 Thank you, Beverly. Are we ready, Beverly? And we're on. Thank you. Good evening. I would like to call this meeting of the Durham City Council to order at 7 o'clock on Monday, August 3, 2020. I certainly want to welcome everyone who is with us tonight, virtually. We're very glad to have you with us tonight. I'd like everyone now to please join me in a moment of silent meditation. Thank you. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson? Here. Council Member Caballero? Here. Council Member Freeman? Present. Council Member Middleton? Here. Council Member East? Here. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. We have announcements by the council next. I'm going to just say that I know that we have a momentous announcement, but when we get to the priority items, I'm going to ask City Manager Bonfield if he will make that announcement of that very, very, very momentous occasion in the history of the City of Durham. There may be other announcements, however. Colleagues, any announcements by any of my colleagues? Council Member Reese? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to announce the Pledge of Allegiance if that's all right with you. Why is it that every meeting I need to be corrected for my parliamentary procedure? Council Member Reese, would you please lead us in the Pledge to the Flag? It would be my pleasure, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty, and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Council Member Reese. And now I'll ask, are there any other announcements by members of the Council? All right. Seeing none, I will now move to our priority items, and I'm going to recognize City Manager Tom Bonfield. I know he has one at least important announcement and may have other priority items as well. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our first Council meeting for the new fiscal year. It's good to see everyone. I do have several business-oriented priority items that I'd like to bring to the Council's attention, and then just one quick point of personal privilege. For the priority items, agenda item number 16, which is the Expedited Hearing Request for Zoning Map Change Z1900036 Farrington Road multi-family pursuant to a request from the Council. There's additional information that has been added for that item as attachment number nine. Agenda item number 27, contract with Otis Elevator Inc. for the parking garage elevator maintenance and repair services. Again, additional information has been provided in attachments four and five. Agenda item number 45, annexation Olive Branch West, attachment number 15 has been added, and then the insurance, a couple of things I wanted to mention, but this one in particular, Insurance Commissioner and State Fire Marshal Mike Causey recently recognized Safe Kids Durham County and Safe Kids North Carolina Program of the Year for Fit It and Fix It, and this represents a partnership between the Durham Bike Co-op, Durham Fire Department, Durham Police Department's Engagement Unit, Durham County Library, and the Durham Safe Kids, and it was recognized as the outstanding program in North Carolina. I'm not sure if there's a photograph that can flash up there or not, but we want to congratulate Chief Zoldis and the Fire Department, Chief Davis and the Police Department for that recognition. So those are my routine items, Mr. Mayor. A bit anticlimactic, I suppose, for the point of personal privilege, but do want to first of all acknowledge all the well wishes I received today, but without going into all the details of the communication that I provided to the City Council yesterday and the staff today announced that I have decided to retire from the position of Durham City Manager Effective September 30th, 2020. It has certainly been an incredible 12 years of my life and my family's life to have the privilege to have served the residents of Durham and gotten to really come to learn so much about this community, a place that I literally had never been to until I came for the job interview a little over 12 years ago, but has certainly come to be our new home. People always ask me, where's your home? I said, it's Durham. They want me to say somewhere else because I wasn't born in Durham. I said, no, Durham is my home and always will have a place in my heart, but I just want to extend my appreciation to you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council for the support that you not only have given me, but more importantly, the support you have given our incredible staff. I get way too much of the credit around here, and we have a tremendous team. And as I indicated in my memo to you, as much as I might have some departure guilt, I am certainly comforted by the fact that there is an incredible staff who is with you and will be with you. And I do urge you and pray that you'll continue to be as supportive of them without me as you have been with me. So thank you very much. There's still plenty of weeks and a couple of months to go for us to engage, but I do want to thank you. I want to thank the community, but make that a formal announcement this evening. Thank you. Mr. Manager, thank you so much for that announcement. It's hard to imagine the City of Durham government without Tom Bonfield. You are a rock and anchor, and I have now been on the Council or Mayor for coming on nine years, and during that entire time, it's been such a privilege to know you and to get to work with you and to be your friend. And we have just had a wonderful relationship, a wonderful working relationship and friendship, and I just want to express my gratitude. I also want to tell you that we are totally understanding of your decision. We support you and we want to not only make this transition time good for the City, but also work for you. And so I know that all of us on the Council feel that way. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We will have time for a real send-off at some point where we'll all get to wax eloquent. And I know Tom doesn't like long speeches, but too bad that may be his opportunity to hear some. And what are you going to do, fire me? I guess it's too late for that. And we're just looking forward to that, Tom, and we're looking forward to honoring you in that way. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I look forward to it as well. Tom, I want to say thank you for talking to us a little bit or talking to me a little bit previously about thinking about this transition period. And colleagues, as you all know, we're going to be meeting our work session will be on Thursday and we will have a closed session for personnel matters where we will be discussing some of the important transition matters. So, Tom, thank you so much. Colleagues, would you like to add anything at this time? All right, I think everybody's saving their comments, but we'll all have a shot at you before it's over, believe me. Thank you. Thank you so much. And those were my priority items, so you don't forget those as well. Thank you. I think we've got them. Thank you very much. As the manager said, he's not planning to just spend the next two months cleaning out his desk. There's a lot of work to be done and I know we'll all be doing it together. All right, Madam Attorney, any priority items tonight? Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of City Council. It's good to see you all. Glad to start the 2021 year. Hopefully it'll be a good one. Before I get to my priority items, I also want to say I really regretted seeing the announcement. It's certainly something very well earned by Mr. Bonfield, but I personally have just enjoyed having him as a colleague and he's been such a wonderful mentor for me. People probably don't know that, you know, the City Council has three employees. It's the manager, the attorney, and the clerk. And although the three of us are not within one another's chain of command or any of that sort, it requires a particular level of coordination and collaboration and trust and communication. And Tom has just been so supportive of me and I just cannot express my appreciation enough. So thank you so much, Tom. Many congratulations to you. I look forward to making longer remarks at some point in the future. You're muted. Oh, okay. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate that. And the City Attorney's Office has no priority items tonight. Thank you, Madam Attorney. Thank you, and clerk. Any priority items? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would like to say to Tom that we will all miss him. I think he's been a fantastic city manager for Durham and and yeah, this is 12 years. You don't realize how time flies, but good luck, Tom. And I'm sure we'll all have our say another time. But Mr. Mayor, good evening, everybody. The City Clerk's Office has no priority items. Thank you, Madam Clerk. You're welcome. All right, we'll now move on to the Consent Agenda. The Consent Agenda consists of items that the Council has worked on previously. The Consent Agenda can be approved by a single vote of the Council. Any items pulled by Council members or members of the public will be held to the end of the meeting for a vote. And now I'll read the Consent Agenda items. Item one, approval of City Council Minutes. Item three, Durham Convention Center Authority Appointment. Item four, Durham Cultural Advisory Board Appointments. Item six, Durham Housing Authority Board of Commissioners Appointment. Item seven, Durham Open Space and Trails Commission Appointment. Open eight, Housing Appeals Board Appointment. Item nine, Recreation Advisory Commission Appointment. Item 10, Payment Card Industry Compliance Performance Audit March 2020. Item 11, Timekeeping Management Follow-up Performance Audit May 2020. Item 12, Approval of Juneteenth as an Official Holiday for Employees in the City of Durham. Item 13, Racial Equity Task Force Final Report. Item 14, Funding for the Recovery and Renewal Task Force. Item 15, City County Planning Department FY21 Work Program. Item 16, Expedited Hearing Request for Zoning Map Change Z1900036, Barrington Road, Multi-Family. Mr. Mayor, believe someone pulled that item. Remember the top one. Was that item pulled Madam Clerk? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Okay, thank you. Item 17, 2019 Board of Adjustment Annual Report. Item 18, 2019 Durham City County Appearance Commission Annual Report. Item 19, 2019 Durham Open Space and Trails Commission Annual Report. Item 20, 2019 Historic Preservation Commission Annual Report. Item 21, 2019 Planning Commission Annual Report. Item 25, Extension of Merger Agreement with the County of Durham, Demand Response Services. Item 26, Contract for Cloud-Based Vendor Hosted Integrated Parking Management System. Item 27, Contract with Otis Elevator Inc. for Parking Garage Elevator Maintenance and Repair Services. Item 28, Contract with SBS Management Inc. DBA Scotties for Parking Garage Pressure Washing Services. Item 29, Ordinance to Change Parking Fees Amendment, Addition of Evening Monthly Parking Permit. Item 30, Grant Project Ordinance, Superceding Grant Project Ordinance 15653, Grant Project Ordinance, Superceding Grant Project Ordinance 15651. Item 31, FY21 Agreement with North Carolina State University NCSU Supporting the Triangle Regional Model TRM. Item 32, American Tobacco Waterline Replacement Phase 1, Award of Construction Contract to J.F. Wilkerson Contracting Company. Item 33, Contract for Western Intake Partnership Program Manager. Item 34, Ordinance Amending the Durham City. Just a minute. 