Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. So today we have Joanna or Boston Fed will hold this session. Joanna is all yours. Hey, good morning and good afternoon. So my name is Joanna Stavens, I'm an economist at the Boston Fed and I'll be the moderator for today's session. Our presenter today is Tony Achenert from the European Central Bank. And he'll be presenting the digital economy, privacy and CBDC. And Tony will have 25 minutes for his presentation and that will be followed by Rod Garats from the BIS as a discussant and Rod will have 10 minutes for the discussion and then we'll have 20 minutes for Q&A. So if you have questions, please put them in the Q&A and I'll give a three minute warning. So Tony, you wanna start? Thank you very much for the introduction. So we are very happy to have the opportunity to present our CBDC paper to this targeted audience. So this is a joint work with Peter Hoffman and Cyril Monet and both of them also here with us today and they're very happy to answer questions during the talk if some questions come up and they're also available to help me out with questions afterwards. So I should say that these, since some of the authors work at the policy institution, the usual disclaimer applies and in particular, we are not part of the digital year project that may introduce a CBDC in the Eurozone in three and a half years. So let me start by motivating the paper by observing that a digital economy requires a digital means of payment. So online sales have grown in the last decade, decade and a half quite a bit and at the same time, new payment solutions are merging Big Tech and FinTech are the buzzwords here and we've listed a few of the recent examples at the bottom of the slides. And as a result of these two trends, the use of cash is declining rapidly. And even in countries that have traditionally used cash a lot such as the Netherlands in green or Germany in red, we see that over the last decade, cash usage has gone down a lot. So if a digital means of payments are used, then the consequence is that a lot of data is generated very much in contrast to cash, which does not generate data. And indeed the business model of private firms such as Big Tech is to monetize data including payments data. And as a result, privacy concerns have grown and my discussion what has worked on this topic as well. So very much looking forward to his comments later. And these privacy concerns could take various forms. I mean, one could be more like political or oveian. For example, as we became aware from the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandal that kind of the use of data might affect voting outcomes. I mean, for example, there's the role played during both the Brexit referendum in the UK and the 2016 US presidential election. I mean, most of us are economists. So maybe the political applications are less obvious. So we often care about economic applications, but they're also their scope for price discrimination, preference manipulation and vent extraction. So indeed in a survey conducted in Europe about potential introduction of the digital euro, privacy was mentioned as the number one concern. So in this context of privacy and payments, what we try to understand in this paper, or kind of the research, the broad research questions we're trying to get is to kind of further our understandings about economic trade-offs involved and understand and devide implications for CBDC including the design of CBDC. So in this paper, we develop a parsimonious model of financial intermediation and payment choice in the digital economy in order to contribute to this ongoing debate. In the model, there are two rounds of lending and subsequent production and sales of goods. There are sellers who choose whether to distribute their goods online or offline. This is the venue choice of the seller. So the online distribution is more efficient because it allows for better matching with buyers. So the idea is just that you could meet more buyers or buyers that are a better match for you when you go online. For example, you distribute via the internet. If you do so, the seller requires a digital means of payment. So for example, bank deposits. This cannot be, say on Amazon, you cannot pay with cash. Offline distribution, however, in a prick and mortal store can be settled in cash. And the payment method, cash versus deposits affects the information received by the lender. And one aspect that we emphasize a lot in the paper and it's kind of key for our model is that the lender learns from a payment flows in deposit accounts, kind of consistent with a substantial empirical evidence and some recent theoretical papers that use this notion as well. Maybe the paper I like best is a paper by Lars Norton and Weber in the RSS in 2010 where they document that a bank that observes the payment flows generates a lot of additional information beyond the information they already have about the borrower like the credit score and all the standard information they have when making a lending decision. So the payment flows are very predictive. There's a lot of information in the payment flows. And when bank deposits are used, then this information is learned for free by the bank. Conversely, when cash is used, the bank does not directly observe the information and hence, if it wants to learn in a contracting design, in a separating contract, it must leave information rents to the seller to learn the same type of information. And the information about the seller is useful for two purposes. First, it's about rent extraction in the first round of financing and it's also about future lending decisions. So determining who should get funded in the second round. And as a result from the fact that cash preserves privacy in the sense that it generates additional information rents to the seller, the seller may choose to distribute goods offline and settle with cash, although this is the inefficient form of distribution. So in this benchmark setting, we then introduce CBDC. And we think about CBDC as digital cash. So like bank deposits, it's a digital means of payments and it can support online distribution of goods. And like cash, it preserves anonymity. So if the bank wants to learn the information, then it will have to give information rents to the seller. As a result, CBDC offers the best of both worlds to sellers. CBDC is both