 You will? Well, I am. I'm sorry. Well, let's see what they're doing here. They put it on TV? They put it on TV. There are people that watch it just to make sure they keep up with things. People have looked at me and said, Hey, I saw you on TV. I saw you on TV. You didn't even get a lot of people over. You're watching my series on TV. Sorry. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council board of commissioners as an advisory board to the elected officials. You should know that the elected officials have final say on any issues before us tonight. If you wish to speak on the agenda item please go to the table to my left and sign up to speak. For those wishing to speak please state your name and your address clearly when you come to the podium. Please speak clearly and into the microphone. Each side those wishing to speak of an agenda item and those wishing to speak in opposition to an item have 10 minutes to present each side. The time will be divided amongst all persons wishing to speak. If you are here opposing and rezoning tonight you should be aware of what's called a protest petition. A protest petition can be helpful to those residents who live in the rezoning area. Please consult the planning department staff or any details on the protest petition and they'll be happy to help you. You should also keep in constant touch with the planning department as to when your case will go before the elected officials for a final vote. Finally all motions are stated in the affirmative so if a motion fails or ties the recommendation is for denial. Thank you. Can we have roll call? Commissioner Beechwood? Commissioner Bieland? Commissioner Board? Commissioner Davis? Commissioner Gibbs? Vice Chair Harris? Chair Jones? Commissioner Kimball? Commissioner Lam? Commissioner Padgett? Commissioner Smutsky? Commissioner Whitley? Commissioner Winder? We did receive an email today from Commissioner Kimball asking for an excuse absence in which I granted him that excuse absence. Do we have any adjustments to the agenda? Good evening Mr. Chair, members of the Commission, Pat Young with the Planning Department. We had intended to request an adjustment for the resolutions in honor of the service of former commissioners Martin and Mitchell Allen but I don't see them in the audience tonight and if they're not we'll go ahead and keep that as item 7a and just as we discussed prior to the meeting give an opportunity for our two new members to introduce themselves briefly. Thank you. Mr. Chair, also with reference to an official document that we have in our packet if you look at Kent Corner the plan amendment is has case a 12007 it should be a 120017 so you would make that notation so when it go before the elected bodies they would have the correct number in our docket for the plan amendment for Kent Corner it should be one seven instead of seven. Thank you. Okay, thank you sir. Before we go on we'd like to recognize two of our new members here on the Durham Planning Commission. We have Mr. Will Lamb and we have Ms. Elise Beallon. Oh great. So can we get a proof of the minutes? That's been moved and properly second all those in favor let it be known by raising your right hand. Any opposition? The motion carries 12 to 0. Okay we'll move down to section number five public hearing for plan amendment and zoning map change for Dale Webb Carolina Harvors of the case a 120011 and zoning case Z 120022. Mr. Chair before I turn this over to the case planners I'd like to certify for the record that all public hearing items before you tonight have been properly notified in accordance with the provisions of law and their certifications to that effect on record with the planning department. Thank you. Thank you sir. Good afternoon I'm Hannah Jacobson with the planning department and I'll be presenting the plan amendment case a 120011 Dale Webb Carolina Harvors. The applicant in this case is Horvath Associates and they are proposing to amend approximately 14.36 acres of the future land use map from low medium density residential to low density residential. This would change the allowable density on the site from between four to eight units per acre to four units per acre or less. The amendment does not impact the area designated for recreation in open space that's shown in green that bisects the site. The project represents a southern expansion of a previously approved project Dale Webb Carolina Harvors which is outlined in a red dashed line on the screen. It's located in eastern Durham north of US Highway 70 and the Wake County line and south of Leesville Road. The site is in the suburban tier and the area of the plan amendment is not within a watershed overlay district. In their justification statement the applicant suggests that it is environmental conditions including streams and slopes and associated buffers that those would be better protected under a low density land use designation because it would be better able to mimic the the site design would be better able to mimic the environmental conditions. Staff felt that this warranted for their examination. So we did review the request against the four criteria for plan amendments that are found in the unified development ordinance. We found that the proposed amendment is consistent with land use policies in the comprehensive plan for suburban tier residential density and for standards for contiguous development. As I said before the project is located in southeastern Durham and is in an area that's transitioning from rural to more suburban. Across the border in Wake County is an area known as Briar Creek which has experienced significant retail commercial and residential growth in recent decades. So the proposed land use density low density land use is not out of character with the adopted land use plan in Durham nor is it nor with the recent development patterns in the area. So staff does find that this criteria is met. We also determined there not to be any substantial adverse impacts. The transportation and infrastructure impacts are being reviewed more comprehensively as part of the zoning case. And despite the environmental features that are on site the project can meet all of the environmental standards set forth in the UDO. And there is sufficient land on the future land use map to accommodate the proposed change. And finally the site is of adequate shape and size to accommodate the proposed land use. So it meets all four of the criteria for plan amendments and staff is recommending approval. And for part two. Good evening. I'm Amy Wolf with the planning department. The zoning case associated with the plan amendment is case Z one two zero zero zero two two Delweb Carolina Arbors. The applicant is Horvath Associates. It is in with the city and county jurisdiction. The request is from the present designations of plan development residential three point seven zero zero and residential rural to the entirety of plan development residential three point seven seven seven zero zero. The acreage is four point four four hundred and forty seven point three three acres and the proposed use is for a mix of residential single family semi attached duplex triplex also to include a clubhouse. The site is located on the south side of Leesville Road north of Andrews Chapel Road is on the Durham and Wake County line. The different you've seen this case before with previous zoning cases. This particular case is proposing to add 17 or 18 approximately acres attached to the or contiguous with the Wake County line to the south of the site to bring it into one continuous project. You can see also from this map that and in staff report that development has been underway with the site and you can see here with the lotting pattern to the south shown on the map. And there is a portion of the site that is in the FJB watershed protection overlay. There are no streams located within that area. The request does meet the required standards of the unified development order ordinance is summarized here for the intensity of the site. The development plan shows the existing conditions of the site. You can see that there are streams steep slopes streams shown here with there's some steep slopes within the stream and stream buffer. There's a power easement running through the site. This is the northern portion of the site and shown here is the southern portion of the site and you can see where they began the lotting pattern. The proposed conditions of the site are shown here. They're largely similar to what we've seen before with the previous zoning case. There's a number of access points. They're the same site access points. There's stream crossings shown at the north-south collector street as well as the appropriate buffers. To summarize, there are a number of commitments associated with this were carried over from the existing zoning for this proposal. The minimum commitments are the same total number of units for the site with the addition of the approximately 18 acres. It's a total of 1,314 residential units of the mix as described. 13 potential stream crossings, 12 access points, 45 percent maximum impervious surface and a minimum tree coverage of 20 percent. There's a number of graphic commitments which includes the lot layouts that's shown on the cover sheet of the development plan. The road layout which shows the north-south collector street. Of course, the plan would allow for other roads as well, but the commitment was for this north-south collector street as shown. There's six pod areas. The greenway trail easement, there's a number of traffic improvements, the location of tree preservation and replacement areas and access points. There's a number of commitments as well. The greenway trail, and these are just a summary. I'm not going to read them all, but the unit type, it is an age-restricted community. I mentioned some of these and they are all listed in your staff report and they are presently committed as part of the current development plan for the site. There's also a number of transportation, traffic impact analysis improvements required in your staff report. They are the same ones as presently approved and there's a number of design commitments for the units or development. The request is not consistent with the future land use map. You just heard Ms. Jacobson present the difference with that and is to be considered as a separate case. The request does meet all the applicable policies of the comprehensive plan with the exception of the future land use map and staff determines that should the plan amendment be approved that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances. We have one person sign up to speak, Mr. Ron Horvath. Chairman Jones, Mrs. Commission, thank you. My name is Ron Horvath, Horvath Associates. Glad to see you all tonight and welcome to our two new members. I wish you much patience. You will need it. It's a good job. I will be very quick tonight. This is adding 18 acres, as Amy said, to the overall development. The land is actually part or was part of a larger track where we located a regional pump station. There is a stream to the south and to the west of this property providing natural borders and to include it in our project seem to natural. In addition, we continue to have problems with density. We're still with 1300 and 14 units. We're not increasing. We're just spreading out and providing more open space, more area for stormwater treatment, and of course, the arrangement of the lots. As they said, this is in compliance with most of the adopted plans and I believe it will one of the main reasons we're doing this is it will eliminate the perimeter project buffer that would run between the two parcels of land under the UDO and therefore put the perimeter buffer at the perimeter of the overall project. So I ask your concurrence tonight in approval. Any questions, I'll be glad to answer. Thank you. Is there anyone wishing to speak on this item? If not, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back before the commission. Does anyone want to speak up here? Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Orvath, I have a couple of questions and it's that I'm I understand this is a development for 55 ish and on up in age. Is that correct? Just out of curiosity, what kinds of provisions are being made for? I'll call it handicap accessibility within the units and out and about the grounds. And simply because as people get older, and I'm assuming people can stay here until whatever. And I was just curious as to what provisions may be in the works for that. I know there's not a transportation route out there. Not yet. And hopefully that will come, which would benefit this too. But if you could answer those questions for me please. This is a 55 and older what's called an active adult community. Active being the key word. We do provide one of the design criteria for the street system is not to exceed 5%. The city standards for the public streets go up to seven, eight, nine, 10, 12, 15%. So we're maintaining all streets at the handicap accessible rate of 5% not to exceed driveway access similar and same with sidewalks. We're actually providing wider sidewalks in many areas for golf cart usage. It is a community plan that you can enter your house from the ground level and not multiple steps getting in. There is an activity center here that the site plan is just being completed. Now that the building itself is over 32,000 square feet. It has two poles, one indoor, one outdoor, various courts, a lot of recreation facility including a walking trail throughout the entire system. So yes, it is ADA compliant. There will be areas where there are steps that we just can't get around but there are alternatives for accessing those points. Well, thank you. I just wanted to be sure it wasn't going to be so exclusive as to not be able to admit those with whatever disabilities or infirmities they may have. I forgot what my other question was which is not surprising but that answers most of my questions and I do appreciate that. I have a couple questions. First, will you have a bike lane and sidewalks on the connector street? Yes, ma'am. Excellent. How about the greenways? We're constructing those through our portion now. It goes beyond our site on some of the greenway trails. We're not doing those outside the project but we are connecting everything up internally. That will be publicly accessible? Yes, ma'am. Another question. I think there are going to be some traffic impacts on Leesville Road and there's mention of a connection to T.W. Alexander. That's already been made. It's been done? Yes, ma'am. If you go out to T.W. Alexander to where it used to stop, continue on. It's going to go all the way to your place. It goes to the front door at Andrews Chapel Road which now provides the new north-south connector. Excellent. Thank you. Commissioner Harris. Thank you. This is for staff. I'm looking at committee element number 11 which is a site for a fire station, not well, a minimum of four acres and I'm looking at the 50th certificate of occupancy and they get that certificate of occupancy at the first day of the quarter. So I'm looking at 12 and a half years they have to satisfy this committee element. No, we probably will have to, I'm sorry, we're going to satisfy that in about three months. Okay, but according to this document here, you don't have to do it until the 50th successful certificate of occupancy. They have to complete it prior to receiving the 50th certificate of occupancy. Which is 12 and a half years. There's no time limit on receiving a certificate of occupancy. There's no commitment for receiving the commitments. It's as they're developed and built and inspected and. But, Mr. Harris. Yes, sir. If I may, the process is we plot the lots, build the infrastructure, plot the lots, then a building permit is obtained to construct the house. Okay. Before anybody can move into it, you have to get a CO, a certificate of occupancy. We're only allowed to sell and occupy 50 units before the fire station land has to be obtained. Okay. So out of 1300, we're away at the very beginning of that. Does that help? That helps. Okay. I was thinking too heavy. Then I looked at that committee element number 10 and that's 650 certificates of occupancy before you have to do the transportation piece up. Correct. That's about halfway through the project. Okay. All right. Thank you. Welcome. Do we have anyone else wishing to speak? Yes, sir. Mr. Horvath, what you said about the fire station raised the question for me. This only has to provide the land. Correct. Okay. And the city would have to provide the fire station at some point in the future. Correct. It's actually being worked on through General Services to the planning of it now. Okay. So until that's built, where would the fire