32 and 33. I just wanted to make a note for staff that I'm not sure at which point, but I want to make sure that we're reviewing the MUBE and WUBEs because they look like they're, I'm not sure if I understand why the percentages are shifting, but I want to make sure I do. Thank you, Madam. Thank you very much, Council Member. Would you like to pull those items or are you asking for later information? Later information. All right. Thank you so much. Add those items 32 and 33. Item 34, Ordinance Amending the Durham City Code, Regulating Billing and Payment of Water, Sewer and Stormwater Fees on Combined Utility Bills. Item 35, Bid Report, May 2020. Item 36, Bid Report, June 2020. Item 37, Local Burdening Ordinance. Like Item 38, Cell Tower Lease and License Agreement with T-Mobile South, LLC at 1318 East Pedigrees Tree. Item 39, Contract with Eggard Youth Alternate Zinc to Provide Workforce, Innovation and Opportunity Act. Youth Alternate Zinc to Provide Workforce Innovation. Item 41, Executive Office of the President, Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2019 High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, HID拿 with Project Coordinates. Item 42, Water Quality Blue and Source Tracking at Sandy Creek Tributary A and Warren Creek Contract. Item 43, City Work, Storm Room, DC Configuration with Radley Corporation. Item 44, Multi-Year Annual Support Agreement and Lights Agreement from Unis Software with Tyler Technologies, Inc. for FY21 through FY25. Madam Clerk, I just want to ask, were there any other items that were pulled by any member of the public that I missed? Mr. Mayor, we only have that one item that's been pulled. Item 16, thank you. All right. Colleagues, you have heard the consent agenda. Can I have a motion for its approval? I move. Second. Moved by Council Member Reece. Seconded by Council Member Middleton that we approve the consent agenda. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. Aye. Council Member Reece. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. We'll now move to Item 45 into the General Business Agenda Public Hearings, Annexation, Olive Branch West, and we'll be first hearing from staff. Good evening. Good evening, Ms. Sunyak. Good evening. I'm Jamie Sunyak with the Planning Department. I would first like to state for the record that all Planning Department hearing items have been advertised and noticed in accordance with state and local law, and affidavits of all notices are in file in the Planning Department. Request for utility extension agreement and voluntary annexation have been received from Jessica Hardesty for one parcel of land located at 434 Olive Branch Road, totaling 56.367 acres. The annexation petition is for a contiguous expansion of the city corporate limits. The proposed annexation is part of an area of a minor site plan, which is D1900363, which is under review for 108 single-family lots. The site is presently zoned Rural Residential Falls Jordan Watershed Protection Overlay District B in the suburban tier, and staff recommends an exact translation of the zoning designation. The proposed annexation is designated as low-density residential and recreation and open space on the comprehensive plan's future land use map, which is consistent with the zoning request. If approved, this request will become effective on September 30, 2020. If adopted, this annexation will create a donut hole of 2.48 acres. However, one of the adjacent property owners were contacted and one is interested in annexing, but that would be part of a subsequent annexation petition if that occurred. The city and county operational departments such as the South Waste, Fire, Police, and EMS have reviewed this request. The potential impacts of this annexation at full buildout, well not yet known at this time, could result in some reduction provided by the police department. The city of Durham Department of Transportation, Public Works, and the city county planning are also conducting a conditions and cost assessment related to NCDOT roadways located within east and southeast Durham that are experiencing rapid transition from rural and suburban characteristics. So that analysis has been provided with respect to this application and additional information has been included in Attachment 13. The Public Works and Water Management Departments have determined that the existing city of Durham, Water and Sewer have capacity for the proposed development after the completion of the Southeast Regional Lift Station. The Budget and Management Service Department have determined that the proposed annexation will become revenue positive immediately following the annexation and additional information can be found in the staff report on that. Staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and other applicable policies and ordinances. Three motions are required for this application. The first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into a utility extension agreement. The second would be for the consistency statement and then the third would be for the zoning ordinance. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you very much Ms. Sunyak. You've heard the report from staff and I'm now going to declare this public hearing open and first I'm going to ask council members if you have any questions that you would like to direct to our staff. Any questions at this time? All right. Thank you. I see that we have several members of the public who have signed up to speak on this item. We have three proponents, Nilgosh, Robert Sharon and Kurt Berger and we have two opponents, Matthew Kartus and Judy Gully and I apologize if I've gotten your names incorrect. I'm going to first ask if the clerk could make Nilgosh available to speak and then once I've talked to Mr. Gosch a little bit I'll figure out how to do the timing on this. Mr. Mayor, I don't see Nilgosh unless he is area code 518. All right. I'm looking here to see if there's, I do see Mr. Patrick Biker also for item 45. Biker, could you make Mr. Biker available to speak please? Mr. Mayor, can you hear me, sir? Yes, sir. Mr. Biker, are you representing this project, Mr. Biker? Mr. Biker, can you hear me and are you representing this project? I now think he's disappeared. Can you hear me now, Mr. Mayor? Yes. Yes, we can. Yes. Sorry, for some reason I had to rejoin the meeting there and that's always a very scary feeling. We don't worry. We are a patient lot and we're not going to go on without you. Mr. Biker, are you representing this project? Yes, sir. So you're not, you're speaking, is Mr. Gosh also speaking? No, just me for our team, Mr. Mayor Shul and we probably only need about three minutes of your time and then we'll be happy to answer any questions. Mr. Biker, are there other, Mr. Biker? Mr. Sharon will be speaking after me. I apologize, I misspoke. All right. And Mr. Biker is, I see another proponent that is listed beside you and Mr. Sharon and that is... Mr. Berger? Yes. Yes, he's here to answer questions. All right. Mr. Biker, I'm going, I also see, I just want to make sure, I want everybody to know who's listening that the reason I'm going through this is that I try to be very fair to everybody in public hearing and make sure that the proponents and the opponents both have the time that they need. I see two opponents signed up, Matthew Kardis and Judy Gully or Gully. I also see however for item 545 that we have Jesse Hardesty and Nick Williamson. I'm going to ask Madam Clerk, if you could please unmute Jesse Hardesty and I'd like to hear from Jesse Hardesty if she's a proponent or opponent of this project. Ms. Hardesty has been promoted to panelists. All right. Ms. Hardesty, can you, can you speak to us? Are you an opponent or proponent of this project? Hello, can you hear me? Okay. Yes. I am a proponent. I'm on the project team. You're on the project team. Okay. Yes. Good. Thank you. And Nick Williamson, is Nick Williamson also on the project team or is Nick Williamson? Yes. Yes. He is on the project team. Okay. Good. Yes. All right. Mr. Biker, I'm going to give you three minutes and I'm going to give Mr. Sharon three minutes. After that, I'm going to ask the, the two people signed up as opponents. I'm going to give each of them three minutes as well and then we'll take it. Okay. So, Mr. Biker, you're on. Thank you for being here. Yes. Good evening, Mayor Shul, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, members of the City Council. I'm Patrick Biker and I live at 2614 Stewart Drive. I'm an attorney with Morningstar Law Group and I'm with you tonight representing FSAC, Olive Branch West for this agenda item. We respectfully request your approval of this agenda item so our team can move forward with a conservation subdivision at a rural residential density. Rural residential, rural residential is the lowest density zoning district in the UDO. This is the right option for this location since such a high proportion of the 57.4 acres to be annexed represents environmentally sensitive areas such as floodplains and stream buffers. All right. I need to start my video. There we go. Thank you. This is the right option for this location since such a high proportion of the 57.4 acres to be annexed represents environmentally sensitive areas such as floodplains and stream buffers. Accordingly, this conservation subdivision will permanently preserve and protect these environmentally sensitive areas. Another advantage of the conservation subdivision is that it will preserve the area set aside for the Lick Creek Trail and the Durham Trails and Greenways Master Plan. The Lick Creek Trail is specified as a 5.2 mile paved trail from Mineral Springs Road to Kemp Road and the property before you this evening represents approximately a half mile section of that 5.2 mile trail. Also, this site is very close to the southeast regional lift station or Searles and this conservation subdivision will generate over a half million dollars in revenue for our water management department to recoup the city's investment in Searles. Therefore, this conservation subdivision represents a portion of the cost recovery we hoped for and expected when the city moved ahead with the planning and development of the southeast regional lift station. Last, I want to recognize that at our neighborhood meeting back in September about 25 or 30 neighbors showed up and shared their concerns about traffic. We agree that traffic is an important issue. However, while it is important to identify problems, it is even more important to put forward pragmatic solutions. To that end, the annexation of this property will generate street impact fees and I recommend that the street impact fees from this dock nickels and olive branched area be pooled in order to address one or more of the problematic intersections in the vicinity of this annexation. This is similar to something I worked on with Davis Park next to RTP to collect and target street impact fees for a specific road improvement. I respectfully suggest that could work here and so we hope you will approve this annexation. Our team will be happy to answer any questions and we thank you for your time tonight. Thank you, Mr. Biker. And can we now hear from Mr. Sharon? Mr. Sharon, are you able to be heard? Yes, can you hear me? Yes, Mr. Sharon, welcome. You also have three minutes. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Again, my name is Robert Sharon and I'm the owner of property located at 815 and 818 Dr. Nichols Road. My property fronts and is adjacent to this olive branch west development. And I am the property owner that wants to be annexed that Ms. Sunak mentioned that's located within the 2.48 donut hole. I have found out that water will be running in front of my property, but however to benefit from the city annexation, I would also need access to sewer. The developer Kurt Burger of Foxfield Land Partners has agreed to provide the sewer access to the back of my property and will facilitate the request of a subsequent annex petition for my property into the city within the next 60 days. Like I said, I am in favor of the olive branch west development being annexed into the city. But I also want it on record and to confirm that I do want to be annexed given that I can get access to water which will run in front of my property and that Mr. Burger can provide access to sewer behind my property. And that's just what I wanted to be met known. So does anybody have any questions at this time? Thank you, Mr. Sherrod. Appreciate it. Let me ask we'll first hear from the other speakers and then we'll take any questions from members of the council. Thank you. We have two people who have signed up as opponents of the project and I'm going to first call on Matthew Cartus and Mr. Cartus. I hope I have your name right. Madam clerk, can you please make Mr. Cartus available to speak? Mr. Mayor, he's thank you. Mr. Cartus, are you available to speak? Can you be heard? Mr. Cartus, can you unmute yourself and can you hear me now? Yes, we can welcome and you have three minutes. We're glad to have you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and everyone. I really appreciate your time. Forgive me if I misspeak. This is my first public hearing. No problem. You don't need to worry about that. You're going to do fine. I found it important to voice my opinion. I've been a long time resident on Olive Branch Road. I currently live at 401 Olive Branch Road and have really enjoyed this area of the country and have seen the rest of the country and I only want to be here so I'd really hate it for it to change. So I'd like to mention first that the area that's being the proposed annexed and the subsequent development around the area is not on existing facilities but already through the facilities that are being planned and currently under construction through this area which is going to disrupt it tremendously. The rural residential rating over the 53 approximate acres is including the area that already is protected and cannot be disrupted. So the density of the actual housing units and the proximity of the units I would ask be evaluated because we've seen developers time and time again say that they have 100 acres to develop as an example but then use areas that are as parks and streams or something else but that area cannot be developed at all anyway. I would like to remind the council if you're not already aware that the Clean Water Act and Durham County spent over a million dollars restoring Lit Creek which is property adjoins because of erosion controls that feeds into Falls Lake and that was in current conditions to to over develop this area locally with more runoff is only going to undermine and as a to a detriment the money that's already been spent on this area to improve the Clean Water Act and improve the clean water that flows into Falls Lake with additional erosion. In terms of the Lit Creek pathway that is a plan but that is not approved. There is not an easement that exists today for that plan and that is not a welcome plan in my opinion as it's just going to drive additional traffic to this area and lastly I will bring to you the the traffic on all the branch. My driveway cars in my driveway have been hit five different times due to traffic since 2015 just in my driveway. The road is is over utilized today. This plan cites traffic a study from 2015. I would ask the council to look at the amount of development that has occurred within this radius right on the north side and the south side of 98 in the past five years and recognize that a traffic plan in any citation of traffic is not accurate and is no representation of the current load. That's all I have. Thank you Mr. Cartus and you spoke very well. Thank you very much. We'll follow with with comments and questions but first I'm going to ask Julie Gully or Julie Gully. I'm not sure how to pronounce your name and I apologize. Madam clerk could you make Miss Gully available to be heard? Miss Gully can you be heard? Mr. Mayor I don't see her on the list. All right. I don't know she is still with us. I don't see her on the list either so perhaps she is not or perhaps someone else expressed her point of view. Thank you. All right this is a public hearing item. Is there anyone else present who would like to be heard on this item? Is there anyone else among our attendees who would like to be heard? Mr. Mayor there's a hand raised by a call-in caller. Thank you for noticing that. This is unmuted. Good. This is a call-in user who would like to be heard on an item. Well your hand is raised. We're not sure what item exactly. Let me see if I can get that phone number. Can you read that phone number Madam clerk? It just says call-in user. Okay is there a call-in user who has just been unmuted who would like to speak? Technology is hard. Is there a call-in user who has been unmuted who had their hand up? I want to make sure everyone gets heard that wants to be heard. There is a call-in user who's available but I do not see apparently does not want to speak so thank you for attempting that Madam clerk. All right. Is there anyone else who would like to be heard? And could I ask everyone who is not speaking to please mute themselves? We're getting a little feedback. Thank you very much. All right. Council members you have heard the comments from the speakers and I'm going to now ask if there are any questions for the applicant or any of the speakers or for staff by members of the council. Pardon me Mr. Mayor Matthew Cartus is in the panelist listing? Yes. I'm here. Yes. Mr. Cartus has spoken. Yeah. That's correct. Thank you Madam clerk. All right. Is there any are there first let me ask are there questions or comments by members of the council at this time for any of the panelists? All right then I'll ask mine. Mr. Biker why don't you describe your what is it what does it mean to be a conservation easement in the context of this piece of land? What will that actually mean? I'm sorry conservation subdivision I apologize. Yes. Can you hear me Mayor? Yes we can. All right. That means that the areas that are prescribed in the UDO in this case primarily so I got to start my video again sorry the conservation subdivision requirements are all clearly prescribed in the UDO believe it's section in article six and it relates to environmentally sensitive areas in the case of this property floodplain and stream buffers and so what that does is take those areas which in this case has to amount to approximately 50% of the total acreage they're they're different criteria but to make it simple half of the area needs to be preserved so the 57 acres that means let me see half of that math and lawyers are a scary combination but I think that's about 28 29 acres has to be set aside permanently and preserved and that is the area that is designated in our Durham Trails and Greenways Master Plan for the Lick Creek Trail along Lick Creek so of the 57 acres 29 acres approximately be preserved permanently including the trail and that means the house lots have to be in the land that is not environmentally sensitive and that's what this proposal tonight will do it's it's an excellent planning tool for this type of situation again it's the lowest density allowed in our zoning ordinance our UDO and so that's how conservation subdivision functions I hope I answered your question mayor if I can clarify anything please ask thank you um can you tell me um Mr. Cartis raised the issue of the repair of previous repair of Lick Creek its importance to our water quality and our water and falls lake um what are your what are your how do you respond to his important concerns those are great concerns that's obviously something that's top of mind for our development team and so I if anybody from McAdams wants to chime in but there's obviously going to be all of the grading will be done in the areas as far away from Lick Creek as possible on this 57 acres and so that means that the stormwater controls and the house lots will all be on the area the 20 27 28 acres that is not close to Lick Creek and so that really is is a way to preserve this area make sure it's the environment environmentally sensitive areas are not touched by any grading activity I'm sorry yes sir what is the approximate distance between the the closest the back of the closest lot to the stream if one of the folks from McAdams could help out or Kurt if you uh Kurt Berger might know that I regret I don't have the uh um plan right in front of me right now all right is there anyone else on the um the development team that has that information Mr. Mayor I promoted Mr. Berger to panelists thank you madam clerk Mr. Berger are you available to be heard if so please unmute yourself and make yourself heard good evening Mr. Mayor and uh city council I am looking at a plan and I'm sorry I um I don't have the dimension but it's I'm gonna say it's at least two three four three hundred and fifty feet perhaps through the wetlands before you before the creek yeah from the back of the nearest lot all right thank you um I would also like to I believe Mr. Judge is here I'd like to ask Mr. Judge if you could comment on the Mr. Mr. Curtis also raised an important point about the transportation issues on the and we know that this isn't there are big transportation issues out here um Mr. Judge could you comment on uh on the traffic and as regards this development yes bill judge transportation um I has councils aware we have had a number of developments in this area um this particular development is under the threshold for having to prepare traffic impact analysis so there was not a specific traffic impact analysis for this particular project but um they will as they go through the site plan process if the annexation is approved they will likely be required to install a turn lane at a left turn lane at the site driveway or the new street entrance and that would likely be the only only requirements of the site as well as sidewalk for the front of the site with the only two site plan requirements so that that that that just that requirement would look would be made if you believe that would likely be made that left turn lane and it would likely be and it would if so be the requirement would be made at site plan yes that would be a requirement of the site plan in the driveway permit through ncg t thank you all right those are my questions other council members any questions for any of the speakers or for the staff yes council member freeman uh thank you I just wanted to get clarity from uh mr biker you mentioned the grading would be away from like are you saying it won't be mass grading we haven't gotten to the point of uh selecting a home builder yet so I'm afraid we don't know the answer to that question council member freeman unless uh mr burger has uh insight on that but uh at this point time hasn't been determined and then just on the staff side I didn't hear um any any feedback from mr card's question around erosion controls I'm not sure who on staff would address that but I would love to hear a response thank you council member um is there anyone here on the staff who could respond to council member freeman's question concerning stormwater miss young good evening mayor and members of council I am not a stormwater expert but I can tell you that both stormwater requirements of course will have to be met for this site at the time of site plan and in addition to that sedimentation and erosion control standards will have to be met as well so again I'm not expert on the specifics of the standards but these are requirements that will have to be met before anything is constructed and just a continuation from previous conversations is there any any format set for like a review of existing erosion in the area so if you're looking at falls lakes and the water that's coming towards it is there a review before this case comes forward as an annexation like there would for a planning and zoning case no in terms of so even for rezoning cases typically there is not a detailed stormwater analysis that happens that is something that typically happens at the site plan stage there are some cases where we know of extenuating circumstances and stormwater services does do a little bit extra work up front but that has not been the case for this site though that has not been identified to us ahead of time as an issue that needed special addressing thank you thank you councilmember councilmember reese and then mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um sarah can I ask you a question about the current designation on the future land use map what is that i'm i'm not sure i'm reading it right for this piece of property i'm going to let jamie chime in real quick because i think she's got that handy thank everyone um the current designation is low density residential and also recreation and open space right um the mr biker described the benefits of the um conservation subdivision and i wanted to kind of compare that to the current kind of the the the fact that a big chunk of this property is in a is at least on the map looks like it's in a