 And I look forward to your approval of this item. Thank you very, very much, Mr. Johnson. Colleagues questions and comments for Mr. Johnson at this time. Questions and comments for Mr. Johnson. Councilmember Caballero. Good evening. I'm just wondering, we're getting some questions in the chat about if we're recording without the sound working or not. And I just wanted to. I know that sounds still not working on social media. Now we've got a question from staff about it. I think that's a question actually from council member Freeman. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And now it's saying the sound is working. Okay. Good. All right. Any questions or comments on this item for Mr. Johnson. Councilmember Caballero and then mayor pro tem Johnson. Yes, I just wanted to let my colleagues know I, when we discussed this item at the work session, I had a lot of questions for staff. Still didn't feel very comfortable with how we were proceeding. And so had more conversations last week with other folks in the community. And then again with staff on Friday. And I want to say that after kind of digging deeper and I really want to appreciate Karen Lotto from community development because she got in the weeds with me some on Friday. And I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it today and I appreciated really hearing from them. And what I want to lift up is that this process. I was real stuck on. That folks were going to have to interact with DSS. And that that sometimes is a barrier or hang up for residents. And what was. Clarified for me on Friday is that the process that we will be. Moving forward with. DSS, which is a county. Community development. And this will be able to interact online with the application with support, hopefully from other nonprofits. And so this kind of vision of people having to work within DSS or having to go to DSS or having to make appointments with them. Although that may be a mechanism to access the money is not going to be the only mechanism to access the money. And that there has been some very important and deep conversations with our. Refugee resettlement organizations with El Centro, which is a very important part of the process. And I think it's a very important part of the process. And I think it's a very important part of the process that we need. To fulfill the documentation requirements. And so after having had those conversations, I am. I will be supporting the staff's recommendation tonight. I really want to acknowledge all the work that's gone into it. I'm excited. That this is going to helpfully also help how folks. Get assistance. Just moving forward because of the tech platform that's going to be built out that will support other projects. And I'm excited to be able to share that with my colleagues. Thank you, council member. Mayor pro tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I also had a lot of questions about this item at our work session. And. After hearing from council member Caballero about her conversation with the department, I feel more comfortable with giving this item to the county. My only remaining, I mean, the, I feel like the question still around, you know, the speed of getting. Funding out the door. Remains. And I was wondering if we could. Hear from staff about. Just the expectation around the timeline for this money to happen. And I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. If you recall, we did share with you that the timeline, we were looking at the middle of March and that was at the work session. But as I shared with you, the situation is very fluid. And we had rules that promote come down after the work session. Since the work session, which we're looking to interpret interpret and make sure we can apply. And based upon the information that we have as well as the current information that we have now, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. And after this, we have this conversation tonight. It looks like we'll look at March 29th. They're about to be able to have money distributed. With the current information that we have now. Sorry, when you, thank you, Mr. Johnson. When you say distributed, do you mean from us to the county or do you mean from the county to the residents? County to the residents. We said, open up the program. We're not going to open up the program. We're not going to open up the program. We're not going to open up the program. What that means is that the program will be open up for application. That does not necessarily mean that somebody will receive a payment on the date, but the program will be open for receiving applications. Okay. Thank you. Do you know if the county staff has a sense of the time, like the timeline of actually getting the money into the hands of residents. I think we're going to have some questions regarding the information. So we'll go on from DSS online. And she on the call, and she may be able to give a little bit more insight to that specific question. Thank you. Good evening. And I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you about our programs that we have at DSS. We were able to get some information back from and our average length of turnaround time for the whole program was right around 21 days. And obviously we think that is way too long. So we're looking more for a 10 day turnaround for this program from application to check being sent to the vendor. Obviously we're always open and interested in finding ways that we can get to the money faster, which is why we are implementing such a robust data system. So we're there. Do that answer your question, Mayor Pertin? Yes, that was very helpful. Thank you. I also appreciate the work that you're planning to do with nonprofit organizations to help people apply and help facilitate that process. I think that'll be a big help as well. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you colleagues for asking those questions and I guess making sure to kind of hit back on some of the things we talked about in the work session. Just following up on the check question. I know I did share an email earlier today and I know it was kind of last minute, but I did want to just check back in and see if there was any followup on whether or not that had to be a check rather than a direct deposit or another AHC payment so that we're not doing the, chase the check that got lost in the mail work as well. Council Member, I'm going to turn to Ms. Gardner-Gang to answer that question on whether there were other means of persons receiving their payments other than by a traditional check. Again, thank you for allowing us to bring more information forward and we absolutely agree that the check writing way of doing business is a little old school and we have been putting pressure on and obviously looking into different ways but definitely reaching out to County Finance to figure out a more robust way to make sure all of our vendors are being paid in the most efficient manner possible so that none of our payments are being lost for anyone so I appreciate that question because that's really something that our entire system is needing some updating on. Thank you, I appreciate that followup and I'll keep an ear out to hear about what other robust ways you have to get those payments out and I will follow up and say that I did share about a nonprofit organization that has been doing work with the state and so I'm hopeful that you'll follow up with them as well in your nonprofit conversations. I do appreciate all the support because I haven't been asking a lot of questions since our work session so thank you. Sure, thank you. Thank you, Council Member, Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, good evening, sir, good evening, Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem colleagues and everybody watching Happy Women's History Month as we kick it off at the beginning of March. I listened very intently to the conversation about this when last we met and I have to say that the fact that Councilor Caballero, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson feel better about it makes me feel better about it because I shared some of their concerns so I'm glad that they feel better about it. I do wanna say to you, Director Johnson, good to see you. I have utmost confidence that you get where we are in terms of the urgency of this issue. It's no different than when we wanted to get money out the door as quickly as possible to help business owners, small business owners during COVID. It was urgent then, it's urgent now but we also wanted to be efficient. And as I looked through the memo and the supporting materials, I was intrigued by the observation that because of some existing programs we already have some existing databases. Some of the verification, some of the questions we need to ask for verification can be circumvented because we already know that if you qualify for this type of program, you've already met income verification but there is of course a concern that we don't duplicate the money because we not only wanna help people quickly we wanna help as many people as possible. And there are a lot of people in our city and our county that haven't gotten anything yet. And so one concern is that if we use existing databases and existing reference points to identify folk who qualify we also wanna make sure that those folk haven't already gotten money for the same type of purpose that the e-wrap money is designated for. So I just wanted to observe that but I have utmost confidence in you, Director Johnson that you get it and you know how important this is that we get this money out the door. The other example I was gonna say about in terms of turning money over to the county, we're about to turn almost a million dollars over to the county to bolster and muscularize the violence interrupter program. So I'm comfortable when we can find areas to work together when we can work, not reinvent the wheel rather than have two cars on the same road if we can all get in the same car. I think that's a good idea and I have confidence in your leadership. I do wanna ask though about where are we in terms of identifying the vendor for the software purchase that needs to be done? How far along do we know where we're gonna get that software? Rhonda that already been identified and how soon do we expect to have that purchase made and the software operable? So thank you Council Member for your question. I will respond with the second question first. I'll let the county to provide the details on the software acquisition. They have been the lead on that. What we're going to do is portion portion of funding that we have for them given what the rules allow for to let them use portion of our allocation to purchase the software. But I'll let one of the members from the county staff say exactly where they are in the process. Reginald, hi, this is Ben Rhodes, Director of Social Services for Durham County. Good evening everybody and thank you all again for this wonderful discussion. I would like to say to Council Member Middleton, thank you for bringing out that point about the categorical eligibility, which is a nice feature of this ERAP program that we will be able to use our databases internally to look at programs such as food and nutrition and Medicaid where the income information is there. And that will really be a, I hope a process to help us get to decisions and process applications quicker than say like the HOPE program where we had in the HOPE program again, which was laid over to us by the state we had five stages we had to go through including income verification. So I think that's gonna be a really good step to helping us be more efficient. And we are definitely gonna be putting a priority on making sure that we are not serving people that have