protection be coming from? With the existing stations a little further west. One of the reasons they, well, they've asked for a fire, if you don't mind I'll turn back. They've asked for a fire station in this location because of bright leaf, raven stone. I'm going to go through a number of the neighborhoods that have been constructed out there. And there's not an immediate station. There is a need in the area for one. Hence why it's so early in this project is they don't want to wait until the end of the project to get it. It will be serving bright leaf. Doc Nichols, what is Sierra's project named another large development. This development raven stone and anything else that's east of Sharon Road. Okay. Mr. Page. Which fire station is going to service that one specifically? You know, I'm not sure, but I think it's Parkwood. Is it in staff report Amy? I think it not Parkwood, but the one at 98 Bethesda. Thank you. Yeah, I was going to say Bethesda probably the closest. Yeah, I believe that's it, but I won't, I can't commit. I don't know. Okay. Anyone else? Can we get a motion? I'd like to make a motion to approve amendment plan amendment case a one two zero zero zero one one. All right. It's been moved and properly second all those in favor. Let me know by saying, well, raising your right hand. Wrong meeting. Any opposition? Motion carries 12 to zero. Move approval zone in case Z one two zero zero zero two two. Moved and properly second all those in favor. Raise your right hand. Any opposition? Motion carries 12 to zero. Thank you, sir. We'll move down to item five B Kent corner, Kent corner to plan amendment a one two zero zero zero one seven and zoning case Z one three zero zero zero seven. Good evening. I'm Laura Woods and I'll be presenting case a twelve zero zero zero seventeen this case. Pardon me. Sorry about that. You just activate it. Thank you. This is submitted by Chapel Hill development. It's LLC and it suggests revising the future land use map three parcels with that are associated with the much larger zoning case at the in the vicinity of Chapel Hill Street and Kent Street from medium density residential to commercial. This case was initially heard at the February 12th planning commission meeting at that time. The case was deferred and has been brought back this evening with a new zoning case 13 zero zero zero seven. As you see to the north of site is the commercial of the Chapel Hill commercial district and to the west south and east of the site is medium or low medium density residential. The applicant suggests that this would be a modest expansion of the West Chapel Hill commercial district and that it would allow for revitalization of that commercial district. The applicant wishes to redevelop these three parcels and the larger part zoning in the parcels directly to the north as a mix of office and retail uses. Here are our four plan amendment criteria that we used in evaluating plan amendment cases. Staff found that the proposed land use change would be consistent with adopted policies and plans specifically the urban teal tier commercial infill policy two point two point three F staff evaluated it on the second criteria and found it consistent that it is compatible with existing and future land use patterns and that the proposal does not adversely affect our impact infrastructure that'll be discussed more fully in the zoning case and finally we found that it was of adequate size and shape to accommodate the proposed use. Therefore staff recommends approval based upon the four criteria. Thank you. Good evening Amy Wolfe again with the planning department. This is the zoning case for Kent Corners 2. Z130007. The applicant is Chapel Hill Street development and the site is within the city's jurisdiction. The present designation of the site is commercial infill and residential urban five two and the request is to commercial general with a development plan and to commercial infill with a development plan. Total site is 2.7 acres and the proposed use is for a total of 50,000 square feet of commercial office or residential uses. You have seen this case in February as Ms. Woods mentioned under a different case number. The difference between that case and this case before you this evening is the addition of 0.44 acres which is essentially existing as commercial infill currently they're adding it to the development plan associated with this site for CI to CID. The remainder of the site which is currently CI NRU 5.2 which is 2.26 acres is proposed to go to commercial general with the development plan. The site is at the corner of Kent Street and West Chapel Hill Street as shown on this context map that is in the urban tier. It's a total of nine parcels. The original request was seven parcels. The development plan associated with this request meets the minimum criteria of our unified development ordinance for both the commercial general district and the commercial infill district and this information is in the staff report. The existing conditions of the site are shown here. There are a couple structures on the site currently. Three existing structures understand to be vacant and one is a commercial dorm. There is undeveloped property to the rear which is largely the RU 5.2 zoning presently and there is a city parking lot to the east of the street frontage on West Chapel Hill Street. The proposal as shown here is your development plan which meets the minimum criteria and shows graphic commitments and there are text commitments associated with this which I'll go over shows meets our standards here. There's three site access points, one pedestrian access point to the rear here with Carol Alling. There's commitments and I'll go over these in a little more detail for walls in the rear, a fence with pedestrian access, a total of 50,000 square feet of use area, 39,000 square feet is designated to be on the commercial general portion which is this larger portion of the site and 11,000 square feet is is allowable for the commercial infill portion. So here are some of the commitments, trying to summarize them. There are 50,000 square feet of non-residential uses, there's three access points, two are on the road frontages to Kent Street and West Chapel Hill Street. The pedestrian only access point is shown connecting to Carol Alley to the rear and the impervious surface maximum is 100%. There's some graphic commitments as well, location of the access points, there's a minimum seven foot wood fence shown in two sections, there's the pedestrian opening, the seven foot masonry screen wall minimum, the maximum height is limited to two stories for both the CID and the CGD portion with the CGD portion being limited to 52 feet. Normally it could go to 50 feet in that area, it's been reduced to 42 with this proposal. And there's a limitation on uses that I'll try to clarify for you. The CGD portion of the site is committed to be limited to the CI uses with the addition of some drive-through facilities which could be a bank or a pharmacy. But it's also restricted that uses in the CGD portion cannot be vehicle service, nightclub, bar, outdoor kennel or freestanding wireless facility and that any use in the CGD district that would have required a use permit in the CI district is not permitted. With the CID portion there's some limitations as well which there are restricting the presence of freestanding wireless facilities. There are three text commitments that the minimum seven foot masonry screen wall for the dumpster and recycling shall be screened with the masonry wall in addition to the plantings. There are some transit facilities that are committed along West Chapel Hill Street and that there shall be no illuminated building signage to the rear building facades. There's design commitments here which provide details of architectural elements the describing the roof line as well as providing details for building materials. And as Ms. Woods presented to you a portion of the site is not consistent with the future land use map of the comprehensive plan. The rear is shown as medium density residential which would allow 8 to 20 units an acre and the frontage of the site is consistent with the commercial designation. This request does satisfy and meet the requirements of all the comprehensive plan policies with the exception of the future land use map and staff determines that if the plan amendment is approved this request would be consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies please excuse the typo. I'll re-state that correctly. The staff determines that should the plan amendment be approved this request would be consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances. Thank you. I have nine people signed up to speak to make sure we didn't overlook anyone that if you wish to speak actually the nine people that's here and excuse me about butchered land's name you have Michael Korsmeyer working check maybe oh sorry yes there's a two Johnson's the acre with a Stasso brown calahoon and a Mitchell did I miss anyone yeah so if you're speaking in favor of if you can come over here you have 10 minutes so that's like a little over a minute each unless you want to combine your time so if you guys can just start and we'll take it from there yes in favor of all nine or in favor of yes yes yes thank you the speakers on the proponent side will speak in the order in which they're lined up that's okay thank you good evening thanks for having me my name is Micah Korsmeyer and I work with the real estate team at self help which is the owner of the applicant Chapel Hill Street development when we when we came before this commission in February we heard the need to work together with the neighborhoods to put forward a development plan we've worked hard since then to put together a set of commitments that formalize our long-standing commitment to further the community's vision for redevelopment along West Chapel Hill Street self help has a history of work in surrounding neighborhoods such as the West End and Lion Park with our partners self help created and manages an affordable housing land bank that has supported the creation of 125 units of high quality affordable housing by partners such as the Durham Community Land Trustees and Habitat for Humanity that base of affordable housing ensures that economic development on this street will be inclusive and that the area will remain a diverse community accessible to all beginning last October we've participated in at least 39 face-to-face meetings listening closely to area residents and business owners at anything from community wide public meetings to neighborhood association picnics and West End living rooms we've spent hours on the phone with many that are here tonight participated in neighborhood listservs and distributed flyers door-to-door by our account we've heard from over 200 people throughout the area neighborhoods in the course of this process a neighborhood advisory committee guided us on the commitments represented on the development plan before you tonight this group included the neighborhood association presidents of the West End Birch Avenue and Morehead Hill as well as the West Chapel Hill Street merchants association and the quality of life project of southwest central Durham in addition we continue meeting with residents and neighborhood groups to study additional ways to improve the project we are proud of the public process that informed our plans for this development and the commitments contained in this zoning application we look forward to helping realize a community vision expressed through years of neighborhood planning efforts for a revitalized commercial district on West Chapel Hill Street thank you for your time good evening my name is Elisa Johnson I'm a Birch Avenue resident and the chair of the southwest central Durham quality of life project thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak for over 20 years the neighborhoods of Birch Avenue the West End Lion Park and West Chapel Hill Street Merchants Association and scores of others have committed themselves to the economic revitalization of West Chapel Hill Street self-help's Kent Corner project is a wonderful first step the proposed commercial space will bring new goods and services to the surrounding neighborhoods invite new customers to already established businesses and provide among other things an open space for community gatherings self-help has a strong reputation in our neighborhoods having developed a number of affordable housing and been an integral part in the creation of the Pauley Murray Place and the Maplewood Senior Apartments QOL is proud to stand with the many individuals neighborhood associations and groups who have endorsed this project and zoning proposal these include the West West Chapel Hill Street Merchants Association the Moorhead Hill Birch Avenue and Tuscaloosa Lakewood neighborhood associations and the former president of the West End Neighborhood Association at this point I would like to encourage those people who have come to support the project and the proposal in person to stand with me if you would please thank you my name is loris or skevich I'm a resident of birch avenue and Moorhead Hills now for 28 years I'm here to represent Kent Corner Task Force and for those of you who are not familiar with what our group is we were grassroots neighborhood organization that became very interested in this project to make sure that there was a development plan submitted we were the first ones to press for one to ask for one and we really appreciated your support at the February 12th meeting when you suggested to self-help with the rezoning case that there should be a development plan we are happy to report that we have been working with self-help we're grateful for them meeting with us and we have been working to refine certain points that miss wolf had mentioned to make this development as best as it can be to be neighborhood friendly to assure us that it will be a precedent for the type of commercial and retail development we would like to see on West Chapel Hill Street for which we fought so hard with all the charrettes to create the ci infill and even if it is going to be rezoned we want to be assured that the spirit of that intention will be preserved so we thank you for your time and for your support and we are for this project good evening commissioners thank you for having me before you this evening my name is Nicholas Hawthorne Johnson I am a resident of birch Avenue neighborhood I also own the cookery which is a business on West Chapel Hill Street and I am the co-chair of the West Chapel Hill Street merchants association I'm here to express the support of the merchants association as well as my own personal support for this project I'm very excited but I think we all are at the the potential that this project unleashes in the in the neighborhood the the key things I think that are important to pay attention to are that this development will bring to the area new people to the that will be there working all day needing services which provides an opportunity for existing businesses like my own as well as additional businesses to occupy the now unoccupied commercial area along the West Chapel Hill Street quarter the green space proposed in the project allows for a place for people to gather together and that in general having these buildings not be standing there vacant but rather filled with a vibrant workforce day in and day out will provide a greater degree of public safety for all of us in the neighborhood which we all dearly want the only additional thing I wanted to add to that is actually I think that might do it thank you very much good evening mr chairman members of the commission thank you very much for inviting me and allowing me to speak I'm Frank Stasio I reside at 4805 American Drive and I'm here tonight representing the board of directors of the Durham Central Market and I'm going to ask you to recommend that the city council approve this rezoning request if this request is granted I am very confident that within 18 months and probably sooner we will have a full service natural foods grocery store as part of this project and not only will this 10,000 square foot grocery store provide access to natural foods it's also going to provide jobs job training it's going to provide a gathering space for community and it's also a catalyst for further development along the Chapel Hill Street corridor we have firm commitments for more than $1.2 million in financing and we expect to have the full amount that we need in hand very soon got a lot of excitement among our owners and our members we have more and more owner members every day right now we have 1150 owner members and as I say more and more every day all almost all of them Durham residents