flood plain is that right am i am i reading am i reading it right that the northern half of this property is in a flood plain correct so and you and you can see i i can share my screen if it's if it's helpful but the um the portion of the site that's within the flood plain coincides with the recreation open space future land use designation area great that's help that's very helpful thank you um and so how much of the property fault is falls under the protection of the conservation subdivision provision that is not in the flood plain like what's the net there or does my question make no sense um i i'm sorry i would not be able to i think i think if i understand your your question um the entire site is going to be subject to the conservation subdivision requirements um if you're asking what the breakdown between the flood plain area and the non flood plain area um i do not have that information maybe someone from the applicants team could provide you with that i do believe that in our memo uh somewhere that i cannot quite remember uh it does confirm what mr biker said earlier which it's approximately half the flood plain area is approximately half of the the site i'm sorry i can't cite that but that's my recollection from reading and and so i guess this is a question for staff would the would the flood plain area be developable without the conservation subdivision being used sorry my uh internet is a little bit slow today um no the those environmental protections are in place regardless of the type of development um there are some very limited types of encroachment but certainly not structures that are permitted um into a flood plain area and those have to seek special approvals but again they're very limited specific instances so um as a general rule no you could not build in the flood plain mr biker mentioned pooling some of the fees for um for upgrading the street network in this particular area did i am i characterizing that possibility correctly mr mr biker did i get that right yeah can you hear me council member reach and yes yeah yeah that's that's similar uh if the council remembers the davis park uh development next to rtp we're we're doing a similar exercise there uh i i put that forward just based on my experience as something that could be done for this area uh to meet the concerns that that have been shared tonight and is that are the the the street network that's being that's going to be benefited by that around the davis park division are those city maintained streets that's a great question it's hopson road and i believe that's a dot road but i'm not positive council member risa i think it's a dot road um those are the those are the questions i had right now mr mary thank you thank you council member madam mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um just a question for the applicant what are the square footage approximate and price points that you all plan to set for these homes mayor pro tem we haven't figured that out yet um my my educated guess is that the sales price will be in the 300 000 neighborhood um but uh i unless cur has a feel for the square footage i have not seen any uh specific information on pricing or square footage but my educated guess is there'll be uh the sales price will be commensurate with the other homes in the uh in the area that are not age restricted at least 300 a ballpark well yeah right around 300 um and what's the lot size do you know that uh i don't unless last one of the folks at macadam's knows i don't believe we figured that out yet exactly okay the plan is to develop it with this rr zoning right houses on big lots not to come back for no no no they'd be fairly small lots council um mayor pro tem relatively small lots because of the way the council conservation subdivision works it it uh reduces the minimum lot size to give more flexibility and to allow for smaller lots and smaller home okay so if if there's anyone from the team who has more detail on that that'd be helpful but thank you sure it looks to me trying to just do some math then if you're talking about 29 acres and 108 uh approximately 108 units mr biker yes sir it's about 3.7 units and acres at math right that should be about right so that maybe you all can then use that to tell mayor pro tem the approximate lot size yeah about there a little more than about quarter acre lots give or take all right thank you um mayor pro tem any other questions at this time yep i'm good thanks mr mayor all right council member reese i think you mr mayor uh earlier mr mayor you asked a question of the applicant about uh the distance between the back of the lot um to the creek and i believe the one of the folks worked for the developer had an answer for that my question is how is that possible if you're not sure what the lot sizes are you don't know what the development's going to look like um how can you how can you even venture a guess as to how far away the the project's going to be from the creek and the second question is what credence can we put on that kind of assurance in a meeting like this where there i don't think there's a uh a development plan in here i if you can point me to it if i missed it um so there's no way for us to know um or to or to hold you accountable for that thank you mr mayor um mr biker or mr burger yeah councilman reese um the reason why we can um plat that or measure that distance is the creek is a few hundred feet inside of the line where the flood plain starts so the creek isn't to the front of the flood plain towards our lots if our future lots if you will it's embedded so it's again it's it's about i'm scaling it it's 400 feet per the scale from the edge of the of the wetlands of the uh i'm sorry of the flood plain yeah we certainly know what the councilmember reese we certainly know what the buildable area is although we don't know what the exact where the exact lot dimensions will be we certainly know the extent of the uh buildable area for this site that's before you tonight would be and so that i can give us some uh range of comfort with the distance from lake creek so that so the answer about the distance was really the distance between the creek itself and the edge of the flood plain right right and then the right and then the buffer that goes along that along that environmental feature correct okay great thank you thank you councilmember councilmember freeland thank you mr mayor i i was just um i reread the memo at least three times and i was just trying to figure out if you were trying to associate the donut hole that would be created with this annexation uh two acres that were noted with the actual acreage that was outside of the outside of the the flood plains or the wetlands because that's the only other acreage that's noted in the memo i'm sorry councilmember could you say that again so i was trying to figure out if you were trying if you were looking at the two if you're looking at the donut hole that would be created with this annexation as the number because i don't see any other reference to a acreage that was uh noted in the memo so it's really like three pages and two pages are just from responses from the departments i was just trying to because i'm i'm hoping i missed something about the size of the of the development that the size of the development that's not in the flood plain so of the 56.367 acres how much is exactly outside of the flood plain because this i mean the way it's being presented is as if it's saving us from having some development in this space that would be uh harmful but it's in the flood plain it's a county land and if we didn't annex it it would just be residential at the current zoning so i'm just a little confused i'm just trying to figure out if you knew something else that i didn't uh could you start your question one more time the area outside the flood plains how many acres that is okay thank you i think uh jessie hardest if you have the exact number that'd be great but i think it'd be um let me think it'd probably in the 28 acre range occurred if you have a exact figure but i think that's uh um i i apologize that i don't have the exact figure but it is almost exactly 50 percent so it's right around 28 acres councilmember freeman that would be 108 units on 28 acres correct and i think that would be a lot it would be way less than point the half acre lots or what have you right it's about quarter acre lots ballpark okay thank you councilmember councilmember middleton thank you mr america can you folks hear me all right thank you thank you good evening everyone uh mr america you anticipated my question earlier about the uh traffic uh concerns that i believe it was mr cardus and forgive me if i got that wrong brought up and um i don't know if bill is still around i i did want a little more anecdotally i think he said that five cars were struck in his driveway or five cars that were parked in his driveway is there are there some traffic calming measures uh that are being anticipated uh for the i know bill spoke about a a turning lane but is is are there some other things going on out there uh that that uh transportation can make us aware of i mean if five cars were struck is it is it a speeding issue is it is what's going on can can can you just get a little more on that yes uh bill judge the uh i'm not sure the specifics of his location uh we can work with ncdo at and look at that certainly is a lot but um this is uh that's a fairly um with development on these old roads we call them sort of farm to market roads they were just sort of country roads that people utilized to move their products from the farm as the development occurs out there they were never really built to to handle modern modern traffic very expensive to rebuild and widen the modern standards um so i suspect what's happening is uh in those five incidences that it's someone's been running off the road either speeding not paying attention um and has lost control um unfortunately a lot a lot of times if there's minimal damage or not a lot of damage the person often drives off or goes unreported so we don't always get a good good history on that but um we can certainly work with ncdot to look and see if there's some sort of crash pattern out there that we're not aware of yeah i'm wondering and as a decision maker i'm wondering how much that should inform my decision before we put more uh traffic out there i know it'll be revenue positive upon annexation but but you know as decision maker that always makes me happy that the city's coffers will be benefited by an annexation but i but i don't want to do more harm uh than good also so i'm just wondering how much of that should inform i i think the uh mr cartis chimed in and said that he could respond to that or could say more about that mr mayor with your permission um i'd like to hear his here's a response to that that's all right sure um mad cart can you make mr cartis able to be heard he's unmuted mr mayor all right mr cartis do you have a response to councilmember milton concerning the traffic i do can everybody hear me okay yes we can great great so um so yeah so the proximity of the road what i'm talking about is is olive branch between that section of dock nickels and highway 98 so this neighborhood this road was actually a neighborhood road when it was developed in the 60s shawl hills estates just like any other subdivision that we're talking about development today it has since been cut through and and and a county road and and now it is a pass through between not only the develop we're talking about but all the developments around the area within five miles so the traffic intensity on this area has increased tremendously a recent subdivision that they added about seven or eight years ago maybe even longer ravenstone subdivision inconsequentially they had a cut through that wasn't even considered as the main input output and that goes right across to help right across from my street right over my house and so when you have a left turn lane and people are are are coming downhill speeding on a country road that no cars should be on in their opinion there are a lot of accidents and so the incidents is that i refer to in the five those are cars that ran off the road