 There's the clicker, but when it comes up, our thing is right here in the middle of Durham and just click on it twice, of course, and then hit F5, and that'll bring up your first line, and all you've got to do is just advance it right here, and just leave up, I guess, the last one. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council and the County Board of Commissioners as an advisory board to the elected officials. You should know that the elected officials have the final say on any issue before us tonight. If you wish to speak on an agenda item tonight, please go to the table to my left and sign up to speak. For those of you who wish to speak, please state your name and your address clearly when you come to the podium. Please speak clearly and into the microphone. Each side, those speaking in favor of an item, and those speaking in opposition to an item will have ten minutes to present for each side. The time will be divided among all persons wishing to speak. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative, so if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is for denial. Thank you. May I have the roll call, please? Commissioner Alturk, Commissioner Johnson, Commissioner Glosch, Commissioner Brine, Commissioner Whitley, absent, Commissioner Harris, Commissioner Busby, Chairman Hyman, President, Commissioner Miller, Commissioner Kenchin, Commissioner Hornbuckle, Commissioner Vane, President, Commissioner Gibbs, and Commissioner Freeman. A motion, please. Madam Chair, I move approval of the April 11, 2017 minutes and consistency statements. Commissioner Harris, here I recognize Commissioner Harris. Yes, again, this time my comments was not in the consistency statement. In the one comment you have attributed to me on the zoning case 1600024, those are not my comments. Are there any additional corrections to the minutes? Let me recognize staff, please. Thank you. Can staff clarify? Are you speaking of the actual written comments? Yes. Alright, we'll take a look at that and figure out what happened. Thank you. Okay. Are there other corrections to the minutes? The Chair recognizes Commissioner Freeman. Just one correction. I noted in the comments from Commissioner Kitchen, just the error, the coat should probably be vote. It's just C-O-T-E as opposed to V-O-T-E. Okay. Are you a school teacher? Thank you. And the Chair recognizes Commissioner Gibbs. My notes were not included also. Staff will say that this time that we had several comments that were sent in with no names, like on the paper. The person did not fill out their name. So I'll go back and try to pull those and figure out if they belong to some of you that are missing comments. Otherwise, I will at least look and see if there was an oversight on our part and we'll get that corrected. That's very possible. I'll double check and I'll contact you and Mr. Harris to make sure that we have your comments. Thank you. Motion by Commissioner Busby and second by Commissioner Brine that we approve the minutes of April 11, 2017, including consistency statements, but also with corrections that have been identified and noted. All in favor of this motion, let it be known by the usual sign of aye. Aye. All opposed? The minutes are approved with corrections. Thank you. The next item, any adjustments to the agenda? Chair recognizes staff. Good evening. Grace Smith with the Planning Department. I'm not aware of any adjustments at this time. And staff would like to affirm that all legal notices have been executed and affidavits for such your own file within the Planning Department. Thank you. Thank you. And I will follow the agenda as outlined. Madam Chair. Yes. Chair recognizes. I will approve the agenda as printed. It has been moved and properly second that we approve the agenda as presented. All in favor of this motion, let it be known by the usual sign of aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay. We'll follow the agenda as presented. Thank you, Commissioner Harris. The first item, public hearing comprehensive plan, future land use map amendments, none. It has been moved to the first public hearing. Comprehensive plan, future land use map amendments, concurrent zoning map changes. Staff, please. Good evening, Jacob Wiggins with the Planning Department. This case has been submitted by Tony Tate Landscape Architecture. It is for a property located at 1900 Hillendale Road. It is in the city of Durham's jurisdiction and there are two requests in front of the Planning Commission. The first is an amendment to the comprehensive plan, the future land use map to change the designation of this property from medium density residential to an office designation. And then a zoning map change request to change the zoning of the property from residential suburban eight to office institutional with a development plan. The acreage of the site is approximately 1.3 acres and the applicant is proposing commercial surface parking at the subject site. An aerial view of the property. As you can see, the case area is highlighted in red. The project fronts along both Hillendale Road and Fawn Avenue. The Duke Medical Complex is located to the southwest of the subject site. The general area is slightly north of where Hillendale Road intersects with I-85. This is shot from the existing conditions sheet of the development plan as seen in your packet. Currently at the subject site, there is an existing single family structure with some accessory structures as well as gravel driveways. The existing future land use map is shown on the left hand image here in front of you. As I noted, the site is currently designated as medium density residential. There are office designations adjoining the site to the west and south. And the medium density residential is not seen to the east and north of the site. If the request is approved, it would look like the image on the right hand side, the proposed image. As you can see, the office designation would be an extension of the designations located to the south and west of the site. I'm looking at the zoning at the subject site. As I noted, it's currently zoned residential Suburban 8. And the applicant is requesting the office institutional designation. OI is seen also adjacent to the site to the west and south. Also in the greater area, there's some commercial zoning designation. And residential is seen to the north and east of the subject site. Some requested zoning district, some minimum requirements for the OI district in the urban tier. There's a minimum 20,000 square feet of side area just under half an acre. Setbacks, there's a 15 foot maximum street yard setback, 10 foot minimum side yard setback, and then a 25 foot minimum rear yard setback. And if structures are proposed, there's a maximum height of 90 feet. So the proposing additions, this is the third sheet in the development plan. Some commitments that the applicant has noted on this sheet. There's two access points. You see one on Hill and Dole Road and one on Fawn Avenue. The applicant is committing to a maximum of pervious surface of approximately 75% of the subject site, as well as project boundary buffers. Summarizing some of those commitments, the maximum intensity in the event the request is approved would be a maximum of 42,797 square feet of commercial parking area. As I noted, no structures. This would only be for surface parking only. Comprehensive plan policies reviewed as part of this request. The future land use map, as I noted, the site is currently noted as medium density residential. So it is not currently consistent. However, the applicant is requesting to change that to the office designation, which if approved would be consistent. So in determining this request, looking at both the plan amendment and the zoning map change, the staff did determine that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan, applicable policies and ordinances. And I'll be happy to answer any questions that the commission may have about this request. Thank you, Jacob. I do have individuals who have signed up to speak. I have Mr. Jay Anthony, who has signed up to speak for. And so we'll recognize, yes. Thank you, commissioners. I am Jim Anthony. I live at 4913 Adler Pass in Raleigh. And I am the applicant, actually. I represent the partnership which owns the property. We have the very difficult job of sitting on a planning commission in one of the most successful cities in America. You have incredible transformation happening almost on a daily basis in the city. And you have to be arbiters of what is best for the community at large, while balancing what neighborhoods need and desire for their integrity. This project only is on your desk because of our commitment to attempt to serve the Veterans Administration, who is located in two of our buildings on the corners of Burtland Avenue and Hillondale Road. Those small buildings totaling about 40,000 square feet are very, very busy. Part of what comes with the growth of a community like Durham is a retirement community that is largely comprised of Veterans. And they're moving here because the same reasons we all love it here. It's a great place to live. I used to think that the reason that the VA hospital was getting so busy was because we've been involved in a lot of conflicts lately. That's not it at all. It's because people are coming here and retiring or moving here as Veterans and they need the services that they can only get under their Veterans benefits at a VA-related facility. I think that's in the process of being addressed now because of the long wait times. But in any case, many people do not know that over 1200 people have been hired in the last six years at the Veterans Administration Hospital on Irwin Road. Staff to support this growing Veterans population in our city. Our clinics serve as off-site facilities to serve that same population who does not need to go to a hospital to be served. They're more of an outpatient facility. Just like any other clinic, the Duke runs across the street. As the neighbors know only too well, the street has been burdened, overburdened, the street that splits the two clinics with folks that can't find a parking space in the parking lots because of the busyness of these clinics. So I got to know the Veterans Administration Hospital staff because I was providing parking for them as a developer of Lakeview Park on Irwin Road at LaSalle Street. We had 400 parkers there from the hospital. And I realized just how desperate their needs were because they needed a lot more than those 400 spaces. My understanding is that they have now secured some additional parking at Northgate Mall to help support the hospital. But our decision was to see if we could help relieve the burden of the parking problems created by this large client load on Hillendale. So we found this lot up the street after looking around the neighborhood for existing parking lots, and we thought, well, gee, maybe we can make this work. We took the VA staff out there and we showed it to them. They said, this would work great. We'll park our staff up here. We'll walk down to the clinic with our staff, and that will provide plenty of room for our patients to park on-site. So this was the vision we had for the site. Knowing full well that the current comprehensive plan calls for the end of commercial at Fondrive. That is why you're being asked to consider amending the plan to add this lot for parking use only. This is a classic case of balancing neighborhood interests and the desires of neighbors to reduce perceived traffic concerns. But these people are already in the neighborhood. The people who are using the VA clinics buildings are there. They are just parking in different places. They're parking in the parking lots across the street and walking across, or they're parking on the streets. So I am here to humbly ask for your endorsement of our request to create a parking lot to serve our VA population, the staff in particular. About 90 cars coming in in the morning and 90 cars leaving at the end of the day. And that's really a very small amount of traffic that just gets relocated. They're already in the neighborhood. Now I recognize that some in the neighborhood are fearful that some of those folks are going to drive through their streets and create a risk to their children on the streets or the traffic that's already in their neighborhoods. And I understand that. So you have this challenge today of arbitrating this balance between community interest and neighborhood interest. It's not a simple task. I appreciate that. I also appreciate the opportunity to work with the neighbors, talk with them, which we've done a couple of times. And I don't know that there's a way to solve the challenge of creating a parking lot where they don't want one. And our desire to create one, I don't think there's a compromise here. It's kind of an either or proposition as I see it. Maybe someone can open my eyes to another alternative. But I'm hopeful that our appeal for this plan amendment and this rezoning will receive your favorable response. Not because some evil developer stands before you trying to make a lot of money, but because we believe in the mission of the Veterans Administration and the hospital and their clinics to serve this growing population. So thank you for letting me speak and considering our request. Thank you, Mr. Anthony. Do you have about two 45 minutes left, you know, the 10 minutes that you were allocated? We have other, there's no one else to speak for this issue. Well, thank you, Elaine, for allowing me to. I kind of feel like this is boring and get this guy out of here. But we do have some of our folks that are involved with the property here who support this and are Durham residents. And I would ask that if you're supporters of this project, if you could stand up and just let folks know that you're here. There are others in our audience here today. It's not all opponents. We have some, I'm certain, who would stand up in opposition to us. And this is what makes communities great. We have to wrestle with these issues together. Zoning is a wrestling match to a certain degree. And so I, I'm not sure what else I can say in support of this except that I'm delighted to meet with the neighbors if they have other ideas that I've not yet heard. But I am committed to supporting them and protecting their neighborhood to the highest degree possible. We want to build a, we would put up a screen wall. We would put up great landscaping on the borders with our residential neighbors. I think that in and of itself is better than looking out at the street and not having some sort of sound barrier. So we would be in effect creating some isolation for the neighborhood with our landscaping and our wall. But that doesn't address their concern about the traffic that would migrate across their streets through their neighborhood. I understand that. And I can't tell people which way to drive when they leave this parking lot if it were approved. It is my belief that most people will turn right because they have to onto Hillendale Road and quickly get into the left-hand lane if they need to go down to Interstate 85, which most of them probably will. And because of the Super Street design, they can make that movement pretty easily from Fawn Avenue up to that left turn and make the U-turn that it was designed for. So that's it. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much. We'll continue the public hearing. I do have three individuals who have signed up to speak against this issue. And I'm going to call all three names and remembering that you have 10 minutes to divide among each. So that's Alicia Stokes, Daniel Kashton, and Olivia Moore. Thank you, commissioners. My name is Alicia Stokes and I live at 2915 Fawn Avenue with my wife Laura and our three-year-old child. Before I get started, I would like to also say that I currently serve as a senior strategic advisor in the health care strategy department for the largest commercial payer in North Carolina, Blue Cross Blue Shield, North Carolina. So I am very aware of the challenges that our health care systems face in providing access, not only for the general public, but for our veterans as well. Our home is across the street from the proposed land development site. Laura and I moved to Durham in 2009 and in July of 2013 after renting for several years in a nearby home, we finally decided to put down roots. We moved to our current home and immediately fell in love with the neighborhood. Though we were close to the highway and in between two busy Durham roads, Hillendale and Guess, our new neighborhood seemed like the perfect definition of safe suburban livability. You can hear the sound of leaves blowing in the trees and the birds chirping. There was limited traffic, people were outside walking, children were riding bikes, and the neighborhood had a diverse demographic. The quality of life seemed supreme and we were sold at first glance. This is our backyard, one of the main reasons this house was the one. In the summer of 2014, as we put our three-month-old daughter down for her nap, we heard the sound of bulldozers in our backyard. Unbeknownst to us, the apartment complex behind us has zoned for further development when it was first built, and they were gearing up for an expansion. In what felt like the blink of an eye, the trees that shielded our backyard were torn down and replaced by a three-story apartment building. Then came the downstream impacts that likely no one planned for nor considered. We lost the natural watershed and now experience increased flooding after even the briefest rainfall. We lost the trees that provided a natural sound barrier from the highway. What we gained was an increase in noise, air, and light pollution. And I'd like to add that there is the boundary buffer and landscaping as being proposed, and I think you can still clearly see the apartment complex. Similarly, we suspect that there are some downstream impacts with the development of the Fallon-Hillendale site that aren't being thoroughly considered, especially with regard to increased traffic. I'd be remiss not to mention the traffic safety concerns, including but not limited to. Drivers who currently use our neighborhood as a thoroughfare already do not observe the speed limit. An increase in traffic likely increases this unlawful behavior. Fallon Avenue and its adjacent streets would be used as a cut-through for drivers wanting to avoid the one-way right turn onto Hillendale. And furthermore, Dartmouth, Alabama, and Omaha streets would become throughways for drivers to get from Carver to Fallon to reach the proposed entrance of the parking lot. Our neighborhood has no sidewalks, and increased traffic would worsen the dangerous conditions of our residents and their families that they currently face when walking down the streets. Simply stated, we vehemently stand against any development that puts pedestrians in increased danger and threatens the livability, safety, and quality of life that gives our neighborhood its unique charm. Without a doubt, our neighborhood is thriving. We are a residential community, and we have real estate potential. We are fully aware of Durham's transformation and intend to support that transformation to the fullest extent possible. However, the proposed developments for the Hillendale Fallon site disrupt the residential character of our neighborhood, and that's something that we're trying hard to protect. We would ask that you please consider this and your recommendations to your constituents. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Daniel Kashton. I'm the emergency planner for the Orange County Health Department. Prior to my current position, I was active D.D. Army as an operating room nurse, and still maintain the rank of captain in the Army Reserve. I am also an Iraq War veteran, and received my care at the VA. Today, however, I'm going to discuss the environmental impact of this project. Despite the developer's assertion, there's no such thing as development without environmental impact. The loss of previous areas increased likelihood for stagnant water, placing residents at risk for a mosquito-borne illness, such as Zika, yellow fever, and West Nile virus. The loss of natural plant life and dangerous water quality with pollution and contamination and may result in unsafe levels of bacteria and other contaminants. Increased traffic without the addition of sidewalks or shoulders makes the roads dangerous for our neighbors to exercise and socialize. For the elderly, the health risks of isolation include depression, cognitive decline, heart disease, and for our youth, unsafe conditions outdoors contribute to children staying indoors, increasing the risk of developing childhood obesity, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes. Two years ago, apartment complexes were built over a nearby watershed. Adding in 128% increase in flash flooding and Durham due to climate change, the resulting loss of previous land, in addition to the watershed, places the residents at increased risk for flooding. This was evidenced last year during Hurricane Matthew and the resulting flooding of our crawl spaces in our yards. Flooding during Hurricane Floyd in 1999 led to all North Carolina counties declaring a state of emergency and it cost the state an estimated 4.5 billion. The proposed parking lot increases the pervious area from 14 to 75% and over 400% increase. Measures could be taken to reduce the impact. EPA recommendations include the use of permeable pavement, preserving more green space, and proper rainwater harvesting techniques. But because the implementation of these measures would make the project cost prohibitive, they're unlikely to occur. It is for these reasons, among many others, the Durham Planning Commission should reject this offer, along with any development that does not see the preservation of previous land and the proper management of stormwater runoff. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Olivia Moore and I reside at 2104 Dartmouth Drive with my father and my husband. In the justification statement for the Comprehensive Plan Amendment, the developer states that the proposed land use amendment is accommodating the growth that is occurring in this area of Durham. While the commercial office properties and shopping centers southeast and southwest of the proposed site have been renovated, most of these properties have been in existence for approximately 40 to 50 years. In addition, office vacancy is high along the Crowsdale corridor. The only other new development southeast and southwest of the proposed property has been a multi-family site on Burtland Avenue, which is behind the VA clinics. North of Fawn Avenue and east of Hillendale is entirely single-family residential. The proposed parcel for rezoning would become the only non-residential property on this side of Fawn and Hillendale. The developers claim that single-family homes along Hillendale Road are not desirable because some homes are rental or because their own a busy corridor is entirely subjective. The families that own these homes and the families that rent these homes seem to be perfectly fine living there. Furthermore, there is new construction of two single-family homes on Dartmouth Drive that abut the proposed site and a third home is planned for the adjacent lot and the same builder owns another lot on Fawn Avenue. Young professionals with small children are moving into our neighborhood. Older folks who grew up in the neighborhood are moving back and people that have lived there for 40 years are renovating their homes. Neighbors have stated that if they had known a parking lot would be at the entrance to our neighborhood, it would have deterred them from moving into the neighborhood or paying the price that they paid. Why invite a parking lot that would definitely cause major traffic in our neighborhood? Since Hillendale Road is a divided median road and difficult at best to navigate from Fawn Avenue, the proposed parking lot is right in and right out only. Traffic will definitely choose to filter through our neighborhood to avoid Hillendale Road and its heavy traffic. Additionally, two miles north of the proposed site at the corner of Hillendale and Horton Road, there are two new residential developments there. These projects will most likely create additional traffic on Hillendale Road and make it even more difficult to exit or enter. At the March Planning Commission, the developer requested a continuance. At our request, the Planning Department sent a copy of the developer's revised plan. That plan included the parking lot or 21,000 square feet of office building or townhomes. According to the Planning Department, they didn't have time to review the revised plan and suggested the developer withdraw the original parking lot plan and resubmit his revised plan or go ahead with his original plan. This leads us to believe a parking lot is not the developer's permanent use for the proposed site. The neighborhood is not opposed to residential development at the site. Single family homes like those being under construction on Dartmouth Drive or clustered patio homes would be more in keeping with our neighborhood. While we understand the VA's need for additional parking and possibly a need for office space, there are more appropriate spaces, especially Northgate Mall, since the VA already utilizes space at the mall. There are vacant properties on Crowsdale Drive, 20,000 square feet of office space down there that has parking available. There's also an office building directly across the street that the VA could use should they need office space. As the Planning Department has stated, could you please stand up if you are opposed to this? As the Planning Department has stated, and I quote, the introduction of a non-residential designation on this blockface may spur a similar request in the future. Basically, they are saying the commercial cancer will spread. I will allow you to finish your sentence. Thank you. We hope you will see that this is a thriving residential community with a diverse range of families from folks that have been in the neighborhood for over 50 years to young families moving in. This proposal threatens a major change to our peaceful residential community and jeopardizes our quality of life. Thank you. Thank you. In addition, I have a petition that's non-petition that I'd like to enter into the minutes. If that's okay. We'll accept it. Thank you. I have no additional individuals who have signed up to speak, so I'm going to close the public hearing and give commissioners an opportunity to ask questions. Before I start, I'd like to recognize that Commissioner Whitley has joined the panel and is to be marked present. Have a technical thing. Commissioner, the chair recognizes Commissioner Harris before we start. Our cover sheet, actually we have two written comment cover sheets for Brightleaf and we didn't have a cover sheet for the Hillendale, so it would be appropriate for us just to change the case number and name to A160015015 in Hillendale. Sure. I'm not sure how that happened. We were trying something new and trying to put your names on the forms and make it easier. Yeah. So we'll try better next month. We did recognize that and thank you so much and we'll simply mark through. Now I'll give commissioners an opportunity to speak to this issue. Do I have commissioners on my right? Let me go ahead. Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner Halter, if you're missing you. Okay. Commissioner Gouche. Commissioner Brine. Commissioner Harris, did I see your name? Okay. Commissioner Harris. And to my left, Commissioner Hornbuckle. Commissioner Gibbs and Commissioner Miller. Okay. The chair recognizes Commissioner Johnson. Thank you, Chairwoman. And thank you all for coming out this evening and sharing your thoughts regarding this project. I have a number of questions, but I'm hoping that my peers on the commission here will ask that and address it. So I guess I will start off with a question for the applicant. One thing that strikes me is that for the request that's being made, was there any thought given to the fact that the parcel as currently zoned in the future land use map is not positioned in zone for what you're asking. And so was that, I'm trying to get a background understanding of what led the applicant to feel that this was, how viable did you think this was? And given the response that you've heard from the opposition in regards to how it fits into the neighborhood, you seem pretty steadfast on this is the site for this project. And so how did the history play out into your decision to be here tonight? Great question. I did an extensive site search to try to find something that was close enough to accommodate the parking needs of those buildings. One of the sites that I thought would be perfect was on the other side of the Hampton Inn. And it sits down in the hole that used to be occupied by Shoneys and the motel. And I thought this would be terrific. It's already paved largely. Can we work out something with that owner? And unfortunately we couldn't. I thought that'd be a great spot to park cars. They wouldn't lease it and they wouldn't sell it. Not at an affordable price anyway. So then I looked at all the properties across the street that are already zoned commercial and already have parking lots, made an offer on the empty 20,000 square foot building that was recently rehabbed to buy that at a price that I thought might make sense and couldn't get that to work. So the only choice I could come up with that was within walking distance of the site was this one that's proven to be so controversial. So that's how we wound up there. Pretty simple process of elimination. And did not think in our initial conversations with the neighborhood that it would be as controversial as it's become, obviously. So we had some early conversations that felt like, well, gee, if we just provide some buffering and a wall and enough landscaping, what's the big deal with 90 cars? But it's obviously a much bigger deal to the neighbors than that. So that's the process. And quick follow-up. And so when you were going through the early preliminary stages of site selection, how early on did you reach out to neighboring communities and neighbors to get a sense of, get a pulse of their acceptance or distaste or whatever it is for what you were trying to do? How early did they come into your process of engagement? We, I think, put the property under contract first and then had, I went door-to-door to sort of the immediate neighbors and spoke with the folks who lived right behind the house or behind the property that still has a house on it. And didn't get objections there. Spoke with Mr. Burini, the developer of the homes right behind us. He didn't seem to have an objection. And so I kind of limited it to those who were really close by. Didn't go deep into the neighborhood at all until we'd actually purchased the property. And that's when we began to realize that there were some very passionate opposition folks in the neighborhood. Thank you. Commissioner Gush. Thank you, Chair Hyman. Questions for the applicant? You made mention of, you know, the buffering in a wall or fence or something like that. And I just wanted to make sure it wasn't apparent to me that that was being committed in the development plan. It is actually on the development plan. It is on the development plan. It's just ungraphically? Yes. Okay. I think I see it. I just wanted to make sure that's what I was looking at. And I just want to make sure that I'm hearing it right. Because I've heard some comments about, you know, other potential sites that could maybe accommodate the, you know, the need you're trying to fit. But some of them... So the intent here is that the people who park here will walk to those near... Okay. Because, you know, I think I heard Northgate Mall or something like that. That seems like a long way to walk to Hillendale. Aside from that, I mean, those were really the questions that I have on this. I think most of all, you know, it's a little bit over an acre. And it is to, you know, for a parking lot, which isn't necessarily the, you know, type of development that people get excited about. But I understand the need for it and can appreciate that. Thank you. Commissioner Ghosh, the staff has requested to make a comment at this time. Oh, sure. In regards to your question. I'm sorry. I didn't see you there, Jacob. That's okay. Thank you, Chair Hyman. Mr. Anthony, I'm not aware of any wall that is noted on the development plan. Could you clarify exactly where the wall is proposed? And if one's not on there, are you formally committing to such at this hearing? Yes. Absolutely. We told the neighbors at the outset that we would do this and there is a commitment on our part to build a solid, treated wood wall, the entire length of the property that borders the neighborhood. And that would be a solid wall and eight feet tall. If they want it that tall, they want it shorter, we'll go down to six feet. I doubt whether anybody would want less than six. And could you describe, you said adjacent to the neighborhood, which portions of the property are specifically referring to? Yes. This would be the eastern border of the site. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for that. Oh, and I did have one more question. It was alluded to in maybe Ms. Moore's comments. But it was a question for the applicant. This was before the planning commission in March. And could you tell us what changes happened or what happened between now and March? Yes. We pulled the application in March to delay its consideration to tonight for a very specific reason. And that was that it was very clear that asking for the ability to build an office building on this site was a non-starter. That was not going to get any traction with the neighbors or with you. And so we pulled that off of the plan. Thank you, Commissioner Goch. Commissioner Bryan. Thank you. I also have a few questions for the applicant. You may have already answered this, but the office space that's directly across Hillendale from this site, 20,000 square feet with associated parking, you looked at that? Yes. And you couldn't work anything out? Correct. Not only for sale, but it's also for a lease. I was wondering if you could try just a lease parking. Yeah. There's kind of a fun story there. They bought a building that has about nine-foot clear height inside it. It looks great outside, but if any of you actually inspected the building, the interior is really problematic. So you have to lift the roof on the building. Well, let's not get into too many details. You answered my question. You looked at it. It didn't work. Right. Now, with this parking lot that's proposed, how many spaces will be in it? Let me ask my architect, designer, Tony, how many spaces have we got on it? Plan 106, 8.5 foot by 18 foot parking spaces. And that's as dense as you can get. 8.5 foot space is typically the narrowest. Okay. So 106. And you're expecting, say, 90 cars, maybe give or take. Yes. In and out. How will you know that the people parking there are associated with the VA? Great question. There will be permit parking, and we'll have the lot patrolled. Okay. And you indicated that people would be walking from here down to the clinics. Yes, sir. Do you intend to put a sidewalk along the part of the parking lot that fronts on Phong? Yes. Because that's not shown. Yeah. There would be a connector sidewalk coming from that driveway over to the existing sidewalk on Hillendale. Okay. So that may be a second commitment that needs to be added. One of the, well, I guess another question I have for you. You indicated that you thought people would be leaving, go out from, turn right on the Hillendale, go up, make a left turn at the closest spot to do so. And my question, how easy is that to do during rush hour? Well, I've done it. And it's doable. It's doable, but I suspect that a much more attractive alternative to a lot of these people is to go out from to Guish Road and go south on Guish. I'm not in a position to say what people's preferences would be. I just know that the stoplight does stop traffic and there's gaps. Okay. Thank you. I also have a few questions for staff. Can we clarify the sidewalk? Well, we have a clarification before the sidewalk. Yeah. Thank you. There are two items I'd like to clarify. First, Mr. Anthony, you're talking about the eight foot wall or fence. So if it's going to be wooden, it would have to be what's considered a fence. And you're comfortable with that, that proper? Yes. Okay. And secondly, can you please clarify the commitment that you've, I believe, be proper regarding the sidewalk? Yeah. To clarify, we believe that some of the folks are going to walk down to the driveway to make that connection over to Hillendale Road and walk down. We think that a sidewalk along that short section from the driveway out to Hillendale may be important. There may be a shorter way to do that from the parking lot out to Hillendale. And we're open to looking at alternatives. So are you committing to building a sidewalk along Fawn Avenue for the portion of the property? I'm unclear. Okay. My answer would be it depends on what's most practical for those who are parking in the lot. I'm not certain that that is the most practical exit. I think that may be more practical for folks to walk more directly across the parking lot out to Hillendale. Okay. Yep. Thank you for clarifying. And just so you can. Thank you. Properly potential commitment. You either do or you don't. So my understanding is you're not making that proper at this time. Correct. Thank you. Thank you, Jacob. And Commissioner Bryan, do you have additional? Two other questions for staff. I just noticed in attachment eight. Table one. Hillendale road was, in my opinion, sort of misdescribed. It's not undivided. It's very definitely divided. And I'm just wondering if that can be cleaned up before this goes forward. Yes, sir. Commissioner Bryan. We'll take a look at that. I believe it's based on portions of the street not being undivided. But yeah, we can make that note as it goes forward that for this portion of Hillendale, it is a divided road. Okay. And my other question, when I look at this aerial photograph, it seems like the lots that front Hillendale and lots that front Dartmoor are pretty much the same size. And what I'm having trouble understanding is why the lots that front Dartmoor have RU-5 zoning and whereas the lots that front Hillendale or RS-8 zoning, can you expand on that? I can certainly track. I mean, to be honest with you, I don't have a great answer. In the urban tier, typically, RU-5 is the more common designation. And I believe when the ordinance or this version of the ordinance was adopted, there was a lot of carryover from previous ordinances. So I think the RS-8 portion that you see in order iterations of the zoning map was indicated to be more of a suburban type. And I think that's changed over time and that's reflected in the residential neighborhood to the east. But that would be my best guess. Thank you. Madam Chair, I have no further questions at this time, but I would like if you could cycle back to me later on for comment. Commissioner Harris. Yes, my question is for traffic engineer Mr. Judge. Mr. Judge, my question is in reference to the right out of foreign onto Hillendale and then the left U-turn. Especially during rush hour traffic, was the road designed to accommodate an additional 100 vehicles during rush hour traffic? Yeah, the Hillendale road widening wasn't specifically designed for any particular land use. But during rush hour traffic, I mean vehicles would be able to, with gaps, turn right and get into the left U-turn lane to make that U-turn. If they're unable to do it at that location, they could go down to the next location to make the U-turn as well if they had difficulty getting over two lanes of traffic. But it would be a lot safer for them just to go down east on foreign and then right on guest road and go south. I mean, it depends on the time of day and where they're headed as to which way they would likely go. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Harris. Commissioner Hornbuckle. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. My question is for the developer. Sir, you stated this basically would be for staff parking. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. These clinics are basically what Monday through Friday. That's right. Right, they're Monday through Friday. So it would probably be basically what, seven in the morning to say maybe five, six in the evening. That's correct. Somewhere in there. All right. It would be under the, my guess would be under basically under the control of the Veterans Administration. We would own the lot. We, they would have a lease on it. They would have permit passes to allow them to park there and we would patrol it to make sure others were not. But it would be their responsibility to operate that parking lot. Right. That's what I mean. You know, at say after hours, I'm sure all their plans to have a gate there and close, you know, the lot off at both access points. There aren't any plans. That's an interesting question. We just haven't explored that. Well, I would, you know, think I just, my dealings would be added. They wouldn't want, you know, a secured lot that that would have something to be looked at of that. And my second question for you is about lighting in the lot. What tie is there? What type of lighting would be used in the lot? Yes. The lighting would most likely be used minimally because they depart before the sun goes down. The VA keeps pretty short hours. They shut down at five o'clock. Right. Yep. That answers my question. Okay. Yeah. This is staff. Thank you, chair. I just want to clarify something. There's a lot of talk about the potential end user for this site. Please note that there's no commitment on the development plan as to the end user. So please just keep that in mind. Thank you. Commissioner Gibbs. Well, I could follow the previous commenter. My question, my first question was, was going to be about lighting. Of course, there is no way of knowing what the VA may decide to do with this parking lot after hours. It may become, well, patient parking, whatever, to shuttle back and forth between the main campus and this. But that's just more speculation. I won't belabor that. But it's actually, I would prefer, and this is just my personal feeling, of vegetaries and infill with shrubs or whatever as a separator. And I mean dense foliage and some kind of baffling for any kind of lighting that would go around the lot. And what I mean by that is a baffle on the residential side. And by the way, the existing White House, it looks like it's going to be demolished and that would become part of the parking areas. That is correct. Okay. This is, I would think that the VA could work out something, some arrangement on another place and especially the parking across the street where they are presently doing parking. When you, this has always been a residential area. And to me, it's a good transition from the commercial. I call it the commercial from the highway. Well, actually from, almost from the golf course all the way up to Fawn. And from Fawn on, I just have a feeling that it should remain residential. To, once you open up the floodgates for commercial, it seems to follow. It's going to continue on down to the next block or to the next intersection. And I personally would like to see this remain because it does have an effect. It's just a small parking lot, yes, but it does have a great impact for all of the reasons that the gentleman who spoke that showed the different effects. But those are just my comments. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Gibbs. Commissioner Miller. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Jim, you and I went out last summer and looked at this property and a couple of others too. And you were interested in VA parking. And at the time we went out, I quite frankly did not notice that the Hillendale Road was divided there, although I should have. I do business from time to time. I do not live very far away from this on the businesses that are on the west side of Hillendale. And frequently I am confronted with the business of having, the problem of having to drive past where I want to go and then turn in and get back. Now it works if you are going into like this large place that used to be Lomond's Plaza because you're going to left turn right into them. I never make a U turn there. Even to get back down towards the restaurant on the corner, Pomodoro would turn into the Lomond's Plaza thing and then just cut across all the parking lots. And I think that's kind of what's envisioned by our municipal node policies is an integration of these uses. And one of the things that troubles me about what's proposed here is this business of no right turn. I don't think that people will make U turns. And I know Mr. Judge said well if you can't get across here you can go further up. The problem is the way this road is designed is once you have committed yourself into one of these left turn places you can't back out or turn or get out of them. You can't go through these main barriers on your right and your left. I think what people are going to do is go through the neighborhood streets and I don't think that that's appropriate. When I look at this aerial map that was supplied as part of our packet I notice that next to the clinic property there on the northeast corner of Bertrand, Avenue there is a blocky L shaped piece of property that is owned commercial and the back half of that property is wooded. It seems to me that that would be a much better site for parking for your clinic than something that would require people to walk along the busy street especially if they, you know, it just seems to me that's a better thing. Great question, Tom. We did look at the Lions Club property which is the L shaped piece that you're referring to and we offered to rent that property from the Lions Club. They turned us down. Okay. It seems to me that that would solve all the problems. We totally agree. Anybody can exercise an influence at the Lions Club. We'd love to talk to you. So my analysis of these kinds of things and if you don't mind Madam Chairman I will just go ahead and kind of lay this out. My analysis always goes back to the comprehensive plan and I went through the items that the staff cited and some of my own pet policies in the plan. If you want I can come back around. No. So I was looking at this thing. 2.3.1a about continuous development. You know is this consistent with that? Well that's arguable. I think you could say that it is. In that nearby there are non-residential and office uses. 2.3.1d, office uses of transition. I think that this does meet that but I think that this kind of a thing. The question is where should the line be? And I believe this is the ultimate question. What is the best, most stable line between residential and non-residential uses in the area? 2.3.1d doesn't give us any guidance because I mean there's always going to be office next to residential. No matter where you draw the line it doesn't tell us where the line should be. And then again 2.3.1e expansion of the node. And this is one and there's also 4.2.3a. That's an objective later on in the comprehensive plan under quality design. And I don't think that this proposal meets either of these two broad policy statements mainly because what we're expanding is although you could say it's an expansion of the commercial node it's not integrated into the commercial node. Unlike the businesses on the other side of the street where you can turn in and I have to make a U turn you can go from parking lot to parking lot to get where you want to go. This is actually separated by some distance from the property that it's meant to serve. And it is not convenient as 4.2.3a requires it to be. It's not convenient or efficient for either motorists or pedestrians to park here to go there. So I do think that that's kind of a failure. But I think the staff in one sentence in this and our staff report has put down the thing that worries me most. And this is something you and I talked about when we looked at this property is ultimately the introduction of non-residential uses in a block that right now is all residential uses. And the destabilizing impact that this could have. I am for stable boundaries between residential and non-residential. And I might feel differently if we saw an area that was definitely trending one way or another. But this is not if there's any trend at all in this neighborhood it's actually to solidify and improve the residential character of the area. When we were out there Mr. Burini is it Mr. Burini that's been building the houses that built that one house we actually drove around to look at it on Dartmouth because it was so attractive. And now he's built several more houses there as infill development. So I think that is the trend I would like to encourage in this neighborhood and in this block. So these are the things that concern me the most. I would though acknowledge though that as a residential street Hillendale isn't as good as Dartmouth it isn't as good as Fawn. That doesn't mean that it can't function as a residential street. But I do think that in the future we may have to look at different types of residential along there to for stability when we met with some of us met with the neighbors some of the neighbors and I don't know you hadn't had a chance to deliberate amongst yourselves. So I'd like to call a spokesman for the neighborhood to the mic and see we talked about the possibility of whether or not this parcel this 1.3 acre parcel whether it would be acceptable to you or in your vision for your own neighborhood whether this might be used for multifamily residential especially townhouses because it seems to me especially drawing on the example that is in the southeast corner of Duke Street and Claude Boulevard where very high quality townhouses with accessory dwellings have been put in. That's a difficult corner a corner that all by itself is not the best location for single family homes even though single family homes were located there it's been re-adapted and reused for those townhouses. Would that sort of development here be better? I realize it doesn't serve the VA but the zoning code doesn't have a policy and the comprehensive plan doesn't have a policy that requires us to serve the VA in my opinion serving the people and serving good planning as a broad concept is a more important goal. So can somebody come and tell me is is I know you said single family homes or patio homes you know people are not building patio homes but they are building townhouses and the market really wants them right now. I don't know how to use the slide but we have a picture in our slides. I saw that. And that is a neighborhood off of Coal Mill Road and it has several homes tucked in there they are considered town homes but they're single story homes. In addition to that town homes in the legal sense and that the owners own the land underneath them. That's exactly right. But not necessarily in the architectural sense and that they're two stories. That's exactly right. And they are single family and they're really nice and if you see how they kind of circle in there I am not a land planner and I don't propose to be but my thought is if you come off of Fawn Avenue and you kind of do this and plant those houses around there and buffer them down to Hillendale Road it would fit great with the neighborhood. So we're not opposed to that. We don't want some gigantic three story town home in the neighborhood and frankly I'm a commercial real estate broker and I sit back and I look and I think are they going to back them to Hillendale Road? Are they going to turn them? How would they do that? Would they kind of cluster them in there? It would really be nice and even if they cluster the Barini Homes in there those homes are 1,800 square feet, 2,000 square feet. They would be really cute. They would really look nice in there. But you know that's our thought on that. I have other thoughts but you didn't ask me so I won't give them. Thank you and Jim I know that I mean in your presentation you acknowledged that this is a difficult situation and it is difficult and that there are interests here that are worthy of being served but we can't serve them all. The question then becomes if you cannot place your commercial parking lot on this corner and since you do have the land under control would you be interested in developing it for some sort of non-single family residential? I don't know that we have much of an option other than that. You would get good and sick of me in several cases in the pipeline in addition to this one and if we get turned down here I'm just going to be right back with a request to rezone it for more density than it currently allows. I think it allows eight units per acre today. We would want more than that. Yes and I think that that would be quite frankly appropriate. Because this is a difficult site its future as a place for more single family homes kind of on the large lot facing either Fawn or Hillendale at this point probably isn't a land use I would support but I do think that the property is large enough so that there are options available that would promote stability and make the land useful. I like the idea of Fawn as a boundary between residential and non-residential because just diagonally across the street we have the old Hillendale school property although it's zoned office institutional it's actually kind of in the dead hand of the school system that's a great place for that boundary to remain but I want this property to be usable. I don't want it to be a problem so that the community feels obligated to squeeze something into it that doesn't belong there. Thank you very much. Thank you Madam Chairman. Thank you Commissioner Miller. I'm going to circle back again to Commissioner Bryan. Okay Commissioner and I'll start with Commissioner Al Turk and then Commissioner Whitley and then I'll check back with you Commissioner Bryan. Thank you Commissioner Al Turk. Thank you Chairwoman. I had a question about traffic because I think you know that's one of the main sticking points you know just to kind of follow up on commissioners Hornbuckle and Gibbs they were talking about you know who exactly would be parking at this space it seems like it will be staffed but that can't be guaranteed correct. I mean my sense is because there is a use I mean this is a very specific use for this particular clinic I don't think that will change very much. Now that suggests to me that the traffic will be relatively minimal but what I'm seeing in the staff report and this so this is a question for staff is that the traffic generation estimated is you know an extra almost 900 trips a day but that's based on a 6,000 square foot bank with a drive-up window so it seems to me like quite quite different from a clinic so is there anything that's comparable to a clinic that we can so we can get a better sense of how much traffic there would be. Bill Judge with transportation in the staff report we've for longstanding had a policy or tradition of providing the most intense potential use that's permitted under the requested zoning so that's why you're seeing that number in there so that would be the largest potential traffic generator that would be permitted. I see. Okay. Okay well so I guess my gut instinct is that it will be considerably less than what we have in the staff report and I mean I you know I was initially one of you know was not for this proposal mostly because you know parking lots no one wants to see parking lots especially close to residential homes but when I drove out there I mean this is so first I think there are a couple of points there is a text commitment I think someone mentioned a neighbor mentioned that you're not sure what the intent of this parcel or you know what will be on this parcel but there is a text commitment that says that development will be limited to commercial parking I think that's one point. It is a specific use like Commissioner Ghosh mentioned something that's needed and to Commissioner Miller's point about and I think some of the other concerns that no other parcels on this block are residential I recognize that but I look at it more from you know if you if you kind of zoom out a little bit and you look aesthetically at the at the area it does seem very contiguous with I mean having a parking lot there I was trying to imagine what it would look like and it seems to me because there are so much on the other side of Hillendale and it is on a very busy street that it would not be so out of character with the area if there were if this was you know a donut hole or if there was a parking lot and surrounded by residential areas or if it was you know on Dartmouth and you know Dartmouth and Fawn instead of Hillendale and Fawn you know I think there would be a bigger concern but this is a tough case but I'm inclined to vote for it thanks. Yes Commissioner Whitley. You know I just had the experience of going to the clinic this morning and at 8.30 in the morning the parking lot was was filled and just I was luckily coming in when someone else was going out and I was able to park but going into the complex I saw cars on both sides of the street going down the road. The other point that I want to make it you know the VA has vans that transport people from the hospital to to the Hillendale sometimes staff use it to to go to the main hospital so it could also be used for transporting people from the parking lot to Hillendale to one and two. I am I've been listening and I am I'm very proud of Durham residents that have been able to come out tonight and and different points of view show your attention to a problem facing our community. I'm very proud of you and we encouraged that and more of that needs to happen on other kinds of issues as well but tonight my hats us off to your activism to come come here but I was a little amazed in some of the testimony where we were going to have contagious diseases to me was a little bit over the top but I was also impressed with the conversation that they had about impervious surface and and flooding did you did you sure are you asking a question now I'm going to ask the question did you think about what kinds of drainage system you will put to address their concerns we did we have a stormwater collection device on the site which will retain it clarify it and then put it into the stormwater system that's adjacent to the property in Hillendale so yes we have address that and we have been researching pervious pavers and they are indeed more expensive than asphalt but there's there's some products now that are really attractive and and and I'm not sure they're even accepted yet by the city of Durham as a surface to be used in place of of asphalt but if it is we absolutely want to research that okay so that answers a very important question for me I will vote to approve this measure I think veterans need it and I personally thank you for coming to our rescue thank you commissioner Whitley let me just make ask one question and make one observation and this is a follow-up to what I heard from commissioner Hornbuckle can you definitively say that this parking lot you're this is a lease agreement so once you lease this to the VA and your response to his question was when he asked about the usage after hours once you lease this parking lot to the VA then it belongs to them so it's there so you can't really definitively say how this lot will be used after hours and on weekends is that a fair statement your right commissioner that it is possible that they could change their operating hours at the clinic and they would have the right to use the parking lot we just know what their current operating hours are and historically what they have been and they're closed at five o'clock every day and they have been for as long as we've seen them operate in Durham and this goes back to one of the residents Olivia Moore had an additional question that I'd like to ask her or comment that she would like to make in conjunction with that with regard to the second submission of the plan that was withdrawn Jim states that they took it out for whatever reason it was my understanding from Jacob Wiggins that when it was submitted to the planning department that he told me directly that he did not they did not have time to review the fact to review that second submission because it had a parking lot a twenty one thousand square foot office building on it or townhomes and that he was going to call back to the developer and recommend to the developer that he either do a couple of things that he would come to this meeting tonight and withdraw his original