anonymous and digital. So just a question, I mean, it's a model obviously, but there are already various digital, private digital currencies out there, stable coins and so forth. So does what you say here also apply to those or is CBDC special and different from them? So we have an extension where the platform issues tokens. So we can talk about kind of, I mean, it's actually, I think on the next slide where we talk about the tension between tokens and CBDC. So here, so the wall of CBDC would be mostly as a means of payments. And I mean, with some private digital currencies, it's not obvious. I mean, especially in light of recent events that they can be a reliable means of payments. Of course, if there's a credible stable coin that might be different. So maybe we can see a bit what the results are on tokens issued by the platform and then maybe get back to it. And perhaps my courses will also wanna comment on the relation to that. So maybe let me ask a question differently. Maybe I shouldn't ask too many questions at this point, but imagine a well-regulated stable coin, something that's envisioned now in the MECA regulation where that's regulated like an error bank, but it's privately issued. And with that work just as well, does the center bank have to do this or is it just about making sure there's a digital but anonymous means of payment? Yeah, so I'm thinking a bit on my feet here, but I think up to this point, it's fine because the key thing is it needs to be digital to support online distribution. And it basically needs to make sure that the information doesn't flow to the lender, right? I mean, once you have this alternative option, we would then have to think about, say it will be private firm issuing that means of payment and maybe they have then incentives to sell that information to the bank. So we would have to think about those private incentives, right? And I mean, one thing that's been argued in the debate about CBDC is that the public authority does not have a profit motive. So it does not necessarily have an incentive to monetize data as much. So that could give it kind of a comparative advantage, actually an absolute advantage even. Okay. So when CBDC is introduced, banks still wanna learn about the seller and offers to separate in contracts but leaving more events to the seller and making online distribution more attractive. And as a result, there will be two efficiency gains of CBDC. Sellers choose the more efficient distribution channel more often, which is good for efficiency. And then also high types who deserve continuation finance are identified more often and therefore we finance more often. So the adverse election problem, I'll talk more about this in the model shortly, will be resolved more often. And for both of these reasons, efficiency goes up. And maybe this is also partly going at Harad Uliq's question. So we've talked about this public option, the CBDC, but then we should stop and ask maybe it's a scope for a similar, maybe even better, a private solution. So what we then do, I think you see what I see and I'd like you to see the top of the slides. I'm trying to get rid of this. Can you see the top of the slide? Yeah, the slide looks fine. Okay, good. So then it's just me, fine. And then we, thank you. And then we introduce digital platforms and these digital platforms can issue a payment token and they can make loans in the second stage. And these tokens foster competition in the market for continuation finance. So the platform learns from the token in as much as the bank learns from bank deposits. The idea again is this link between lending and learning from payment flows. And the bank can use a separating contract to learn. So we will have two lenders that are informed. So they compete with each other. And as a result, sellers are offered better loan terms. And sellers like that. So they strictly prefer tokens over CBDC and in fact tokens fully quad out CBDC. So this is what we call a CBDC adoption crisis. And even beyond this particular paper, I think it's important in this debate that CBDC is designed in a way that it's attractive and it's actually used. And my personal impression is that in some of the debates of policy makers around CBDC is that not enough attention is given to actual adoption. I mean, it's just because we design it doesn't mean it gets widely used. So I think much more emphasis needs to be put on adoption and the specific context of our model once tokens can be issued, CBDC will not be adopted. And this in our model is actually efficient. So the full crowding out of CBDC in that ZW will be efficient. One downside, however, is the downside, however, is that digital platforms may give rise to anti-competitive behavior, which is sometimes called a walled garden. So the concern is that if I'm on a digital platform and then I'm not just using it to buy and sell my goods, but I'm also using the token issued by the platform to pay, then I'm kind of locked in and I'm kind of, I cannot benefit from a future competition. So in one of the extensions, we allow for potential entry of a more efficient platform and how that competition is stifled by the incumbent platform. So, and then Zellers would not switch to the new platform, although that would be efficient. And in that setup, CBDC can be very useful. And here we rely on a very nice quote from this paper on the economics of privacy that states privacy is not the opposite of data sharing, rather it is to control over sharing. So privacy means you control when and with whom you share your data. And CBDC with data sharing will be privately optimal in our model because it induces a competition in the lending market.  