buy home signs that clutter some of our intersections way signs another form of temporary signage aid the public in finding unmapped streets and new subdivisions hard to access one-way streets which we have plenty of here in Durham and rural locations that are sometimes hard to navigate we cannot when we cannot direct consumers to businesses or products citizens or citizens to events they wish to attend we underserved them your citizens in our community as a whole on page one of the draft amendment two of the stated goals of the amendment are one enabling the effective use of signs as a means of means of communication and free speech but you're taking away a huge section of that in the in the restrictions on temporary signage and two ensuring standards do not favor commercial speech over non-commercial speech commission members respectfully the pendulum in this proposed ordinance has swung too far this complete elimination of some forms of non-commercial speech and most commercial speeches out of compliance with read and ultimately erodes the rights of local businesses and citizens thank you thank you um gian hasbrook hi good evening i'm yon hasbrook this is my 27th year in new home sales in durham and i live at 13 piney park lane durham 27713 i was the president of the home builders association of durham orange and chatham counties in 2018 and i speak for the home builders and i speak against the total restriction of temporary signage particularly when it comes to new homes communities i just started a new neighborhood you cannot find it in google maps you just can't it's not there yet signage is an essential way for people to find us and i would submit to you quite frankly that um gilbert made a big mistake and durham shouldn't make a similar mistake and um there is a compelling governmental interest for us to uh respect and promote what real estate sales particularly new homes and communities which is what you guys are in the business of overseeing how important that is to our tax base to the general welfare of our citizens and overall improvement of our quality of life and i would say to you that um reed versus gilbert was a volcano in municipal rules and uh i don't want to see us get run over by a lava stream that we don't need to uh real estate signage and particularly for those for new home neighborhoods are commercial speech that presents a compelling governmental interest in not being limited and um i appreciate your consideration on this important issue durham is too good to limit free speech thank you thank you dan malon before the clock starts and i allowed to hand to each of you why don't you hand it to one of us and we'll pass it down i didn't know if there were gonna be 15 people here tonight so probably 15 of those and i hope that's more than enough we'll give you your extras back okay and can i also ask um madam chair can i ask just a point of clarification two of the earlier speakers jared and yon did not use their full three minutes would i be allowed to use their excess please just at this hour i will try to keep the three minutes thank you thank you very much and more importantly um all i can say is for y'all to make it this long with no bathroom break and to at least appear interested is most impressive at this hour i just want to mention several things i'm part of an ad hoc group involving the realtors other community people which has attempted to work with planning commission to come up with some reasonable solutions the one thing that mr stalks failed to mention his timeline went up through may 2018 and then it abruptly stopped nothing said about what happened since then well what happened since them was our group got together with them uh came up with some reasonable content neutral time manner in place suggestions and initially initially their suggestion for temporary signs was ghost bikes will be allowed and that is not content neutral it allowed sidewalk vendor signs the downtown area where you can put signs out once again not content neutral and allowed political speech to be allowed political signs from 45 days before the open voting to 10 days after okay in response starting in may we hit carry on reasonable dialogues and um we got a response back in the latter part of of um 2000 let's see what was it was it was in spring of 2019 and we got a response that basically said we're going to reject everything you suggested but we're going to let that 45 days before elections through 10 days after be open to any signs don't ask me why that so the um content we buy homes that's open season for them and those are not realtor signs by the way um the signs junk signs out there anything is allowed during that 55 day period that has that has nothing to do with this supreme court case totally contrary what I handed you is what should be being followed if you look at the very top 10 miles away from us UNC school of government in october 19 2018 they've got somebody who's actually devoted a ton of time to this issue has published on the web this uh document and if you'll turn to page four of five page four of five I've tried to highlight in the middle of the area and I realize it's 10 30 and it's hard to focus but let me just mention it said a city I mean this is how he may prohibit temporary signs which is what they've chosen to do or permit them subject to certain even-handed contraintent neutral restrictions as to other district this can include limits on size location timeframe and other continental aspects all we ask we ask I will thank you ma'am um all I ask is that I'm against this proceeding at this time I ask that this be deferred back to the planning committee that they the planning department that they with the recommendation that they communicate with the department school of government and interact with my body to come up with reasonable size of signs location and short