very excited about this project very excited about the possibility of natural food natural food access community development and community gathering space our board of directors is here tonight and I know you've seen the the full number of supporters but I want to single out the board of directors of the Durham Central Market if you would please stand thank you very much and they're showing their support I want to thank you for your time and I ask you again for your support to recommend approval to the city council thank you good evening my name is Selena Mack I'm the executive director of Durham community land trustees and I'm here tonight to present a board resolution in support of the zoning map change for the Kent corner two project specifically reason whereas Durham community land trustees is community based non-profit organization with a mission to develop permanently affordable housing for lower moderate income families and whereas the location of the proposed Kent corner project two project is within Durham community land trustees primary development target area of Durham's western neighborhoods now therefore be it resolved that the board of directors of Durham community land trustees is in support of the zoning map change request of the Chapel Hill Street development LLC for medium density to commercial in order to support the proposed Kent corner project thank you sir before you start I doubt you can be able to get it done in 53 seconds so what I'm going to ask for is a motion to suspend the rules to allow you two additional minutes unless you think I don't think I can do it because I'm not going to read the whole letter I'm just going to say who I'm representing and pass the letter on to you if that's okay oh so you can get it done in 53 seconds yes sir oh okay carry on I'm sorry I also I bore I chair the Durham community land trust boards I know how to run a good meeting so my name is Mark Eckert I live at 506 gattus street I'm here representing the Birch Avenue neighborhood association on behalf of Isaac Price who could not make it tonight I have in my hand a letter approved by the board of the Birch Avenue neighborhood association fully in support of this zoning week rezoning application we conducted a poll in our neighborhood and over 97 percent of the respondents supported this this move thank you you kept your promise okay so we if we don't have okay thank you sir if we don't have anyone else wishing to speak on this item I'll close the public here and bring it back before the commissioner mr. Whitman I've been following this for quite a while north east center Durham has taken our lead from west Durham um and um little did I know that one day I will be here to to be able to vote on this I um I will recommend to to my fellow commissioners that um that you approve this item and move Durham forward thank you yes sir mr. Gibbs I just wanted to make a comment on this area has been as we all know has been needing uh what's being proposed here for a long time everything else has been taking place on the other end of main street uh main street and Chapel Hill Street and this area I think is going to bring it up to a standard where I think will benefit not only the whole not only this community but as a another gateway into downtown I especially like the the curve of the proposed building and I've already spoken to some of the designers and and I'm just a real nut for unique architecture but that said I do have a question about the the proposed community what was it that you called the community store uh I've not and I forgot who was there but yes uh will this only serve the community or are there plans for it to have to be able to supply a wider area uh of downtown or anywhere that you wanted to bring in more customers yeah the grocery store is available to everyone and though it's a cooperatively owned grocery store um anybody can shop there so you it would buy a membership and if you're familiar with the weaver street co-op it operates on the same model but anybody can shop there so this becomes this becomes a store that is available uh and allows natural food access to everybody and it would be stocked to do that yeah it's a full service grocery store so you would have that's that's the term I was looking for full service yes okay thank you so much thank you any other commissioners wishing to speak can we get a motion I move approval so I'm moving properly second I'll lose the favor let it be known by saying actually can you read the move approval of a 120017 plan amendment can we get another second to make it official okay the move them probably second I was in favor let it be known by raising your right hand any opposition motion carries 12 to 0 I just I just want to clarify just for the record that there's no commitment for a specific use there's just restrictions on uses and what would be allowed so the representation of the grocery store which may in what fact happen is not a commitment of the plan I just want to make that clear can we get a chair move zoning case number z130007 so it was a move and probably second all those in favor let it be known by raising your right hand any opposition motion carries 12 to 0 all right thank you we want to thank the residents of the city for coming out and supporting your community we always like for residents to come out of support okay we'll move down to item 6a carolina crossing 2 that's case z 12004 thank you amy wolf for the planning department again this case is for carolina crossing 2 case z 1200004 the applicant is earth centric engineering this case is within the city's jurisdiction the present designation is residential suburban 20 and the request is to zone 2 office institutional with the development plan the site is 5.033 acres and the proposal is for a 2 for 2 multi-story medical office buildings 84,000 square feet each and I'll elaborate on that just a little bit further the site is located at 59 36 faringdon road near the intersection of interstate 40 and nc 54 highway this site is within the fjb watershed protection overlay and the major transportation corridor overlay of i-40 it is in the city's jurisdiction it's the suburban tier in the suburban transit area this request and the development plan meets the requirements of the unified development ordinance for the office institutional district as shown here this is the existing conditions of the site there is presently a place of worship on the site near the frontage of on faringdon road with access from cliora it has it's a place of worship with parking and some cleared towards the away from faringdon road the proposed development plan is shown here it does show the requirements and meet the minimum standards for a development plan it shows the site with the building and parking envelope the access points and for this particular request in the suburban transit area it's required for a phasing plan so phase one will be to the rear phase two will will be where the existing place of worship is located and there's some commitments associated with this and I'll elaborate minimally it will allow for 168,000 square feet of use area in in addition to 192,000 square feet of for a parking structure there are seven access points located and shown on the development plan and the impervious surface maximum would be 70 percent which is the maximum permissible in the watershed protection overlay there are some graphic commitments that include the location of access points and the applicant is committing to developing per the compact neighborhood tier standards which essentially creates the design standards that pull the buildings toward the street with with smaller excuse me they include a maximum setback as opposed to a minimum setback there's a couple text commitments as well prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy there's some road improvements at nc 54 and fairington road fairington road fairington road and cloyora drive as well as a cross access driveway and additionally four feet of additional pay asphalt along fairington road for a bicycle lane which satisfies a condition in our long-range bicycle plan there's a number of design commitments that are separated for the buildings which are encompassed in the 168,000 square feet of building use as shown here it shows building materials architecture elements and window design these are all on the staff report as well as on the development plan in the staff report and also the parking deck has its own set of design commitments which show some architectural elements and detailing that the applicant is proffering the request is consistent with our future land use map as shown here its office it's adjacent to a commercial node at the i-40 fairington road and 54 intersections and it is also consistent with the other applicable policies of our comprehensive plan and for that reason staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other adopted policies and ordinances okay thank you thank you we have four people sign well six people signed up to speak four four four and two against so if you wish to speak we have mr tom stark phil coch chris howlett and earl duelen it looks like about two and a half minutes each that's okay mr chairman i'll do most of the speaking i'm tom stark and i represent the developer lrc five phil cook is the site engineer he's available here for questions uh early well and is the traffic engineer mr howlett is one of the managers of the developer and are all available are available for questions um this is an exciting project it um we believe it meets exactly the what is intended in the comprehensive plan um you've heard the staff report and um the uh the engineers have worked carefully with staff to come forward with a plan that meets the requirements it's uh designed for two medical office buildings of 68 000 square feet each uh with structured parking uh one building will front on cleora drive and one building will front on fairington road that will be built separate as fairington road baptist church is currently on that parcel it's a five acre parcel the developer is concerned about the traffic in the area and so there have been they've worked with both the city traffic department truck engineering and also the dot and are making almost a million dollars in road improvements including two left turn lanes coming south on fairington road turn lane into cleora a left turn and right turn coming out of cleora which is the the street just north of 54 that abuts the project there'll be a right turn lane from 54 into north fairington road there'll be a right turn lane on westbound 54 to south fairington road there'll be an extended left turn lane from westbound 54 onto fairington road um you know since the school was built in that area there had been some additional traffic we think that this will help clear some of that you see the level of service that is contained in the city staff report and we're well within the guidelines and so we're proud of that facet a lot of this traffic that is going through this this section of road we have served chapel hill for a long time in derm from the i-40-54 interchange towards chapel hill a lot of this traffic will be stopping short at these buildings that intersection has developed a number of medical clinics and and this is designed for medical office use it will allow a substantial development that will add to the tax base in derm county and employment in derm county um we uh the developer has done a wonderful job and Earl well in here is here can talk about more about it and establishing the traffic um architecturally the the project will be brick and concrete columns with arches and um aluminum window uh walls in between uh again with brick um it's being designed by the same architect that designed a uh almost 40 000 square foot building on the adjacent track so we believe that it'll be consistent in its appearance the buildings across the street are brick office buildings so we think that this project offers a derm a very attractive um project that will help derm out um feel like we've addressed the issues concerning it and so we urge your approval of the map change the map most of the area around there was planned to be office this is a church site for it so it can exist in any zoning and so it remained rs 20 so if there are any questions i'll be happy to try to answer them or call up one of the experts who can give you the detail thank you all right thank you we have two people signed up and i'll reserve the rest of my time for a bottle with no sir okay thank you sir so we have two people who are signed up for against us uh chris shelby and holly shen and you you have five minutes each hi i'm chris selby i live at 138 select circle i brought a map indicating our select circle in our neighborhood of eastwood park here which you just saw illustrated as a commercial hub actually it's a residential neighborhood in the recent nc 54 i-40 corridor study recommended that our long-term land use be residential uh in relation to our neighborhood is nc 54 here farrington road i-40 and the site in question is here i had three points i'd like to bring up one has to do with uh the imper this project here which is uphill from us and with all the impervious service surface being planned we're concerned about runoff and flooding such as what happened last week and had impact on homes and automobiles it seems uh that there is a possibility uh considering that falcon bridge mall over here drains under nc 54 into our neighborhood it should be possible to drain this the other way under farrington road away from us or possibly we have a third world drainage system provided by the city of Durham it's possible they could upgrade our storm sewer system in our neighborhood in any event the handout that was provided offers no indication of what they want to do with with uh drainage the second point is uh traffic uh traffic will exit on the farrington road and enter and accident enter onto the service road over 2000 trips a day will go via the service road now the idea of using this service road for increased levels of traffic is brought up during the uh collector street plan meeting several years back and the planners from Durham said that that was a very bad idea since this service road is very close to nc 54 traffic flow increase when there's increased traffic would be impeded by this closeness and it would be dangerous so you don't want to increase traffic flow on here and they want to increase it by over 2000 trips a day this is a local street and i'd like to invite the uh commission members to who live on a local street to consider whether they would approve a project that would bring about over 2000 trips a day to their neighborhood street and thirdly an adjacent project was brought to this commission a couple years ago a few years ago from the same applicant and it is near completion one of the commissioners asked in conjunction with that project that if they would fix a problem here at this corner of celeste and the service road in which there's a telephone pole right in the middle of a sidewalk the applicant agreed to do that but that has not been fixed nothing's been done so i would consider it reasonable not to proceed until that's fixed so to summarize there were three issues i'd like to bring up is the large amount of impervious surface which is likely to lead to increased frequency and severity of flooding to our neighborhood and the absence of any way to deal with that the poor traffic plan and the credibility of the applicant thank you hallie shen and i am also here with some questions about this project i own property directly behind the proposed building and due with my concerns echo my neighbors one of them is the environmental impact of all this impervious surface my property is directly behind as i said and though as he said the runoff comes straight behind the church's property through my property there's a natural stream um behind the three properties that are excuse me immediately behind the um cliora property and the natural the natural break is down there and i am very concerned about the runoff from all this parking space coming straight through my property um my second concern is the traffic and thinking that a couple of turn lanes are going to ameliorate the nightmare of traffic on fairington is it's i think it's a fantasy it's a nightmare to drive on fairington i invite any of you to travel that road during rush hours and see just what a log jam it is it's a couple of turn lanes is not going to increase access and i'm surprised that they wouldn't suggest a stoplight because cliora is impossible to get into and especially out of um and my third concern is as i mentioned my property is right behind there and this is a selfish concern but i having this giant