received benefits through the HOPE or the CV program. That is definitely one of the big focuses. And I think the partnerships hopefully that we'll be able to develop with the nonprofits and potentially legal aid as well too will really help us look at those applications first and kind of put them into first priority. In terms of the software, I'll let Janine talk a little bit more about that. She's been a bigger part of that than I am, but we are ready. We have selected a vendor. They looked at three vendors, I do believe and our County IS&T department was a part of that. And we have selected a vendor that they have a relationship with and will be, the programs will have more compatibility with some of our existing software which will be a benefit to us not only for emergency rental assistance programs but potentially all our financial assistance programs that we do. But I'll let Janine talk a little more specifically about what we may have coming there. So actually we're very excited about our new data management system because we have the capacity to actually have it custom made for every single thing that we need to have happen from categorical eligibility to working within our own DSS and Durham County system to try to integrate and find the information as quickly as possible so that we're making decisions as fast as possible. I think with the five stages that Director Rose just referred to that very much slowed down the process with hope. And we are trying to make every effort to make this be as fast as we possibly can. We know the money needs to get out there. We know that money needs to be in the hands of our most vulnerable and least served population which is why we're setting some priorities and definitely working with those nonprofits so that we are reaching those who may not ever want to reach out to us. Thank you, that's been always good to see you. And Janine, thank you so much. That's all I have. I'll yield back to Mr. Mayor. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Council Member. Other questions, colleagues? All right, Mr. Rose and Ms. Gordon, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate the work you're doing. Mr. Mayor? Yes. I apologize, I couldn't see my hand but just one additional question. And this specifically is for Reginald in regards to I guess integration. I just want to make sure that we're looping back into the integration conversation with their system and it's something that'll talk to us as well for future funding opportunities. So Council Member, would you elaborate just a little bit? Make sure I'm understanding your question. So the system that they're using, I just want to make sure that it's something that you're familiar with. Oh yes, absolutely. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. I wasn't clear on what you were asking but yes, yes, most definitely. Okay. Absolutely. Council Member Caballero? Yeah, I have one final question and it's probably for some of the folks at DSS but when folks who apply, so maybe the parent doesn't have, they're not able to qualify for Medicaid or food stamps but their kids qualify. How is that going to work with rent assistance? Because I get what you're doing in the sense of you're potentially flagging folks to qualify. I'm thinking of a lot of our undocumented residents that we know will be able to access this money but the kids are the ones who are getting the services because the kids are the ones who are US citizens. So can you explain to me how that's going to work? Yes, thank you for that question. So basically the way I'm understanding in Reginald Engineering, please correct me if I'm wrong, the ERAP program works is we will be looking at the household income only. It doesn't matter about the documentation status whatsoever. So if there are children that are qualified and the parents maybe are not in our system or not properly are not documented, we will have to probably look at their income. But again, if they are meeting that income threshold that is all that matters for this program. So which is of course 80% AMI with the priority group being the 50% AMI. So we would still probably have to look at that because we have to look at, as I understand it all income in the household that's applying the page rent. But we would definitely work hopefully with partners there especially to bring ESA that and verify the income in the traditional way. Okay, so would you all potentially be sending communications where you're flagging families that qualify because they've already qualified for other services. So like in Durham Public Schools, if you are on Medicaid, you automatically qualify for free and reduced lunch. And they just send you a letter saying, hey, your kid qualifies for this program. Is it gonna work similar to that? Yes, that's basically how categorical eligibility works. If the household, if the entire household is receiving a food and nutrition or Medicaid benefit, then they would be deemed eligible for the ERAP program. Perfect, thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you, council member. Any other questions? All right, again, Mr. Rose and Ms. Gordon, we appreciate you very much. Thank you. And we appreciate the work that you're gonna be doing on behalf of our residents. It was very, very great. Thank you. Thank you for all that you did. I'm very appreciated. Thank you. We need a motion to now resolve that the city manager be authorized to execute an interlocal agreement with Durham County to support emergency rental assistance for low-income households. That'll be our first motion. So moved. Second. Moved by council member Reese. Seconded by council member Freelon. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. Aye. Council member Middleton. Aye. Council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously. The second motion will be to approve the commitment of up to 8,414,809 dollars in US Treasury Emergency Rental Assistance Program funds for a joint city county emergency rental assistance program for low-income households. Can I have a motion to that fact? So moved. Second. Moved by council member Reese. Seconded by council member Caballero. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. Aye. Council member Middleton. How about aye? Council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously. And again, thank you to Ms. Gordon and Mr. Rose for being with us. And thank you, Mr. Johnson. Colleagues, we'll now move to the next item on our agenda, which is a public hearing item. This is a major special use permit item, item 19, 5,002 Guardian Drive major special use permit. And as you all know, the major special use permit permits, public hearings have special rules. They also have a script, which I'm going to begin by reading. The next matter is agenda number 19, which includes a major special use permit application for 5,002 Guardian Drive application number M1800001. I would like to start by acknowledging that this meeting is being conducted remotely on an electronic platform as permitted by session law 2020-3. The Clark and planning staff will control the presentation and the ability to screen share. This meeting is being broadcast live on the city's YouTube site and is accessible through Zoom. Before we begin this hearing, I would like to provide some important information about the steps taken to ensure that each party's due process rights are protected as we proceed in this remote platform. The applicant was notified that this meeting will be conducted using a remote electronic platform. During registration, the applicant was asked to consent to counsel conducting the evidentiary hearing using this remote platform. The newspaper and mail notices for this meeting contained information on how the public can access this remote meeting. These notices contained information about the registration required for this meeting, along with information about how to register to be a speaker. I would now like to confirm that everyone who was registered to speak on this item consents to the matter proceeding in this remote platform. Madam clerk, would you please unmute those that are registered to speak on this matter and those that I have registered to speak are Barasat Syed and Cliff Cretl, those of the two that I have and I don't, if there's anyone else who would like to speak on this matter and is not one of those two people, could you please raise your virtual hand or please let us know in the chat. I see Larissa Sybel's hand raised. Ms. Sybel, are you interested in speaking on item 19? Okay, I think not. Okay. So again, I see, I do not see Barasat Syed. Is Barasat Syed here? Mr. Mayor, I do not see Mr. Syed. All right, then Mr. Cretl, are you here? I am. Can you see me? Yes. This is Mr. Syed, we're here with me. Okay, so do you all, I'm asking the two of you consent to this case being heard via this remote platform? Yes. You both do? Yes. Thank you. All right. The hearing in this matter is judicial in nature. It will be conducted in accordance with special safeguards. Witnesses must be sworn in, they are subject to cross-examination and written evidence should have already been provided to staff for incorporation into the record. Madam Clerk, would you now swear in those who have registered to speak this evening? And I believe that that involves Mr. Cretl and Mr. Syed. Mr. Mayor, I just promoted them to panelists. All right, thank you. Can you please read them, swear them in, Madam Clerk? Definitely. Mr. Cretl and Mr. Syed, please raise your right hands and respond to the following question. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence and testimony you shall give to the city council in the case in which you signed up to participate shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Mr. Cretl and Mr. Syed, have you heard that? Can you please unmute yourself and let us know what you have to say? I do, I do. All right, thank you very much. Thank you both. And thank you, Madam Clerk. Good afternoon, everyone. Good evening, excuse me. I'm Eliza Monroe representing the Planning Department. I know in just a second, Ms. Monroe. I believe that I've got to do a little bit more work and then I'll get to you, okay? All right. Do any council members need to withdraw from consideration in this case because of a conflict that will prevent them for rendering a fair impartial decision in this matter? Have any council members heard information about this case other than what may have been presented at work session or in the staff report? If so, please disclose that information at this time. All right. If an attorney or representative wishes to cross-examine a witness during this hearing, please raise your hand and zoom while the witness is testifying and you will be recognized to cross-examine the witness when the witness has finished testifying. Each side may raise objections to the admission of evidence on the basis of relevance, hearsay or any other evidentiary ground. Again, this should be done by raising your hand and zoom. Questions concerning admissibility will be handled by the city attorney. We will first hear from city staff who have studied the request, excuse me, then from the applicant and then from opponents to the application, if any. We will now open the hearing and we will now hear from city staff. Ms. Monroe, I believe that's Europe and welcome. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Eliza Monroe here representing the planning department. I would 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 on file in the planning department. Before we begin, planning staff would also like to request that all agenda item materials submitted for this public hearing be made part of the public record with any necessary corrections as noted. I know we don't do these very often, so I'll just kind of give a brief summary of what I'm about to do. I'll be giving a staff analysis or a report of what the information that you all had inside your packet. Also, after that time, I'll open up the floor so that the applicant may speak if they'd like and there are a couple of attachments that I might reference or pull up and share my screen so that everyone can see if they're called into question. Back to this case. The request for a major special use permit M180001 and a major site plan D1700380 have been received from applicant and property owner, Farrisette Said, to construct a commercial office building totaling 10,500 square feet on a 1.25 acre site-zoned office institutional and residential suburb in 20. And it's located within the major transportation corridor I40. A 100 foot major transportation corridor buffer is required to be provided along the perimeter of the property line adjacent to the designated right of way. Ms. Monroe, would you suspend for a minute, please? Mr. Mayor, forgive me, sir. I'm hearing another, I don't know if anybody else hears, I'm hearing another conversation in the background. I don't know if somebody's microphone might be open up to clerk and see to that. Pardon me, Ms. Monroe, I'm sorry. I think that everyone, please just check your own microphone and make sure everyone who's not, Ms. Monroe, is on mute. Thank you, thank you, Councilman. Go ahead, Ms. Monroe. Okay, thanks so much for that. I'm trying to figure out if it's myself. I also have someone that's working here as well. And it's also in the meeting, so I apologize if it's myself. So when essentially a 100 foot, a 100 foot MTC buffer is required to be provided along the perimeter of the property line adjacent to the designated driveway per section 4.9.3B.2 of the Unified Development of Ordnance, henceforth referred to as the UDO. When a site plan is associated with a major specialist permit, that site plan shall also be considered a major site plan, which requires governing body approval. If the council approves the major specialist permit, then the council should also consider the approval of the associated major site plan, case D1700380. This site plan item does not require a public hearing, but does require a separate vote for approval. If the council elects to deny the major specialist permit, the associated major site plan should not be approved as the site plan would not be in compliance with applicable UDO standards. The applicant is requesting a major specialist permit for a 70 foot reduction to the MTC buffer requirement to prevent only a 30 foot buffer to be located along the perimeter of the property. This requires the issue of the major specialist permit per UDO section 4.9.3B.2. If the 100 foot buffer requirement was met, the buffer would cover nearly all of the land. A site plan has been submitted in conjunction with the stress request that was attachment 3B within your packet, and that site plan is currently under review and is clear of all comments. Per UDO section 3.9.8, there are four general findings and 13 review factors that must be addressed in order to grant a specialist permit. These findings and review factors are identified in the staff report, attachment three of the packet, as well as within the application, which is attachment 3A. The fourth findings that the proposed use must meet is are as follows. It must be proved to be in harmony with the area and not substantially injurious to the value of properties in the general vicinity. It must be in conformance with all special requirements applicable to be used. It will not adversely affect the health or safety of the public and will adequately address the review factors identified below. The 13 review factors must address how the development manages, A, circulation, B, parking and loading, C, service entrances and areas, D, lighting, E signs, F utilities, G, open spaces, age environmental protection, I, screening, buffering and landscaping, J, the effect on adjacent property, including but not limited to noise, odor, lighting and traffic, K, compatibility, L, consistency with policy and M and the other factors as required by the unified development ordinance. Staff has analyzed the application and finds that most of the factors above meet ordinance requirements and were verified through the site plan process. However, the applicant must show how the proposed development does not adversely affect adjacent property in regards to value, noise, odor and traffic and is compatible with the property in the adjacent area. As an office use with no outdoor speaker, staff does not anticipate noise will be created by this use. A noise analysis is not required to be provided by the applicant for a major special use permit. Regarding traffic, the proposed use does not require a traffic impact analysis or TIA as the number of trips to this site will not generate more than the threshold 149 peak hour trips. Traffic may increase on the access road as this site is currently vacant and adjacent to two vacant properties on either side. The applicant is required to provide motor vehicle parking spaces based upon the square footage of the building and there will be 42 motor vehicle parking spaces located on site. The generation of odor is not anticipated from this proposed office use and lighting for the site was reviewed during the site plan process and is in compliance with video section 7.4. The applicant must provide evidence to demonstrate that the findings and review factors are being met. If the governing body fails to find or informants with the conditions and factors listed then the proposed special use permit must be denied. However, if the applicant provides evidence that demonstrates the findings and the review factors are being met the governing body must approve the use permit. Plenty staff will make a recommendation for the special use permit prior to a vote on the public hearing. After all evidence has been presented staff will also be available for any questions related to the permit request during the hearing. And if there are no questions for playing staff at this time I will yield the floor to the applicant to present their case. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ms. Monroe. Colleagues, are there any questions for city staff from the council or any party at this time? Ms. Monroe, I have a question. One of the 13 factors had to do with screening, buffering and landscaping. And really this permit seems to me to revolve around the applicant's desire to have less of a buffer than is required in this quarter under our regulations to reduce the buffer from a 100 foot to a 30 foot buffer. Have I got that right? That is correct. I will clarify, reduce the NTC buffer, the major transportation quarter buffer from 100 foot to 30 foot because there are different buffers. So I just want to make sure. Thank you. So we have a strong interest in having those green buffers when people come into Durham along our highways. And one of the nice things about our highways environmentally and visually is that we have those significant tree buffers which you see as you're riding in on I-40 or I-147. And so could you tell me for the best of your knowledge what will this look like? And I'll ask the applicant this when his time arrives. But what will this look like? How will this be different for what we would normally see from the highway coming up or getting off at that exit? Sure thing, Mr. Mayor. Would you all be opposed if I share my screen to kind of show a map that shows the difference? No, that'd be great. Okay, thank you. Please let me know when everyone can see. Can you all see? We can see now, Ms. Monroe. Okay, so everyone sees attachment one. Yes. Okay, awesome. So highlighting and red is going to be the case area. So you can see the depth of the site here. I'll go to the aerial. So this is currently, this part here will still be remaining. What the applicant's requesting is going to be within the case area. So I'm gonna go one more slide to show what it looks like. So this here is going to be that 100 foot NTC buffer that's existing on the site. This portion here will still be remaining and the applicant is reducing it down to 30. So they'll still be providing this 30 feet along this way here, but not the entire 100 foot that is required by the ordinance. In terms of what it looks like, there will still be some foliage there. I've quite a bit of foliage as parts of it that are not part of the applicant's property will not be disturbed or those areas will not be disturbed by the applicants. That's not permissible. But in terms of what they're providing staff's opinion is that within the ODO, within the ODO we acknowledge that NTC buffer requests are feasible. And they are something that the applicant can request which is why we have this process. And given the amount of private play that's outside of the site and then the fact that they're still providing 30 feet staff does not have any expressed concerns at this time with the visual impact this reduction might have. Thank you, Ms. Monroe. Just to one more question. It looks to me like the buffer outside of their property there to the west is that might be itself about, I'm just eyeballing that maybe 30 feet or 40 feet of existing buffer there prior to maybe a little more than that maybe by the time you get to their property is that about right? I don't have that exact measurement but yes, that's about right based upon this field. I'll probably have to pull up the, actually let me see if it's on the site when that's in this next slide. I don't think it's giving that exact measurement but that might be about right. Yes, sir. I'm just looking at the 100 foot buffer, the MCC buffer and just eyeballing that. So, okay. So there would still be within their property another 30 foot of buffer in addition to the buffer that is outside the property to the west. That is correct. They're just asking for the 100 foot on their site to be reduced due to this next image due to it covering nearly all of the site and substantially reducing the amount of buildable area. Yeah. All right, thank you, Ms. Monroe. You can take your slides down. Thank you. Council Member Reese, do you have a question for Ms. Monroe? I do, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, Ms. Monroe. Always great to see you when we have these. So thanks for shepherding us through this process. One of the factors you identified had to do with the effect of this decision on noise, on adjacent properties. Did I hear that right? One of the sub letters. One of the effects in addition to being a natural stormwater facility, one of the effects that this property has in its current state is to act as a large sound barrier between the large I-40 on the west side and the apartment complex on the east side. Will the proceedings that we are hearing discuss that particular factor? That is a great question, Council Member Reese. I am not sure if the applicant has direct testimony in relation to noise. That I will warrant that it's not something that staff currently has presented. However, I don't know if trees do much for sound. I think the intent or the purpose and intent of the MCC buffer is a little bit as to what the mayor elevated to earlier, which was going to be the buildable area in this aesthetic. So in terms of what we would require them, we have what are called project boundary buffers in addition to this MCC buffers. And those typically have anywhere from 20 to 30 feet of space in between a specific use and another. And this applicant is still providing, even if this was approved, it would be in excess of that. And those are standard project boundary buffers that we have for in between non-commercial and residential uses. So I don't think, one, I don't