and hit my vehicles that has no recollection to the number of vehicles that have been hit in the street i have no idea how many there are but but i brought that up to allude to the fact that we say that the traffic capacity that roads is sufficient and that this doesn't pose a harm and maybe this one hundred home development does not but in the general context how many hundred home developments are we going to add to the area using inadequate data to say that there's no harm we've already overdeveloped the area for the road capacity that there is and so that's why i joined the call thank you very much mr cardus and thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember are there questions and comments at this time by members of the council any questions all right anyone else that has not been heard who are attending tonight like to be heard on this item this is a public hearing item mr mayor jamie soniac has her hand raised miss soniac would you like to comment yes um thank you just very briefly i did want to confirm the numbers that uh uh councilwoman freeman was asking about in terms of the floodplain i was having trouble with my mapping while while the meeting's been going on but i have been able to um confirm that the recreation open space percentage is approximately 48 percent of the site so 48 percent of the site and if the site is roughly 56 acres about 26 acres would be within the low density residential future land use designation if you then take the 108 lots proposed as part of the conservation subdivision then um then the average would be about a quarter of an acre so i i would agree with the um i think that was the about the calculation that was discussed previously thank you miss soniac you're welcome all right council members uh hearing no other comments or members of the public i'm going to declare this public hearing closed i'm sorry mr mayor mr cartes has his hand raised again yeah i'm sorry guys i just had some additional comments and in terms of the the opponents of them sorry the proposers for this and so please if i could have just a moment yes you may mr cartes so so i would hardly consider quarter acre lots conservative right so redeeming the subdivision as a conservative easement but that's only because half of the property that's within the property cannot be developed regardless um i would i would have a team recall to the ravenstone development in terms of what happened there where you had to sue your developer the immense and environmental damage that occurred because they did not complete the runoff strategy completely and and the and the sewer system the water was not right out that way um we talked about grading but that's not about runoff right so so if you develop an area adjacent to a natural flood plain the water still has to go somewhere so you've reduced that absorption rate and now you've added to the additional flooding on a creek that already floods right that flooding impacts the water quality and a left turn only line in front of this subdivision does not alleviate the entire traffic pattern around the area within a color two mile radius that this entire area is going to turn into a bunch of left lane turn only's neighborhoods right without a real traffic plan thank you thank you very much mr cartes um mr biker did you want to comment as well if i may i have to take exception we have an excellent team for macadams working on this and so i i've worked with the macadams company many projects over the last 20 years and we have to take exception to the specter of environmental degradation from this project this is an excellent team of engineers that is based in Durham and knows our stormwater and erosion control regulations very very well and we will observe them uh sprupulously and also call your attention to the traffic numbers in the staff report which show that these roads are well under half of their capacity thank you mayor fuel thank you mr biker all right you've heard from members of the public i'm now going to declare this public hearing closed again and uh i'm going to ask if there are now comments by members of the council council member freeman thank you mr mayor i i i think there were i i was really hesitant on the annexation and creating a donut hole the points that mr cartes make are even create even more hesitation i just i i really would like to to figure out how to to have a review in place prior to this coming forward and i know that um you know that uh with mr biker you mentioned and it's a local team and they're gonna you know work their hardest to make sure that they adhere to all regulations my concerns still stem from the way that the regulations have been have been weakened and um acknowledging just how much of a runoff problem we've we're seeing in some downtown neighborhoods uh that are all coming from the creeks and streams from upstream um i just have some with some serious concerns about you know developing in wetlands i've expressed those previously and i'll express it again and as we continue to develop in those areas it how we develop our erosion controls how we managed to monitor whether or not a lawsuit has been posed in the area because of a you know the way that the the sewer lines or what have you has been reviewed or how we build that into our review process uh i'm i'm really hesitant to move forward um positively with this tonight so i just just wanted to express my concerns and and just leave that where it is thank you thank you councilmember how the conflict and mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um i just wanted a comment that i'm also not ready to support um this annexation tonight i feel like the um the product that we're getting you know um expensive houses on big lots in the suburbs that's not enough um that's that doesn't benefit the city enough for me to be willing to overlook some of the other um issues that are of concern with the proposal primarily the the donut hole issue um and you know the the question of whether the conservation subdivision is actually resulting in any additional conservation that would be um then what would simply be you know then what would already be there because they can't develop in a flood plain anyway uh if this were you know if these homes were smaller and less expensive um were affordable to the majority of people in our community then i would feel more um like this annexation would benefit the city but for more large single family suburban homes i just don't feel like that's enough of a enough of a benefit the primary benefit we would get is is the increase to the tax base and i don't just don't think that's enough for me to to overlook um the other issues so just wanted to express that thank you thank you madam mayor pro tem any further comments by members of the council anyone else all right mr mayor i'm sorry um nick williamson would like to make a comment um um he's from the developer yeah i think we're we're past that point uh mr i would suggest that mr williamson enter his comment in the chat okay thank you if he had if once he enters the comment if i feel like it's something that needs to be addressed i would be happy to uh to do that so mr williamson um the public hearing is close at this point but we're happy to take your comment in the chat and then there may be a question for you from the member of the council other comments by members of the council council member race thank you mr mayor um appreciate the um the important conversation we've had tonight about um what this proposed development actually just what the proposed annexation would do we don't know what the development's going to look like uh we don't have a builder we don't really have price points beyond some back of the envelope calculations um by the way at some point uh somebody should go back and take a look at all the times over the last two and a half years or so that we've asked that the mayor pro tem especially has asked the question what are the price points on these units going to be let's let's go back and take a look at what actually happened i'm really curious i'm dying to know um and uh so anyway that's that's a side um i think we have faced a lot of these annexation requests over the last several months and i think there are a lot of factors in our community in the larger economy that are driving that um but i think annexations are very different from rezoning and a rezoning typically what we have is a developer um who said or a property owner who says i own this property i can do x with it i'd like to do x plus something i'd like to do more um and then as a council we have to decide do we like x or do we like x plus more or is there some other thing we can we can hope for down the road um with an annexation it's very different especially in this situation we know that if we don't annex this property into the city um 108 homes are not going to be built on this property um i can't tell you what's going to happen to that property but 108 homes will not be built and so we get to choose this is our choice we get to decide do we think it's worth annexing this property into the city see a huge chunk of it um the trees uprooted homes built there um and is that better than for our community than the way it sits now um and i will just tell you that for my personal opinion um i don't i don't the the case is not made to me that that is an improvement in our community um i appreciate the work that the applicant has done um around the conservation subdivision i would like to have seen a better case from the applicant that this actually benefits the anything beyond what the flood playing restrictions already uh protect um tried to get at that i think a couple of us tried to get that out of the cup at that a couple of different ways and they never really got a good answer to that um but ultimately um we get to decide um whether or not a particular project is in the best interest of our city and um these annexations are really a great opportunity for us to decide um just on the merits not in comparison to some other thing um that we that is kind of held out as the alternative um and so i'll be voting against the measure tonight thank you mr mayor thank you council member any other comments by members of the council okay i'll make a couple of comments um i appreciate everybody who's been here tonight and i appreciate the comments of my colleagues um i will uh i believe that this is a close call um let me just tell you that uh i think that a few of the issues that have been raised tonight are very problematic for our city uh and we've been hearing them a lot lately uh and i want to tell you about how i think we ought to uh think about them i just want to say again i don't think we ought to be uh turning down developments or thinking of the of trans uh because of uh transportation issues like the ones cited by mr cartes who was here tonight i think that uh these transportation issues exist all over the outskirts of Durham and if we're serious about trying to uh encourage more housing which i think we need very badly uh we're not going to be able to do that by solving the transportation issues first it's not going to happen and uh i think that's just a reality we have to face i am um i am i understand why someone who lives in an area where there's a lot of traffic i live in an area where there's a lot of traffic i understand why people who live in an area where there's a lot of traffic uh are concerned about that and i also very much understand why people who live near land that is not developed want to keep that land near them undeveloped i'll just say that i find that to be um an argument that i understand on the on the behalf of mr cartes or anyone that lives in that situation but i don't think that for our city those are positive reasons to turn down development nor do i think that the donut hole reason is good enough reason to turn it down that is to say a donut donut holes are certainly a factor but this is a contiguous development sometimes contiguous developments create donut donut holes uh and i think that it's again because of the kinds of annexation policies we have in our in our um in our state uh that's something we're stuck with it is