structure right in front of three property owners um i don't understand the rationale for like piecemeal o i zoning this area and then stranding this little pocket of my neighbors and myself back behind this structure it's i mean i hate to think what it's going to do to my property value to be tucked in behind this parking garage and you know when we bought the house 12 13 years ago we were like oh it's nice there's a church there but i guess that's that's not so yes so my concerns are the runoff going to the stream behind our house the horrible parking and uh traffic and then looking at this huge brick building that's all i have to say thank you thank you we'll close the public hearing and bring it back for the commissioners have mr david signed up well i wanted to speak first if there's anyone else oh my questions for staff um i know my memory survey there was a nc 54 quarter a study and it seems like in this vicinity they talk about a parking garage that would serve unc chapel hill commuters was there any look at you know that study i know there's a phasing plan but how that would be affected if this zoning request was approved we as part of our review we did consult that plan it in the staff report i think it's identified this area as residential one which essentially was multifamily and i think as well as you mentioned a parking garage council never formally adopted that plan so we have no leverage or a mechanism to request things as part of the development plan but we did look at the plan and and included what we found in the staff report thank you commission of board um i was president of a neighborhood meeting for this project quite some time ago and there was extensive opposition to it largely on the ground of not paying a whole lot of attention to the nc 54 corridor study and uh the very severe traffic issues with it so it's very interesting to me that basically nothing ever came of that this appears to be the same plan as we got then um i certainly was not pleased with the impervious surface but my biggest concern is traffic in spite of how bad this intersection is i see applicant did not choose to provide us with a map of what these changes would meet the area what the intersections looked like i attempted to make my own it's almost impossible to read what looks like the intersection of highway 54 the interstate no that's barrington and highway 54 uh what should be a nice little two-lane road crossing a four-lane highway is just insane the addition of two extra the two left over lanes back up a moment a lot of what was proposed as enhancements not to make this intersection work well but to not make it any worse than an l o s d which it already is there's no improvements here there's holding ground at barely above failing so one of the things that's on here is two left over lanes to get on a i 40 my concern there is that this is so this intersection is so close to i 40 that if one doesn't already know the intersection extremely well and gets in the wrong one of the left turn lanes you're not going to be able to make that quick zigzag in a safe way you're going to have a crash right there just trying to change lanes um when you pull on to highway 54 from i 40 going towards chapel hill there's a proposal of an extra lane to turn on to barrington sounds nice except that that intersection that little corner right there that is dangerous because so many people have to turn on the highway 54 and then immediately cross three lanes of traffic because they want to turn left on barrington now we're adding a lane to that so that's not really helping anything either the only one of the road improvements that i think the people in the area would find attractive is lengthening the turn lane from 54 onto the left turn up onto farrington going north um and even the dot in their comments you know they're like say flat out this is not going to repair the intersections is not going to bring it up to an acceptable standard of service it just holds it just above failing why are we spending all of this money on something that does not match what the highway 54 corridor study rest or suggested for this area and we're just making things worse we don't need this thank you commissioner beachwood i'd have to ditto the concerns of the previous commissioners regarding both the transportation um options and the um basic disregard of of the nc 54 plan um i have a question for the developer i would like to know if they met and how many meetings they held with the community i believe there was one large meeting with the community one large meeting do you know how many people were there um i don't remember exactly now 30 or 40 40 or 50 i'm told thank you uh when was that sure um that was in the summer of 2012 i believe wasn't it thank you and uh could i address some of the transportation issues with respect to the left turn lanes that will be on a signal and so you'll have two lanes turning left other than right turns coming off of 54 south um those two lanes will be able to travel relatively unimpeded onto 54 um in addition what that does is the double lanes one of the problems now is the lanes stack up so far back up fairington road where this cuts that down so it will dramatically improve that the right turn lane coming off of westbound 54 from the 54 ramp over to fairington road that will allow people that are coming off that ramp that want to get to fairington road to simply circle around without entering the through traffic it then leaves three open through lanes there's still a difficult lane movement from the ramp to going south on fairington road but that's not traffic generated in any way by this project and you know this developer was not in a position to try to fix that um the right turn lane going west bound eastbound on 54 to fairington road will peel off some of the traffic earlier and give you an additional through lane at the 54 intersection so there are actually a number of things that are going to really make a lot of the movements easier the right turn lane on 54 uh uh east west bound from fairington road north um will leave a through lane going south to fairington road and a dedicated turn lane that will dump that traffic onto 54 so all of those will greatly improve all those movements and with respect to the drainage the um the engineers have worked uh long and hard with uh with very sophisticated draining features and that's part of site plan analysis this is just looking at the map but um that that will be a substantial drainage feature that will handle uh those waters and that will be part of the approval site plan stage thank you all right thank you anyone else yes sir yes pageant we seem to keep getting a lot of these cases where traffic seems to be a problem well surprise we're in Durham tell me where we can go between the hours of seven and nine in the morning or five and seven and not see traffic so if we gauge everything we approve or disapprove based on traffic tax base in Durham will be flatlined we won't see anything coming to Durham and we'll do the typical thing we'll run everything to other communities and other counties there are places throughout the state that are begging begging for increasing tax bases and developments trying to get into the game of where we can get people back to work um unfortunately um these locations can't get that and we're inundated with it but at the same time we need a tax base and things can only get better they can't get any worse so we need to look at things that will help Durham increase that tax base and I don't think we need to hinge us it's just another case of yeah we want it we want it it's like affordable housing we want it we want it oops not in my backyard so I think we really have to look at these projects and decide what's good for the community and it may not be a popular position but sometimes you just got to make the decision and move forward so you know I'm going to support the project everyone has spoken yes okay Dr. Wonders I have a question about the cross access driveway maybe I missed that but would you explain how that's going to work somebody there'll never be a number of cross access access points to the track to the south of this track and it will allow the person to go from that property to the south over to the parking on this property or onto the upper level of the deck probably and that will send it to the service road or is it going to go all the way through to 54 it will go to either to the service road and it'll cross and it will allow people on that property to cross across to clear or and go out through the the new road improvements to go out Farrington yes right yeah so that so that rather than taking all the traffic that's on the track to the south this will allow that traffic to to continue up to Cleore and out on the new turn lanes and so forth that have been constructed so something that concerns me about the the traffic projections is the large amount of of land that is zoned office you know in in this area and here we're we're using up I think we're already at 107 percent of 54 and and our criteria are we can't go above 110 so that doesn't leave much room for anybody else and along Farrington I think we're about at about 94 percent so you know by approving a large development on one of these pieces of a property we're saying to the neighboring landowners you know that they're not going to be able to develop until we build a new road everyone else has spoken so we have mr. Gibbs and once everyone has spoken we'll give the commissioners one more round that's okay so yes sir well transportation is always an issue and and I agree with all the comments from all the commissioners it's one of those things where there doesn't seem to be a good solution other than getting DOT involved and making some large-scale improvements to the main thoroughfares serving these areas that we always have to do these things piecemeal as we all know and and and we just have to do what's what will help the certain little areas but I do I do have one question I'd like to have I don't know who to who to direct it to is there a storm water system in this area where is the storm water go to do we have storm sewers my name is philt kuk with our centric engineering there is minimal storm water currently in that particular area that serves as property one thing that needs to be understood is that Durham has very stringent storm water requirements so during the design process one of the requirements is that we would not be able to allow water to run off at a faster rate during the 10-year storm event and currently is running off it at this time and typically we do do a pretty good job of also trying to handle the 100-year storm during that design period so that the truth is is that as far as the storm water management issue that's a requirement of Durham standards already so the effects of this development regarding storm water would be minimized by your current standards for design yeah and all these things do have a cumulative effect and I and I I feel for the presentation earlier where there were some comments made about the runoff and how it's going to how it's going to affect their area this this happens in this part of the county all the time and I don't know what the answer is but we just have to do the best we can and if it meets the standards then uh well we'll just see how the vote goes tonight and uh thank you for your comments mr smutski thank you I did want to ask uh how you know I didn't see any plans so is there a storm water basin in in the plans again that that is something that would be worked out during the design stage but but we will be required to control storm water runoff and that would likely require a basin okay and I think I remember seeing 70 percent in previous service 70 percent is the maximum available on the site that is correct and that's what you're planning yeah we've we've listed this to allow the most flexibility within the design we have listed it 70 percent so the and the big brick buildings they're 84 000 square feet is that how many floors that's seven floors per building seven floors per building that's correct okay um all right so great how many the footprint of that how many acres it's 12 000 square feet per per floor okay 12 000 square feet that's correct okay thank you um all right so we do have the storm water runoff and my big concern again like other members was the traffic but I uh I was impressed that the developers were willing to spend a million dollars to try to address the traffic situation that that they're that they're influencing but they're also trying to ameliorate the situation on off-site traffic patterns so I think Commissioner Gibbs is right that we need to get the Department of Transportation involved and maybe our local city planners and see what we can do about this situation and I think I think this is I think approval of this request would bring pressure to bear that yeah this that something needs to be done at this situation thank you I have a few questions myself so we alluded to the 54 I-40 study my question is since city council hadn't adopted that plan yet and in the in the event they do adopt the plan what does this section now look like if this was to be approved on top of the I-40 54 study bill judge city of Durham Department of Transportation the 54 I-40 corridor study was adopted by the MPO which includes members from Durham City Council, Durham County Commissioners, Chapel Hill, Carborough other elected officials so with transportation plans those individual plans do not go to those individual bodies it does go to the to the MPO and it has been adopted by that so this point that plan is is finalized and is considered an adopted plan okay so implementation of that plan juxtaposed to this implementation of that plan would go through the various funding mechanisms we use for all transportation projects the NC 54 and I-40 are both state roads so it'll primarily be funded through the NCDOT TIP project the as a matter of fact the very first recommendation out of that was for a slip ramp from 54 I mean from Farrington across 54 on the I-40 so that if someone's coming north on Farrington they can get directly on 54 eastbound that project's qualified for some mobility funding and could be under hopefully under construction within probably the next two years depending on the actual design and any utility relocations but so that that's the very first small piece or phase of that project the larger pieces have to do with transit funding and the the future Durham Orange light rail transit as well as conjunction with land use and other development and just availability of statewide funding through the TIP project and how this ranks right so in short if we took a I guess the GIS analysis and we did some layers of what this plan looks like on top of the 54 and on top of the additional road improvements there's enough land and enough buffering there to satisfy both of them at the same time without causing I guess without making the situation any worse it's probably a better question correct the 54 corridor study tries to redirect a lot of the traffic from Farrington road through a collector street system where it would connect to 54 further towards Chapel Hill towards the west I guess and so I mean as those collector streets are built that would hopefully hopefully divert some of the traffic to the more appropriate intersections and locations but so far as the footprint of the 54 Farrington road interchange in this proposed development I'm not aware of any conflicts with the proposed development plan that would be in conflict with the future plans for the 54 I-40 corridor study okay so at full build out do you think it'd be best suited for that area in your professional yeah I mean other folks determined on on land use but so far as you know the actual building locations um yeah the there is no additional right-of-way or corridors or or things that are that are needed to accommodate the the recommendations of the 54 corridor study so I think we had two more Ms. Boyd you want to speak in Ms. Beachwood so what we'll do we'll give we'll give them a minute each okay we'll give them a minute each to give their closing remarks well just based on what I've heard it's going to be messy if with the 54 study if that would just be built out at 100% is the construction phase is going to be very very messy and it looks like this project is going to be very very messy but from what I'm understanding is at the completion of both projects that section of Durham would be a much better section that's what I'm understanding we just have to go through the messy stages of making this actually come to fruition so I'll let Ms. Boyd go and Ms. Beachwood and we'll have a motion after that um some comments