know if the MCC overlay, if the intent was really about noise as much as it was about the visual. And the second part is, even so our project boundary buffers that we typically have in between residential and non-residential, this would still be greater than all of those. I hope that answers your question. If not, I might ask Mr. Cradle to provide a little bit more insight as the engineer. Thank you for your answer, Ms. Monroe. Thank you, council member. Colleagues, any other questions for Ms. Monroe at this time? All right, we will now hear from the applicant. Mr. Cradle or Mr. Syed, we're happy to hear from you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council. I appreciate y'all taking a look at this this evening. It's been a long time in the process until by the case number, we've been working on this for a while and really appreciate all the help that the planning department has given us to work through what's going on in this small piece of land here. The owners have purchased this originally in 2009 with the intent of building things of kind of, you know, working through what is the best fit for this piece of property within the ordinance and working with the city to make sure everything is in conformance with the mediator. So one of the major reasons that we're talking this evening tonight is for this evening is for the MTC buffer reduction. And I appreciate the comments and questions that have come forward with this. The MTC buffer in this particular area is 100 foot in width and our lot is 130 foot in width. So it would only leave 30 feet, not counting front setbacks for commercial sites. So it's almost being unbuildable with the full MTC buffer. So we did ask for a reduction. We felt that the 30 foot remaining was sufficient with the existing vegetation that is already on Highway 147 exit ramp. In addition to the exit ramp is at a substantial elevation from this site also. It is 20 to 30 feet above your site. So with the addition of an elevation change and the existing trees remaining, we felt that this was a good plan to move forward with the reduction of the buffer. Since I'm not a sound engineer, I'll tell you or try to even convey the decibels that would change with our site. However, I can say that we are doing the full planted buffers around us. In addition to on the south side of the site, we have a existing stream buffer that is staying intact. And then we have the addition of the building which will act more like a sound barrier for anybody coming from perpendicular to the exit ramp. So with vacancy directly across the street and actually owned by Wake County for the Oblivious and Crabtree Creek Reservoir, there will be no development in that directly across the street from us. So we felt like this was a good use for this particular site, a small commercial building. And like I say, the owners will actually be occupying the building for their business when it is constructed. So that's kind of what led us here, meeting through and going through all the ordinances and making sure we were in conformance with all the UVO standards of lighting and landscaping layout and utility. Actually, there's a lot of utility that have to be installed for this site to even come about. So we're excited to get it off to a running start here and build some momentum and get the owners into their little dream that they've had for this site since they purchased. So I am here for any questions. Mr. Seidl is here with me. He is the actual owner of the site and will be occupied in site once it's built. And we're just excited about moving forward and having a chance to finally come before you and say, hey, we're excited about this, we're looking forward to it. Thank you very much, Mr. Creedle. Colleagues, are there any questions for this witness for members of the council? Council member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, Mr. Creedle. Thank you for coming forward. Appreciate both of you actually for being here. Can you tell me a little bit more about the water stuff that's in the southern part of that diagram? Staff showed us earlier, there was a little bit of a cloud shape drawn on the bottom. And I think I read something about riparian stream or something down there. Can you talk a little bit about what's going on with that part of the property? That is a good question. Thank you. That is actually a part of this property and it is a protected stream buffer that goes through the bottom side. The drainage actually goes all the way to the other side of 147 and I-40 through there. So it's not a small amount. I think from the site plan you see the twin pipes that are actually going under Guardian Road just signifies a lot of water moving through there. This is actually one of the tributaries to Crabtree that goes further down and actually dumps into Crabtree Lake down there in Wake County, which is why the, it's not only an easement, but it's a protected stream in Wake County and it's all over the land across the street for the protection of this creek. We are staying away from the creek as UDO requires, but it's also our desire not to interfere with any of its natural buffers or its flow in any way, shape, or form. That's kind of the section of land where we're just staying away from not dealing with and it's interesting. I think we are required to actually build a sidewalk in front of that in the right of way, but I even tried to ask if we couldn't, or it could be exempt from that section of the sidewalk, but I have to follow the ordinances. But that's part of the protected area and we are definitely wanting to keep it that way, but that's, so it's a large creek. Mr. Cretal, are you aware, I'm sure you are. Are you aware that the creek actually extends kind of beyond the boundaries that I saw in that little graphic? So the creek itself enters this piece of property via three or maybe four, I couldn't get up that far, three or four culverts directly under I-40. They feed into a number of different stream beds that lead, that run eastward through that southern part of the property. But to get there, there's actually a portion that runs parallel to the western edge of the property. Well up north of this particular area. Are you representing that the stream buffer you're talking about will include that northern portion on the far western edge? All right, so the northern portion on the far western edge is actually run off from the hotel, which is up the street from us and actually is taking a little bit of a, taking a little bit of toll on this property as in. It's a lot of water at times rushing down through there in. And it looks like it was built in a time where you didn't do a lot of downstream planning. So what we're planning to do is bypass that particular section of water so that we don't cause any more erosion or anything associated with that part of the watershed coming through the site. I wish we had enough room to be able to treat that portion of water, but that is quite a lot of area drained down through that hotel site and it's parking lot, everything else associated with that hotel. You know, that was gonna be my next question was the runoff from the parking lot. There are two storm drains in that corner and it's all downhill, feeds right into it. And that actually feeds into the creek a little further down as that waterway runs along the east side. I'm talking about the west side, but you'll work that out with staff when you determine what the actual boundaries of the buffer are. So I don't really need to be worrying about that. No, we did a lot with storm water department working on this from the get-go. Right, yes sir. Okay, that's all I had for the applicant, Mr. Mayor, but I did have an additional question for staff at the appropriate time. Thank you. I think it is the appropriate time, Council Member, go for it. Great, could I ask staff to share with the Council the purpose of the major transportation corridor overlay at section 4.9 of the UDO? I suspect there is a purpose section there that will tell us whether it's for sound or visual clutter or whatnot. I don't wanna read that into the record myself because I'm merely a juror here. Understood, I can read that into the record. Give me one moment. Okay, Eliza Monroe with the planning department is here reading section 4.9.1 of the Unified Development Ordinance. The MTC overlay is established to enhance the economic and aesthetic appeal and orderly development of properties adjacent to major transportation corridors. Certain arterial streets, parkways and expressways are of critical importance to Durham, City and County. Ride-of-plays carrying high volumes of traffic are image bankers for Durham City and County. They act as entryways for visitors and residents and also serve as an indicator of the quality of life found in the area. Standards are provided to ensure that highways free-raise and other similar high-volume rights of ways and this overlay develop would improve traffic efficiency and safety by reducing visual clutter and avoiding inappropriate site design. And that was section 4.9.1 of the Unified Development Ordinance, the purpose of the MTC buffer. Thank you, Ms. Monroe. What that suggests is that my question about the trees on this property, serving as a sound barrier to the apartment complex across the street, that may or may not be the case, but that's not what the MTC buffer is for. And had I looked that up before the meeting, I could have avoided a ridiculous question, but in any event, thank you so much for helping us with that and again, Mr. Creedle, I hope both of you are, thank you for bringing this forward. Those are the questions I had, so thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would say not a ridiculous question, Council Member, especially because noise is one of the 13 elements. All right, colleagues, other questions at this time for the applicant, Council Member Freeman. Thank you. And the spirit of Council Member Reese's question, I would like to dig a little deeper into what the concept of orderly development sounds like or actually is defined as, because acknowledging that this is a site that would sit alone in a buffer of trees near the highway seems like it's not fitting into the order of what's happening in that area. And then also adding the comment that was made about adding the sidewalk in front of the creek, I believe, like it just feels a little off. And so if you could just explain what orderly development would mean, that would be helpful. So I can't speak for the exact intent of that word, but I can discuss what I believe orderly development means with relation to the UDO. The use that they're proposing is a compliant and permitted with inside of this use district. This don't need this to be, excuse me, as well as this type of request that you're all hearing currently, the major NTC buffer reduction is within our UDO, we allotted this type of caveat for lots in which that might have an issue meeting the magnitude of 100 feet for the buffer. We have allotted this review process for an applicant to come before you all to review. So I can't without deeming myself the director at that time, I can say that in terms of orderly development, they are within the site plan has been reviewed and they are within compliance with everything else aside from the buffer and the use that they're proposing is in compliance with the zoning district. And I think my, just a follow-up acknowledging that this site is 130 feet wide, it's 100 feet. Can I ask if you might have some inclination to understand what would fit in that 30 feet other than what the applicant is proposing? If I'm gonna be honest, I'm not an engineer here, so I can say I could design something within that 30 feet, but that 30 feet does not include the street buffer