duration and I thank you for your time thank you jacob anderson jacob anderson local stakeholder landowner um and just uh I think most of the interest has come from uh realtors and folks that are looking to put out temporary signs um I think our main focus and just quickly wanted to speak tonight about something Michael mentioned and I think he'll address it and I just want to make sure some maybe local builders stakeholders developers are involved in those conversations but um primarily interest is in the um the commercial versus non-residential signage uh monumentation I think the apartments and commercial monumentation were were um fairly untouched in this adoption or ordinance proposed and I think the residential monumentation was drastically reduced and from about 32 square feet to about 12 and I think it it's a little bit more of a complicated issue that I would like to have time to meet with staff and express those concerns to you guys as it relates to you know larger communities master plans versus smaller communities and just the size of monumentation the different monumentations that maybe different intersections you know monumentation at thoroughfares and things like that um so we would just ask that those items be further considered so thank you thank you I do not have any other individuals who've signed up to speak I do see a hand in the back if you would like to come forward and state your name and address and we will hi good evening commissioners thank you for staying staying so late I'm Shane Kirk I reside at 510 Oak Bluffs in Pittsburgh while I live in Pittsburgh I do a lot of business here I'm a realtor and I currently am a board of directors member for the Durham realtor association um I'm here on behalf of my business and I think for potentially your businesses as Dan Milam so uh forth put it about the 55 day period for election signs if you can imagine I don't and I apologize I don't know if you're elected officials or have ambitions to be but imagine not being able to advertise your business and that's essentially what this does it effectively removes an ability for certain professions or certain businesses to advertise and earn an income and pay taxes and contribute to this fine city that we have here so I would like to see something that's put in here that is very reasonable which could be a time span for these temporary signs whether that's two three days a week something that makes sense that allows people to take part in the community to advertise for certain things help people find those communities of course a very short period wouldn't help people like yawn with new home communities so I think things need to be really taken into consideration there when we have things like this when we're trying to find and bring residents to this city to get them homes and be able to move in here and take part and like I said become those tax-paying citizens that of course any city needs so that's my thought my concerns obviously I hope that you'll kind of put that context in place in your consideration I'm against this change as it says thank you thank you Shane could you say your address again for me please yes my address is 510 oak bluffs in Pittsburgh thank you welcome okay I do not have any okay let's see another hand please come forward my name is Lamora Willis I live at 403 swift creek crossing Durham 27713 I'm here to speak against this sign ordinance and I'm going to take you on a little bit different perspective I have been a member of the Durham Lions Club for over 20 some years I see some of the one or two of you have spoken to the Lions Club one of the things that the Durham Lions Club does is supports and raises money to aid people that have sight impairment and blindness for the last several years we have had a project here at the Civic Center on Election Day the Durham Pancake Jamboree and if you take this sign ordinance to the extent that what you these people are proposing we have yard signs and signs that we put out advertising the Durham Lions Club Pancake Jamboree and you will be as I guess hurting our efforts and raising money to aid people that need help so I would ask you to consider this not only as a commercial side of it but also a civic side and people that volunteer to give their time to help raise money for people that do not have the opportunities that are that but that do need help just one little aspect of the sign ordinance thank you very much thank you are there other individuals who would like to speak to this issue during the public comment period if not I'm going to close the public hearing and give our commissioners an opportunity to ask questions I'm going to start to my right are the any commissioners who would like to speak uh Commissioner Busby thank you ma'am chair the hour is late and the fact that we have a room still pretty full tells me we need a little more time to work on this issue just my my personal perspective but the the um because I'd rather not actually vote tonight and I hear I hear individuals asking for more time the the question for staff that I had I recall one of the presentations to the Joint City County Planning Committee which you mentioned how many communities in North Carolina have adopted new sign not sign ordinances that you know of at this point due to this Supreme Court decision so Greensboro updated their sign ordinance charlotte just updated their sign ordinance Raleigh has an updated sign ordinance I don't know if it's to read specific or not the issue is that whether um it is truly read compliant or not is up to their legal determination not ours right did any of them in your understanding take the same approach that that this draft is taking or or did they take a different approach similar to the the other option that was raised by one of the speakers the permitting subject to certain even-handed content neutral