tonight have made me clear made me aware that I'm more familiar with the transportation issues in this corridor than some of the other people here are I've been watching it a lot closer a lot longer and what you may not realize is how much time and effort has gone into the planning of not just transportation but also growth in this area to try to ensure that where the growth is and where the traffic is work together the 54 corridor study was not merely about how to point the cars around it was also about where do we grow given the traffic constraints how do we move the traffic away but also where to concentrate the growth we've got the light rail corridor going through here we have a future major transportation hub going in a little ways north of this project but too far north for anybody to actually walk to it we've got the collector street plan and I think it was very clear and I appreciate your comments that the actual footprint of the buildings on the site are not in conflict with the highway 54 corridor study however the improvements to this intersection are completely different so basically we'd be paying the builder would have to pay to tear up the intersection and convince everybody to put all those enhancements in and then if they ever actually build the highway 54 corridor study changed to this intersection we're gonna have to start over and redo a whole lot of it so the building would not have to change but the road would have to change a second time okay miss beachwood the NC 54 corridor study was conducted over I think a period of four or five years they were intensely studied area a tremendous amount of energy effort and expertise was poured into the study of this area including the transportation at the corner in question but the piece that that really I can't see a change for is there's no real good compelling reason for us to change it from what the community asked for and decided for over a five year period which is residential to office I can't see any compelling reason to change it so I will not be voting to change this zoning can we get a motion I'll make the motion that we approve the zoning change z one two zero zero zero zero four so move them properly second all those in favor let it be done by raising your right hand all those opposed motion fails four to eight we'll move down to six B Cleveland Holloway local historic district expansion update case x one zero zero zero zero three and z one two zero zero three zero zero zero three zero good evening commissioners pat young with the planning department with me tonight is sarah young who's at the dais who's going to be operating a brief powerpoint presentation and lisa miller sarah and lisa are the principal planners on the project before you tonight we'll be taking questions on the proposal two separate actions are before you the first is an update to the cleveland holloway streets preservation plan and the second is a proposed expansion of the holloway street local historic district both of these items the local historic district and the preservation plan originally adopted in 1987 and in response to a petition submitted by residents of the neighborhood uh in june of 2010 the planning department undertook a survey and evaluation of the area for the potential of an expansion of the district so what's before you tonight is our updates to the historic preservation plan which include an updated inventory of structures in the district additional history minor revisions to the local review criteria and some other minor changes that are detailed in your staff report in the attached plan and a proposed expanded historic district there in fact are two alternative district boundaries that are before you alternative a would include the block face which is made up of the 600 block of north queen street specifically 601 603 and 607 north queen street and 308 and 310 mallard avenue that's alternative a alternative b excludes those five properties the historic preservation commission reviewed this item and recommended approval of alternative a and of the update to the preservation plan in april of this year april 4th 2013 by a vote of five to one and should the preservation plan and the either alternative a or alternative b of the expanded district boundaries be adopted staff has found that all applicable adopted plans and ordinances have been complied with and there will be no negative impact on public infrastructure demand or level of service and i'll be happy to take any questions thank you we have 14 people signed up for and two against so if all 14 people wanted to speak that's going to be a few seconds each unless you want to designate one person to speak for uh commissioner jones yes sir oh never mind the move that was suspended but yeah ma'am could you come to the mic i couldn't hear you i'm sorry yes we still keep it 10 minutes but if you want since we're at the pleasure of the board if you want to suspend and let us speak a little bit i don't think each of us is going to speak very long um but we could also condense the 14 who are going to speak into a smaller group if that pleases you all right could you convince to speak within 10 minutes however who wants to speak within 10 minutes yes okay so just however you want to line up just come and state your name and your address and we'll just start it from there good evening commission thank you for letting us speak to you for so long today i know it's been a long day congratulations to the two new members my name is matt dudak i live at 502 mallard i moved into the neighborhood in 2008 of um 2008 and uh my partner and i my fiance we fixed up two houses in the neighborhood uh historic tax credits have been very pivotal for allowing our neighborhood to rebound it's been an excellent economic development tool for us and i think that this will further allow the neighborhood to grow and have some security and knowing that the investments made will be safe for the future i'm going to speak very quickly since there's a lot of people speak the one thing that i want to talk about is specifically the bump out for option a versus option b uh i've met mr bradford mr gael finakis i think they have um they're good people i think that allowing the district to bump over to that side of the road will allow extra security for allowing a coherent idea of uh what is the neighborhood to be across the street versus not allowing the neighborhood to have some input into what goes there i'll see the rest of my time for the rest of the group thank you for your time good evening my name is dylan mulroney jones lrb i live at 405 ottowa avenue which is in the cleveland hollowing neighborhood about four minutes from here i'll make my comments very brief and quick um as everyone else who is in in favor of this from the neighborhood i am urging you to support alternative a i think it does a good job of including that parcel or that portion of land in um what is a historic neighborhood full of historic homes somewhere on the order of 75 of the homes in this neighborhood are of historic nature obviously what will be developed there will not be of historic nature but we hope that it will fit within the bounds of our neighborhood um and and and fit within the residential um homes that are across the street which are one and two story homes um so i'm urging you strongly to support alternative a uh because it's what's good for our neighborhood and it allows us in the future to have input on on what will be developed in that area thank you hi thank you for letting me speak i'm quinn williams i um i'm a homeowner at 508 ottowa avenue um i'm there with my husband and three children and we love being a part of this community i'm here just to say that i strongly support alternative a um we understand that there will be a development there we would just like something that fits within our historic community there's small a lot of small homes a lot of small streets with no sidewalks um so i'm just in strong support of alternative a thank you good evening my name is john martin um i live in old north durham i do not live in cleveland hollow way i do not have any vested interest in cleveland hollow way but i'm president of the inner neighborhood council of durham and in march of 2012 the inner neighborhood council did pass a resolution urging a speedier adoption of local historic districts in durham and here we are july of 2013 and you see the process is extending itself what is particularly relevant about the resolution is the first paragraph which quoted the durham comprehensive plan from 2005 which says durham has a wealth of historic uh resources many of which have been identified and designated on the national register of historic places but does not have any local protection in place to assist in the preservation of these properties durham should systematically identify and designate those resources in greatest need of the protection that's exactly what this proposal tonight will do it will protect a neighborhood that very much needs protection um if there's any neighborhood in durham other than old west durham and golden belt that need this kind of protection it is cleveland hollow way please support this and support alternative a thank you good evening board members members my name is chris graves my wife and i live at uh 523 hollow way street we have two young daughters and we would like to support alternative a mainly because this neighborhood oh seven eight years ago nobody wanted to live there now a lot of people want to live there we want to support this alternative a because it will continue to uh continue to um support the integrity and character of the neighborhood that's still developing um otherwise the the integrity neighborhood could be compromised thank you hello my name is keely mcfee i live at 204 north dillard street and i'd like you to support alternative a for the historic district thank you my name is natalie spring and 12 years ago next tuesday i bought a little house at 503 north queen street i currently reside at 406 oakwood avenue and have a couple of other properties in the neighborhood that would be impacted by this i'm here to support the local historic district alternative a one of the reasons that is incredibly important to me is because of the underlying underlying zoning that goes with these parcels in the 600 block my house on queen street used to be in ddo 3 when the ddo structures were replaced by the support one and support two districts neighbors in the 500 block of queen street successfully advocated to have our properties taken out of support two for the fact that we didn't want people to consolidate property ownership tear down the houses and build a massive structure the 600 block of queen street is still in support too i have a picture that i'll pass around that demonstrates what that means um on a very basic level they get 50 feet to build up a single story two-story houses would be directly across the street from 50 feet which in and of itself is difficult to comprehend um the additional layer to that is the parcel slope down 20 feet from rocksboro to queen street so because of the way the lots averaged in measurement it would actually mean that the building on the 600 block of queen street where there is site plan and there's not a site plan could be up to 70 feet on queen street so we could potentially be authorizing 70 feet of building across from single story houses and i've taken pictures of the 600 block of different views so you can see what it looks like on the ground i took these pictures this morning so that you could see today what it looks like right now it's a vacant overgrown weedy lot that's it neighbors don't want it to stay a vacant overgrown weedy lot we want development there we want a big dense structure on rocksboro that tapers into the neighborhood that's what our hope is that whatever is built on that parcel eventually and it will be built on because it's right we're right downtown will taper into the neighborhood and provide a transition from density in downtown and rocksboro to the very human scale single story houses that are on queen street i just they're passing around whatever's easier i'll give time up and then if you have questions i'm happy to answer them because i know all of these merry bandits here hi i'm susanne julian i live at 614 north queen street so the vacant lot with all the kudzu is right in front of my house and the kudzu is kind of pretty in its way but i'm very eager to see the lot be developed i'm just a renter but i really love my neighborhood and i'm also eager to make sure that however it's developed it matches the character of the neighborhood and isn't a really out of place huge hulking building so i urge you to vote for alternative a thank you hi i'm holly dawn i live at 527 hollow a street and i just want to note that we have met as a neighborhood multiple times to discuss this development and consistently have said we are totally for development the concern for me is primarily what natalie spring discussed in terms of the potential for the building being 70 feet tall at this point there's no restriction against it and this is budding up to a street that does not have lines if there's not two lanes to it there's no sidewalk i just i i don't understand how that would demonstrate strategic planning so if we are able to have this part of the local historic district then like it's already been stated it would integrate into our neighborhood in a place where it would really really need to be integrated thank you i'm mooring curts and i moved to cleveland hollow way four years ago and i'm also in favor of alternative a basically because we do need protection on queen street there the houses there are small the street is narrow there are no sidewalks it's heavily used and with that lot being completely in to the s2 zoning it allows too large and dance of a structure on queen street so we would like to see a big development on rocksboro and something like row houses or duplexes or single family homes whatever it might be along queen street would be great or just something that does not dwarf the rest of queen street and also we definitely have some concerns about how traffic would be rooted if a extremely large block structure went into that parcel so we're hoping that having the local historic district would allow us future input on to how something is built there thank you hello i'm duly williams i do not live in the neighborhood but my daughter does and she has prepared a very brief statement that she wanted me to play this recording for a for the council before you play that want to make sure that the audio technician in the back can pick that up fairly well okay so chatting came out yet so i'm assuming she can yes new graves and i live on the 500 block of hollow way street i want to voice my opinion on the cleveland hollow way local historic district i'm asking for you to ensure the stable steady and most importantly plan future growth of cleveland hollow way by selecting option a and including the 600 block of clean street i'm sure i stand with my neighbors here and saying we want growth and development even dense development on that block i want to be clear that selecting option a will not stop development it will however make sure that any future development is appropriately planned a couple of years ago there would not be an option a or b the block would be included by default that's because as recently as in there were historic houses there going back further the block was full of historic homes decades of deterioration destruction and systematic removal of homes under the same ownership has made the block vacant the reality is that the developers are not saving a vacant lot they created a vacant lot to develop from what's contributing neighborhood homes i want to understood that selecting the wrong option here will send a message that it's all right to a road away dorm neighborhoods even historic neighborhoods a piece at a time for the sake of building a development without having to consider the neighborhood at all i'm not stating that these particular developers would be completely inconsiderate to the neighborhood but they have the right to sell that land tomorrow to anyone please give a layer of added protection and appropriateness to a rightfully historic block from a planning perspective a neighborhood perspective and even a common sense map perspective option a is a correct choice the hpc is recommended you select option a the neighbors here that live across the street or near that block who walk right and drive those streets who care about the land separate from its monetary potential have recommended you select option a please make sure that a hundred years from now like a hundred years ago cleveland hollow way is a