or the street yard buffer, that's also from the front. So we're really getting down to, after we consider the NTC buffer about five feet a buildable area permissible without this request before you all today. In terms of what you could put in five feet, I would say a 10 by 10 shed and maybe a biker act. And I think I'm understanding that a little bit better now. So the sense of the, I guess the way that the lot was set, it was essentially to be a buffer from the highway, it wasn't meant to be an office building. And so that was what the initial, kind of goes back to what Mayor Shul mentioned in the beginning is that the aesthetic coming in, driving into an entryway, you would wanna see trees more than you would wanna see that office building. And so I get that. Thank you. And I thank you so much for that question, Council Member Freeman, excuse me, and to further add to the Mayor's previous question about how much of a buffer would be left from the trees that are there in that aerial, I will have to thank another staff member for looking that up for me. And at the widest portion, it'd be about 80 feet of trees that are still remaining and then about 50 feet at the smallest portion towards the north part of the site. So there'll still be quite a bit of trees that are part of the DOT right of way, but we're talking about more so the interior. So thank you for both of your questions. I hope that answers them. All right, Council Members, thank you. Are there questions for you, the staff or the applicant at this time? Okay. Mr. Mayor, I see that Ms. Young has made herself visible. Ms. Young, thank you. Thank you, Council Member, Ms. Young. Good evening, Sarah Young, Director of the City County Planning Department. I just wanted to share it in relation to Council Member Freeman's line of questioning that it may be helpful to know that when the MDC buffer was drawn, it was not drawn taking into account the parcels that it would overlap. And so there was not a conscious decision made in terms of what effects it might have on the developability of those parcels. So it was just kind of indiscriminately drawn the same width all the way across. So I thought that that might be a useful bit of information to understand kind of the history of how the overall was developed. Thank you, Ms. Young. All right, colleagues, any further questions for staff or the applicant? All right, if not, Ms. Monroe, can you let us know whether city staff has a recommendation concerning the major special use permit? Thank you. Staff recommends approval of the major special use permit case number M180001, provided that the improvements shall be substantially consistent with the plans and information submitted to the council as part of the application. Thank you very much, Ms. Monroe. Colleagues, is there any further discussion before we have a motion on the item? All right, the motion would be to grant the permit with the conditions recommended by staff or to deny the permit or to grant the permit with conditions in addition to or in lieu of the conditions recommended by staff. So- Ms. Monroe, I'll make a motion to approve it with conditions as they currently exist. Second. Thank you. Moved by council member Reese, seconded by council member Freelon, and council member Reese, I think we owe you a special appreciation for going out there and looking inside the culverts. Good job. It was a lovely way to spend a lovely afternoon. A little light trespassing, never hurting anybody. Great, thank you. Colleagues, any further discussion? Any further discussion? We will now, let me make sure that I'm doing this right here. We will now vote on this motion to grant the permit with the conditions recommended by staff. Madam clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. Council member Middleton. I vote aye. Council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam clerk. The ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Said and Mr. Creedle. We appreciate you being here. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and the councilman and the planning department. We appreciate it and thanks a lot. We know on the bottom of heart we've worked hard on this parcel. So I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, can I make a second motion? Yes, you may. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to approve the major site plan. For this case, D1700380502 Guardian Drive. Obviously I missed that on my script. Is there a second? I can't. All right. Seconded by council member Freeman. Madam clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Sewell. Aye. Mayor Protun Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. Aye. Council member Middleton. Aye. Council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you for catching that second motion. The ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Again, and also Ms. Monroe, thank you very much. We appreciate you. Thank you all for your time. Hope everyone has a great rest of your night. And thank you to Don O'Toole for giving me the script. All right. I will now move on to item 20, consolidated annexation Phillips Valley. Let me first, I realized that I see that Larissa Sewell was here and I believe also wanted to comment on item 22 and I just want to apologize to her for not seeing that in the chat. I'm sorry Ms. Sewell, I apologize for that. All right. I'll move on to item 20, Phillips Valley to conduct a public hearing, to receive comments and consider these motions. And first we'll hear from staff. Good evening, Mayor Schuylme, Madam Mayor Pro Tem Johnson and honorable council members. Alexander Cahill with the planning department and I appreciate your time this evening. We did receive a request for a voluntary annexation petition from Jared Edens of Edensland for one parcel of land totaling around 17 acres. This is located at 2000 Fletcher's Chapel Road at the intersection of Brightwood Lane. This annexation petition is for a non-contiguous expansion of the existing corporate limits. There is also an associated levels for major site plan that is under the initial phases of review, which is proposing the construction of a single family subdivision once the site is annexed. The site plan is for a 33 lot conservation subdivision with lots ranging in size from 4,900 to 7,000 square feet. And for the public listening and as a reminder, conservation subdivisions do require at least 50% of the site be dedicated to open space with an intent to preserve and promote environmentally sound development and preserve the rural character. This site is presently zoned residential rural and if this annexation is approved, staff does recommend an exact translation of this zoning designation. And if approved, this request would become effective on March 31st of 2021. Please also note that a neighborhood meeting was held for this petition in August of 2020. A summary of the meeting minutes was included in your agenda packet, which is labeled as attachment 12. Staff recommends that the city council approve the utility extension agreement, the zoning ordinance and the voluntary annexation for Phillips Valley. Staff is recommending this approval based on several key findings, which include the annexation's contiguity with an adjacent satellite annexation, the minimal impacts it might have to city services, the commitment to a conservation subdivision that protects the rural character of the area, the access to existing utilities, the appropriate land use transition from the PDR 1.964 zoning, which is north of the site to the residential rural zoning parcel in the south. And lastly, the revenue positive result of the cost benefit analysis. As a reminder, there are three motions required for this application. The first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into a utility extension agreement with Eden's land. The second is to approve the zoning ordinance itself. And the third is to adopt a consistency statement. With that being said, thank you for your time. Staff and the applicant team are both here this evening. Thank you very much, Mr. Cahill. Colleagues, you have heard the report from staff. I'm now going to declare this public hearing open. And first, I want to ask if there are any questions for staff by members of the council. Council member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Do we, does the application contain information about the current owner of this parcel? Yeah, yeah, yes it does. I believe it's- I'm basically my, go ahead Mr. Cahill. I believe it's Vance Phillips. Is that the same individual who owns the piece of property that we'd be, that would book in the Northern parcel with the parcel we're talking about here, kind of shoving him up against the road there? I don't know, but I can find out. Yeah, I think it is. Okay, that's just what I wanted to thank you. I bet the applicant will be able to answer that for us. I bet they will. Thank you council member. Other questions, council members for staff at this time? All right, this is a public hearing item. We have one person signed up to speak on this item, Jared Edens. But first let me ask, is there anyone else that would like to be heard this time on item 20? Is there anyone else this is a public hearing item? Anyone attending tonight who would like to be heard on item 20? All right, not seeing anyone then. Mr. Edens, are you with us? Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor. Welcome, Mr. Edens, we're glad to have you. Mr. Edens, how much time will you need here to begin your presentation? I'll be very brief. All right, you're less. All right, go ahead, Mr. Edens. Yes, well, thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Jared Edens with Edens Land. I mainly would just answer questions, Alexander I think covered the case pretty well to answer Mr. Reese's question. Vance Phillips is the owner of the small parcel adjacent and the larger parcel, he put the larger parcel for sale, you know, months ago, so we decided to purchase from him. Anyways, I'm here for any other questions you may have. Thank you very much, Mr. Edens. Colleagues, we'll now have questions and comments for the applicants, Council Member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, Mr. Edens. Thank you for being with us and thank you for being able to available to answer some questions. Who's gonna be building the houses on this property? We do have a contract with a national builder. Is the product that we get that comes on that property gonna be similar to what we can expect on the northern parcel that's adjacent to this? I believe the northern parcel, those lots are a little bit larger than what we're planning. Our lots are 41 foot wide. That's for a 30 foot product. I think the product adjacent to the north is gonna be a little bit larger than that. Are the, will the two projects interconnect at all? They do, there is a road. They have an existing stud to the south that we are connecting to. Okay. Is there, I noticed that there's some, there's a little bit of running water kind of along the edge of that property, the northern edge where it borders the other parcel. I'm wondering if the project is gonna have to take that into account in some way. Yes, we actually located, because there's a jurisdictional stream just off site to the north and that buffer because it does that, it didn't have a chance to impact us. We did locate that off site stream and we have a count of four in our design. That's great. Thank you. Some really lovely sounding frogs down there. I think that's, I think that's, so when the site goes under construction is it gonna look like what they did to the parcel to the north? So I haven't monitored that construction very closely. I mean, this will be a mass graded site. So I know if you're looking to mass