restrictions some ordinances even before we didn't allow anything in the right away carry is one example um some and then other ordinances carved out specific exceptions um that would either allow it in the right of way or allow them on but specify it was on private property such as the direction if we're talking about the directional signs would specify allowance on private property what that would do or not I don't know but it was some sort of I guess compromise but without understanding the politics or the justifications for any of those ordinances okay thank you I first of all I just should have said I appreciate the time and effort that mr stock and mr otul I mean the other staff you've spent an enormous amount of time grappling with a really challenging situation I don't think there is a great path forward here so I just wanted to say all of that and um I guess my final question is so it sounds like there were conversations there were stakeholder meetings or converter opportunities for input but it didn't necessarily sound like that has changed in this draft in your estimation would a 60 or 90 day two to three cycle delay provide for additional time or input or do you believe this is what you have come up with and this is what you're recommending I'll speak and then if Don wants to jump in also we've had internal discussions we met specifically with the realtors association throughout the fall of 2018 responding to their specific suggestions we pointed out the issues with them whether they're just enforceability issues or just not read compliant issues we pointed out that except for the directional sign issue that they're bringing up all the other sign issues that they're bringing up are not currently allowed in right away anyway except for political signs and what is currently being proposed is allowance of a more generous allowance of any sign in the right away within a certain time period but I don't see at this point unless there's some new direction given to staff that there would be any significant changes with that delay could there be some changes as I mentioned reconsideration of the taking a look at the square footage allotment to the residential identification signs that we made changes to I'm sure we can take a look at that we already promised that we would without promising a firm action one way or the other but in terms of our review of how we came down on the temporary signage in right away I don't see any particular change unless we got specific direction otherwise okay thank you uh commissioner elter thank you chair so so Mike so currently you can put a directional sign in the in the right of way right and can you put okay and so now you're proposing to not be able to put anything in the right of way except for 55 days around the election is that right or am I misreading that so currently what is being proposed and I'll go to let me get to that page for a second if I may I had it and I apologize and I lost it so what is specifically would be allowed in the right away temporary signs in the right away we're taking a look at object or marker what page is that I'm sorry page 34 okay thank you so um an object or marker at a traffic-related fatality and it gives specific so it's oh right placement time um and yeah size um the any sign uh within that uh right of way and it gives time placement size um temporary signs on sidewalk it was movable signs it was more of a relocation of what was currently in the ordinance and that is zoning district specific it doesn't specify what is being said on the sign so there's time place and manner also okay so what is the I guess what because I'm looking at page number six the justification I think for them what you say is to kind of the compromise position and so what is the negative I guess implication or effect of just keeping the directional signs allowed in the right away that wouldn't be read compliant because we'd be focusing on a content based speaker based sign okay that's just clearly wouldn't be read that would not be compliant with and because we're favoring one type of speech over another what it's saying okay thank you okay thank you thanks uh commissioner miller so I have a lot of problems with this and they're the same problems I've had all along we currently have a sign ordinance as as staff has pointed out that doesn't allow temporary signs in a right away except for some exceptions carved out for certain users for certain types of signs uh and that's not read compliant I mean a total ban probably would be read compliant but I don't think it's what I think it's right for Durham we can be read compliant I think it is important to be read compliant and right for Durham and I believe that the speakers have demonstrated even today the sign ordinance is honored in the breach especially when it comes to temporary signs in the right of way pancake sufferers and stop gun violence and all these things that Durham people do and it and house for sale with an arrow all of these things are important part of the life of the community Mr Eden said before he went home that do we have a clutter proliferation problem now I don't think we do but I'm a guy who likes to use the public property to facilitate public speech what read wants us to do is to not pick and choose among speakers or what people say I'm willing to do that and not take the risk in other words what we've done there is this we've now we've got this period of time around elections when we're going to allow all kinds of signs because practically people really want to speak politically at that time and I think that that's read compliant but I would like to open it up and say year round we're going to allow temporary signs in the right of way we're going to control where they can go not all the right of way not all the time it's time place in manner manner is how big the sign is is it lighted