wonderful neighborhood thank you for your time and thoughtful decision and she'd like for all those for a to stand to people signed up against of those individuals here three okay if you can make your way over and still have we'll give you a guess about 12 minutes of we can suspend the rules since the last comment ran over we can suspend the rules and give the opposition 12 minutes okay my name is emily eggy and i'm the executive director of seeds which is adjacent to the cleveland hollow way neighborhood and i suppose that i have a um a a qualified um uh approval here or request here um we would like to request that the map not include 408 elizabeth 704 and 706 gilbert street which is the properties that seeds owns and that are our educational community gardens and i bring this to the attention of the commission now because the original map that we saw i believe about two years ago did not include our properties and frankly um i didn't pay attention to the next map because i thought that it didn't uh pertain to seeds um we're not uh opposed to um a historic district in the area we simply wish for the seeds property to not be included within um within that border my concern comes from the uh financial and the potential financial and aesthetic impact of being required to follow local historic guidelines on future development at our nonprofit gardens and uh with fences sheds other potential structures that are important in the development and in the constant redevelopment and keeping a um a very open and inviting space the examples that we have seen of fencing and other things that comply with the local historic district um regulations and standards um really do not fit with the um we're kind of the DIY DIY aesthetic and the community feel that we'd like to continue to grow into um and uh that is that is my specific request so thank you very much good evening my name is tyler wearing i live at five zero seven mallard avenue um i have to i'm here today to oppose the district um specifically because um i wasn't really included in uh the discussion to be a part of the district until probably about you know we'll say 16 hours before the application was submitted um once i was asked to sign the application i um opted not to and requested that my property be removed since it was along the um edge boundary of this um so for that reason i'm going to have to oppose this thank you good evening commissioners thanks for your patience my name is mark gallifianakis and uh together with my father nick gallifianakis and james bradford uh we owned the blocking question that has caused the alternative a and alternative b options that you see in the staff report this is the block bounded by roxborough mallard avenue queen street and um and elliott street i'd like to give you a little background real quick just so you know who we are and the history of this property it is a whole city block it's two acres my uh partner in ownership on this property james bradford couldn't be here tonight because he's out of state handling a family commitment that's health related he has owned most of this block for over 25 years my father nick has owned about a third of the block for almost 50 years that property prior was owned by my grandfather manual gallifianakis he immigrated this country and made his way to durham got here about 19 28 or 30 and never left he raised his family on what's now called mallard avenue at back then it was markham street he raised four boys they all went to durham public schools uh they all walked to uh fuller school which is now where dps has offices a block away from the site uh they all graduated from durham high they went to duke university u n c n c state my father went to law school at duke and also taught at duke uh so to the point that we could sell the property any day we've had that option over the decades and never taken it and so as far as the historic significance of a property that has no contributing structures on it it couldn't mean more to anyone else in this room probably than me uh just because uh that's where my family came from we um james and i spent a good year and a half uh at the request of a couple city council members preserving the two houses that used to be on the site uh it we did not profit from that exercise it took a lot of time effort and energy and we made sure that the houses were relocated in the neighborhood they are now in the neighborhood on girly street they're perfectly restored their owner occupied their contributing structures now where before they were not um in addition to that during that year and a half we worked with preservation durham we worked with preservation north carolina and we worked with the state historic preservation office uh all three of those organizations organizations who are not here tonight to speak against us um that we worked with those folks hand in hand to preserve those houses as far as the potential development of this site their main concern their major concern was please preserve those houses and if you can keep them close there were people interested and take them to hillsborough and to old north durham we did the research to find the lots to relocate them and that's been done so we have been practicing historic preservation in addition to that just on personal note i live in a national registered historic district i live in a local historic district i live in a 131 year old house that i restored i've been through the coa process many many times uh from my own personal residence so personally i'm a fan of historic preservation and we have practiced that in cleveland holloway recently so we just want to give you that perspective of who we are we're not uh some out of state developers coming in so i can't see another ownership group that would be better to have working on a potential project on this site um so that's that's the background uh on us and we did we started design this project after the city initiated a rezoning of downtown durham and that happened in 2010 so since 2010 we've engaged land planners and we've engaged architects and we've done market studies and we have created we've we've been through two renditions we've created a potential project that fits within the zoning that we were given we did not seek that zoning that was the zoning the s2 zoning that's on the site we responded to it and in the last three years that's what we've been working on so to rezone this property now would be like pulling the rug out from under us um so we're just here tonight basically playing defense and trying to keep our site under one zoning so it can be a unified development a quality development that will be cohesive and design and work well together and work well within the neighborhood and i i do appreciate the neighbors concerns but you also have to understand we are on the edge of the neighborhood we are on a two lane one-way street that is a major north running corridor and that's rocksboro there is a lot of traffic on that road so building six or seven bungalows along rocksboro streets not not really an option and the site's not big enough to transition down i do want to correct natalie's point and if if you'll direct question to staff they can straighten out for you there's no way we can go to 70 feet on queen street it's it's a matter of averaging so we can't start out at 50 feet on rocksboro and then go straight across and end up 70 feet on on queen street that's just that's just not accurate so i'll hope you'll ask staff to address that i'll reserve a little bit of time i'm going to let chris speak and if you have any questions for me i'll be glad to come back and answer them thank you three minutes good evening my name is chris ticky and i live at 311 oakwood avenue and i'm here representing my family um my wife couldn't be here today she had to take my son to basketball practice uh christopher's at the age of 13 i have a 21 year old daughter 24 year old son and a 25 year old daughter the reason why i'm coming to you today is because 311 oakwood is an investment for me i moved in that particular area when it was in fashion back in 1993 in addition to that i have another piece of property that uh on 401 oakwood that i have agreed to put into the the historic district the reason why i'm adamant about my property not being including in this particular district is that on the dd2 it allows me an economic benefit that either i can take advantage of or my family can take advantage of in reference to providing housing on that land i have one of the largest lots in that particular area there and a lot sizes 120 by 143 by 126 by 150 what's behind me behind me is oakwood park which is on the south side on the west side is genesis home which is about a 45 foot structure across the street from me is a vacant parcel and on the north side as a house that i own so i'm bombarded by what i own in that particular that particular area there i believe in reference to what in the future development what downtown is moving and going towards in reference to providing affordable housing is consistent with the downtown updated master plan of 2007 here it is right here on page 36 it talks about increased residential development here which supports this project here and this should add in reference to the unified development ordinance in 2010 this went before city council in reference to bringing this property this well my particular property as well as the gentleman's property here where there was uh where the community was adamant about not being incorporated city council made the decision to incorporate our properties because they felt like it was taken away at economic benefit and what came up was the height standards at that particular time and moment so what i'm saying to you all is that i understand it's a very difficult situation my home is located on the outskirts i felt like me as a homeowner i bought a home across the street as well i brought that up to to standards when my kids get out of college i'll be able to work on my home maintain the integrity of that there but i also want the opportunity to build something through trying to build something three stories is very difficult and affordable you need the mass to go upward to provide something affordable and i feel like that's what i want to take advantage of and pass if i can't do it but pass those land rights and the air rights on to my kids as an economic benefit thank you thank you we'll close the public hearing bring it back before the commissioners if anyone signed up to speak mission of willy i need to ask staff that did um planning provide staff support for um developing this historical district good evening sarah young with the planning department this plan was developed by the planning staff planning staff went out and field surveyed all the properties in the district and surrounding areas as well as doing all of the revisions to the preservation plan itself at it at um any point um did um did you consider um meeting the needs of those people that wanted to opt out we did we had uh both community meetings and we heard one on one from the folks that have uh or the majority of the folks that requested to be removed from the boundary um that we have detailed in the staff report our rationale for why we support including those properties as well as having including some some of the photographs of those contributing historic properties as justification for why they should be included in the historic district i would like to note that inclusion in the district would not prevent any future development it would just mean that any new development would have to go through the certificate of appropriateness process and there is criteria in the preservation plan for new construction i think i'm thank you i think it's kind of interesting that um the people that um that want to opt out have been there longer than the people that want to take away their rights and although they have the majority um the majority should not be able to um take advantage of the minority um i remember that neighborhood when it was bad and i'm like i'm proud of what's been done there you know i um in fact when people come to town i take them through Cleveland Holloway but it seemed like to me that ought to be a way to work this out especially since the people that have been there the longest that want to be opted out live right on the edge and to take away their economic um um investment um seems to me to be a tragedy um a good idea that needs to be um that needs to be worked out um is it possible to um extend this for 30 days so that um so that it can work this out is that a possibility good evening steve meddling with the Durham city county planning department this is a zoning request so as you are aware the planning commission by statute actually has the ability to continue an item for up to 90 days from the initial public hearing if that's your your your decision to do so i mean c is one of those other other projects that i take pride pride in you know um they have nothing to do with the architecture historical history and the idea to take them on and to to um to impose your will on them seems to be something that needs to be be worked out i'm hoping that um you will find the willingness to hear them and work something out come to a mutual agreement i want to support this but i cannot support it when it um when there's a steamroller um and in effect commission of pageant you know when this first started or when we first started this my thoughts were pretty clear that while this is an overwhelming response here that this is going to be pretty quick and no brainer um as time went and i started uh listening to the other speakers who oppose this and i listened to the family history and i and i listened to the hopes for the future i realized then that it's not really a slam dunk like i thought it was going to be um you know i'm i'm with mr wendley here i you know i think that there has to be some community involvement and not the steamroller effect so you know for me to vote tonight i'm going to vote in opposition to this but you know i really think that we need to look at this this is you know it almost sounds like big government taking over and we'll we'll spread the bodies then where they lay so you know i'm you know if we vote tonight i can tell you i'm going to oppose mr lao yes sir thank you commissioners i'm new to this rodeo so bear with me um i had a point of clarification that for staff i believe that i think i now understand but just for my own sake is the commission being asked to approve the the district um or not and in the case of yes weigh in on option a and option b is that essentially the question before us i apologize again for lack of clarity uh stave meddling with the Durham planning department once again uh yes in essence sure you are correct we are asking for the commission to modify the preservation plan associated with cleave and holloway and as well to make a recommendation as it relates to the application of the actual boundaries of the district based on the application that we received from the neighborhood certainly before the board this evening are the alternatives that we put out before you um but that you're not limited to only those alternatives you can actually if you so choose make a recommendation to retract the boundaries even more to remove those properties in addition to just those that are an option b if that's your if that's your your will keep in mind you are making a recommendation on this you are not approving this uh ultimately your recommendation will be provided to the city council for their consideration so thank you commission of beachwood what i what i see is it is something that i think we're going to be seeing a lot of and that is when when the downtown design districts and the and the sub districts one and two but up against the downtown neighborhoods we're going to be seeing we're going to be seeing um difficulties these are this is difficult to overlay a design district in a downtown district right up next to residential downtown communities especially historical ones so there's bound this is bound to be difficult that being said i i also cannot see that there's just a one one way answer it's not going to be an a or to be and i think we are going to have to do some some um some triage here regarding the options and i personally would rather see um the um contiguous properties on queen street remain in the district and i would like to see those individuals including seeds and the individuals who came up tonight and i i don't know whether they're on the map designated on the map or not i suspect some of them aren't some of them are not this is the map that has the orange um but but i would like to see those folks um that requested to be out omitted from the