parking lot plan and then resubmit the second plan that he put in as a continuance or that he go forward tonight with the parking lot plan that that really bothers me you know and because of that I've taken a look at what is available down crowsdale drive there are twenty thousand square foot office buildings down there for lease one of them has two hundred and ninety three parking spaces available the other one has a hundred and ninety parking spaces available and in addition to this the development that is occurring at the corner of horton road and and um hillondale road that's three hundred and eighty townhomes and a hundred and eighty single family homes on one side of the street that's two miles north of us we are going to be inundated with traffic on hillondale road thank you do I would like to speak yes the chair recognizes commissioner freeman thank you I had a question for the developer Jim Anthony and I wasn't going to say anything but it really struck me in that you mentioned that this price for this property was affordable or more affordable than the other property over by the hotel or motel and I just want to ask you did you consider the cost to the neighborhood and realizing that you know when we're living in these communities it's not just a piece of property and it's important to recognize that when you have this many neighbors organizing and putting together presentations and saying that they don't want to see this happen it kind of strikes me as more than just a planning case this is an issue of a miss and I've said this before I've said it plenty of times before we can't do planning in a vacuum you can't do this one by one lot by lot planning decision and not look at small communities neighborhoods and figure out what is needed what's necessary granted the VA may need this parking but it does not have to be right there and I just wanted to know that I just wanted to note this for you that when you said the affordability was the reason you chose that piece of parcel it really struck me as odd and cold may I comment of course the fact is that whether it's a government agency or a private developer or a city municipality everybody's got to live within their means and live with a budget and the cost to acquire an old hotel site that is priced to build a large hotel on which apparently he's thinking about bringing back to you all just to give you heads up that's not comparable to what we need for a small parking lot to serve the VA and the other facilities nearby that we worked on again we could not get an answer out of the Lions Club we made an offer that was rejected across the street on the twenty thousand square foot building and we just know what they're able to pay and if they can't pay it we can't pay it and so there's not any intention to be harmful to the neighborhood we honestly believed when we pursued this project and acquired the property that a site plan that did its best to insulate the neighborhood from the parking lot would be even an advantage to what exists today which is kind of a messy property with a lot of open space to the balance of the neighborhood and we thought fault perhaps faulted faulty thought that building a wall with landscaping would actually enhance those houses behind us and the neighborhood behind those houses but I may be crazy. Thank you I just wanted to just say that I don't in any way shape or form think this is something that you've created I think it's the system that we're working within and that it needs to be addressed in a larger way than what this one case is going to allow I have to tell you that I will not be supporting it because it does not reflect a community's vision and it's hard to continue to do this this way we've got to figure out a way to be more intentional about what we're doing because the unintended consequences can be more harmful than the benefit that you gain because they don't gain it you gain it. Thank you commissioner Gauch. Thank you I'm still trying to determine a little bit more about this project just by a show of hands can I see how many veterans there are in the house tonight. Okay and I take it most of the veterans in the audience anyways live close to the VA clinic. You go to the clinic. Yeah I think that's interesting I mean to me I just think that there's a not a lot of I'm not I guess I'm not getting both sides of the story there are a lot of neighbors here and I've heard some views in opposition of this but you know in my estimation this is as far as projects go pretty innocuous project is a parking lot that is meant to benefit the VA. Now a lot of veterans as I've seen in the audience do live close by and I imagine whether they do or not are able if they wanted to to get to the clinic pretty easily but I don't know if that's the case for all the veterans who use that clinic and I think that the parking lot that's being proposed here might actually I mean that's the greater benefit to the community is that the it would serve veterans that have served us for a while in a I mean I think some interesting points have been brought up about it. I drive by the side often weekly my parents live up this way so I'm very familiar with it it and I'm not saying it doesn't happen I just it never occurred to me to cut through fawn to get the guest road of course if I parked at the corner here maybe I would but I've always taken Carver to Hillendale or Hillendale to Carver to guest road that's always the way I've gone and would continue to do that. My concern about cut through traffic here is not I mean I don't share the concern as commissioner Al Turk I think alluded to I think the traffic numbers in the staff report are intentionally but they're I mean they're just you know they're not even close to what would be expected out of 106 parking spaces I mean 900 trips or something it doesn't even make sense. I think this is a low impact use and I think that it's something that I would think it's something that the community can support because given that it's meant to benefit the veterans. Thank you. Thank you commissioner Commissioner Busby. Thank you Madam Chair I did have one question for Mr. Anthony I don't think we've addressed this yet so on your justification statement there is a sentence at the very bottom and it talks about the parking lights that the parking lot lights will be required per the UDO but it says but efforts will be made to keep lighting off the adjacent residential properties I just wanted to hear what plans you have to help deal with that issue. I know now there's a commitment to put the 8 foot wall on the eastern side but I assume there would likely need to be some additional commitments. Yes with respect to the lighting it would absolutely have the baffle that was referenced earlier to block that lighting and restrain it to the lot itself both down and on the property not allowing it to go the other direction. Great thank you and if I may Madam Chair I believe Commissioner Bryan had additional statements as well but you know this is Mr. Anthony you said it yourself that this is not an easy decision these are two important needs to be addressed I wish we had an easy answer in front of us I know we have to find additional parking for the VA after hearing this case and looking at the staff report carefully visiting the site I don't think this is the right spot I'm happy to hear that there may be if this does not move forward there may be interest in actually doing residential development here that does seem like the right approach and I commend the neighbors for being interested and willing to work with you in the spirit of trying to find something so if you are indeed back here I look forward to that conversation that to me seems like the appropriate answer for the residential question about what's right for this neighborhood my only regret is we don't solve the VA parking issue tonight but I think we need to continue looking despite your best efforts thank you. Thank you Commissioner Busby Commissioner Bryan. Thank you I'll try to be brief I echo some of the sentiments that have already been expressed I would like to see fawn avenue stay as the boundary between commercial office and residential I think it's important to preserve the integrity of the neighborhood by doing that and to me page three of the staff report the sentence about the introduction of a non-residential designation on this block face may spur similar requests in the future to me that was the scariest statement in the entire report I am concerned about the traffic I've already alluded to that even if it's 80 cars extra going down fawn avenue I think that's really dangerous for a narrow street with no sidewalks I think that alternative still may be out there if nothing else maybe get some additional parking at Northgate mall and use these vans that Commissioner Whitley referred to to carry people to their destination and the other thing that sort of bothers me and this is because of the second submission that was submitted to me is that even though this plan tonight has a commitment on it but only be used for parking I've been around long enough to know that commitments like that can just as easily be removed and that if this is approved as a parking lot it might not stay as a parking lot very long and that's a big concern for me so I cannot support these requests tonight. Thank you. Do I have additional comments from commissioners Commissioner Johnson first and then Commissioner Miller. Thank you chair woman I'll be brief I just feel that the need to give a response because when I started out looking at this application and what the decision might well my own position on it but then I met with the neighbors I didn't have a chance to meet with the applicant but a number of comments have been made where you know my fellow commissioners are home seem to land on one side at the other and at the end of the day as I share with the neighbors when I met with them you know my role and our role here on the commission is to at the end of the day ask the question of does it fit does it align with the comprehensive plan as well as the ordinance of the UDL and for to I'm not in support of this particular application tonight one because I don't feel that in regards to the UDL that if there's a disc the contiguousness of it I mean there's commercial an office across the street but you don't leave this property and easily get to that supposedly contiguous piece of it and two when you look at when you zoom out and I'm looking at what's going on right now in regards to as commission said in the report that this gets a precedent going forward and so that is what Durham is dealing with now you know and are we really making decisions thinking forward about what does this mean for the community for your neighborhood for Durham as a city overall and how we grow we develop and the decisions that we make that impact our community we've had applicants come and say well you know I know I could consider something else but this is an opportunity to do something different because it's been done before you know this exemption has been made this may be a situation where we are creating those situations where we may have to make even more difficult decisions because we are trying to address an immediate concern but I would urge us to think about what does that mean going forward and my final comment would be to the community to the neighbors in the sense that this is a relatively speaking more difficult site just because of the location and what it entails and for the owner of the property the applicant at this point whoever it is going forward they may have to make the decisions that does take economic situations where you may not get your idea what you envision for that but I would like to be some give and take about what that community looks like with dealing with doing something with that site because there are a lot of factors involved and so I just wanted to share my comments regarding that and just so you have some context of where I'm going with based on my decision. Thank you Commissioner Johnson and Commissioner Miller. So I have to say that some of the comments that have been made that VA may be the user here and as I've said whether it was Publix or Chick-fil-A or what have you in previous cases zoning isn't about a particular brand or a particular user it's about categories of use and broad uses if it is wrong to vote for this because you want to help the VA. I know that sounds terrible but it is wrong to do it because a month from now two months from today may decide that they're not going to support this clinic in this place and then we're going to have an office building down here that could be used for any office use and we're going to have a commercial parking lot detached from it up here that may or may not follow it but the one thing that will remain is as we will have introduced office non-residential zoning into this block where I don't think it should go it is inherently unstable to have been detached by such a distance from the property that it's meant to serve there is no commitment in this development plan to say this is going to be for the VA only such a commitment couldn't be put in the development plan we do not know how long the VA will be there how long the VA will if it stays will want a parking lot here that those are the things that are wrong about this would if you we have to vote for this assuming that any use that's allowed in OI in the building that this is supposedly going to serve could be used there's not even a commitment in the development plan that this parking is going to be limited to that building down the street if the VA leaves and this parking lot could be used for the building across the street and the uses that are there or the buildings diagonally across the street but I suspect what will happen if the VA leaves and the immediate need that this is meant to serve goes away is that we will be back here to change the commitments in the development plan to allow office buildings to be built in an office zone and that I don't think if that was what was proposed tonight I don't think it would get very strong support among my colleagues on the planning commission that's the way to look at this this is the way we are required to look at it as a matter of law and for that reason I don't see how we can support this unless you think that this corner should be used for the broad range of office uses allowed under the code if you do feel that way and you believe that the comprehensive plans policies support that then vote for it but I don't think that that's what the comprehensive plan is all about and I appreciate the staff including that statement in the report that alerts us to this possibility so I'll be voting no however it is a difficult case thank you Madam Chair if I may I'm ready to make a motion yes please thank you I move we send case A1600015 forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation second properly moved by commissioner Busby second by commissioner that we move case number A1600015 forward with a favorable recommendation may I have a roll call please Madam Chair I just want to note that this is a vote on the plan amendment which is necessary for consideration of the zoning case and that a no vote on this case will obviate our ability to vote yes on the zoning case staff no jakey please just like to note this board is providing a recommendation so you would still need to make a recommendation on both items even if you do vote no for the plan amendment okay it would be on both items Madam Chair who wants to vote separately separately no these are two separate items I need two separate votes separately so I do have a motion and a second and we're asking for a roll call vote commissioner alter no commissioner johnson clarification my no vote means no not in support correct no commissioner gauche yes commissioner brine no commissioner witley commissioner harris commissioner busby no commissioner hornbuckle yes commissioner gibbs commissioner freeman motion carries three I'm sorry motion fails three to eleven Madam Chair if I may make a motion on the zoning request yes great thank you I move we send case Z one six triple zero three five forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation motion by commissioner busby second by commissioner brine that we send item number Z one six zero zero zero three five forward with a favorable recommendation roll call please commissioner alter no commissioner gauche commissioner brine commissioner witley commissioner harris commissioner busby chair hyman no commissioner miller commissioner kenshin commissioner hornbuckle commissioner van no commissioner gibbs commissioner freeman no motion fails three to eleven thank you I'm going to allow a five minute recess while we change we have a number of people here who are leaving five minutes we're ready for the staff report for the next item public hearing for bright leave item number a one six zero zero zero nine and Z one six zero zero zero one seven brightleaf at the park track twelve the applicant is m r e c brightleaf l l c also known as l star management the application is located within the city's district district district district the application is located within the city's jurisdiction the applicant is requesting a plan amendment from low medium density residential to low density residential there is no change to the open space the applicant is also requesting a zone change from p d r three point nine nine zero to p d r one point nine zero the site is approximately 34 acres the proposed use is 64 single family units and essentially the purpose of this zone request is to eliminate a prior commitment from a 2001 case which was case p zero zero dash zero five involving the construction of the north Durham parkway the site is located within the suburban development tier the noose river basin and the f jb watershed overlay the site is adjacent to residential development to the northwest and the southwest the canard road park to the northeast and vacant land to the east and to the south there is a 120 foot right of way dedication for the proposed northern Durham parkway extension abutting the property to the southwest this is the existing conditions map and you'll see the 34 roughly acre parcel is on the south side of flat river drive the property is vacant there are some wetlands stream buffers flood plains on the site there are a number of easements running through the property a duke power line company easement and an AT&T easement a tributary running along the southeastern portion of the property line the map shows 100 foot wide proposed greenway easement on the south eastern portion of the site which is consistent with the Durham trails and greenway master plan and there's also a portion of the middle lick creek bottom lines bottom lands natural heritage area located on the track this is the future land use map the existing land use shown on the left and the proposed shown on the right the applicant has submitted an application to change the land use designation from low medium density residential to low density residential and that is case number A160009 and this is essentially to conform with the proposed zoning map change the next slide shows the context map in terms of zoning and the applicant has submitted an application to change the zoning from PDR 3.990 to PDR 2. The request has been reviewed by staff and determined to be consistent with the requirements of the UDO which are shown on the next slide again the property is 34 acres in size the proposed density is 1.902 they have committed to a maximum number of residential units as 65 single family maximum pervious coverage of 29.1% a committed tree coverage of 20% and a height of 35 feet the proposed development plan commits to the type of development the number of units the general location of tree protection areas as well as the natural heritage reservation areas the access points boundary buffers as well as an approximate location for a detention basin for stormwater control measure the next slide shows a summary of the commitments in terms of unit type and building footprint and other project boundary buffers access points including a statement in terms of the application of 120 foot right of way for the northern Durham Parkway from Sharon Road to the