grading, this would match the mass grading for sure. It's just hard to individually, you know, lots of this size and this width, you're trying to keep it narrow a lot to keep an affordable product, but at the same time, it makes it hard to preserve individual trees and things like that. So typically we haven't not mass graded a site in probably 10 plus years. Understood. Thank you, Mr. Edens. Those are the questions I have, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, council members. Are the questions at this time for Mr. Edens or for staff? Mr. Edens, this is a conservation subdivision. Yes, sir. And so which is the, I'm looking at the aerial map here. Where is the mass grading gonna take place and where is the conservation gonna be? Maybe I'm missing another map with that, but I don't think we have that anywhere else. Yeah, so basically the right hand 50% is the conservation and then the 50% of the property that fronts Fletcher's Chapel is where the development will be. There's multiple streams and flood plain that cross the rear of the property, so it's heavily wooded and it's great primary open space as far as the code is concerned. That's all the tree saving and whatnot will be to the east. Thank you. All right, colleagues, are the questions? Okay, is there anyone else who would like to speak on this item? This is a public hearing item. Anyone else that would like to speak on this item? All right, if not, I'm gonna declare this public hearing closed. But we'll take three motions. The first will be the motion to adopt an ordinance annexing Phillips Valley into the city of Durham effective March 31st, 2021 an integer we use till the extension of Greenwood, Eden's land. Do I have a motion to that effect? Move the status. Seconded by council member Middleton. Is there a second? Seconded. Seconded by council member Freelon. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. No. Council member Middleton. Aye. Council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it. The motion passes six to one. Next we'll have a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the UDO by taking property out of the residential rural or our county jurisdiction. District and established the same as residential rural city jurisdiction. Moved as read. Second. Moved by council member Middleton. Seconded by council member Freelon. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. No. Council member Middleton. Aye. Council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The motion passes six to one. And the third motion will be to adopt a consistency statement. Move to adopt consistency. Second. Second. Moved by council member Middleton. Seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Council member Freelon. Aye. Council member Freeman. Aye. Council member Middleton. Aye. Council member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Edens. Thank you. All right, colleague. We'll now move to item 21. Also a public hearing item, the FY 2021-22 annual action plan second needs public hearing. And I see Ms. Conyers is with us. Welcome, Ms. Conyers. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem and members of City Council. I am Walmer Conyers, Planning and Performance Administrator in the Department of Community Development. The purpose of this public hearing is to receive citizen comment on the community development needs in the Durham neighborhoods as it relates to the use and the receipt of Community Development Block Grant known as CDBG, Home Investment Partnerships Program known as HOME, Emergency Solutions Grant known as ESG and Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS known as HOPPA funds. This public hearing is a requirement for the preparation and submission of the city's 2021-2022 annual action plan to the Department of Housing and Urban Development known as HUD. Notice of this meeting was properly advertised in the Herald Sun and Caposta newspapers on February 10th, 2021 as well as posted on the department's website. In addition, during the week of February 22nd, notices were distributed via general listserv and posted on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Nextdoor. As a recipient of CDBG, HOME, ESG and HOPPA funds, the city is required to hold at least two public hearings prior to the submission of the annual action plan. The first needs meeting was held on January 4th, 2021. We anticipate a public hearing on the draft annual action plan will be held in April, 2021. In addition, the city is required to publish a copy of its draft annual action plan prior to its submission. The city's annual action plan must be submitted to HUD by May 15th or as applicable. HUD has not yet announced the FY 2021 entitlement allocations. For planning purposes, the city expects to receive approximately $2 million in community development block grant funds, 1.1 million in HOME funds, 174,000 in ESG funds and 483,000 in HOPPA funds. In closing, a summary of comments from this public hearing and written comments received from citizens during the development of the annual action plan will be incorporated into the final 2021, 2022 annual action plan. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Conyers. Colleagues, you've heard the report from staff and I'm now gonna declare this public hearing open and I'll first ask if there are any questions from Ms. Conyers by members of the council. All right, we'll move to the public hearing from members of the public. We have had a number of people sign up to speak. I don't see all of them here in attendance so I'm gonna take this from the top of the list, Madam Clerk, and you and I can confirm together whether or not these folks are present. First, is Tanya best? I don't seem as best here as an attendee. I don't see her either, Mr. Mayor. Melissa Morrison also? No, I do not see Ms. Morrison. Tammy Farrell. I do not see Tammy Farrell. I don't either. Vanita Green. I do not see Ms. Green. George Long. I do not see Mr. Long. I don't either. Next is Marie Hill Phazon and I do see Ms. Phazon here. Madam Clerk, can you please make Ms. Phazon available to be heard? She's been unmuted, Mr. Mayor. All right, Ms. Phazon, welcome. We're glad to have you with us. You have three minutes and can you make yourself heard? Ms. Phazon, can you unmute yourself? There you go, welcome. Thank you, I appreciate it. Just wanted some clarity on those monies coming in. We all know that Bradtown and Merrickmore Area is requesting funding for consultations and things of that nature to try and preserve some of their area from being, I guess, gentrified. And I was just wondering, could that money be used for some of that? Thank you for that question, Ms. Phazon. I will ask Ms. Conyers or someone else from Community Development to please respond to that. I'm going to defer that question to Director Johnson. All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem, members of Council, Reginald Johnson, Director, Department of Community Development. So the purpose of the public hearing is to receive comments on needs. In terms of whether a specific need can be addressed in that community, we have to ascertain whether the project is available, the project is eligible, and the look at the program area. So it's a little bit more general, more specific than just using for consultations. We do have to check them for eligibility, but we do receive that there is a need in that area, but how we define it, we don't know yet. Thank you. I think Ms. Phazon, Ms. Hill Phazon, I think what the, as I'm hearing the director, he's taking in the feedback that that's a need that you're identifying. And that's exactly why we're having this hearing. So thank you. Are there other comments that you have? Not for this particular one. There's probably other ones that I would like to comment on. All right, thank you very much. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. Our next on our list is George Roberson. I don't see Mr. Roberson here as well. Do you agree, Madam Clerk? I agree. Next is Constance Wright, and I do see Ms. Wright. Madam Clerk, can you please make Ms. Wright available to be heard? Ms. Wright, welcome. You also have three minutes. We're glad to have you. Okay, good evening, and thank you for having me. Well, what I want to say is, as a needs, of course, most of you know I am from the Bradtown area. And in our area, we are advocating for affordable housing and environmental protections. But what I want to ask for tonight is sidewalks, funds for sidewalks. We've been talking to different people about getting sidewalks in our area. And I would like to see some of those funds come into Bradtown, especially along East Club Boulevard and Dibbon Drive for the immediate need. And, you know, so that is what I am asking for tonight as far as those funds are concerned. Thank you very much, Ms. Wright. All right, next on our list is Stella Adams. And Ms. Adams is here. Madam Clerk, can you please make her available to be heard? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Welcome Ms. Adams, we're glad to have you. And you also have three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council and the Community Development staff. I want to first commend you all for allowing the second needs hearing as very important to the community. I want to highlight several key needs that I want to make sure are in the record. First, we need to protect our black heritage neighborhoods. That includes Bradtown, Merritt Moore, Waltown, Southside, did I say Waltown? Okay, I want to make sure. And Emory Woods, even our upper end neighborhoods are being pressured by gentrification. We need small area plans. We need sidewalks for Merritt Moore neighborhood, Bradtown neighborhood. These are critical infrastructure needs that can be met through this process. We also need for these black heritage neighborhoods to have the homeowner rehabilitation funds and the single family rental rehabilitation funds implemented this year as part of this annual plan. Because if we wait another year to implement these repair programs, there won't be anything to repair because the investors will have come in, swooped and done flip and fix, flip and sell programs in these areas. I also want to make sure, and I want to thank the council for having this hearing with a Spanish language translator and with a sign language interpreter. I do want to make sure that the city is compliant with all of its fair housing obligations under these programs. And that means language access for people with limited English proficiency. And I'm gonna say it every time I'm online, section three, section three, section three, it's not just language. It is intended to help low and very low income people get jobs, get training and move up and out of poverty. It is intended to help section three businesses, which in Durham would be small, locally based enterprises, get contracts and purchase agreements. It's meant to build our city for our city residents. And I'm gonna use, I'm gonna talk about it until you actually deliver on it. And that is so critically important. We have to take care of our low and moderate income homeowners, they need us. They built Durham, they shouldn't be pushed out of the neighborhoods in the city they built because their taxes have gone up so high because the newcomers come in and push them out because they can't afford to stay. We have got to do that. Thank you for the rental assistance program that you put in place to help low and moderate income folks who are facing stress under COVID, but they were facing stress before COVID. I also wanna make sure that we're keeping our word on the affordable housing bond and the minority and women owned business contracts. Don't let anything, any dollar that has a CDBG dollar and a affordable housing