district for the reasons that i have stated and that seems to me as as it's not going to be as tidy a district and it's obviously got a downside i wouldn't i would imagine that the planning department's already looked at some of those options and decided that they were not the most optimal options for their desire to create a comprehensive tidy um package of a um a district that made sense either that or they just have to go back to the to the table and start working through this again i mean that would be the easy the easy the easy answer for us to do up here would be for us to to hammer out a an option c but i'm not even sure we should be doing that i mean it seems to me that the community should meet back with the planning department and get and get this done so i guess i guess what i would actually rather see is is a a several month maybe um continuation if you if i can you do not have that as an option that's not an option before you this evening did you not say not for seven months okay i just i apologize i thought you said seven i said several and i'm thinking 60 i'm getting old in my hearing sounds good so um does it does it sound reasonable that that the planning department could go back to the table again for 60 days or is that enough time not enough time if i might pat yang with the planning department uh each of the folks that spoke in opposition to us before you tonight um there was a fairly detailed analysis provided by staff and your staff report about why staff believes those should be included in the district um it's my professional opinion that a delay will not result in any different result or any different recommendation by staff but we certainly serve at your pleasure in terms of up to the 90 day work deferral and sarah can elaborate on that i would like to make one clarification on what mr yang said the um one group that i did not hear from until yesterday was seeds so that is why their request to not be in is not detailed in the issues section of your staff report i will say that um one thing that sets aside the other areas from the north queen street area is that north queen street is now completely vacant the other properties uh 507 mallard and 311 oakwood do have what we consider contributing historic structures particularly the 311 oakwood structures a very impressive structure um and in terms of keeping with preservation policies it does seem to staff that that would be an important structure architecturally to try and uh save under our historic preservation program so that is why uh staff put forward the recommendation they did miss we have uh miss board mr gibbs they and dr winders yeah um i have to group several others i thought this was going to be easy i was going to vote for a and community wanted a and seemed easy and now i think that what i want i'm not sure if it's possible what i would really like to see here is some kind of a transitional area because especially in the area like queen street i think that to have anything goes on one side of the street and historical houses on the other side of the street just does not make any sense i believe that coming in and i still believe that but on the other hand i would not be opposed to granting the owners of those properties that are empty and on the fringe of the district to have a little bit more flexibility um and i'm it would be nice to see something that really carefully outlines what they could do and what they can't do i don't know if there's any way to document those transitional areas though in the current unified development ordinance the section talks about historic districts and also in the general statutes there is no the local historic district overlay is kind of a there's no transitional area it either is or it isn't mr gibbs well your last statement just sort of uh shutting my idea down uh i think and we have seen this in some other areas and we're probably probably we'll be seeing it more and more i think there should be some some way to establish a transitional uh a transition from one area to this is for instance this historic area uh rather than have and i've seen some plans of this proposed development and it goes right up to the property line seven stories i believe is what it is that's a bit much uh especially when there are i'll say bungalows across the street but i would like one i'd like you to answer some i i miss this while i go along the queen street area toward the holloway street and i i rode by there but now i can't remember there are some houses there now aren't there where where this is supposed to be extending the the boundary for the historic district yes the uh the blocks just north and south of the red in the map that you're looking on right now both have structures on them it is just the the block highlighted in red those five lots that basically face north queen those are vacant in fact that entire city block is vacant okay so if they were to be building on at this development proposed development uh if they were to be building they would not be building up to queen street would they so the provisions of the downtown design district do have a 12 foot build to line from the back of curb so building unless it was the only exception is the monumental building type which is not building type that they would be using so they would be required to build 12 feet from the back of curb yes including on north queen street one thing that i will note is that effectively applying the historic district overlay would kind of create a transitional effect because the in going to the historic preservation commission for approval the commission would look at issues of compatibility that the regular zoning can't neatly address and so they may through that process ask the developer to do certain things with the building to make it fit in and transition better to into the neighborhood so that would uh a step back there to soften the edge just on queen street side that would not and this is something that the developer I guess would have to to proffer I guess that would be something that the historic preservation commission could ask for if they felt that that that would help make the project more compatible with the historic neighborhood okay thanks dr winders I think I really wanted to ask the same question it's it's very unfortunate it seems like the uh the support to district you know that build to line it's just a really wrong thing to have right next to the to the historic district and it's like we've made the policy has made the developer design it that way but which is unfortunate but it's not the first time somebody's gotten caught in a rezoning and had to and had to have his plans uh revised but it is unfortunate so we'll have um commissioner musky then we'll go back to commissioner wintley and we'll take a motion a question for staff so uh the 311 oakwood which would be this one this corner jutting out at the very bottom okay and so that was that was put in there at your discretion and as well as the one across the street the 401 right those were those were actually at the time of the rezoning to the design district and the previous I believe old ddo zoning they were asked for by the property owners to be included the property owners that own it now or yes okay they have at least the 311 oakwood mr dickie was supportive I believe of including that in the downtown design district when it was created is that correct Chris because you repeat that on the microphone sir I'm sorry about that I did agree to be a part of the design district the dd2 district my home to be in there but not a part of the historic well not not a part of this plan here the 401 oakwood property I did agree to for the historical 401 oakwood I did agree to for the historic for the historic overlook okay 401 I did great okay so um okay thanks for that clarification I was a little confused it just uh I'm having a hard time uh saying that we should go ahead and extend this extend these boundaries extend this zoning without some kind of concurrence from the property owners because it seems that we're we are limiting their their property rights by doing this and so I think I agree with Reverend Whitley that we ought to consider going back and getting the concurrence from those people that that we need concurrence from to include in this plan yeah thank you Reverend Whitley um I understand um the city's desire but the city has put poor for a proposal that puts neighbors against neighbors and these are people that you live with and I I just have you know I love the city and I know that neighborhood surrounds this city I've been a big proponent proponent of claiming our history so we're gonna have this problem like was said earlier um in the next time we try to do this so let's try to work this out this time you know I'm not I don't believe in something is impossible you know so I would ask that um um the city um give itself 60 days to work us out and bring it back you know I want to vote for this um but neighbors against neighbors now I think we can do better than that mr. Davis I hate to belabor the point is getting late but staff um it was kind of interpreted by me which I feel the same way if you guys extend this we already have the opposition here they don't want to be in part of it I don't know if the 60 day delay will make it any better based upon the effort that you've already put in so I kind of would say to the commissioners let's just vote either to make the recommendation for or against today so that you know it will move forward to the next step we already know our concerns we can express them in our comments um but I don't think um delaying this will uh make this any better anyone else okay so what's before us is going to be option well alternative a or b so to recap alternative a is the inclusion of the properties is it again yes sir uh excuse me once again Steve medley with the planning department while what's before you in the staff report is option a or b again you as a body do have the ability to make a recommendation beyond that if you feel like the boundaries need to be modified additionally you can't extend them but you can retract them if that is your is your will okay so I'm assuming that can be done within the 60 day deferral to go back so this oh to now you just need to do that as part of your motion if that is your intent okay so can we get a motion yes we can I have a motion to approve the boundaries with the exception of item area one two three four well four and five I don't know about because it's hard to know because I don't know what people are connected with which ones of these but I know where seeds is and they don't they they're clearly not wanting to be in including section this is now on page three of that part of your packet it's the map with the colored and numbered areas so area six would be the area six is north queen street north queen street that stays in that's my motion and to not include section one well if I I'm sorry to interrupt my apologies the section one has never been in question no one has spoken here okay well uh hold on hold on sorry sorry sorry let me check on the mallard property there is one property not all of section one and actually the property in question on mallard is not even in section one that is a separate property five or seven mallard well seeds is section two who's section three section three has uh was not uh no one has asked to be removed from section three where the where the properties yes sir if you can excuse me if you can turn in your staff report yeah to parcel numbers to page number six okay that one yeah with the exception of the seeds property which is keep looking backwards and forwards here but basically okay yeah property is area two on the prior map the other property only set up here this evening that wish to be removed are identified on this map thank you thank you then my um my move um I would move to approve approve the boundary with and including the um queen street properties and not including the other two properties that are in orange on page six also the seeds property which is um on the west side so that would be yeah chair yes ma'am I'd like to make a substitute motion for a 60 day deferral okay so this much trouble making the motion I think we need more clarification I think the original motion will need a second we need to write so he's got some uh it's a smutsky or pageant when we second the the original motion okay correct but eliminate the two other two red the other two property owners requesting removal plus seeds yes so do we need to restate that so everyone is clear or or is everyone clear on what's being voted on now okay so now we have a substitute motion so the substitute motion yeah so if there's no second on the substitute motion the substitute motion fails and we go back to the first original motion is that right okay gotcha so here we go make a substitute motion for a 60 day deferral to clarify these if the properties we have no second so the substitute motion fails we back to the first original motion did you restate the original motion ma'am I moved to approve the boundaries with the inclusion of um six area six which is the queen street properties and not include the property owners requesting removal which are on our map and also the seeds properties can we get a second the that was already seconded we have been moving property second all those in favor let it be known by raising your right hand any hold up a second in any opposition okay got I mean yeah I'm I mean apparently I got confused on this vote because the way it was running here now because I want to include the properties of the gentleman that we're speaking I mean to exclude exclude the properties from the gentleman speaking up here did that motion exclude that property see that we're all confused on how it's run you were you know you went down the way so that that was a mixed communication on the vote we need to clarify what we're voting on officially we are going to try to put a map up um for you to look at very quickly that will define the areas as the motion was made by commissioner uh Beachwood and Mr. Chair it may be cleaner to have someone to make a motion to reconsider the motion okay so can we get a motion to reconsider so moved okay thank you move second all those in favor right hand okay so clean everybody's okay so we we have hit the reset button let's try it again would it be helpful if I pointed out on the map the specific properties okay let's hope hoping that the pointer works yeah I don't have that one on here sorry my apologies oh oh so this parcel right here is the 507 mallard parcel these parcels along north elliott uh thank you this is the 311 oakwood parcel let's see if I can just do that and then number two are the seeds parcels one question do these parcels are they going to and then this be excluded that we're pointing out that includes the property that are already listed and in this next motion that's what I want to make sure yes please do yes sir yep question I try to keep it simple I would I would move I would make a motion that would exclude the red zones plus section two which is the seeds property right that would be my motion no that's not what they want I make I'm going to make a motion to accept the boundaries with the exception of the mallard property which isn't the red one at the top the oakwood property which is the red one at the bottom and the seeds property which is number two does does that cover it does not cover queen is that cover the commissioners so when you voted to reconsider the original motion which was commissioner beachwood's motion which included the two red properties plus on the one on queen street the one on mallard street and the seeds properties but not the ones on you said that wrong I did say I said that wrong let me let me try and see if the motion is to include within the boundaries of the historic district the property the properties on queen street but to exclude from the boundaries the properties on mallard oakwood and the seeds property is that what you yes and commissioner spudsky can make or anyone else can make a substitute motion to that to include or exclude additional property before we go down the road of repetitive substitute motions so it's documented here what everyone wants so far yes all right so now the two gentlemen in the back are your property in or out are you satisfied what's being offered now you gotta come okay hold come come back around I can't hear you but we want to make sure since we have this option that we rarely ever have if we can clean this up now then it'd be all good for everybody this is my property here based upon the motion I can't see I'm sorry use the pointer right there okay okay that's my property are you satisfied with what's being said so I'm out you're