certainly a factor i i agreed that that should be a factor that we would weigh in terms of the in terms of the the flooding uh issue and i i i want to say that i'm not when i um you know again it's on this particular development that is not a concern to me i believe i understand what mr part is saying about lique rique and the amount of money that was spent to to make it better and i believe that those are very important but i don't believe that that's an issue in this development i think that there's plenty of uh there's going to be plenty of ability to treat the storm water on this on this land and i'm not in any way convinced that that's a fact and i also want to say that you know that is um this is a larger policy question you know we have regulations in place that we're able to follow in terms of storm water so that leads me to um all of those reasons um i would say uh i i don't find as convincing reasons to be against the development so that leads me to what i think is the the choice which is encouraging uh encouraging housing development in Durham is really important uh and um i am on the other hand um i appreciated uh that what madam air pro tem raised about the price points uh or what we might think is what we're not sure of the price points which i do agree is problematic and um the uh the fact that although these are the yeah and the and the relative lack of density and i think those are important so i'm going to just say that uh weighing all those factors i think it's a close call i'll be voting in favor of this but i am also troubled by what madam air pro tem was troubled by uh and uh appreciate appreciate everyone's comments uh councilmember middleton thank you mr mayor and i really want to thank uh my colleagues uh and you mr mayor for this debate and this discussion um because it's a close call for me as well but there's nothing more frustrating to me than to get people excited about something and then when it comes time to actually do what you said you're going to do to kind of pull back from it and there's nothing also more frustrating than creating i think false expectations or false hopes or or hoisting a banner up a pole that you're not willing to defend across the board and consistently um a lot of what my colleagues have said resonates with me and and i you know every developer that comes in their individual meetings with us before we have these meetings i always ask first question i asked was the price points um but in in doing so it what we i think what we what we telegraph the focus that is there sets is there a certain price point that we're prepared to say as a government that as a council we will no longer approve going forward because whatever the price point is if it's a hundred thousand dollars three hundred thousand dollars a million dollars if there's no number that represent the threshold beyond which we will not go then that question is a question on a on a case by case basis but what it does and when i listen just as a resident citizen when i listen to the debate what it what it suggests to me is that uh-huh we're prepared not to approve any more developments unless they are affordable or if they don't pass a certain price point and i don't think we're prepared to say what that point is tonight so there's no need to create that expectation in our residents and citizens mind that we're now prepared to to mix or put the kibosh on any development beyond a certain price point i don't know what that number is and if it is that if we want to set that policy set that expectation that we probably need to start rewriting the udl and rewriting uh the land use plan and just just codify it just just put it in there but until then i fear you know i don't want to appear capricious uh to to our residents or developers moving forward that on a particular night because the debate went one way we're not going to approve that development but two months from now we have similar sets of facts and i know situations are different but a similar set of facts and then we approve that one and and and i don't want to sound a trumpet or raise a standard that we're not going to blow consistently and across the board um i have you know i take the staff recommendation seriously um i'm not an expert in any situation so so i have to depend on what the staff says and and i take very seriously what the residents and citizens uh say um as well be it anecdotal or experiential or what have you so i i i i the threshold of not approving this development just wasn't crossed for me either as well while taking into consideration uh the very valid points that our colleagues have made and i would just say if those points are valid and and and um compelling enough then let's codify those things in our udo let let let's just say let's just say we're not going to approve developments beyond a certain price point moving forward because we want affordable housing and deal with the consequences but but i do not want to appear capricious or arbitrary uh in my votes uh particularly when the developers if the eyes are dotted and the t's are crossed um i believe in those big issues that that my colleagues have uh uh uh uh in tone tonight i believe in them so much that i'm ready to codify them and just say them but until we do that um i want to i want to you know exercise um um well just just take it on a on a factual case by case basis so i will be supporting uh this development uh with respect uh to all that my colleagues have said and hope that those concerns will if we want to be that council that makes those things uh turn turn turn those words into flesh then i'm with you on that but until we do that um i find that the point you've made mr americ compelling uh so i'll be supporting the development tonight thank you thank you i really like it when people find what i say compelling councilmember it's very rare it happens from time to time i'm glad it happens every once in a while okay thank you thank you very much councilmember um is there anyone else a councilmember caballero yes thank you um i will not be supporting the cynic station this evening uh i said i'm not sure when there was the larger issue also an olive branch of a larger development that i felt that i i was the flip vote mayor show you and i flipped on that vote when it came back to us and i stated before my regret for supporting that because it doesn't well we know that uh to get transit we need to build density etc i feel like we're in just this very intense loophole about the kind of development we want what i do know is adding homes like this repeats a failure in policy of you know 50 years which is for all single family homes at price points that most people can't afford and so it doesn't answer broader policy questions and it doesn't necessarily answer the immediate need of housing that we know most people in Durham can't afford so i will not be supporting that annexation this evening thank you thank you councilmember and apparently you did not find my comments compelling all right uh colleagues uh councilmember freeman thank you mr mayor i did find your comments very compelling compelling enough to respond because i do think it's important to to note that i i continue to bring these these issues around the flood plain areas and what have you but i really do want us to figure out a work plan around addressing it on the council side to codify just what councilmember middleton mentioned because there is a way to make sure that we're getting the types of development that are beneficial to the city and and make sure that developers understand beforehand so it's not at each meeting that we're making decisions like that based on what we understand around erosion or stormwater in my case or whether it's affordability or you know size and square footage of a lot because i think it's important to make sure that everyone's aware of where we're going with this conversation i am concerned um as we continue to move forward especially in speaking to residents in the community the fear of of being priced out and the fear of you know knowing that there's so many huge developments coming online because the density is needed and so i really appreciate uh mayor pro tem's comments about recognizing there's a difference in this case that doesn't quite hit that um that primary benefit in a way that makes it beneficial to overlook some of the other areas which i know in the past i've brought up but i can i can definitely say that i will not be supporting this evening but i do want to find ways to make sure that we can support in the future that i can support because i do want to support um you know developers developing in a responsible way and i know that our local developers would do that i just i just know that the way that the context is set up right now this annexation uh right this moment with what we have in front of us seems a little loose and that's that's all thank you thank you all right council members i'm going to ask now is there a motion that we that see we need three motions uh to approve this item i believe uh let me just go to the item uh the first motion would be to adopt an ordinance annexing a la branch west so moved second the moved in second that we approve the motion adopting adopt the motion annexing a la branch west uh motion by councilmember freeman second by councilmember middleton madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul i mayor pro tem johnson no councilmember caballero no councilmember freeman no councilmember middleton i vote i councilmember reese no thank you very much madam clerk the motion fails to i for uh ney and i want to thank everyone for being here tonight uh making the cases that you did appreciate my council colleagues comments as well uh i believe we uh are now dispensed with this item and we will move on to item 46 annexation twin legs and we'll now hear from uh our our staff good evening jamey sunyak again with the planning department requests for utility extension agreement and voluntary annexation have been received from tim cybers of whorebouth associates for one parcel of land located at 1003 freeman road the annexation petition is for a contiguous expansion of the corporate city limits the proposed annexation area is part of a minor site plan not a conservation subdivision as referenced um uh as referenced previously um which is under review for 88 single family lots and four open space parcels inclusion of this parcel will allow for an additional three residential units and a roadway connection to clayton road the annexation is being requested in order to gain utilities um for this portion and the map must be recorded prior to site plan approval the site is presently zoned residential suburban 20 also located within the suburban tier and staff recommends an exact translation of the zoning designation um the proposed annexation area is consistent with the future land use designation on the comprehensive plan map um if approved this request will become effective on september 30th 2020 um city and county operational departments such as solid waste fire police and ems have reviewed this request the um potential impact of the analysis uh at full buildout while not known at this time could result in some reduction in the level of service provided by the police department the public works and water management departments have determined that the existing city of durham water and sewer sanitary uh uh systems have capacity for the proposed development the budget and management services department have determined that the proposed annexation will become revenue positive immediately following the annexation additional information on that can be found in the staff report staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances three motions are required for this application the first is to adopt the ordinance annexing the property and entering into a utility extension agreement the second would be for the consistency statement and then the third would be for the zoning ordinance itself staff is available for any questions that you have thank you thank you miss son yak uh you have heard your report from staff i'm now going to declare this public hearing open and first i want