property and the construction of two lanes of the northern Durham Parkway from Sharon Road just north of the site to Flat River Drive in terms of consistency with the comprehensive plan the staff has determined that the proposal is consistent with the comprehensive plan in terms of being consistent with low density residential development and what is being requested the low density residential development is consistent with the suburban tier development policy it's contiguous with other residential land use development types and compatible with the surrounding areas and there is adequate water sewer roadway infrastructure to support development staff determines that this request is and I will be happy to answer any questions that you have at this time thank you I do have two individuals who have signed up to speak I'll call both Brooke White and Tommy Craven just one other point I wanted to just mention it was brought to my attention by the applicant that there was a typo in the staff report under the paragraph one it should read that the previous application was approved for 63 single family lots thank you thank you good evening Madam Chair members of the commission my name is Tommy Craven I'm with the land use consulting firm of Priest Craven and dissociates we have been involved in the Brightleaf development since its inception back in 2001 I'm here tonight with Brooke White she is with L-star management group and they represent the current owners M-R-E-C Brightleaf LLC a lot has changed in 16 years we're down now to the last track for development in Brightleaf Brightleaf originally started out as 678 acres track 12 is the last piece to be developed in that entire development the purpose of the zoning request is to bring the zoning for track 12 into compliance with the three significant land use changes that have occurred since the original zoning in 2001 the first of these changes is to modify the zoning on this track to match the intended land use to be developed on this piece under the old zoning with the pdr zoning and taking in all of Brightleaf into account it was originally set up for a number of townhomes over the years as pieces of the Brightleaf puzzle settled and first and foremost the school decided that they did not want to be located interior to the site but wanted to be out on Sharon Road and originally the zoning had been set up to possibly accommodate the school back in the interior of the site in proximity to track 12 the decision was then made that single family uses would be better on track 12 than townhome uses track 8 across northern parkway from track 12 is set up for townhomes and they are currently being constructed there this zoning case sets a lesser density on it than the current zoning has and is conducive to the single family development that's currently being proposed for that track and there is currently a site plan approved for 63 single family detached lots on this site so regardless of what happens with the zoning the land use the proposed land use the development plan the site plan that's approved will not change other than in two other minor instances that we're going to talk about now the second reason to change this zoning is to amend an original committed element that was made by the original developers Ryan interest to extend northern Durham parkway from Sharon Road to the eastern property line of track 12 all the way through the site now that was made in 2001 in 2008 during their review of the construction drawings for that road NC DOT said that's fine we will approve the construction of the road from Sharon Road to flat river drive but we do not want the road from flat river drive to the property line because no tracks accessed it there would be no use for the road and because there would be no traffic on it DOT did not want to expend their funds to maintain it so it was never built the right of way was dedicated well excuse me it was built from Sharon Road to flat river drive and then the right of way was dedicated from flat river drive to the eastern property line but the road was not built DOT is not going to maintain it the HOA doesn't want it because in its unused position if it were paved there was great fear that it would become a place where teenagers would go and park and party there was concern that there would be illegal dumping there appliances yard waste and that it would become a maintenance problem for everyone who lives there to that end we have a copy of a letter from the HOA committee that's charged with that and Brooke will distribute that to you and it's a letter of support for this change in zoning the the third reason that we're asking to make this change is that originally in 2001 the park the Durham Parks department did not want an additional access from track 12 to their site that's adjacent to this property as we've talked to them here recently as this zoning case began they began to second guess that decision and have decided that an additional access to the park property would be beneficial to the Durham and under the old zoning we can't do that it would have been prohibited by the development plan and that provision is included in the development plan that's here before you tonight so if this is approved we can provide that access so a lot has changed in 16 years but we need these three things that were before you tonight to change in order to finish out the development of Brightleaf and the HOA is supportive the staff has found that our request meets all the appropriate criteria and recommended it for approval and we hope that you will too Brooke and I are both here and we'll be glad to try to answer any questions that you might have about our request thank you thank you so there you would not like to make any additional comments okay I'm going to close the public hearing and give commissioners an opportunity to ask questions and I will start to my right commissioners okay commissioner Brian okay okay I'm a little confused on the this is a question for the applicant about the way this business of the northern Durham Parkway is presented because the commitment reads about dedicating from Sharon Road and then construction all the way to Flat River Drive what specifically should change about that well the original commitment on the 2001 approval called for the construction of the road actual construction from Sharon Road all the way through the site to the eastern property line the current commitment is to dedicate right of way that entire length which has already been done and to construct the road from Sharon to Flat River Drive which is what DOT has agreed to to maintain so in other words this last part of the sentence originally read to construct it to the eastern property line is that what you're saying yes sir okay I got it thank you and so what we are proposing as part of this is to do exactly what's been done I understand it now I will note that there is a second typo in the staff report attachment 7 under access points it says 8 access points are shown but in your presentation you almost showed 2 duly noted thank you thank you Commissioner Bryan Commissioner Miller this is a question for the applicant just to make sure I understand when this project was initially approved one of the commitments that was made to the approving authority which I'm assuming was the city but it may have been the county at that time it was the city you would dedicate right of way and construct this road from one edge of the property all the way through to the other and so now we are at the point where we have one section of the property left to finish of the overall development that is contiguous to this last leg of North Durham Parkway and so the request today is to continue the commitment to dedicate the right of way and I'm assuming that's already been done so that's really kind of superfluous at this point but to relieve the developer of the obligation to complete the roadway all the way through that's correct now in your presentation at the edge you were going to ask for these three things that's one I'm not sure I was counting the others as we went through them what are the other two the first one was just the change in zoning designation to bring from PDR 3.99 to PDR 1.902 which brings which brings what we propose to do into with the density on this site you already have an approved site plan and you intend to build that site plan so the only effect of that was is it restricts your ability to change your site plan in the future you have to work within the new density number yes in the future with this rezoning we would be constrained by the new density number we would lose the ability to do more dense development on here that's right and then what was the third thing the third was to provide the street access internally from track 12 to the park property that's located to the north and by the in the existing zoning in the original zoning that would not have been allowed okay I understand are there other changes to the development plan with regard to since a lot of time has passed this is originally approved and big changes in our zoning code are there other changes that you've made with regard to protecting natural features or anything here that are presented in the commitments in this development plan that were not previously present there are yes and no effectively there is no difference in what's being developed on this track under the proposed zoning and under the UDO than what was committed to in the original zoning the PDR zoning was very flexible it enabled us even back in 2001 to put in requirements for such as tree coverage and limited development that made it clear what our intent was and that was to stay out of those areas so there's really there's really very little changes developed differently because of the change in the UDO on a couple of the tracks that have come in latest that and this I suppose would be one of we're being held to a little higher stormwater standard than we would have been under the original zoning but again that's not a problem to accommodate that thank you and now I have a question if I may Madam Chairman for Mr. Judge so I want to make sure I understand in terms of our community's future roadway planning do we intend still as a community to have a road that is North Durham Drive North Durham Parkway and if we do on our plans to run from to yes Bill Judge with transportation on the adopted metropolitan transportation plan there is the Northern Durham Parkway project it is currently unfunded but it calls for basically a four lane, four or six lane more unlikely four lane divided facility from US 70 right near the Durham Wake County line which is not very far from the end if you're walking maybe a mile if that much extending northward crossing I-85 at Glen School Road interchange at the existing and then it continues northward up Old Oxford Snow Hill Road to Rocksboro US 15501 into Commissioner Harris's driveway so that's on our plans is that got some sort of priority level well it's yeah it's in our adopted metropolitan transportation plan but it is unfunded at this point so it's identified as a need between now and 2040 I guess 2040 so the function kind of is a quarter loop it was intended yeah originally some of the folks may remember controversial project Eno Drive it was sort of Durham's envisioned version of the loop this was a compromise between the MPO and the city and NCDOT to build it more as a four lane divided facility versus an urban freeway so at the point where assuming we build this north Durham Parkway at the point where it joins with 70 will this be at that portion of 70 that we hope to be in the future limited access yes even under all scenarios I think we're envisioning that it would be an interchange at US 70 with US 70 being converted to a controlled access facility thank you very much thank you are there any additional comments from commissioners then the chair will entertain a motion separately and then we'll have a comprehensive plan future land use change amendments as well as the concurrent zoning map changes so separately can I get a motion Madam Chair I move that we send case A6000094 with a favorable recommendation second just a clarification it's case A16 okay motion by commissioner now I don't know who said what motion by commissioner brine and it was the second by commissioner freeman that we move item bright leaf A16000 09 forward with a favorable recommendation a roll call vote please Mr. Alturk Mr. Johnson Mr. Gouche Mr. Brine Mr. Whitley Mr. Harris Mr. Busby Chair Hyman Mr. Miller Mr. Kitchen Mr. Hornbuckle Mr. Van Mr. Gibbs Mr. Freeman and Ms. Freeman yes motion carries 13-1 motion for the next item Z1600017 Madam Chair I move we send item Z1600017 forward to city council with a favorable recommendation second motion by commissioner Busby second by commissioner Whitley that we send item Z1600017 forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation all in favor of this motion let's have a roll call vote please Mr. Alturk Mr. Johnson Mr. Gouche Mr. Brine Mr. Whitley Mr. Harris Mr. Busby Chair Hyman Mr. Miller Mr. Kitchen Mr. Hornbuckle Mr. Van Mr. Gibbs Ms. Freeman motion carries 13-1 we'll move forward to public hearing zoning map changes for Holloway Street the chair recognizes commissioner Johnson thanks chairwoman I'm going to request that I be recused from this application as I have a potential conflict of interest with property and the target area so moved has been moved and properly second that commissioner Johnson be recused from this vote due to a conflict of interest all in favor of this motion let it be known by the usual sign of aye all opposed you're excused thank you you're sitting next to me staff report please I'm sorry could you please clarify who seconded that motion Mr. Gouche thank you good evening Michael Salk with the planning department my third meeting in a row that I get to stand down here it's very exciting very exciting so before you tonight is a petition to expand the existing Holloway Street local historic district and amend the associated preservation plan for actually Cleveland Street and Holloway Street I'm going to walk you through some slides try to give you some background as how we got here and the request before you from 2000 so I want to run through 2010 to 2013 yes this petition was submitted back in 2010 it through the ordinance at that time it allowed petitioners to submit a an application or petition get it reviewed by the HPC the HPC says yay move forward with it based upon criteria within the ordinance or don't they did say yes go forward and begin processing it and from 2010 to 2013 staff did work on the application they did additional research and surveying and held various public meetings and then in 2013 they actually started the actual adoption process at that point with local historic districts whether new historic districts or expanding historic districts they actually get three public hearings instead of the normal two that you are familiar with with rezoning the first public hearing is actually with the historic preservation commission or HPC as I mentioned of the petition there were additional properties in it beyond the petitioned area that is within the staff report and we'll show slides on that also the planning commission and then it was forwarded on to the planning commission for their recommendation and I actually had a 6-6 vote which was a recommendation of denial there were a lot of concerns raised about at least with the boundaries and some of the properties that are being proposed within the exterior or the edges of the district it did go to city council as far as its work session and at the work session council requested and deferred it back to staff to work again on the boundaries and also at that time if you are familiar with local historic districts there is a specific review criteria that the historic preservation commission needs to consider and a property owner comes forward with a certificate of appropriateness to determine if the improvements that are being proposed meet that criteria and a project was starting and had concluded in 2016 of consolidating all the random not random but all the review criteria in the individual plans and make one consolidated document and I believe this board did hear that consolidated review criteria document started also so between that process and wanting to make sure that there was a good understanding of what that review criteria was going to look at plus reconsiderations that council asked the staff to do of the boundaries it did not move forward beyond 2013 until 2016 so in early 2016 in February the review criteria was adopted by council and the board of commissioners and then we as promised re re took up the petition and because so much time had elapsed we really needed to go back out to the community and determine what kind of support there was for this project we held a public meeting in March of 2016 and through that public meeting it was determined that we needed additional feedback and turnout was light at that public meeting and it was suggested we came to inclusion at sending out surveys to all property owners within the proposed petition area and also properties that could possibly be included even beyond that petitioned area sent out surveys self-addressed stamped envelopes email addresses to submit back to us whether they were in support of it and even areas for comment and I'll have that information for you it's also provided in your staff report but also in this presentation the results were basically mixed we received overall from general outreach and the surveys we received 40 some responses out of around 130 parcels give or take there are some that are supportive and some were not supportive and then there are a lot of just non-responses obviously with only 40 some responses we had further public meetings in August and October to again go over the initiative that was submitted to the planning department to go over what historic districts mean what are the regulations what historic districts do and to also get feedback on the proposal itself and additional areas of consideration that are before you we also had an information item with the HPC before they had their public hearing and we did reprocess the State Historic Preservation Office review of the application we ultimately felt that because so much time had elapsed and we needed to start the process over the HPC and planning commission way back in 2013 we felt that it was warranted to go back through the process again and even though the responses were mixed at best there seemed to be enough support to at least see the petition through the adoption process and let city council make the ultimate decision and February 2017 the HPC did make a recommendation of approval of the expansion and the associated preservation plan and as detailed also in your report again here's a map of the responses red was no thank you green was go for it a couple yellows like undecided and you can see it's it kind of came down 50-50 and before and as you see now the we've delineated the petition boundary expansion the the doesn't show up well on my screen but the shaded area is what was petitioned and it matches the boundaries of the national historic district which was expanded back in 2009 we also forwarded to the HPC and are forwarding to the planning commission tonight and we'll be forwarding on obviously to the city council additional areas for consideration that are either within the boundaries or adjacent to the boundaries there are kind of four unique instances that we felt worthwhile bringing to the attention and through the public hearing process they were also brought to the attention at the public meetings to get feedback on as to whether to include the properties or to not include the properties within the expansion and I'll go over those in a little bit more detail the area is the queen Elliott street parcels 601 and 603 north queen these two properties are within the proposed expansion they're within the national historic district in 2009 in that expansion but those plus in addition to all the parcels on that property are vacant back when the national historic district was expanded there were two houses on there those houses that subsequently have been removed so consideration for you tonight is whether