as it move we can regulate that we can say there can be intervals between signs if there's one up here then you can't put another one up and for a certain distance we can do all of those things so that the things that even today under the current ordinance are not lawful like the pancake jamboree why can't the pancake jamboree be lawful and I realize that if we let the pancake jamboree be lawful then some crazy could put up a sign that says something that the community doesn't like I'm not afraid of that our democracy is not that fragile it is not that fragile time place and manner so this is what I would like to do in and with regard to temporary signs in the right of way is have no distinction between commercial and non-commercial speech although that actually is allowed under read but read doesn't go into it they just said we're not disturbing the distinction that the supreme court has previously recognized between commercial and non-commercial speech and that distinction actually is is saying you can regulate commercial speech to a greater degree than non-commercial speech but I don't see any point in going there when we're talking about temporary signs in the public right of way I want a self permitting process we actually have a permitting process for certain types of signs but I want a self permitting process I want one where we let people put up a sign but the condition is is you know we're going to regulate its size it can't be bigger than a certain size and of course we can set that that there'll be a duration it can only be up for a certain amount of time I think there should be that there's a rest that a single user on a certain subject can't keep putting up the same thing over up you know take it down a day and then put it up a day later you can't let I think it is a legitimate government interest saying that we're not going to let somebody hog the public resource just like we do with parking meters you can't keep it's actually against the rules to keep feeding the meter you got to leave and then come back if somebody else is shot I think that it's permissible under a self permitting process and this is what I mean is to say that on every sign that we allow in the public right of way we require the poster to put their name and their address their contact information and the date the sign goes up so that we can regulate it I think read allows that that's not content that's the same thing that we do with a permit with a permitted sign except for that we require them to submit a piece of paper that we keep in a file folder somewhere so here we're going to put it on the sign so that the inspector can go look at the sign and said oops that one's up too long if you do a permit process then you can build into the ordinance that the poster says okay the city can take it down because permits are a little bit different than than say on on my own property where the the city can't come and take it down they can they can start proceedings to make me take it down um we can regulate like said which part of the right of way we can distinguish between signs that are in the right of way in front of residential properties as opposed to the commercial right of way the court just clearly makes a distinction and recognizes that signs that are in proximity to residences or can be interpreted as being associated with the owner of the residence so I think that we can create an interval that says if you're going to put up your pancake jamboree or your stop gun violence sign in front of somebody's house that it's you can't do that that it's got to be a certain ways away so that the message won't necessarily be associated with the owner of that residence we can do that um and we can build into these things about violations and what have you we can finally have an ordinance that lets the community of Durham do what it wants to do without being in violation and that we can regulate it because we can regulate it sign by sign and inspector if we get if we get a proliferation of signs in a certain location and it's it gets to be a problem somebody can go out and say oops this one's too old oops this one is is too big we can do those things but it they can also say oh this one this one's complied with everything we required and it's got three more days you can leave that one we can finally actually have reasonable regulation realizing that it i suppose it could be possible that you could get a perfect storm of a lot of people putting up a lot of messages and cluttering a location and if that happens then i suppose we can get tougher but i think like mr eden said if we're going to air in this let's air in favor of public speech and let the people do what they do i mean my own neighborhood association collects money at this time of year for the Durham urban ministries and we do that by posting signs because it's effective we remind people this is the time to give and we put the signs in the right of way and we're in violation i put up a whole bunch of them myself i confess i violated the ordinance but it shouldn't be a violation of the ordinance let's have instead of having an ordinance that we honor by winking at the signs that we don't care we we are now we we have for years winked at the signs that we consider to be harmless and i love a community that does that we don't have to we don't have to have selective enforcement system we can have an ordinance that's real and that apportions out the the right to put up signs reasonably and controls it and we can see how it goes i want to send this back like mr busby does i want the staff to consider this more open approach one that fixes not only the read problem but the problem that existed before read which is over regulation of signs that doesn't make content distinctions and if and if it doesn't work then i'll take the blame but i do think that the supreme court in the time