And as a result, CBDC that is appropriately designed so it has this data sharing features will be adopted even when tokens are available. So if properly designed CBDC adoption is no problem and it will reach the first best allocation as given by the full information benchmark. So on top of distributing goods online and extending finance thing to high types in the second round, it will also mean that sellers switch to more efficient platform if it enters. And the policy implications for CBDC design is that an anonymous CBDC is already welfare improving but can lead to low adoption of once digital platforms issue tokens. And if a properly designed with these privacy features such as data sharing, then this can raise welfare and even reach first best. So what I now wanna do is, I mean, you see there's quite a few things going on but I wanna give you a sense of the model and show you the first two main results before concluding. So there's a bank that gives an initial loan to a seller. The seller chooses whether to distribute offline or online. It learns that it's type. It can be a high type with probability Q. If it goes offline, it randomly finds a buyer which again is high type with probability Q. And then we have this good match high type seller or H seller meets H buyer with probability Q squared generating this high surplus UH. Otherwise the surplus is lower, it's just UL. If you go online, however, you get a better match. For simplicity, we assume the match is perfect. So you always find a high buyer. So that means that this high surplus is reached more often with probability Q, which is bigger than Q squared. So that gives us immediately the efficiency gains from online sales. When you distribute your goods offline, you can use cash and cash means the bank does not learn automatically. When you choose online, however, and settle with bank deposits, the bank observes your payment flows and learns your type and the meeting in which you had with the buyer. And this information is useful for two reasons. It's about rent extraction for the first loan trying to get as much as possible out of the seller. And it's about making a decision about whether to extend the second loan and this second loan is subject to adverse selection because only high seller, high type sellers, H sellers will have positive production tomorrow. So I know that Watt is an H seller. So if I knew I faced Watt for sure, then I will always give him a second loan. But if I face a pool of sellers, then there are so many L sellers in that pool that the adverse election prevents me from making a loan because I cannot break even in that case. Also, sellers can scorn with a fraction of the loan or of sales, it's kind of a more hazard problem in reduced form that gives some minimal bargaining power of the seller vis-à-vis the lender. And we see in this setup, first best under full information is that goods are always produced, always distributed online and any H seller gets refinanced. These are the two dimensions of efficiency. In the interest of time, let me skip the timeline. And just go to the equilibrium right away. When this seller goes online, then the bank just learns the information about type and the meeting for free. However, when this seller stays offline, then the bank does not directly learn. So if it wants to learn, it must do so via screening by offering a menu of contracts. Full pooling of types is never optimal. So it basically chooses between partial pooling, whereby only HH sellers, so these are high type sellers having met a high type buyer, are separated and HL and LS sellers are pooled. Or there can be full separation whereby both HH sellers and HL sellers are separated. So the bank trades off the higher surplus from refinancing. So under full separation, all H sellers are identified and get a continuation loan, which generates a surplus, but there's a cost of separation. It needs to see some surplus to sellers. And this lemma characterizes when the bank offers a separating contract versus a partial pooling contract. Next, the seller chooses whether to distribute goods online or offline. And that's a trade-off between efficiency of distribution and the information rents earned. Offline distribution is inefficient, but the anonymity of cash generates additional information rents. So the specific sense in which cash preserves privacy in our paper, which goes back to other papers, I mean, all the way to work by Charlie Kahn and Krofus, for example, is that the sellers earn an information rent. Online distribution is more efficient. So you generate a higher surplus by selling your goods to buyers, but the bank immediately learns from the payment flows and extracts a lot of rents. So this proposition characterizes, depending on which contract the bank offers, whether the seller distributes online or offline. So with this benchmark in hand, you can now study the introduction of CBDC. So CBDC is digital cash. So it's anonymous but digital. So like deposits, it's digital and can be used for online sales, but like cash, it's anonymous. As a result, when CBDC is used, the bank will, for an online meeting, the bank will always use a separate 10 contract. And the intuition is that under online distribution, we have perfect matchings. We no longer have these HL sellers, this high type sellers that have met a low type bore. Three minutes left. Thank you. And as a result, the cost of separation is lower and the banks will choose more separation. In fact, they will always separate. And CBDC here allows the seller to capture the best of both worlds. They can distribute digitally but capture information events at the same time. So sellers always prefer CBDC over deposits. So bank deposits gets fully displaced. Nonetheless, in some circumstances, sellers still prefer cash over CBDC and stay offline. So there's some inefficiency left in the setup but the use of cash declines once CBDC is introduced. Let me just repeat the two efficiency gains of CBDC. Online distribution is used more often. So we get the better match more often. And the bank is more often informed about the type and can offer continuation financing to high type sellers more often. In the paper, we discuss free extensions. We allow for digital platforms that issue tokens as a means of payments and can make continuation loans. You also consider the potential non-competitive behavior of such platforms. And then we change the design of CBDC and allow for data sharing. So all of this is characterized in the paper and in introductory slides, I had given you kind of the main results on those extensions already. So let me conclude. In this paper, we develop a parsimonious model of financial intermediation with adverse election and payment and venue choice in the digital economy. Online distribution of goods is efficient but raises privacy concerns of sellers. As a result, sellers may prefer to stay offline and settle in cash. While this is privately optimal for the seller, it's socially inefficient for the economy. Allowing for CBDC, introducing a CBDC as digital cash, enables digital distributions without such