it's really worthwhile to maintain those two properties within the to expand the historic district into those two properties the comments that you'll find within from the shippo office also raised the questions as it didn't seem worthwhile to keep those two properties within it what's interesting is those two property those two houses that were on those properties were moved to area number two so and so and 513 girly and 603 girly were the two houses that were on those two properties on north queen there was already a house on 601 so we felt it was worthwhile considering those properties I'll back up then where's my pointer here along there and there's one vacant property of those four that were considered within the expansion area and then these two properties and these properties were also considered within the 2013 expansion these two properties were not considered as part of in the back in 2013 because they were both vacant but however back in 2013 the house on mallard street there was a house that was relocated to lift avenue duke university and that house is actually historic in nature and consistent with the housing stock within the proposed area for expansion the house the property on the corner is city-owned property and there's actually I think a sewer or a easement or a stream within that property I don't imagine that being developed anytime soon it's been vacant for quite a while but the area in area three was also proposed for expansion in 2013 it went through some recombination and subdivision there's now a house on the site on the corner I'll back up again at 312 oakwood both sites would be considered non-contributing we brought it to your attention because we felt it was worthwhile to consider extending the district through all the way to Carl down Carlton to oakwood to complete the regulatory context within Carlton instead of having a stop and start mid-block within Carlton to make it regulatory consistency throughout Carlton and this is actually a portion of that property and that's actually this one's a little bit different this is more of a technical cleanup if anything this is already within the historic district the original boundaries of the historic district but this is a portion of a property that is an apartment complex that very little of it is actually within that shaded area has no way street and it just would remove the line it would move the request would move the line back just along the back edge of these properties there so that would just remove the designation there so that's what's before you tonight this map is also in the preservation plan it outlines the significance of the different properties again the response is for your reference that we've received not just from the surveys but generally throughout the process and then we also bring to your attention at the HVC hearing there were four property owners who did come out and speak on the request and all four were opponents of the request and we wanted to and that's been detailed in your staff report but also wanted to bring it to your attention through the presentation I believe two of the four folks are here tonight folks for area one which is 601 and 603 North Queen area three I'm sorry area two 501 Oakwood area three 311 and 401 Oakwood Avenue two properties there and then property here at number four at 604 Oakwood the request would be consistent with the compliance plan and other adopted ordinance and some policies and that's all I have for you I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you I do have individuals who have signed up to speak during the public hearing process I have Natalie spring who has signed up for to speak for okay are you bringing the baby okay this is Mary Ann Hillary spring I was not at the HPC meeting in February because this little girl was due the day of the HPC meeting she was born a week later y'all didn't want to see me being that pregnant I'm the original one of the original five people who submitted the petition to the HPC I lived at 503 North Queen Street which is two doors down from the area in yellow from when I first bought my house in 2002 and was told by people there's no reason why young white women should live anywhere near here explicitly some of those people worked for the city of Durham until I moved to Oakwood Avenue where I restored a house with my now husband at 406 Oakwood Avenue we now live on Cleveland street so this is our third and final house that we will ever live in in this neighborhood 801 and if you kind of squint through the trees you can see our backyard from those windows just kind of fun but I'm here tonight just to talk about why neighbors originally submitted that my daughter who was nursing when we were submitting the petition is about to finish second grade at EKPO so it's been a long time and I know that people need to be really deliberate about the decisions they make about how planning and development takes place in the city of Durham and I'm appreciative of that there are some things that you don't want to move super fast it was kind of sad I was looking at the petition that you all have in your packet and I have neighbors who signed that petition who are dead now and their families own the houses one of the neighbors who signed the petition I took Marianne over to show her and without saying who the neighbor is they thought I was a black woman who had a puppy and she wanted to hold my puppy so a lot changes in seven years a lot neighbors have moved on people are divorced on that list there are some people who probably should be divorced who are still on that list who aren't yet but that's something else myself included but if you look at the changes it's not just the people who've changed one of the reasons that neighbors put the petition out seven years ago we were concerned about the gentrification that was going to happen in Durham we saw realtors circling we saw estates selling the houses we saw houses being flipped and we thought what can we do to stop it at the time neighbors were concerned with the big houses being demolished that was legitimately what neighbors were concerned about big houses being demolished vacant lot sitting there we don't have that problem at all anymore prices in our neighborhood I can't do the math I mean they were $50,000 you could buy a house two blocks away from city hall those houses are going for half a million dollars now I mean people have been priced out it's a fact people are buying rentals and tearing them down and building huge two and three story houses that are allowed because the neighborhood in itself is over zoned the majority of the neighborhood is RUM it's incredibly easy on some of the deeper lots to buy a lot tear down the house subdivide the lot build two houses and make a million dollars there are a lot of people making a lot of money in our neighborhood right now there's nothing wrong with that people make investments you want people to be successful but at the same time there's a lot of people who are being pushed out have been pushed out and frankly our neighborhood is not affordable when we came before you in 2013 it was still an affordable neighborhood for a lot of different people it's not anymore that time has passed again I'm here because I put the petition together originally I know that some neighbors who signed the petition originally aren't for it now I know that some who didn't sign the petition are for it now but they're not here tonight there are four of us who are here three of us live in the neighborhood Christa so a lot changes but I think what the role of the planning commission really is is to think about all of those changes that happen in Durham and what should the neighborhood the physical space look like if we're going to look ahead another seven years what should that look like should we be able to you know have historic houses that are still small scale historic houses close to downtown should we have a whole neighborhood full of McMansions that's the job of the planning department the planning commission what goes here some of the you know if you look sort of a history nut you look into the planning the history documents of the neighborhood Cleveland Holloway was one of the first unrestricted neighborhoods in Durham so our deeds don't have covenants on them we don't say you can't sell to Greeks you can't sell to Jews our houses while they were redlined were always open deeded houses and that's amazing and that's something that should be should be honored in its history and it is but at this point what you know if you talk to neighbors what are they for they for the historic district I don't know are they for in town development yes are they for infill development yes do they want houses on these vacant lots yes will a local historic district take away from their ability any developers ability to do that no so I'm sure Mark and James will talk about their parcels in yellow they've owned them for 20 30 40 years Mark's dad before they were here in 2013 and they didn't have a site plan we're here in 2017 they don't have a site plan think about all the development that's happened on two buildable acres downtown you've got the innovation district on hunting Morris you've got who knows how many millions of dollars invested in building things downtown and there's still not a site plan for the parcels in number one they are zoned support to which means they can build downtown development in the middle of this historic neighborhood and so as the planning commission it's your job to think and say and make a recommendation to the city council if you think that's right and if you think that's proper you know it'll ultimately go to city council for them to make the final decision but there are there are great examples of in town fill there's hope six there's Barnes avenue there's Trinity Heights there's be Wallace who did all the north street designs for infill urban neighborhoods there's a lot of really quality infill happening and I think neighbors really hope that what is built on the vacant lots in the neighborhood is quality and that their neighborhoods respected so I'm going to stay here with Marianne as long as she's quiet so if you have questions I'm happy to answer them at any point or if there's something I said that I misspoke please let me know thank you thank you Natalie spring what I wanted to I have only one person who is signed up for and and that song so the other individuals have signed up again so I I'm going to call those three individuals at this time all three Mark Gallifanakis James Bradford and Chavis Dickens Dickie see the oh Chris is that Chris Dick Chris Dickie okay please state your name yeah my name is Chris Dickie okay madam chair members of the commission Natalie that's a hard fact to follow over here but I'm going to do my do my best but my name is Chris Dickie and either me or my wife Teresa Dickie who couldn't be here today and my son has a performance at DSA tonight she would have been here with me as well as my son as he's done in the past to speaking against this particular plan of expansion there we own properties both at 311 and 401 Oakwood avenue if you look on page eight of your attachment area three there's a number three and there's a property there's number three in the middle there and we own basically 401 Oakwood avenue and 311 Oakwood avenue I do not support the expansion of the Cleveland Holloway local historic district this is already redeemed if I'm not mistaken a national historic district this matter did not receive support as you're well aware of this commission approximately two to three years ago I stood here it was very contentious there in that time I've been following this process for approximately seven years and it was very very contentious and the neighborhoods really was divided didn't like what I felt about there but it had to go on people have to pretty much state where they stood at secondly what this commission did I remember was it encouraged staff I mean they actually were looking at the map and they encourage staff to say basically can you work with this committee where you guys can at least build a consensus to come with that could get some support that did not happen we are still divided we're even more divided as we are right now this came before the HBC board in 2017 staff yeah they staff did what they needed to do and actually they did a very good job staff did a very good job of merit in reference to where it should go I would not take anything away from staff but what I would say is missing is the contentiousness in reference to the divide of support of this particular project that is not documented in these documents you have the survey day but it does not tell the story of what's going on in our community and people lack of support there it is clear that there's not overwhelming support to expand went before HBC the only reason why HBC did not vote this down to be honest with they have to vote it on the merit of it they did feel that the four or three people that were there that we did have something viable we did not support this but they could not act on that the only thing they could act on was the mere fact is does the merit is what staff presented historic material and it was so basically if you look on page seven I read here it is clear that there's not overwhelming experience of support as documented clearly in your material at the bottom of page seven and the top of page eight HBC duly noted the lack of neighborhood support for the expansion should be considered by the planning commission and the city cons to ultimately determine whether the petition expansion is worthwhile I'm asking you to deny this expansion I live in that particular area there are elders that live in that particular area and ten years I'm going to retire if I want to build a handicap ramp I cannot I'm going to have to pay an additional fee don't know if I'm going to be able to afford it it's about affordability I don't want to do what I want to do with my particular property I have been in that particular area since nineteen ninety three before a lot of folks even thought about moving to that particular area that's there right now and I just ask you just to take in consideration that the community does not overwhelmingly support this and I'm asking you to support your decision that you made two to three years ago thank you thank you sir our next speaker please good evening my name is James Bradford I own the property at 601 oh I'm sorry at 601 603 North Queen Street I bought property in this area in eighty four December of eighty four is when I bought the first property over there and since that time I've been working in that community looking to improve that community I'm currently building a new house on 605 mallard that I once on a duplex that burned down and I'm redeveloping that site now it is right the neighborhood has become unaffordable for many people and by doing this you make it even more unaffordable for people who grew up in that community who still live in that community the the monies that they would need to pay to make changes to their homes will just add on to their burden we know what the taxes have done in that community so why burden them even more very difficult for older people in that neighborhood to keep their homes and we talk about our site and they were saying well now they were saying it doesn't have a site plan it doesn't have a site plan not because we couldn't put one on there not cause we couldn't sell it tomorrow but it doesn't have a site plan because we're not going to do anything to his right and his quality we can sell that property and someone will come develop it and we are currently working on the site plan so I should not to support this the neighborhood has outgrown this this seven years you know we've gone back and forth we've tried to work with people who wanted this and say tell us what the problem is let's go look at other neighborhoods that have gone through this no one has taken us up on it this is what we want and we want this and without it we're not changing let's not like Chris said we haven't had any dialogue not because we hadn't tried there are many neighborhoods that have gone through this in Raleigh in Norfolk in Richmond let's go look at them we have show me where you see the big boogie man I didn't want it so I ask you not to support this thank you Madam Chair, commissioners my name is Mark Gallifanakis I'm here representing my family that owns property along Mallard Avenue more specifically my father Nick Gallifanakis who would be here tonight except he's recovering from a broken hip sorry to trump you James my dad actually grew up on Mallard Avenue at the time it was called Markham Street he walked to the Fuller School and graduated from Durham High School and has owned the property ever since and picked up adjacent properties as the neighborhood went down downhill as James mentioned and Chris we've been watching this since 2010 I spoke before you in 2013 and a lot has changed we're all agreed on that a lot has changed in the neighborhood some people would say it's good some people would say it's not good but it has certainly changed and one thing I would like to point out what has changed Natalie initiated this whole effort and turned in a neighborhood petition to ask for this process to begin and be considered and managed by planning approximately 31 qualified properties were considered and that met just barely met the 25% threshold required to start a valid petition otherwise the only other way to start this process would be through the city council that's not what happened here it was some neighbors started a petition submitted it and what I'd like to do is just take a second to point out in one particular way how this neighborhood has changed so much about 31 properties on it that were qualified that were legitimate that were inside the proposed rezone area that was submitted in 2010 in June so next month it will be 7 years of all of those properties exactly half of them 15 or 16 have sold so those folks that participated in initiating this process don't live there anymore and several of the properties have traded multiple times so we've got remaining Natalie's along with a handful of other people folks that still own property in the neighborhood that were part of the original support group of those 15 or so remaining from the original many of them have signed a protest petition that's being circulated now this month so the support is just not there in the neighborhood I did quick math that was on my phone it might not be accurate but just looking at planning's survey if I look at this and my math is correct and I'm not saying it is but I came up with 57% of respondents opposed to this there's just really not it's not widespread support there's not even bare minimum support that could make this petition happen today I don't think they could garner the 25% of the neighborhood so I ask for you to recommend against this approval thank you I have no additional individuals who have signed up to speak so I'm going to give commissioners close to public hearing and give commissioners an opportunity to ask questions I will start with commissioners commissioners commissioners commissioners commissioners commissioners commissioners thank you Mike I'm going to direct some questions your way I'm trying to understand this process I read the staff report and after reading it I was just confused it was in front of the planning commission the first place staff report to me seems to say that there really is not a whole lot of support in this area for what's being asked and then the comments that we heard today I mean I think the first speaker said like four or five people support it we're talking about 124 parcels what is the criteria so you bring up very good points it gets back to what I discussed earlier in the presentation of when we started it back up again we wanted to determine a level of support because it was a validly petitioned submittal seven years ago but it was not withdrawn so it was still active so we couldn't just hold we just couldn't unilaterally just say we're done so we wanted to do that outreach and determine how do we move forward with this because it took such a long time and we was like okay let's just see how we can determine what support there is