to ask are there any questions for staff by members of the council all right uh hearing none then um i see that there is one person that has signed up to speak on this item that is neil allen uh madame clerk can you please make mr allen available to speak he's been unmuted okay um can you can can you hear me yes we can mr allen and you have three minutes okay good evening mr mayor and members of the council my name is neil allen i am the vice president of whorebath associates um civil engineering land planning firm responsible for the design of the meadows at twin lakes adjacent subdivision um i'm here to answer any questions that you may have um and and that's it so thank you thank you very much mr allen is there anyone else present tonight who would like to be heard on this item is there anyone else who would like to be heard all right uh if not uh i'm going to declare this public hearing closed the matters back before the council you're muted steve oh thank you thank you uh they'll take three motions to that maybe you did not hear me say then that uh apologize that um there are being no further comments the public hearing is closed the matters back before the council uh and i'll ask now if there's a motion to approve this or if there are any comments that anyone from the council would like to make if not i'll accept um council member free i was just going to make sure that i noted um as council member middle 10 notes um and many of our zoning cases or like annexation cases or what have you that there is a difference in and location and acknowledging that in this area where 70 has put in a lot of infrastructure um there's we're already set to build out in this area so that the traffic is addressed and the utilities being added it makes sense it's kind of it kind of falls in line with where develop the way that the city is developing um with us with the help of the state and so i just wanted to make sure that i noted that there was a difference here in this case than the previous one thank you and if you're ready i'll make the motion go ahead council member would you like to move to adopt the ordinance annexing twin lakes into the city of Durham i move to adopt the twin lakes into the city of Durham thank you is there a second second moved by council member freeman seconded by council member reese madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi council member caballero council member freeman hi council member middleton hi council member reese hi thank you madam clerk i believe that council member caballero will be counted as a yes and so the uh motion passes six to zero thank you mr mayor i think that's not correct right with the virtual you're right that's right that's not correct on uh on an on a on a digital meeting is it so it's just it's five to zero motion passes five to zero thank you uh now we'll move to motion two to adopt a consistency statement so one second moved by council member middleton i believe seconded by council member reese madam clerk please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi council member caballero council member freeman hi council member middleton hi council member reese hi thank you madam clerk and the motion passes five to zero now we'll move to motion three to adopt the ordinance amending the udo so moved second moved by council member freeman seconded by council member reese madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi council member caballero council member freeman hi council member middleton council member reese hi thank you madam clerk the motion passes five to zero thank you mr allen mr mayor may i have a point of personal privilege of course i did just want to briefly respond to council freeman's observations i and this is kind of what i was talking about i don't know what the price points on these 88 units are going to be uh we didn't even ask and nobody even asked and i think that uh the suggestion that somehow that these cases are self-evident or on their face just readily recognizable as different one from another without any nuanced conversation i don't know that that's necessarily of the case i mean because we it's an opinion and and i respect each one of our opinions but that as decision makers we each have our read on a particular situation but i i do not want to the impression to be given that there's some type of rubric where it's just it's a priori it's just so so self-evident that this one merits and this one doesn't based upon you know some decisions that quite honestly we have not made uh as a council we have not codified we have not said what that threshold is beyond which we will not go so i just wanted to just respond to that i respect each one of our uh the prerogative of each one of us to make decisions on a case by case basis but um there's no cut and dry oh this is i at least in my opinion so evident or so distinct one from another that we can go with this one and not that one uh and again i would say we don't even know what the price points on these 88 units are uh but you know they're approved so thank you mr. mayor thank you council member council member freeman and then we're going to move on to the next item thank you i just wanted to note that along the same lines this is why the codifying of those items would be so important and i look forward to having those conversations i try to explain my rubric each time because i do know that it's different for each case thank you thank you council member we'll now move on to item 47 street closing cube place this is also a public hearing item and we'll hear from staff good evening uh jamey sannyak again with the planning department um martin james lazif and john henderson have requested to permanently close cube place it is an 89.91 linear foot unimproved right of way located east of suffolk street if closed the right of way area will be combined recombined with the adjacent properties to create two new flag infill lots which will conform to the current residential suburban 10 zoning regulations both lots will have access off of suffolk street staff finds that this closing uh staff finds that closing this right of way will not be adverse to the general public since cube place does not provide any interconnectivity between public streets it is essentially surrounded by development and would function as a cul-de-sac if built as currently designed um the requests here meet applicable ordinance requirements and all issues raised during the review process um they have been addressed staff recommends the permanent closure of of cube place um i know i will be happy to answer any questions that you have thank you very much miss sunyak you've heard the report from staff and now i'm going to clear this public hearing open and first i'm going to ask if there are any questions for miss sunyak by members of the council council member freeman just the random just thinking about is there a payment made for the acreage added i'm just wondering if there was if that was something i missed when there's a street closing and you're like almost doubling the size of the lot there is in terms of uh added fees the only thing that i could think of um would be through the permit process when they could would come in for um their uh their building plans and their co's but there would not be any additional associated fees there's no there's no development plan associated with this case so the the zoning is essentially going from um there's no change in the existing zoning they're going to be conforming to their requirements set forth uh in the rs10 so i'm not aware of any additional fees that would come in mr bondfield did you want to comment i did mr man thank you uh miss sunyak i presumed that q place was created by a plat as opposed to fee simple right away i would i i do not know how it was originally created uh sir i'm sorry about that um i think the city attorney may want to comment then in terms of disposition of a fee simple right away versus a platted right away in what flexibility or opportunity the city has to you know require any fees for vacating the two different kinds of right away so i would need to know how the property is designated um i can't really speak to it if i don't have that i'm right i don't know either kim i just am saying if if it's if it was platted right away then i believe the process for vacating right away is just that that it is goes to you know have to either side of the adjacent property owners in the city does not have an opportunity to require payment to vacate that right away this is if we if we acquire it by fee simple through some other measure then they think that's a different form of of right away ownership but you know at time i want to defer to don a tool who probably is considered this exact question and i think he's on the call thank you i was i didn't see him listed so otherwise i would have mentioned that thank you yes don's here don um would you like to comment yes and i i was trying to get your all attention yes this is my attention thank you uh donnell tool city attorney's office um this is an example of a dedicated right of way and as the manager said it would have been dedicated through a plat and then there's a there's a street closing statute that basically says if there's dedicated but unopened right of way if the applicant goes through the street closing process then the right of way can be closed and it it basically lays out how the property should be apportioned among the adjacent parcels and no there there's no payment to the city because it it isn't the city's property thank you thank you mr otul i'm glad to see that mr bonfield is still adding value um good job tom okay um let's see uh other we've we've we've got two people signed up to speak on this item both of them proponents uh mr martin uh blasevich and mr tom tebow and i'm assuming that mr tom tebow must be twin brothers with a quarterback um he can he can either affirm or not once he's speaking but first of all um we'll hear from mr blasevich and you have three minutes can you hear me yes we can um yes i'm the applicant and um i don't really have anything to add um tom tebow knows everything about this lot i was hoping he would speak first um so we'll let him let him speak all right yeah questions you can ask me okay yes thank you mr blasevich mr tebow thank you good evening mr mayor thank you very much distinguished council members my name is thomas tebow i'm a professional land surveyor in north carolina and i prepared the map that i assume you have in front of you which demonstrates the uh vacation of q place where we are vacating the street and it's going simultaneous conveyance to either sides uh to to the adjacent owners involved those adjacent owners have had discussed this thoroughly and agreed with the uh with the vacation or the abandonment if you will uh this is just for to better to create better quality of the property that they both own uh the street so there's no real purpose to the general public and uh as far as revenue for this uh this will become more taxable property by the owners once they acquire this property and increases their the tax revenue of the property therefore increasing their taxes so this city will get uh tax revenue from this in the future uh that's all i have i'm open to any questions you may have about the history of q place or how it was created or um anything else you may want to ask thank you very much for your time i appreciate you thank you mr tebow um is there anyone else present uh on this call tonight who would like to be heard on this item this is a public hearing item is there anyone else that would like to be heard all right i have a question for the applicant these are going to be flaglots mr tebow and and uh i um i was trying to figure out exactly how they'll be designed when i was looking at this property how will that work well one of them calm out of where will they where will they actually be they actually will they they there will be two lots that will be flaglots and we went through the review process of the city dorm and these were accepted through the planning department for this particular layout um and the existing q place 50 foot right away will be abandoned at we are