privacy concerns. So CBDC is the best of both worlds. It's anonymous and digital raising efficiency. And in the paper, we discuss various extensions around digital platforms that issue tokens, potential anti-competitive behavior and a particular design of CBDC which allows for data sharing. Thank you very much. And I look forward to what's discussion. Thank you, Tony. So our discussant is Rod Garrett from the BIS. Rod, you have 10 minutes. Okay. Do you see my slides okay? Not yet. Yes, we do. Perfect. All right, well, thanks for the opportunity to discuss this paper and thanks to the authors for writing a paper that was clear enough that it was relatively easy to read and also thank you for your thoughtful references to my past work. Okay, so I'm gonna try to cover four things in this discussion. I'm gonna talk about the baseline model mechanics, summarize the results, then discuss some of the assumptions and then give three additional comments. And so I did the math and that's 10 minutes divided by four, so 2.5 minutes per item. So let's go. So baseline mechanics. So the banks, so first of all, the seller has to, as Tony mentioned, the seller has to trade off revealing their data to get a good match with the loss of these informational rents. So that's the seller's issue. And then what does the bank wanna do? The bank wants to learn two things. They wanna learn what type of seller they're dealing with. It can be a high type or a low type. And they wanna learn the sale price in the first round because if the sales are good in the first round they can charge a larger amount of repayment on the first wall. And so those are the two reasons why it wants to do this. Now when the seller accepts payment using deposits the bank learns everything. So it can price things accordingly and make the loan decision, the correct loan decision. But when the seller accepts only cash it has a complicated issue. So now the bank has to attempt to learn information. It needs to learn. It wants to learn if the bank is low or high type. As Tony mentioned, the assumptions are such that if completely uninformed the bank will never make a loan. And so it has to try and infer information or write contracts that are gonna reveal the information. So in particular it's gonna use these screening contracts. And so what power does it have when using these screening contracts? Well, the seller wants another loan. And so what the bank can do and a second loan is of more value to a high type seller than a low type seller. So what the bank can do is it can offer higher, as for a higher repayment on the first loan in exchange for coupling it with the permission to offer a second loan. And so through this it can offer contracts that will get the banks possibly to reveal their type and then it's willing to make this high loan. So whether or not banks are gonna do this or which contract emerges in equilibrium is gonna depend on various parameter values but this is the general idea. So the bank is uninformed, it's not going to make a loan when it's completely uninformed so it's gonna try and use these screening contracts. So it's a wonderful, wonderful model. Okay, so what are the key results? Well, as Tony already summarized in the baseline model the sellers are gonna choose online digital payments if the revenues they get from having better matching. Remember the key assumption in this is that if you use digital payments you get perfect matching with a buyer. If they exceed the loss of informational rents that is having an informed bank who will give you worse terms on repayment and on the future loan. If they introduce a CBDC this is greatly improving. Now keep in mind that the CBDC is kind of a magic bullet because the CBDC allows perfect matching without releasing data to the banks. So this is beneficial for the banks. They can have an efficient match they don't have to give up their data. So this is gonna improve the terms they can get on the second loan and it's gonna eliminate this partial pooling equilibrium. So we only have the separating equilibrium but this means cash is used less but when it is used it's more efficient. He didn't really go into detail but there are also these really interesting results related to digital platforms. And so digital platforms can create social efficiency. Again, the key idea here is that banks incur a cost if they reveal their data so they don't reveal their data. If they don't reveal, sorry sellers incur a cost if they were gonna reveal their data. If they don't reveal their data then we have inefficiency due to asymmetric information. So if you can make it costless for sellers to reveal their data you can get efficiency. And so basically the CDDC can do that and we can do that or the platform can do that and we can do that through a CDDC with data sharing. Okay, so now let's talk about the assumptions. So there's a number of assumptions in this paper and all papers of course have assumptions but I thought I would just highlight what assumptions that I think we need to think about. Number one, the sellers choose a distribution channel and a payment means before they know their type. So that is what sets up this screening framework but it's not entirely clear to me that that would be realistic in all cases. We could argue that but what I think is it becomes problematic from a modeling point of view is it makes it hard to think of a true multi-period model where the situation was repeated over and over and over again because then we'd have to sort of imagine the idea that the seller doesn't know their quality each time they do sales. Second, there's perfect matching with all digital payments. That's a key point of this paper because that's the carrot to revealing your data and so there isn't much explanation in the paper as to why we should think that online digital payments lead to a perfect match and by the way, what is the perfect match? In the model, there's high quality sellers and there's buyers that appreciate high quality goods and there are buyers that don't and so the question is does the seller get one of these buyers that appreciates high quality with digital payments they always do and so the question is how do we justify that? Next, the payment option has no impact on sales. So that's something that counters certainly some empirical work. So there's a lot of work that shows that whether or not a retailer offers