right so we did the meeting in March and through that meeting we subsequently did the mail out surveys and we got some better feedback since that feedback was mixed with non-responsiveness and we got that group of core supporters and we got a small group of core non-supporters we didn't feel that we could do anything except just start seeing the process through again and that's really where we're at that's the simplest answer the other question I have is how you figure the percentages so there's however many parcels that can own by one person can own like nine parcels is that they get nine votes yeah I just highlighted all the property owners and the properties that they represented and when he did the tally it came out to be roughly 50-50 of the responses that I got even though some people owned multiple properties and were for it some owned multiple properties and were against it it wound up bouncing out to be one of the responses okay I appreciate that although I will say it didn't the map you showed on the slides it didn't seem 50-50 to me it came out roughly to that it's not an exact number but it wasn't swaying significantly one way or the other it came in roughly even I appreciate that I am just concerned that the broad brush here I think it's pretty clear that there isn't overwhelming support for this whether there's 25% or 5% whatever the support number is there isn't overwhelming support for it which leads me to believe I would caution against using that kind of if that's all the support that has been garnered for this I would think that maybe we shouldn't be affecting the property rights of so many people if only a handful are for it thank you yes Commissioner Bryan thank you let me start with a simple thing on page 44 of the revised report under the discussion you missed one change the historic district commission you should have had a historic preservation commission thank you now more complicated things the first figure in opposition brought up something that had gone through my mind if somebody is living in this district and they're handicapped ramp what sort of hoops would being in a historic district cause them to jump through Grace Smith with the planning department so that would be viewed as a minor COA requirement or certificate of appropriateness minor COAs are reviewed at a staff level administratively in the office they do not go to the HPC for a public hearing and is there any additional cost associated with that I believe it's the current fee is $75 and it's typically turned around anywhere from 10 to 15 business days depending on how the application is submitted and if everything is complete sometimes they're turned around as fast as a week just depends so you add another $75 under the cost of building the ramp itself so I can see where this can start to be a burden but if you're on a fixed income or something like that I'm bothered by the same thing that I think is bothering Commissioner Gush there doesn't seem to be any overwhelming support for this and I feel that you know if we recommended in favor we're imposing a burden on people that don't want to be burdened I would be much happier if we had an overwhelming number of people down here saying we want it and I'm not seeing that thank you yes Commissioner Miller so I just want to understand the folks that spoke against it tonight can we post a map so that we can understand which properties they own a map that they can see that's the one we've got like on our screen that's yeah that'll do can where's our list of speakers here it is so Mr. Gallifanakis I'm just going to work backwards through the list Mr. Gallifanakis can you tell me where your property is which one yours is you said Mallard yes sir it's the it's 300 it's just west of queen street and east can you go over to the screen over there on the ramp and point it out to me but that's not in the district yeah but it's not in the proposed district so the rules wouldn't apply to you you're in the notice area so that you could come speak but your property is not in the proposed district so that if this was approved it would make no change to your property and the rules that govern it okay I understand thank you and now may I would Mr. Bradford would you point out your properties but I can't see what he's pointing to on the computer screen he'll give us a number with the mouse okay okay you can use so your number and you realize that the historic preservation commission recommended excluding your properties I do and if we made that same recommendation how would you feel I still don't support the action and the reason I don't support the action is that I just think there's no need for it and there's no desire for it so why are you adding another level of burden on people that don't support it and so even though I may be out of it I've owned property in that neighborhood for almost 30 years I know people in that neighborhood I've seen their children grow up I've watched them grow up I know what they've gone through to live in that neighborhood and for now to say now we want to add something else not to mention the taxes that you have to pay now to live in that neighborhood and now you say if I want to bill a fence if I want to do something to my home I have to come I have to come downtown sit in a room and get permission talk to you about it put in an application, pay money why they're not asking for this so I may be out I'm probably safe I don't want it I don't think it's right and then we have Mr. Dickey can you show me where your property is thank you that's a big help I appreciate it so if I can Madam Chairman I'm one of the two commission members that actually live in a historic district I think there are a lot of reasons for creating a historic district really which haven't been discussed tonight but a lot of it has to do with the value to the community of preserving the historic fabric and that's why we did it in my neighborhood and I can tell you it's the best thing that ever happened and we went through the same process and there were people who wanted to be in people who wanted to be out and we tried to draw the lines logically taking that into account and after we created the historic district the people who had originally wanted to be out and we were asked to expand it and that got to be such a big job we never could do it it was too expensive but so I favor this I think that saving this part of historic Durham is important and while I do understand I don't want to burden people who don't have to be in the gentleman who owns two vacant lots your property should not be included and Mr. Gallifanakis your property is excluded and I wouldn't be bothered by taking out the properties that Mr. Dickey has if it meant that we can have a you know tip the balance of the fours and again since this is going to go to council anyway I think it's a good thing I have followed this I attended the public meetings I listened to the people who were for it and against it and so I am for it I am a historic preservationist I believe that the town is richer and better I live in a situation I have appeared in front of the I'm the only person in the room who has appeared in front of the historic preservation commission to get a certificate of appropriateness for his house I've done it three times and so Mr. Gallifanakis maybe you have okay well I have done it and I have not considered it to be particularly burdensome I realize I'm not everybody but that's my experience I will say that I'm a little surprised to learn that even a ramp requires a minor use permit I mean a minor certificate of appropriateness given the fact that it's covered by the ADA and didn't we just change the rules to make it even easier are you sure that's not an administrative approval it is administrative not minor didn't we do away with minors the terms have changed but it's an administrative approval and the other thing that's happened since this process has begun is that we made significant changes to the rules regarding non-conforming properties so that they follow a different set of standards and to make the process in my opinion better for everybody so I'm in favor of this and I have been in favor of this I think our community is better, stronger, richer when we protect neighborhoods like this one this is a vulnerable neighborhood my observation is is that this status has nothing to do with taxes it has nothing to do with property values or the market it does have to do with the stability of the neighborhood it is not it is subject to dramatic change that in my opinion would be undesirable I like the idea that small homes on small lots are available so close to town there's nothing we can do with zoning regulations that are going to affect what the real estate market does and this doesn't do that either I agree with Natalie I'm more concerned quite frankly about the underlying zoning here I think that this entire area ought to be zoned to use since most of its single family home zone it ought to be zoned for single family homes the RUM zoning is over zoning and it promotes instability so my comments will make a remark on that and I thank Natalie for bringing it to our attention but when I just do the math really quickly here about looking at the properties that are for and against your survey was not just properties inside the proposed district boundaries that also took in properties outside many of the people who are against are now outside the resulting boundaries and so the people who are for with one exception inside the boundaries and a great many of the people who are against are outside the boundaries because they were drawn with sensitivity to their interests so I am for moving forward with this with a favorable recommendation and I will vote that way thank you yes other commissioners who would like to speak the chair recognizes commissioner Freeman thank you I also echo Tom sentiment in that recognizing that a historic district is not it's more about the preservation of the community's history than it is about a support it's not it's hard to I'm struggling with the way the conversations going tonight I'm sorry and I just had a question for Chris Dickie actually so I noticed that you're I'm not sure if it's you or your wife who signed the petition initially but I'm I'm wondering if there was just a change of your mind or well originally the last time I was here I explained that when Natalie approached me I said one of the properties my larger property that I do not want that in this district and the only reason why I'm signing this is that I would consider the smaller property to be in that district and then when the properties and the boundaries were drawn they included both of my properties at that particular time and moment I said I do not want to be a part of the district I just want to be clear are you with the boundaries if both properties are excluded now no I'm at this particular time and moment because I am a more informed citizen and with me going around and talking to different people in the neighborhood especially a lot of the elderly that are there that would not be able to come up here and articulate like I would be able to articulate and understand 88 pages of documents and understanding the impact on them I am adamant now that no I don't want any of my properties in there I'm with them right now it's about the community at this particular time and it's not about my personal self-interest so when you say that it's about the community can you say specifically what would be a hindrance for the elderly I'm just trying to understand a little bit I'm just going to say for me well I know four individuals right now in that particular area that I can in walking distance right now that are they wanted to hypothetically change their windows or remove what's aluminum siding on their houses or whatever it's going to be that's going to be a significant burden on them and their lack of understanding in reference to getting that type of things done it's going to be difficult for me and I understand how to do it sitting down and trying to move through that stuff which I'm doing right now saying well what happens if this moves forward I need to go ahead and move forward and do what I can while I can before I can go before Shopa or whatever that's there to do to do whatever I need to do and I would like to say that I think that it's incumbent upon the planning staff to support anybody that needs to do that and that it's not it's like you're it's pitching one against the other and it shouldn't be the case and I want to say that I strongly support having an equitable design and that whatever is needed for an elderly person or anyone who doesn't understand what is included in these documents should be explained thoroughly but that doesn't mean that you should prevent the historic preservation of this community Granted I've heard the stories I know the myths I've been involved in lots of those debates and I hear it this becomes more of an issue of how with this preservation in place we actually work as a city to support our residents so that they maintain their affordability in their homes it's not it shouldn't be one or the other it shouldn't be health care or note or dot like this argument that's being created is similar to the national argument and it's not acceptable because it's not one or the other it's both we need to be able to maintain the affordability you need to be able to provide the supports that are necessary for any elderly person in that in their home to stay in their home with a ramp is necessary windows are necessary all of that should be covered it should be taken taking care of and whatever needed to be done to make sure that they have what they need should be done but that's incumbent of us as a community as a whole being supportive of our neighbors and making sure that we do preserve our history because the history that Natalie spoke of and being the only indeed restricted area in the city that allowed Greeks and Jews and anyone else to own property is the way forward for those black folks in that community to owning their properties and we have to honor that history if we don't we lose it it's the same thing that I noticed in Edgemont I had this conversation with Charlie we didn't agree it's the same thing I noticed in Goldenbelt it's the same thing that you notice in many of the areas specifically of color I just don't want you to give up your your preservation on the basis of the neglect or the abuse or the lack of information like I just just caution if I can say this I I'm not disagreeing or agreeing with what you're saying we just have to beg to differ on this particular matter here and in reference to our understanding of it I'm just doing what I feel like what's in the best interest of me and my family I probably can move through this process my son and my wife could not move through this process okay and that's why I'm here in addition to that if this historic district comes in my area then it impacts my economic benefit for my family down the road I think what happens is that I don't think I can build as high that my family want to do something on that property then it decreases how high they can go up that's unfair to my family it's taking an economic benefit away from my family and I want to caution you in saying that every case that comes before here is a change so you can make adjustments the same thing for the HPC this does not prevent you from doing anything it just allows for a process to make sure that the preservation of this community is held up that is all it does not prevent you from making any changes like that and again I said I respect what you're saying commissioner thank you were the staff comments okay thank you commissioner al turk thank you chairwoman I had a nitpicky question for Mike the survey that you sent out was it just a yes or no are you do your support or not no it wasn't that it wasn't that limited it was yes no or if you weren't sure you weren't sure and then ways to provide comment and there were even some additional questions there wasn't a strongly support or strongly opposed I'm just trying to get a sense it wasn't range was either kind of yes no maybe so okay and the comments I mean we don't have the comments here so it's hard for me to did you get a sense of who commented more what were the comments I mean we've had some fear I think the comments that you're hearing tonight are indicative of what we got in response as most people didn't provide a lot of comments for what we did receive are again indicative of what you're okay on both sides thank you it seems to me like we have an advisory board that focuses on the merits of historic preservation and they have voted in favor but I'm trying to think about what our role as a planning commission is in this case and I'm going to base it on this is just my personal take on it I'm going to base it on what I think the you know the neighborhood wants and based on the data points that I have based on the people who are here today there are three against one for I counted the numbers within the proposed expansion and it's 50 50 so I'm I'm with commissioners Brian and gauche that it doesn't seem like there's overwhelming support for this and I so I think that's going to explain my vote thanks thank you commission or gauche and then commission of Whitley you may be so courteous as to allow commission of Whitley to go first thank you you know I applaud all that came it is important that we speak out in our points of view but what I'm going to note is that we have one community activist one community developer and one son of a congressman that have had two generations of activism in that neighborhood you know Chris I'm going to tell you boss that you're a community activist you're working for the city but you have taken on causes in that neighborhood to make it a better neighborhood people have come into that neighborhood and built what they wanted now they're going to tell the rest of the neighborhood that you can't do anything with your property unless you go through a process I see that being unfair and if I ever had to test the pulse of that neighborhood and you came before me and said this is what's going on I'm going to trust what I hear for someone that has developed property in that neighborhood and provided provided care to a bunch of people and been a someone that's respected for what you've done with your property development if you came to me and told me that this neighborhood doesn't want this I'm going to have to listen you know so you might be three four but you stand for a lot of folks and I'm telling you that I have listened and I plan to vote against this thank you thank you commissioner Whitley commissioner Gauch thank you again chair I'm with the common set of come out you know and the things we've heard during this discussion I think that I've heard exactly what my fear was the whole time which is that this local historic district is really just a way to down zone property without actually having to go through a formal rezoning process if the concern is that the underlying property is over zoned rezone that property if 25% of property owners at the end of the day can carry the day on a local historic district that includes I guess 124 parcels I mean why do we have zoning at all it's just I mean it just doesn't make any sense to me at all I think everyone is entitled to their opinion as to you know what the historic properties are but you know if you if this local historic district doesn't get expanded those who are not in the district but want to preserve their historic property they can do that but the flip side of that is not true that if you if you get included in the district but don't want to be you can't as I think you can't necessarily build as high as you want to as high as the underlying zoning would allow you and that is I think that's a very important property right that should be considered when making this type of decision and since there's not even close to you know 50% support there's no way I can support it thank you thank you commissioner ghost commissioner Gibbs commissioner gosher I appreciate your comments and I and every time the matter of historic preservation comes up you know every single square inch of Durham is historic and everybody deserves the right to preserve their