bond dollar must comply with the promises made to the people on the affordable housing bond. When you let a bond, when you let a project under CDBG and say, oh, but we couldn't help it. And it was attached to the affordable housing bond. I promise you, if I get on that, when we ever meet on the affordable housing bond advisory committee and I hear, well, we already did that and we can't go back. I'm gonna burn the city down really. I'm gonna be so upset. Please, please, if it has a CD dollar and it has a federal dollar, honor the bond. WTBD this weekend did a study about the highway that tore up H.I. The bond, the first bond line that was told to the black community was 147. That was the first lie. Ms. Adams, thank you. It's every bond since the black community has voted for the bond and the city has reneged on the commitment to the black community that was made. This is our chance to do it right. And I'm asking you to take advantage of this annual action plan, to take the actions necessary so that we don't fail this community one more time. Please take advantage and do right by the community by making sure this annual action plan is consistent with the promises made in the affordable housing bond. Thank you, Ms. Adams. We'll have comments later, but we'll go ahead now and hear from other people who've signed up. Next is Larisa Seibel. Ms. Seibel, welcome. You also have three minutes. And again, please accept my apology. I missed that you were here also for item 22. I'm really sorry. That's not a problem. I'll speak to it now. I supported the funds for DSS. However, I need to let you know, and I appreciate social services will give priority for rental assistance to very low-income people represented by legal aid. And I really do hope these funds come this month. I'm a volunteer with Durham People's Alliance at Housing Action Team. You'll be meeting with us, I think, over the next few weeks with our priorities. And one of them is preventing eviction and homelessness. We worked for months with Chief District Court Judge Pat Evans, who suspended eviction hearings for rent until May 1st. We hope this pause and effect evictions will give people time to apply for and get the help they need to pay rent from DSS. However, I have to tell you that many Durham residents are denied by DSS from the prior federal fleet-funded HOPE program. About half of legal aid tenants, I mean, legal aid clients who are the lowest-income renters facing eviction were denied, half of them were denied. And some, they have been denied because they could not document their income. They were paid in cash or could not get documentation. Others may not have had a lease or may have lived in a rooming house or hotel. There's various reasons why people cannot get help from DSS, as you know. So what I would recommend and what People's Lines will be asking you to do is to help legal aid, help people prevent homelessness and prevent evictions. They have 900 eviction cases open now. They would need to help at least 300 and 400 families prevent eviction and homelessness and they need flexible money to do this because these are people who cannot not get the federal funds through DSS. And I think that there is flexibility in these community development block grant funds. You have two million for that. And I hope you will allocate those funds or some of those funds at least to prevent eviction and homelessness. Thank you so much for your consideration. Thank you very much, Ms. Seibel. Next we will hear from, I see Lauren Olive. Madam Clerk, can you make Ms. Olive available to be heard? Hello. How are you Ms. Olive? Welcome, you have three minutes. We're glad to have you. Thanks. Yeah, just echoing some of the things the other folks have said but I'm trying to focus on the particular experience of tenants in Durham because over the last 13 years I have lived here it has increasingly felt that tenants have been reduced to a kind of second class citizenship in which it makes it difficult for us to even answer what our neighborhood needs since we have to move so often and are so often that the whims of our landlords in terms of where we're able to put down roots and for how long. This leaves us out of all sorts of conversations about how development takes place and the constant churn in our lives makes it hard for us to wrap our minds around the changing landlord and rental landscape of the city which prior to the pandemic was already pretty hostile to most low income people and especially black people and long time residents of Durham with almost 200,000 evictions filed in the eighth month period in 2020 and that was before the pandemic. Durham's eviction rates was almost double the national average. I think during the pandemic, the CDC moratorium and the promotion of eviction diversion programs has given people a comforting but false assumption that evictions didn't continue to happen. Many of them because of the kinds of power that our landlords wheeled over us in the state and the lack of protections for tenants continued a pace in other ways, illegal evictions, harassment. It really doesn't take much to twist the arm of a tenant and convince them that they're better off just leaving on their own and taking a good recommendation to get the next place rather than having to go through the entire process of a formal legal eviction. I mean, there's so much to say about it but there's just such a vast power imbalance between landlords and tenants in the city. There's no landlord registry. We have an increasing number of corporate investor backed landlords that are coming in using deeds of trust to sop up rundown properties for almost no money down and have no incentive to fix up the property and have every incentive to dehumanize their tenants and churn them through and milk as much rent as possible so that they can eventually take advantage of land appreciation. There's like law firms like Loeb Sack and Brown Lee that can churn out eviction paperwork, filings for landlords, especially these corporate landlords at the click of a button, but tenants have to show up alone without legal representation in a COVID riddled court. I've been doing court support throughout the pandemic and listening to some of the most heartbreaking egregious stories of landlords violating people's basic rights in every imaginable way. And I'm really concerned that there's a huge disconnect like that people truly don't understand the magnitude and the ways in which all of the new housing developments are on downtown are just making this kind of predatory landlord behavior worse. I would really like to see some money put towards a landlord registry, towards more aggressive targeting in terms of inspections and code enforcement to make it unviable for landlords to just use tenants in this way to simply speculate on land. I would like for there to be a more of an advocacy system for tenants to be able to report things on landlords and to have some kind of protection against retaliation. I don't know how many people I've talked to who have been harassed and kicked out in retaliation. Single mothers with three children with disabilities trying to hold down a job. It's just so inhumane and it affects all of us and it affects our ability to build robust communities to care for one another and to truly be engaged. And while we're all panicking to try to just scrape through and like have a roof over our head, it feels like our city is slipping away from us over the last 10 years. Ms. Auer, thank you for your comments. You're welcome. We appreciate you being here. Thank you. All right. Is there anyone else here who has not been heard who would like to be heard? Is there anyone else? Mina Ezekpe? Madam Clerk, can you make her available to be heard? Hello, can y'all hear me? Yes, welcome. And you also have three minutes. Okay, great. Thank you to my friend and Carmen Lauren for all those comments continuing off of what she said. My name's Mina. I am a tenant here in Durham for the last seven years. As many of you all might have been aware of the action, the direct action that took place a couple of weeks ago by tenant organizers of Bull City Tenants United to import the landlord DTI holdings to agree to a collective contract and to make basic repairs to their apartment building. I live in a different building that is also owned by DTI holdings and is also in the Lakewood neighborhood of Durham where tenants have also been organizing to improve our housing conditions. However, my neighbors have faced retaliatory action by the landlord, including retaliatory evictions and response. For example, one of my neighbors is currently facing an eviction hearing next week, not for non-payment of rent, but in retaliation for her consistently bringing up her concerns about the conditions of her apartment. I believe DTI is engaging in a strategy called milking whereby corporate speculators invest in rental property, they profit off the rent of working-class tenants while refusing to make basic repairs, knowing that this catalyzes the deterioration of the building and allows them to sell the building off in a matter of few years. They refuse to make repairs, not because they cannot afford to. They collect enough rent and they also purposely target people with sectionate vouchers so they can charge even more rent than what the unit is worth. But because their long-term plan is to profit from rents in the short term, by ultimately extracting wealth from appreciating land values after working-class residents have been pushed out of the neighborhood. This actively destroys naturally occurring affordable housing in a housing market that is already scarce on affordable housing options for working-class communities. Jonathan Dian specifically of DTI Holdings told tenant organizers that he is not the landlord because he has a quote unquote deed of trust to the building. So I'm asking what city council will do about these corporate landlords who are landlord enough to profit off rent and to evict tenants, but are not landlord enough to make basic repairs they are legally required to make or to recognize the collective bargaining of tenants. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for being here with us, Ms. Exitpe. Is there anyone else here who has not been heard who would like to be heard on this item? All right. Thank you all very much for those comments and I'm gonna just start by just a couple of comments and then a couple of questions for staff. First of all, I really appreciate the last two speakers for bringing to us these very important tenant issues. Let me just say that we have a terrific enforcement division of our neighborhood improvement services. And if there are violations of, if the landlord is violating any of the conditions that are supposed to exist, please report that to neighborhood improvement services. They are doing inspections all the time and are working to bring landlords into compliance. And that is something we all expect and everyone in Durham expects. And so please value yourself with that. And I would also advise that if a tenant is being pushed out for retaliation in retaliation, please take that to legal aid. I know that they're very interested in defending anyone from an eviction on that basis. I'll also mention, as Ms. Adams mentioned, the Affordable Housing Bond Implementation Committee has been held up because we have been able to fill it all the positions, but I believe that on Thursday we will fill the final one. And I did ask council director Johnson, actually yesterday, I believe earlier today, when that next meeting, first meeting would be and that will be held on April 1st, I'm glad to say. And I've been in communication with the chairpeople of that committee about that. So I'm glad we're finally gonna get that going. I would like Mr. Johnson, if you could comment on the section three plans and the NWBE plans and commitments on the Affordable Housing Bond. I also know Mr. Anthony Scott is here. And I think it'd be useful also to hear from Mr. Scott about those plans as well. Yes, I'd be glad to Mr. Mayor. So in terms of section three, just so everyone is abreast of section three, that's part of the HUD Act of one of the HUD Acts passed by Congress. And section three says that for all the dollars that are invested in communities for community development, that businesses and residents, businesses and residents should be able to have an opportunity to participate in development of those projects through contracts and jobs. That's basically what section three says in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD does monitor that and looks at what affirmative steps and actions that we have taken to be able to be inclusive. So one of the things that we're doing, as was mentioned earlier that that is important for us as a community to engage in section three, we have been in the process of engaging a consultant to help us with section three businesses and section three jobs as part of the bond that has been passed and the projects that we have moving forward. That includes the projects that we have commute the city of Durham, as well as the projects that we are funding and would gap financing for the housing authority. And so we're looking forward to bringing the form of board to that will help us in direct engaging persons as well as businesses. And then also the same firm will also be helping us with minority and women owned businesses and making sure that they have contractional opportunities on those projects as well. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Could you please comment on DHA's plans relative to MWBE and section three? Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor, thank you. We are following very much what Director Johnson spoke about and we have something we call the shared prosperity plan. So we are specifically targeting minority businesses in Durham to be part of our development activities. In fact, all of our development activities, including the two deals that have been commenced already, the JJ Henderson developments, as well as the Liberty and Main Street sites. We have talked with our development partners there, gotten commitments from the general contractors to make sure that we would have local hiring for businesses as well as local hiring for jobs. We've been pushing and pressing them now to let us know what those numbers look like, what the types of industries there are that they need so that we can make sure we can help create a pipeline of not only DHA residents and Durham businesses, but those in the surrounding community. Thank you very much, Mr. Scott. I just wanna say to everyone on staff, people who are here for the public hearing, that our commitment to this is total. The council's commitment to this is total. The staff's commitment to this is total and it needs to be. And this is not something that is optional. Not only do we have it in our plans, but we need to make sure that we are acting on it. And I appreciate Mr. Johnson and Mr. Scott's comments. And it will be closely monitored, not only by the Affordable Housing and Implementation Committee, but also by the council. Okay, colleagues, other questions or comments? All right, thank you. I appreciate it. I'm now gonna declare this public hearing closed and I wanna thank Mr. Johnson and Ms. Conyers for bringing this information to us. All right, and thank you for those people who were here today tonight to testify. We very much appreciate it. Colleagues, we have one more item on our agenda tonight and I see we have about six minutes to our two hour break, but I'm thinking that maybe this item won't take too long. This is item 11 and this item was pulled by council member Freeman. Council member. Thank you, I appreciate it. I don't think it will take a lot more than six minutes, but I would like to just make it, give Mr. Scott the opportunity to expound a bond upon some of the things that were shared and the updated item and the agenda, acknowledging that there were a few actions this weekend and a lot of folks who were planning to be here to speak and I don't see any of them in the attendees list. And so I'm a little concerned on that side as well and just making sure that the access for the meeting is verified. I just specifically wanted to just ask Mr. Scott if he could speak to what happened with JJ Henderson and the new, I guess, tenant management coming online and the folks who were displaced or disqualified from returning and just address the changes that have been made to make sure that we account for that in the future. Yes, thank you council member Freeman as was shared at the work session, I believe. The JJ Henderson, which was formerly a senior building lost the senior status, but in its renovation work, it's going to be a full of senior building again. That meant that there were nine families that were less than the 62 years of age or without a disability and those families were offered opportunities to relocate to other properties via vouchers and or they could utilize another DHA property. We had five families that did locate housing right away. There were four families that were left. Those four families have now since found housing. One person actually aged back into JJ Henderson and the others either moved into another DHA property or were able to locate housing via voucher. And some of the significant lessons learned here was that we realized that the communication between the company that was helping with the relocation and our residents felt short. We needed to make sure that there was clear information that was provided to those families, such as letting them know that their voucher, even though it had an expiration date that that expiration could be extended, making sure there was a greater effort to work more with those families and finding relocated housing and things of that nature. The one thing that I think is also important to talk about is how this was unique to JJ because of the loss of senior status and the fact that it was becoming a senior building. With the remaining properties that are going to be facing redevelopment, we won't have a situation that will exist like that because those families will be permanently moved to new housing or they can move temporarily and come back but they won't be in the same situation that we had with the JJ Henderson communities. So we don't expect that anything like this would happen again. In fact, we know it won't happen again. One other point that was made as I spoke to some community advocates which included Ms. Stella Adams is making sure that we are doing our planning work around any potential relocation a lot sooner so that there's much more time. And that was one of the other issues with JJ. We ended up having a time crunch primarily because of some HUD rules that would not allow those families to relocate sooner but we could have been working on their relocation plans a lot sooner. So those are the things that I would say are significant lessons learned in our first deal under the downtown and neighborhood redevelopment plans. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Any more questions, Council Member Freeman? Thank you. I just, one, just not really a question just a statement, just acknowledging that these locations downtown have become very highly desirable and the concern and I guess the sentiment that's been shared is a fear honestly is what I keep hearing from folks in the community around whether they'll be pushed out once they leave those locations. So I know I appreciate you speaking to the planning and planning a little further ahead so that we don't have, so the folks can, you can kind of alleviate their fear and then the folks aren't kind of reaching out to their neighbors to try and figure out what's next or what they're gonna do. I am mindful of the business side of this where the projects, the MWBE conversation is and then also on the resident side of this and just acknowledging that the dual tracks in this conversation are that there are many people who are black, who have been impacted in that whole 147 conversation that was previously mentioned and then also that whole tenant power dynamic with residents was also mentioned in this meeting and I just think that it's a thread that's gonna continue to run through especially with this housing bond acknowledging that a lot of this is based on trust and if we break trust, it's gonna be harder to move forward and so as much as possible, I just wanna encourage folks to bring their questions and to bring their questions and for us to be open to hearing those questions as staff and colleagues everywhere because I do think that there's a lot of folks who don't have access to Zoom right now and they'll hear about it on YouTube later and so just making sure we're mindful that this is extraordinary times and we just need to have a little bit more flexibility on how we have those conversations with folks in the community. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. If I could, Mr. Mayor. Sure. I just wanted to make one key point because Council Member Freeman raised an issue that I've heard a couple of times in the last few weeks and that is somehow we're going to be pushing people out. The one thing I hope is really clear that the whole point around what we're doing with this BDNP, DHA's Downtown Neighborhood Plan is to ensure that we actually have these affordable housing units that will be downtown. The 447 units that are currently public housing units will remain downtown. We've transferred a few units over to the Willard Street Project. There's going to be some that goes to the 300 and 500 block with the county but all of those units will be preserved and maintained in this downtown community and rents will not change. They'll still be based on income and these are things that are based in the law and not just a decision that DHA chooses to make. It is a commitment that we have but even if all of DHA current people change those tenants will still be there because they're in fact part of the law under the RAD program. So thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Mr. Scott. All right, colleagues, any other discussion on this item? All right, thank you, Council Member Freeman. Well, now we'll need a motion to approve the JJ Henderson Seniors New Construction Project and the Associated Bonds in an Agri-Grant amount not to exceed $9 million. So moved. So moved. Second. Moved by Council Member, by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, seconded by Council Member Freelon. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. Aye. Council Member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The motion passes unanimously. Colleagues, thank you for a good meeting tonight. And I will see you all on Thursday at the work session as well as we have a meeting on Friday, a closed session. I will now declare this meeting adjourned at 9.02 p.m. Good night, everyone. Mr. Mayor, did you say Friday? Yeah. Friday? Is there an A in that? What is her Thursday, 1030? Is there an A in that word, Steve? I couldn't quite hear Friday. Are you? I have the special session is Thursday. Yeah, Thursday. Like I said, Thursday. Specials at the closed session is Thursday and the work session. Friday is Latin for Thursday. As for my pronunciation of the word Friday, we'll have to take that up later, Council Member Reese. Love it. I love you all. Have a great night, everybody. Thank you, Colleagues. Thank you for correcting that. Get them, man. Get them. Good night. Good night, y'all.