cash or whether it offers credit or whether or not it offers cash and credit how that impacts their sales and so there's this bank of candidate estimate for example that an increase in 3% of revenue can come from offering multiple payment devices. So this is something to think about but what it also means more fundamentally is that the consumers don't care about privacy and so the consumers play a pretty small role in this model and maybe that's true so there's certainly some work out there that questions to how much consumers care about privacy but if we think consumers care about privacy then payment choice is gonna matter whether or not the privacy of the consumers is protected or not. So I mean remember this is a really interesting thing about this paper is that we're talking about privacy but it's the privacy of the seller not the privacy of the consumer and that also means that we don't have to think about things like Apple Pay for example different devices that might prevent the consumer data from being transmitted to the bank. Okay. Broadly of three minutes. Yep, yep. So there's another thing is that there's no big data collection in the model so we could actually imagine that there are wholesalers that sell to the retailers and the wholesalers produce data that could be used to infer what the sales are of the seller and actually the consumer data the consumers are purchasing from the seller. So I don't think this is a big point but there is this idea that when we think about big data analysis and collecting data from many sources we might have to think about this idea that there could be other ways for the bank to infer the quality of the seller and that actually spills into my last point which is that there's a sale of a single good and that rules out a signaling story and other interesting possibilities and so what I mean by that is that imagine that the firm so when I first read this paper I think I'm gonna go a minute over because I still have a couple more points but when I first read this paper I thought it was gonna be a signaling story not a screening story. I thought the idea would be that the seller would know their type, okay but that type is private information and that we'd be looking for essentially separating the equilibrium of a signaling game and you could imagine that would be true in a world where there were multiple where you could sell an uncertain quantity of goods and so you could think of a standard spent signaling story where the low quality merchant could work extra hard to generate higher sales so they could produce observable sales revenues that made them look like they were a high quality firm but then you could define a separating contract that wouldn't make it worth the firm to do that extra effort if they weren't in fact high quality. So two sort of points there one is that there's some interesting possibilities and I guess they're ruled out by having a single good and also this issue of whether or not if we go back to the first assumption you know, if we relax that assumption that I think it is interesting that we can actually get results that are pretty similar in the context of a signaling game. Okay, so now three comments to finish up. So first of all, as I think I already mentioned briefly it really is interesting to think about privacy from the merchant's perspective. So there's a paper by Richard Posner in the AER in 1981 that it's actually called The Economics of Privacy there's been other papers with that title since then but they actually make this really interesting or he actually makes this really interesting point that if we're gonna think about privacy as a consumer say the consumer's ability not to reveal so he was really talking about concealment and the idea of safe fraud but not revealing information about them that might be a bad signal for an employer then why don't we equally think about firms revealing not revealing flaws in their products. So he thinks about this idea of privacy in a symmetric way and so I do think it's interesting that they're addressing this idea of privacy from the point of view of the merchant. Also, I think it's really interesting to results related to data sharing on the CVDC even though Tony didn't emphasize these. I would make one quick point which is that the reference to acoustic at all there's a reference that makes the same point about privacy as being the power to as being the power to select the reveal information which comes from Eric Hughes and this result is I think so useful because it really feeds into this open banking agenda which is about consumers having the right to share data and the Euro system privacy objectives for CVDC so I think these results are very, very useful. It's probably worth emphasizing that one of the things that this paper doesn't do which a lot of the other papers that have been looking at privacy recently do is focus in on the externalities. So in the context of consumer privacy the externality has to do with the fact that that my decisions might tell you something about what Todd might decide to do for example but that would be the same thing with firms. So firms that look similar might have said we might be able to infer something about the sales of one firm about what the sales would be of a similar firm. So I think before we take these results fully we wanna sort of think about whether or not there might be a role for externalities. Again, just at a high level remember what the paper really does is it says is that if we sort of remove the frictions that prevents information sharing, we get efficiency. Well, that's of course what we expect in economics but when doesn't that happen it doesn't happen when there is externalities. And so that's why I do think investigating the role of externalities is so important. And then I'll conclude finally a very useful model, useful for thinking about a variety of new payment processing platforms that are also considering offing lending. So a great job and very relevant works and I'll stop there. Thank you. So while people put their questions in Q&A Tani, do you wanna respond? Yes, I can definitely get started and then hopefully Peter and Seville will join in. So there's a gives me the chance to pick one or two of the questions that at least I find easier to address. So what fantastic discussion. Thank you so much. There's several of these references. At