corner of the world and I can understand when a neighborhood gets together and they want to preserve that historic character but if you if the place that you are interested in in my particular case as has been mentioned it is just unfortunate that before the focus was on historic preservation most of those houses those buildings those two business districts are gone and as much as I would like to still have that as designated a historic district you've got to have some buildings or something in order to designate it as such that ain't historic Edgmont is still there as an example and I don't know what the answer is but I can appreciate and I I will just finish by saying did a commissioner go I appreciate it and I will conclude my comments thank you commissioner Gibbs commissioner Busby thank you madam chair on the whole I'm a fan of historic preservation districts when I looked at this without knowing the history I was struck as well as other commissioners by how split the community is and hearing tonight has has led me to be concerned about the situation I think if this community were in support I think it would it should move forward I think it's actually a very good plan but I can't in good conscience support this plan seeing that there is such turmoil in this neighborhood around this proposal so I'm going to plan to vote against it and I do appreciate everyone here being very civil with each other I think all of you proponents and opponents have done a good job over a number of years of being able to continue to talk to each other I hope this is something that can get resolved appropriately I don't think this plan gets us there thank you thank you other commissioners who would like to speak if not commissioner Miller so I'll throw out one thing I think the real tragedy here is is that petitioners followed the rules initiated this this is a zoning change it's the application of a zoning overlay six years and eleven months ago and had this been acted on within fifteen months even of that petition we might have had a livelier discussion of people who were intensely interested at that time but to let any application for a zone change go seven years or three years or two years outrageous and so now we're dealing with something where literally the people who cared most have drifted away who wouldn't give up I'll tell you what no private developer who wanted a shopping center or an apartment complex or a housing complex would have waited a fraction of this time they would have applied for a writ of mandamus to the superior court to compel a decision and I will point out something else too legislation currently pending in the general assembly that is most definitely going to pass that will eliminate the right of a private citizen to initiate a zone change on property they do not own that's the law it's been the law since 1925 in this state it is the law in almost every other state but it will not be the law in North Carolina this will be a citizen's ability to initiate by petition a historic district I'm not even since Durham is one of the places that does that by ordinance it's not actually a statute that'll probably go away too and so we will turn people who are in neighborhoods into passive participants in the zoning process they will no longer be able to initiate that's the tragedy of this case I would have liked to have heard from the people who filed the petition I would have liked to have heard from the people who decided who were given the opportunity to sign it and didn't sign it so I'm going to ask that we move this forward I'm going to make a complicated motion if I may Madam Chairman and I want you to look at your maps if you would and follow along with me can somebody queue up the map that is I guess it's on page 4 of the planning the staff report that shows us the the four in-out areas that were considered by the HPC the areas of consideration plus the petition areas exactly thank you very much so that so if my fellow commission members would look at this map I'm going to give specific street addresses and point out areas and I'll ask staff to assist me I move that we send a historic district forward to the city council for favorable consideration that includes 509 and 577 that very strangely house numbered property mallard can you point those out with the cursor they are the two property that includes I'm talking about all the shaded area that's got the diagonal cross hatching that includes those two properties that would exclude 208 north Elizabeth which is number 4 I believe down here that not yes and that would be a removal from the existing district since that's before us it is before you exclude that from the existing district that would also exclude 311 and 401 Oakwood now would you point those properties out those are the properties next to 3 that property there that property there this property to the north of the street right and I believe those are the properties that belong to one of the people who spoke today and then it would also exclude the two properties that are shaded in yellow one 601 and 603 three north queen and would also exclude the area that is magenta number three do you see that's got I mean Michael yes so it's yeah I'm sure there's an address for that but it's marked on the map as three if seems to me if we exclude the property at 601 north queen that removes some of the impetus to include three and we know that that property is now got a very modern house on it that would be non conforming and the lot behind it is vacant I went and looked at all of these properties today so I don't see any reason to burden those properties with the historic district so that is the district that I would like for us to recommend the city council to consider of course they will consider the recommendation of the city and all the comments that citizens would make but I would like for that to be our recommendation it will result in a historic district that contains the largest number of people who responded yes to the survey and exclude the largest number of people who indicated opposition so that's my motion thank you very much may I get clarification on that and there's some properties that were left out that I want to get clarification on yes I'm not including the rest of two okay so what I understand is that you're making a motion to approve the area as petitioned except for the following excluding area number one which is 601 and 603 north queen excluding area number three which is 312 Oakwood and the vacant property next to it but it's detailed in your report number three the two properties 311 and 401 Oakwood the Chris Dickie properties exactly and then from the the girly street properties in area two those four properties the girly street properties yeah I'm not including those I'm not excluding them but do not they have been noticed for inclusion so all these have been noticed for inclusion thank you for correcting that's why it's important to note that so of to include only the mallard properties and exclude all the others and then from the existing district exclude four got it all of the specific the identified areas were that's a question yes that motion has died for lack of a second I would like to make a counter motion I'm sorry I had not asked for a second so that was I was trying to get clarification on all of those specifics so if I could finish that that was the initial motion and then let's see if it dies so is there a second but I can make a substitute motion yes you can make a substitute motion I had not asked for a second I realize that we're still trying to clarify Commissioner Miller's motion but I will put a second on it just to make it yes the substitute motion is that that it's the it's the position of the counter I mean the planning commission that we vote every motion affirmative so I would like to present a motion to pass the preservation plan amendment x 1 0 0 0 0 3 that we approve well that's the motion is there a second we're the favorable recommendations but you have to choose which properties we I would like to second the substitute okay then the second the substitute motion is a motion that we will deal with well then I have to ask for clarification which properties are included so it is a complicated one so I will walk you through in questions so there's the petition that's shaded there's the petition that was submitted and then staff had brought to you these four additional areas for additional consideration and they have been notified for rezoning area one which is actually within the petitioned area itself which is 601 and 603 North Queen are you requesting as part of your motion to include those or to exclude those neither I don't think it's to right of this planning board to give people something that they don't want and their participation shows that right and I think your vote will demonstrate that one way or the other we just need a clarification or is it just as petition has submitted and that's it I still have a substitute motion which has a second and I'm going to go ahead and deal with the substitute motion of objection I don't know what I'm voting on I don't know what the process includes I was going to as presented there isn't anything presented as petition as petition as petition just the shaded area as petition but it does not say anything about any of the other areas that's what I'm hearing right now your motion is just to move approval of the area as petitioned and you are not which does not include areas 1 through 4 well 1 and 4 are in the area right area 1 is in it so you would be including it as part of your motion George you're looking at the wrong man you're looking at the speakers map not the action map point of order we have a substitute motion and we're going to proceed with the I have a motion by commissioner Whitley and a second by commissioner Harris that we vote on changing the zoning zoning map changes for item number Holloway street local historic district expansion item number x 1 0 0 0 0 3 as petitioned and you are ready for the question one question for clarification if this motion fails then do we go back to the original motion make that clear if it fails so then we will vote on the original motion commissioner Miller present exactly because we have a substitute now it fails will go back to the first that's it Madam chair Additional question I need I need to know what is meant by as petitioned The as submitted as this whole thing here is as submitted or as The petition that's included in here the petitioned area is the petition the actual petition from 2010 that shaded area That's on your map. Okay. Yeah, including area one because I was part of the petition as present as Okay Well question Yes If we plan to oppose this it means that we vote against it twice Yes Mr. Alturk, mr. Ghosh Mr. Brian, no Mr. Whitley, mr. Harris, no Mr. Busby, no Chair Hyman Mr. Miller, no Mr. Kinchin, no Mr. Hornbuckle, no Mr. Van. Oh Mr. Gibbs, no Miss Freeman, no Motion fails zero to 13 Now we'll go back to the original motion Which has some very specifics that have been identified We'd like me to review it again for you Would you review them for all of us one more time? Absolutely and and commissioner Miller, please correct me if I get something incorrect so the motion is to approve as petition except for the follow with the following conditions or or exceptions to include Within area to 509 and 577 Mallard but to exclude the rest of those properties along girly Street to exclude Or to remove from the existing designation that portion of 208 North Elizabeth that's area number four to exclude Properties 311 and 401 Oakwood, which are the Christy key properties Exclude area number one, which is 601 and 603 North Queen And that's it. Oh and to exclude. I'm sorry and to exclude area number three That is what's on the table Well, I've got it changed the zoning map changed for Holloway Street local historic district expansion x100 003 with identified exclusions and Inclusions and inclusions as stated by staff with identified Inclusions and exclusions as stated by Staff, are you ready for the question all in favor of this motion? Let us have a roll call, please Mr.. Al Turk Mr. Ghosh, mr. Brian. No, mr. Whitley. No, mr. Harris Mr.. Busby, no chair Hyman. No Mr.. Miller. Yes, mr. Kenshin. No Mr.. Hornbuckle Mr.. Van No Mr.. Gibbs. No, miss Freeman. Yes Motion fells 2 to 11 Thank you Thank you Thank You gentlemen Now our next area Text amendments to the unified development ordinance omnibus 10 item TC 1 7 0 0 0 0 One staff, please Thank You Michael stalking. I went to planning department. Hopefully this will be a lot less complicated them What we just Worked on before you is a set of Various technical changes and some minor policy changes To the unified development ordinance we bring this to your attention generally on a yearly basis sometimes once every two years A culmination of comments that we received or issues that we received through the application of the UDO my staff report has has Hopefully itemized the issues to the fullest extent possible without making it a novel Probably the one Semi substantial change to bring to your attention Is the changes to the infill standards where we are trying to simplify and actually make more sense of the street yard infill standards? We are basically what is being proposed is Taking just a look at the block face of For a context area for an infill lot taking a look at the existing or in some cases Recently demolished street yards the shortest street yard On that block face the longest street yard in that block face and then your infill standard can be Your street yard for the infill lot would be anywhere in between those the current standards go through a hierarchy of Semi-complicated if then statements that do not actually get at adequate infill development because at not only are those if then statements generally incomplete in terms of The development pattern, but also it only establishes a minimum So even though you're establishing a minimum you could still set your house back Well beyond what maybe the rest of the block has already established So the in the intent is they're really not being met there. That's probably Although I'd be happy to try to answer any other questions With anything else, but I wanted to bring that aspect to your attention because that's probably of of these changes Probably the most substantial of them and again, I'll be happy to answer any questions Brian Miller Okay, let's go. Thank you chair One question. I'm gonna refer to page five And I'm just trying to get an understanding at the very top of the page number two up there so to Well, maybe you should just explain what it what it's saying. I just want to make sure I have the correct understanding Basically what it is putting specific explicitly saying in the ordinance is that any supportive facilities Access Driveways stormwater improvements for development are considered part of the principal use of that development and will be held to the same Use standards for that development. So if the zoning allows for an office building You can put the access the access can be put in that same zoning But the access can't be put in the zoning that does not allow an office building or an office use. I should say okay, so let me ask this question because I'm aware of At least one location where I believe a stormwater facility is offered areas you is Installed in a residentially zoned area, but it supports a Commercial use on another lot Would that be permissible under this? No, that's so this that's what I think is clarifying that it's been raised in the past and the interpretations have always led towards What's being written there, but staff has felt that it was warranted to be more explicit Okay, and but it's all it's just time on zoning it doesn't have to be on the same parcel No, no, and you usually a lot of time site plans that can be submitted with multiple parcels, right? But it does not have to be okay. Thanks Thank you on page two Paragraph 3.6.2. This is on exempt plaques a Portion of the first sentence has been struck. I want to read what's left Planning director or designee Certification of exempt status is required. Is that really what you meant to have here? Yes, but if it reads oddly we can adjust that okay That's what yeah, well as it was written it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me and then on page 22 Section 10 to paragraph 10.2-3 vehicle parking I have two questions about paragraph D first of all in your list of a Various examples Would motorhomes be included in that? Yes Yeah, you might want to you know, okay And then the other thing is is that these vehicles shall be located to the rear of the primary structure You've just put a requirement in that nobody in my neighborhood including the mayor can meet Why why do you say that because there's no there's no nobody has parking behind the primary structure? That's that's driveways going up to it That's carports in it. They have parking sometimes on the side of the driveway, but not Behind okay, we'll take a look at that But there are there are many residences that do have parking and access to the rear of the primary structure There's there might very well be I'm just telling you I've went around my neighborhood and We can take another look at that provision We can take another look at the provision The chair recognizes commissioner Miller while we're on that subject rather than to go keep going back jumping back I also wondered if so I have a townhouse and it's part of a string of say six or eight townhouses and I want to my I Want to park my RV and assuming that it's that there's no private restriction against doing that I'm not going to be able to get it around behind the building So it is possible that this ordinance will say some people can't park their RV at home Correct the current ordinance already would prevent that it's actually clarifying what the current one sorry prevents Yeah, correct correct correct Well commission Are the other commissioners who would like yes commission or Whitley? Yes Would the planning department like to pull this so do we have time to Straighten out because I Think the I think what has been brought up is minimal and we can we can rectify it I don't see anything major about it if you wish to see it again You're more than welcome to make that motion, but what has been presented so far We have as is very minimal in the corrections or reconsiderations Are the additional questions? Commissioner Miller so These changes make changes to what I call the historical lots exception Which I'm sorry, which changes are we talking about so? Let me see if I can find what page I'm referring to but it's old lots that are of a certain size That were platted before a certain time that you can build on them in the underlying zone Even if they're too small. Oh the Nonconforming yeah, it's not it's in the nonconforming section what I call the historical lots exception Yeah, it's which we've always had some version of correct We're not changing that at all We're just relocating those provisions to make it make sense. Okay. Yeah, I was looking for some a change that wasn't there And it was bothering. All right very good. I'm cool They I make a motion Well, let's see are there any additional questions The chair will entertain a motion Madam chair, I'd like to send forward case TC 17 quadruple 0 1 Forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation Perhaps with a clarification of the language that mr. Brian pointed out absolutely Motion by commissioner Miller second by Commissioner al-Turk That we move item number TC 1 7 0 0 0 0 1 forward with a favorable recommendation and there was an adjustment With with the correct with consideration of the corrections brought to with consideration for some corrections correct. All right Are you ready for the question? All in favor of this motion. Let it be known by let's do a roll call Commissioner al-Turk. Yes Yes Commissioner Brian. Yes commissioner Whitley. No Commissioner Harris. Yes Commissioner Busby. Yes Yes Mr. Miller. Yes, Mr. Kenchin. Yes, Commissioner Hornbuckle. Yes, Mr. Van. Yes Commissioner Gibbs. Yes, Commissioner Freeman. Yes Motion passes 13 to 1. Thank you. Thank you We have we'll following them. Is there any unfinished business? No, is there any new business? No Motion to adjourn