also providing a recombination of the existing lots because of the way the lots were laid out um uh mr henderson earned the property behind him but there were two separate lots and in actuality his property was was basically landlocked uh q place in this origin was actually a bulb called the sack and as it was remapped and remapped throughout the years top of the bulb was cut off thus leaving the one parcel somewhat landlocked so we've combined mr henderson's property we we did a a slight variation of recombination of the two lots that mr blasvich owns in the rear and of course his his other property um it's just assuming a small portion of the vacation while uh you know mr henderson is also getting some of that uh vacated so it will be accessed with a common easement but we're also providing the easement uh for mr henderson on the left side uh for his back back lot which the back portion of his lot that we're creating i hope that answers your question good enough mr tebow thank you welcome colleagues uh anyone else have a question for the applicant all right if not i'm going to declare this public hearing close the matters before the council uh we would need one motion which is to do adopt an order permanently closing 89.89.91 linear feet of q place so move second then moved by council member freeman seconded by mayor pro tem johnson that we adopt the order madam clerk please call a roll mayor shul uh your pro tem johnson i council member caballero i council member freeman i council member middleton i vote i council member east hi thank you madam clerk the the the motion passes six to zero we now have one more item uh on our agenda which is item 16 it's my understanding now that the person that signed up to speak in that actually didn't mean to pull it but only meant to make themselves available should they uh should we uh need them to speak is that is that uh correct i'm uh the only person i see uh prepared to speak on this item is mr dan jewel and that was my understanding from the text that i received or rather a chat that i received um is there anyone on this uh call besides mr. jewel that would like to be heard on item 16 mr. mayor there is an individual with their hand raised under attendees the call in user all righty i believe that might be in this plus mr. mayor who uh contacted the clerk's office to indicate that she wanted that item pulled tonight okay so that's the reason that i can't tell that here thank you um can you make the call in user available please yes good evening mayor shul and members of council can i be heard hi is this miss plus it is indeed thank you very much yes miss plus uh you have three minutes thank you thank you kindly yes um i am opposed to expediting kc 19 quadruple 036 because expediting it negatively impacts the public interest for informed engagement it also risks running counter to the community involvement and engagement promises of the engaged Durham program z19 quadruple 30 quadruple 036 uniquely calls for the creation and implementation of new zoning powers which were prohibitively uh which were previously expressly prohibited in Durham's udo and which are generally avoided by most municipalities in north carolina and throughout the nation because those previously forbidden powers known as statutory development agreements have the future potential to impact many in Durham the public has the right to be substantially informed and significantly engaged in any action pursuing their introduction and use these powers should not be obtained swiftly during a pandemic Durham former planning director uh just left and today the city manager announced that he will also leave and i feel that now is not the best time for Durham to be experimenting with legally risky zoning the zoning map change application shows that the proposed development agreement intends the total of 332 dwelling units on a site of 8.03 acres and the staff memo states that the current zoning is two units per acre this unseen proposal effectively changes the density from two to 41 units per acre expediting a process intending a highly non-standard 20 old density increase in a residential district while simultaneously devising new powers sets a dangerous precedent and cuts the time by up to 90 days or three months for the planning commission and the public to be substantially informed and knowledgeably engaged there are so many unanswered questions could statutory development agreements be used to circumvent future environmental protection or to reduce input from certain boards and commissions do these agreements have a history of lawsuit or a potential to lead to corruption exactly what public oversight will be available these kinds of agreements create the option for elite developers whereby the normal zoning rules don't have to apply by fee or by barter the rules can be tailored just for them meanwhile the rest of Durham its citizens and neighborhoods have to abide by the zoning code therefore it appears that this tool by design ensures the process that is unequal and inequitable at the JCCPC meeting in June Patrick Young introduced statutory development agreement saying quote we think this tool can be used much more broadly going forward that intent combined with the litigious nature of such agreement makes this case relevant to all of Durham not just the area surrounding Farrington Road and all of Durham should have ample time to be informed and involved expediting the case denies that expediting the 19 quadruple 036 and its hidden twin pc2 quintuple 03 is not in the public interest even though ultimately the pursuit of public housing is thank you very much thank you very much miss plas we have one other person signed up to speak and that would be mr dan joule mr joule can you be heard i hope so mr mayor members of council how are you this evening good mr joule would begin by giving you three minutes and then we'll see how we go from there thank you sir it shouldn't take that long i had not intended to speak tonight just to be available to answer any questions there were so many things that came out of the the previous speaker once one we are not here tonight asking for expediting a development agreement by any stretch of the imagination what we are here for is what is a uh an extraordinary proposal first time ever in Durham we have a market rate developer who's been working closely with an affordable housing developer for nearly two years and is coming through with a development plan proposal to create 82 affordable housing units in an area that was changed to compact suburban design district last year calling for this kind of density right on a future transit corridor whatever that might be the reason that we're asking for the expedited request uh is that this project will need uh affordable housing tax credits there is a deadline the end of this year the only way we can get to that deadline will be for you to hear this case in october and get past the 60 day potential appeal period after that uh you will not be abrogating any public input uh we will still move forward to the planning commission we will still move forward to the city council and i it's not known widely but even though a neighborhood meeting was not required for this project we actually did hold one three weeks ago we reached out to everybody who owned property within 600 feet met all the statutory requirements for a public information meeting we had eight or nine neighbors attend they all asked good questions and i think we satisfied those so the only request tonight is that we uh be we granted this this this attempt to be able to move this forward to you in a way that if you should approve it in october then they can go for the affordable housing tax credits otherwise it will be at least another six months until they can go for those credits and i hope we all agree that 82 affordable housing units on a future transit corridor in a future land use map area that's already designated for higher density residential is is an appropriate request so thank you for your attention to see this thank you mr jule this is a public hearing item is there anyone in attendance tonight who would like to be heard on the side anyone else who is not spoken on this item like to be heard all right thank you now i'll ask council members are any comments or questions that you have uh for the applicant uh for miss pless or for members of the staff council member freeman thank you mr mayor um i i i appreciate that this item was pulled and i couldn't agree more with miss pless about the circumstances and and the situation where uh it does appear like it's moving forward without um engagement from the public and i appreciate um mr jule explaining that the public would still be engaged i just wanted to note again that this is a specific situation the opportunity to present um to the to the state of north carolina how actually uh affordable housing could be done overrides uh some of the pushback i would give on engagement and forcing this project to move ahead of other projects um this is this is a big um chance for us to show uh regular developers across the state just what could be done with uh with the lie tech or the low income um tax credit at the four percent and acknowledging that so many folks have said you can't build at four percent affordable housing and communities and so i'm supportive of this of this tonight and when you're ready mr mayor i would like to make a motion thank you council member council member race thank you mr mayor i don't say this often enough but i agree with every single word that council member freeman just said uh the only thing and i need to say it more um the only thing i will add is that miss pless is a passionate and persuasive advocate um against the uh udo text amendment that's currently being uh considered by the planning commission and i know that she will continue to remain engaged on that issue uh but i don't think that question has salience for the decision we make tonight uh ultimately this council i believe will be presented uh with a version of the udo text amendment concerning statutory development agreements um and i know that when that happens uh we will um as the planning commission will do we will give it our our a great i will kick the tires and give it all the review that it needs before we make a decision about it but um as pertains to this particular agenda item which what she said thank you thank you any other comments from members of the council madam mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um i just wanted to comment that i'm really excited about this development and wanted to um appreciate the folks who are who are trying to make this happen um 80 affordable housing units with no request for contribution from the city is um is unusual and is exactly what we need to see more of in our community and um i'm happy to expedite the process through through the planning commission so that this developer will have the opportunity to do that it has the potential to um to make a huge difference in the lives of 80 families in our community and that's that's really important so thank you thank you any other comments all right um hearing none i'm going to clear this public hearing closed no this is no public hearing i'm not declaring it closed i'm going to say that uh we we're we're at the end of our discussion on this item uh and we would need let me go to mr mayor yes i would like to make a motion to move the expedited hearing request with zoning map chain z 19 000 0 0 3 6 thank you road multifamily perfect thank you is there a second second second moved by councilmember freeman seconded by mayor pro tem um madam clerk madam clerk please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton i vote i councilmember east hi thank you thank you the motion passes six to zero thank you folks uh thank you there being no other business to come before this body i'm going to declare this meeting adjourned at nine o'clock thank you wow that is a modern record yeah we need to do that more often uh colleagues i will see you um on thursday at the work session and look forward to it very much good night everybody have a great night everybody take care thank you miss class