least I don't know like use and also the AR 81 paper will definitely look that up. On the assumptions, I mean, your point one and five is a bit related, right? I mean, we purposefully modeled the type of the seller not to be known at the initial date. So we don't have to worry about kind of this signaling aspect. We kind of wanted to sidestep these issues. I'm not saying a lot important but just to kind of trying to simply convey kind of the message this way. And then of course externalities are important but also since you've already worked on those externalities. So we thought we wanted to focus on kind of the private incentives to preserve privacy, to make it complimentary. And then the third one I quickly thought is when we would have to work it out but intuitively at least I would expect that our results would generalize if online distribution has greater efficiency and more surplus and kind of going all the way to the limit that it's a perfect match. It's kind of mostly a normalization but I guess this has to be checked. So this is kind of mostly for tractability. And yeah, I'm hoping Peter or Seville may wanna say something to Giselle or the other comments. But excellent, excellent discussion. We'll definitely look at it carefully. Yeah, so let me chime in. So thanks a lot Rod for the discussion. So we actually have on the panel, I think we have like two of our previous discussions. So Harald and Charlie and both of them made the comment that the previous version of the paper was just really complicated. And so we really tried our best to sort of tune down the complications. So I am actually very happy to hear that you found it very easy to read. So that's great. But at the same time, it also explains why we have these very strong assumptions. It's in order to have an easy read and like for instance, the fact that you have perfect matching is definitely, I mean, it sort of gives a lot of power to online trading but at the same time you could relax that a little bit but that's going to be, that's going to complicate things as well. You had another, so the thing about the payment choice, that the payment choice might actually impact sales. We have an extension where we actually have buyers choosing the type of payments that they want to bring and we derive conditions so that they would bring any, they would be different between bringing any types of payment but it's definitely an interesting aspect to consider. And that's, I mean, your point about the assumptions are great because it gives like future papers to write. So that's awesome. And then no big data collection, of course we could have that, this would complicate things a bit again but I think it's related also to the better matching technology and this is definitely something that would be interesting to look at. Yeah, and the one good and the sellers choosing their channel of distribution. So essentially here, the problem is that suppose that you know your type before going online or offline. So the problem is that the choice of the platform of distribution platform is going to reveal some information and then it becomes tricky. I mean, the analysis is, you know, even more complex than what we have because it might be that as a high type you actually want to choose the same distribution platform as a low type in order to be able to pull together and sort of extract some rents out of the bank not knowing whether you're a high or a low type.  So we chose the case where you don't know your type and then it's only going to be revealed with your sales. And the idea would be that it's a young firm and, you know, it's not, it doesn't yet know whether it's good. It's going to be very demanded by customers. And, you know, that's sort of the story that we have in mind. But thanks a lot for the great discussion. Okay, so we have a couple of raised hands.  I think Harold was the first, but okay. So I'll go first. Okay, so one, yeah, that's okay. So one question is a question or comment, I don't know. So it's about privacy of sellers. So in reality, what I can think about the sellers' privacy is mostly about tax evasion that they usually want, especially more kind of small businesses that they want to keep privacy. Of course, I'm talking about legal business, right? If a business is completely illegal, that's a different story. But if it's a legal business, so the main thing that comes to my mind in terms of privacy is just they want to do tax evasion and they want to kind of pay less tax, both sales tax and also kind of the whole business tax or income tax. Other than that, I think in reality, I don't know if really firms want to kind of hide anything. So if what I'm saying is true, perhaps one extension or one version of your model could consider tax evasion and basically tax evasion increases the size of the pie and that might have some implications for your results. But yeah, that's my comment or question. Thanks. You guys want to answer that or shall we move on? Okay, Harold? Yeah, it's also an overarching question and banks and credit card companies to considerably we are prevented from using information on the one hand. And I think the concern with CBDC may be exactly the other way around that people fear that once payment, once it's cash substituted for CBDC and the information goes through the central bank that now we have a government observing all the transactions and people, I think feel very nervous about governments being capable of observing all the transactions we do in daily lives. And I think it's a cool paper. I really like the paper and it's an important topic. So it's more of a constructive comment of going, writing more papers that investigate how much people are concerned about privacy arising when the central bank has access to all this information. And there are probably surveys of that type and what can be done about it. Okay, Katrin? Yeah, can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, okay. So I was, yeah, puzzled by the results you have with the platform and CBDC and that platform, if I understood correctly, is driving out CBDC except if CBDC is going to include something on data sharing. And I wasn't quite sure what you were thinking of because I fully agree with you that this adoption of CBDC is very important issue. And the more we know about features that drive adoption, the better. And from survey evidence, I would always think