out that's what I want out you want out right there's a documentary you want out yes yes sir hi mark gellifnackis again as I understood um commissioner beachwood's proposal it was to take all the parcels out of uh that were requested to be omitted except for except for hours along queen street that that's how I understood okay motion and so we want to be out so you're you're happy with no absolutely no so he skipped over his property no that's what I'll cover every property requested to be out except except for hours which have you contributing structures so you get tagged nobody else correct yes yes sir we've had discussion I'm sure hold on okay yes ma'am I just wanted to help clarify things maybe a little bit on page seven commissioners there are a picture of the two properties on oakwood and mallard that we are the current motion would exclude so we are the current motion would exclude would include the empty properties but exclude these two very clear historical homes so what is this property oh it's 607 607 everybody's good yes all right so based on this recommendation that moves from here to city council everyone for the most part is okay with what's being proposed as of now is okay so no with exact with that with the exception of mr no galvan galvanakis mark sorry mark okay so with this recommendation that now depends on what happened here it still goes to city council and from there you can propose something else but I think we got most everybody somewhat happy we can move this issue on to the next leg okay so miss beachwood if you can restate your motion and I think we've answered all the questions from the commissioners we'll move it on and mr mark we'll let you do your lobby and enter with city council I make a motion to approve the boundaries with the following changes we will include um parcel six along queens which is part of the boundary which is now within the boundary but we're going to exclude the property on mallard and the property in red that's on oakwood and also the seeds property to the west of the boundary let me get a second excuse me yes sir just a point of clarification on the motion commissioner beachwood did you mean to include the modifications to the preservation plan in addition to the boundaries of the district yes I'm not trying to confuse you I just wanted for the record yes thank you another point of information would not the seeds property be on the east not the west as it's listed on the map yes yes okay so can we get a second okay it's been moved and properly second I was in favor of let it be known by raising your right hand you know okay any opposition which fails six to six okay all right so thank you so mr uh davis has to be excused for the remainder of the meeting so from here it goes to uh city council so motion is denied because it's tied so it goes to city council and we wish that the community move this to the next leg and go to city council and present your case again maybe get more leeway from that governing body all right thank you for coming out okay we're almost there okay so we're going to be on new business eight which is the which is the resolution to honor uh commissioners martin and allen they couldn't be here tonight so i'll read this into the public record if that's okay and we'll make sure that the plan department get these uh certificates to all these resolutions to these individuals and we'll start with uh mr martin and it reads resolution and appreciation of mr i jarvis martin whereas mr i jarvis martin was a member of the derm planning commission from march 2005 through june 2013 and whereas the plant the derm planning commission and the citizens of the city and county of derm have benefited from the dedicated efforts that he displayed while serving as a member of the derm planning commission and whereas the commission desires to express its appreciation for the public of a job well done now therefore let it be resolved by the derm planning commission section one that this commission does hereby express its sincere appreciation for the service rendered by mr martin to the citizens of this community section two that the clerk that the clerk of this commission is hereby directed to spread this resolution in its entirety upon the minutes of this commission and this resolution is hereby presented to mr martin as a token of the high esteem held for him adopted this ninth day of july 2013 antonio jones chairman the second one is a resolution and appreciation for mrs tanya mitchell allen whereas mrs tanya mitchell allen was a member of the derm planning commission from july 2007 through june 2013 and whereas the derm planning commission and the citizens of the city and county of derm have benefited from the dedicated efforts that she displayed while serving as a member of the derm planning commission and whereas the commission desires to express its appreciation for the public of a job well done now therefore be it resolved by the derm planning commission section one that this commission is hereby express its sincere appreciation for the service rendered by mrs mitchell allen to the citizens of this community section two that the clerk of this commission is hereby directed to spread its this resolution in in its entirety upon the official minutes of this commission and this resolution is hereby presented to mrs mitchell allen as a token of the high esteem held for her adopted this ninth day of july 2013 antonio jones chairman so we'll have planning department make sure that those two individuals get that and we'll move down to seven b the briefing downtown open space plan good evening mr chair members of the board again pat yan with the planning department as you'll recall at our retreat several months ago one of the key topics we focused on was trying to ensure that you all had more and better information earlier in the process on our long range comprehensive planning projects and what you're going to hear tonight from tom dawson who's the case manager for our downtown open space plan is the first of that series where he will give you a very brief overview of the downtown open space plan where we're adding it the main goals um and take any questions you have and i'm going to turn it over to mr dawson and i'm tom dawson of the planning department um i'm i'll be giving a brief update on the downtown open space planning process um so to give you an idea i'm going to give you a little bit about the plan context uh our goals and objectives our public participation in our next steps um i thought we could dispense with some of the recording since we've lost our audience but uh or at least the um the broadcasting um so the this plan is for the downtown um it's the um the downtown area as as we all well know this is um there's another plan coming up for the urban open spaces and this this addresses the downtown areas um so our uh the open space goals have been developed over the uh the public participation process so we've been working with people we've um come up with a set of goals um a variety of open space types for the downtown diverse and dynamic opportunities uh within the downtown linked corridors streetscapes and multi-purpose landscape designs so our objectives are to assess the current open space inventories uh that we have what do we have on the ground currently is it working for us and what needs to be uh to be updated um to identify new public open space locations and to recommend policy and ordinance changes to support our our existing and proposed locations so our public participation process has um has been a very dynamic um and robust uh we've had four public workshops um each um somewhat design sure at workshops where people actually drew identified uh came up with locations and came up with some concepts for what they'd like to see in the downtown they average around 35 to 45 uh attendees we've given a survey um both online and in person for open space needs um and then we've also provided maps and walking tours of the downtown we've also been meeting continuously with Dost um and have worked with the hbc or um the head of the hbc the um environmental affairs board and the appearance commission to keep them in the loop on our progress so our major concepts are um a renovation of existing uh open spaces within the downtown so we've identified spaces that need an update and there are that need an update um we are proposing new public open space within the downtown so we've identified areas that with the new development and the growth that's happened since the 2008 master plan we uh we've identified areas that we need open space to support that growth um and we also have come up with concepts on improving the connectivity uh throughout downtown through greenways and enhanced streetscapes uh we will be providing um conceptual level design for open space concepts renderings uh that come out of the public participation process and the staff input on what these designs in downtown Durham could be so our next steps are to complete the draft give a public review of the draft online present to our advisory boards and then planning commission uh in october session and then the we hope to be able to present to our elected officials in december so that that's all for now thank you do we have any questions i have one yes sir i have one question funding funding yes um we will be presenting our funding recommendations recommendations uh throughout that survey we we've identified a mix of funding uh funding mechanisms which include current mechanisms um and mechanisms mechanisms that will be proposed and you'll have the opportunity to review our funding mechanisms mr smusky thank you since uh jackie brown appointed me to the Durham open space and trails commission i've been going to that commission and i've seen the full presentation that that this was given there are some amazing ideas that are are in this presentation i encourage you to to talk with us with this man and find out what those ideas are we should you know there's a lot of good things to be taken into consideration in that so the Durham open space and trails committee has seen seen this presentation it's a good presentation i'll be glad to talk to you and i'm sure this gentleman would too okay thank you any other questions no we thank you thank you all right move down to seven c state natural heritage inventory good evening commissioners pat yan with the planning department um as you all are aware the uh brook massa with the state uh nc wildlife um office had sent you all an email announcing the update to what they call the green growth toolbox which is a toolkit produced by the state to help local governments in developing their land use policies and ordinances to protect natural areas and ecosystems and i wanted to give a brief overview of how we're already using those tools here in Durham and then take any questions that you may have or comments um the state uh miss massa one of her colleagues came out about seven or eight months ago and gave a detailed presentation on the green growth toolbox to our staff we did a pretty thorough evaluation of those recommendations and i think what we realized was that we had already incorporated the vast majority of the recommendations in terms of our first standards in terms of our um the land use standards and other recommendations made by the toolbox that we could practically incorporate um one of the things that we do do which to my knowledge is unique to Durham in the whole state is take the information that the state provides on their natural heritage areas which they call their natural heritage inventory which identifies ecologically significant areas in the state when there's a zoning case that comes before you we thoroughly evaluate any areas that appear to overlap with the natural heritage inventory bring that to you all's attention and ensure that the applicant has made a representation that they're either those resources don't exist on site or they're protecting those resources on site no other local government uses that database so thoroughly and we're proud to do that and we think it's been effective in preserving natural heritage areas most recently you may recall about two years ago um the property that is known as south point of 751 which is where the new Aldi is and there's a hotel site across from renaissance parkway on the west side of 751 so that's just one of the recent examples so again miss mass I believe maybe coming to a future meeting to talk in more detail about this but we just wanted to give you an overview and let you know that we were already well aware of that input information and we have incorporated it to the extent we can into our our policies we happy to take any questions do we have any questions yes sir uh mr. Whitley then yes it's short um so when you when you send us a report it'll already have some um you already you would include your commentary about whether they met met those guidelines or have a met them uh miss mass I had sent you all I believe a link to the report online uh we have not done a point by point analysis of that we have a lot of that information in hand but we haven't done a there we haven't done a an analysis where we would look at the state recommendation and say exactly what we've done um that would take some time to do but we certainly could do it um we've done we've looked at that internally we didn't produce it as a document where we did a laid them next to each other item by item but we have evaluated it and the ones that we think are practical and legal um we've incorporated we believe we've incorporated and if you there's not a yes the are now the analysis the natural heritage areas is in our staff reports when there is one on site I'm sorry if I missed your your thrust to your question there other questions thank you thank you all right move down to seven d which is any announcements yes um a special thanks to director Steve meddling for coming out checking us out this evening believe me it was my pleasure to be here uh I had to sneak in the back door because pat usually will not let me come yes well it was a pleasure having you helped us out a lot so uh any other announcements oh yes ma'am I just like to hear uh what happened with the with the planning department's budget you know when it was finally done I heard something about the county's cutting it and and then at the county you cut it then the city would have to cut it an equal amount because it has to be 5050 and how did all that work out I think it's safe to say that it has not yet finalized itself I can share with you that the budget that was approved by the city uh was the original amount uh allocated to the department um and the budget that was approved by the board of county commissioners uh was a a budget with a reduced amount for the department however in the interim we're working with both of the administrations to determine uh potential modifications to our work plan and potential budget and what those impacts may be ultimately that will be presented to the joint city county planning committee at their august meeting and then we'll have to be forwarded back to both elected board for for final adoption so that's that's all I can share at this point so they're getting more but we appreciate bad answer and I think we'll use our discretion to determine exactly what was said so we can act as individual citizens to uh kind of get a lobbying effort going on to ensure that our planning department stays intact because we would like to see Durham continue to grow and it's difficult to grow when you don't have planners and it's not often you see such a professional staff yes I do have one yes sir one other thing I'd like to remind the chairman is uh I mentioned I was I had been appointed by the planning chairman to the Durham open space and trails committee there are several other committees that are looking for planning board members and actually there one the Dost is wondering if if I if it's the will of the planning department planning uh commission that I'd be reappointed to the Dost of Dost committee so if that's something that we want to consider at the next meeting you know committee appointments you know we can consider that okay seems appropriate to put it for next I think it's something else right by bicycle and pedestrian committee is looking for someone from planning yes so if we can get a list of committees who's looking for members then we can yeah we'll make sure we have a full list of available vacant seats for next meeting okay good any other announcements yes sir don't have an announcement I just needed an excused absence for next month I won't be here okay we'll grant that to you now okay so if yes so of all announcements so clear and everybody's ready to go we can go ahead and adjourn this meeting