place manner restrictions that are allowed gives us a huge amount of leeway to address the problems incrementally as we experience them not as we anticipate them i need to recognize some sarah young and then the city's legal advisor so i wanted to share a little bit of a tidbit fun fact if you will about our zoning enforcement and the work they do in the realm of signs because i've heard it repeatedly said tonight that we don't have a sign clutter problem and i will tell you that on average zoning enforcement in one sub district one of the three sub districts alone on average picks up 200 signs a week sometimes upwards of 350 signs a week that is somewhere between 10 and 12 000 signs a year that are picked up that is why we don't have a sign clutter problem but if i can respond to that well let me respond to that is if we had a system that allowed signs we wouldn't have to pick them all up right now we pick them all up because they're all in violation thank you donald told the city attorney's office i just wanted to let the planning commission members know that when read the read decision was handed down in 2015 we immediately started discussions with the manager's office obviously the planning department and at city council work sessions so the manager's office and the council is fully aware of the direction that the proposed udo changes are taking i'll add however though that pretty much everything that you said mr miller is completely policy so if sound city council decided to change the direction that this draft is moving in that could certainly be done those are all policy issues um as sarah pointed out we already do have a huge problem with illegal signs in the right of way in the city of durham currently and um mr miller to the self permitting idea the planners and i discussed that back in 2015 develop a little sticker have them readily available at dsc fill out your name phone number date it's posted um and that was discussed um but that would lead to pretty significant enforcement because planners would need to walk up to every sign look at the sticker um figure out which signs were illegal and that has been discussed with the both the manager's office and council members but obviously again that's a policy question and if people want to present that again that can be brought forward um another point that i just want to raise that i don't think has been emphasized tonight um we are not shutting down non-commercial speech in the city of durham i think if you read the temporary sign provisions on private property we there's no limitation city of durham residents can have as many non-commercial signs on their private property as they choose and durham residents like to do that and um so there's no limitation on those signs so i don't think we're really silencing anyone and while i'm sympathetic to charities who want to put up signs in the right of way even an organization like the lions club the rotary whatever if they put that that's commercial activity they're saying come buy our pancakes and so if the city were to choose to allow those signs that's commercial speech we also would need to open up the right of way to all non-commercial speech at the same time so those are those are the issues that we've been trying to balance and weigh and nothing's been said here tonight that hasn't been discussed internally and i think the manager's office and the city council is well aware of these issues and um not to speak for staff but i'm not sure how referring this back to staff at at this point would be of any value i think the real um the case needs to be made to council and then if council wanted to direct staff to modify this draft the planners would be happy to do that consistent with their direction thank you one other comment because i wanted a motion i was i was gonna say that input is helpful i don't see any need for us to move to postpone this vote and to continue this i think it's time for us to just have a motion and vote this evening and send it forward i will entertain a motion at this time comment comment quick i i want to i i appreciate commissioner miller's comments and i second those and i'll be voting against this and sending a message to council that i'd like to go in that direction thank you thank you so i'll entertain a motion madam chair i would move that we send case tc one seven zero zero zero zero two forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation second does it go to does it does it go to both governing bodies yes it does thank you for the clarification thank you did i get a second yes second okay then motion by commissioner busby and second by commissioner al turk that we send item tc one seven zero zero zero zero two signs forward to the city council and the board of county commissioners with a favorable recommendation may we have a roll call vote please commissioner morgan no commissioner johnson no commissioner brine no commissioner al turk no commissioner busby no commissioner hyman yes commissioner miller no commissioner kentgen yes commissioner santiago no commissioner baker yes commissioner low yes commissioner macabre yes and motion fell seven five pardon me what was i'm sorry seven five five seven sorry about that seven five yes no no it's right that's five seven i mean five seven excuse me five you're right it's late five seven thank you thank you mr miller well i just don't hear very well okay can i dance are there any additional comments from staff before we wrap up if not thank uh we'd like to thank everyone that kent was able to attend the retreat and uh we'll we're looking at scheduling a follow-up soon so be on the lookout for that very good thank you so much what's january like heavier light um pretty light right now two evenings and maybe one text moment keep it light when we come back motion trying to thank you all happy holidays happy holidays