the more privacy, the better because that's what you get from survey results. But it seems that your model is giving a more nuanced result on that. So I would be happy to hear more about that. So what I could say on that is, so agents like to stay private in this model when they face a monopolist lender. So the moment there's a platform that can potentially compete with the bank, they actually like that the information is revealed. And because if that information is revealed and these two competing lenders, they can really compete with each other. So that's the main mechanism through which that works, right? So once you're facing monopolists, you love to hide your information because you can extract some information, rents in exchange for that information. Once you face competition on the other side, you're very happy that if a type gets revealed to everybody because that's the only way you can read perfect competition. So that's the mechanism that's at work here. But then the competition story behind that and not preferences for privacy, but rather enabling competition in one. So the preference about privacy or, so the preference about privacy is very much dependent because it's an economic preference, it's not something that falls from the sky. So that of course very much depends on the competitive environment. So yes, that's crucial, but it's also sort of to have a economically well-founded coherent story, right? That it's not something that falls from the sky, but that depends on the primitives of the model and the competitive environment is a key feature of them. Yeah, just to add it, so basically the amount of information is endogenous and information determines lending outcomes and depending on the competitive structure, these will be different, yeah? I can try to answer to Harald Wulig's overarching point a bit. So because I think it's basically related to trust, right? Whom do you trust? And if you're really worried about public authorities or the government, then you should not have a system where you give all that information to the government, right? So my personal interpretation is there's also a bit of a geographic heterogeneity. So it seems in Europe, there's a lot of trust in the government and in public institutions and maybe not so much trust in private enterprise, especially if the private enterprise is not based in Europe, but it's maybe based in some other country. And then maybe the European Commission has the story about sovereignty that is linked to that. While in North America, the fear might be a bit more about about giving all the information to the government. And I mean, there was this, it's also related to the events in Canada and the payment system and interventions in the payment system were used to deal with the truckers' strike, which maybe was maybe not the best way of supporting trust in the payment system and in public authorities because then maybe future adoption of CBDC is less likely. So I would, it's kind of beyond the model, but I think it's a lot about trust in institutions. And I think for the survey paper on the economics of CBDC, we had looked a bit on some of these surveys and kind of how people feel about that. I could just ask a quick question about the privacy versus security, because it seems to me that privacy is security of the data and information, but security is financial risk and financial loss and maybe I'm biased by the US and we've had lots of issues with Zell, for example, this recently and it's not necessarily the bad guys. Sometimes it's just irreversible transactions. I just wanted to get your thoughts on security versus privacy. I'm not quite sure what you mean by security. I mean, what I would understand is essentially, I mean, financing terrorism or something like that. Is that what you have in mind with security? Well, it just meant that there's a trade-off sometimes between privacy and security, right? So when you give out information, like with credit transactions, for example, you have much more financial security. So, yeah, so I haven't thought about this aspect in this dimension, but it's sort of related to what Harald was mentioning. I've been thinking a bit about the KYC ML regulation and the fact that if you issue a CBDC, then probably you want your central bank to satisfy KYC ML which means that the central bank will have to have access to the transaction data. And there's no... So either we're gonna have to design a CBDC that doesn't give access to the government about our data, but then we're gonna have to live with the fact that as with cash, CBDC might be used for those transactions that we might not agree with. But this might be efficient, so who knows? I mean, some other aspect, and it's kind of trying to take it a bit in a different direction, I mean, going back to the idea of adoption, I mean, if you think about security as the dimension that the CBDC system will be safe, there will be no cyber attacks on the CBDC infrastructure. That's probably a necessary condition for adoption. Thanks, Martin. Thank you, Joanna. Just kind of going back a little bit to the question that Harald asked and Tony's response like, well, like about the privacy vis-a-vis the government and that is very much depends on like the level of trust, the local level of trust in the government. When that level of trust is really high, people might be more willing to share data, but perhaps it is even more fundamental than that if we were to put it in an economic model because like basically trust in this context is like about information sharing. And then the question will, the person with whom you share that information actually abuse that data. So in that particular case, that will be the government. But when we think about designing or thinking about the privacy that you get in payments is actually more fundamental in the sense that do you actually need to trust or not? Because if you have the privacy, you don't need to trust. You don't have to worry if you share the data, when you share the data that will be abused because you just have the option not to share it. So there was just two cents on that. Like just, I think it's just a little bit more than just a geographical dispersion in trust that we need to take into consideration just the fact that you actually want to have a system where you would need trust. I mean, this brings some thought about this in the sense that it's true that if you share your data, you have, I mean, you might be willing to share some of your data with say a bank, whatever, but under the assumption that this bank is not going to resell the data to somebody else. And then you have to trust, you know. So trust is in payments, we know trust is of the essence. To me, this point sounds a bit like it's a question of actually, in some sense, where the data is kept, right? So because obviously we can think of designing ways of data being shared for it being in a given location. But so what do you say it sounds a bit like there's a role of thinking about where the data is kept, right? So can I kind of share the data? Can I start my own data with me privately and then I can share it with somebody? Or is it shared in a more centralized place and I give consent for it to be released from that centralized place or not, right? Because I think in the back of what you have in mind and also what Harald said, it's kind of like, there's some chance that the benevolent government or the benevolent center bank turns into a rogue actor with some probability and then something goes self. So like, I don't know, the seller gets expropriated or something like that. Well, there are data breaches, right? So you might give your data to a specific merchant or specific financial institution, but it doesn't guarantee it's not gonna go beyond that. Yeah, I think the general point is that there are just a whole host of contingencies that you can think of, right? You can assign high probabilities or low probabilities to those, fair enough. But the question is like, do you want to design a system where you actually need that trust that these contingencies do not happen? But it's not really a comment on your paper, right? It's kind of, as Harald said, it's really like, hard to capture an economic model and but perhaps something for the next level. Yeah. Yes. Okay, Russell, you wanna take over? Yeah, we did travel at East Coast and then even later in Europe. So thank you everyone for staying with us. So it was the last session of this year. So we will take a break for next January and February for the job market. So keep an eye on our website and our email announcement for any further webinar. Thank you, everyone. Happy holiday. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the discussion. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Rod, that was a great discussion. Yes. Thank you. That was really good. Thank you. Thank you, Rod.


Good afternoon. I'd like to bring the October 30th 2023 Planning Commission meeting into session. Welcome to Planning Commission members, staff and guests. Multiple staff members are here today to ensure that the meeting runs smoothly and all applicants and members of the public are able to participate in the meeting at the appropriate times. If you're here today and would like to speak about a case, please provide your name clearly into the microphone and please be sure to sign in either at the back of the room or the podium for documentation purposes. If you're here today to speak about a case, you must speak up when the chairperson calls for a public comment. And I'll call the roll. Mr. Cawsey? Mr. Cook? Ms. Davis? Mr. Harp? Mr. Osorio? Here. Ms. Thomas? Here. And Mr. Frost? Here. We have quorum. I'll give a brief meeting overview. Applicants with a request before the Planning Commission are allotted a presentation time of 10 minutes. This time should include but is not limited to an overview of the project, case, history and any pertinent meetings held regarding the request. This time also includes all persons presenting information on behalf of the applicants such as attorneys, engineers and architects. This time limit does not include any questions asked by the Planning Commission or staff regarding the requests. During the public comment period, members of the general public are given the opportunity to address their concerns and intervals of two minutes. After the public comment period applicants have five minutes to respond and once Planning Commission begins deliberation no additional comments will be permitted by the applicant or the public. The administrator does have a timer and will make presenters aware of when their time has expired. The Planning Commission reserves the right to amend these procedures on a case by case basis. Are there any changes to the agenda? There are a couple of changes since publication. As you know, this is our meeting has been rescheduled from October 12th. So what was on the agenda case number five, which is text amendment 2023-0005, was forwarded to the City Council zoning public hearing for South Carolina Code section 6-29-760 and that was heard on October 17th. And also case number six, which is annexed 2023-0018, which was Park Lane Road annexation, was also forwarded to the City Council's October 17th zoning public hearing. Other than that, the agenda still stands. Thank you. The Planning Commission uses the consent agenda to approve noncontroversial or routine matters by single motion and vote. Examples of such items include approval of site plans, annexations, and street names. If a member of the Planning Commission or the general public wants to discuss an item on the consent agenda, you must speak up after the consent agenda is read. Then that item is removed from the consent agenda and considered during the meeting. The Planning Commission then approves the remaining consent agenda items. So I'll read through the consent agenda. The first is to approve the September 14th, 2023 meeting minutes. Second, under future land use map amendment and zoning map amendment for appending annexation is annexed 2023-0022 at 1200 Hayward Street, formerly known as 101 South Evans Street. This is a request recommendation on the assignment of land use classification of urban core mixed residential type 3 and the assignment of zoning of community activity center corridor district for appending annexation. The property is currently classified as mixed residential high density and zoned M1 by Richland County. Case number three is under major site plan review. This is S plan dash 2023-0011 for 111 and 161 Pontiac Business Center. This is a request for major site plan approval for the construction of a 90,950 square foot self storage facility. The property is zoned LI light industrial. Case four is also a site plan major site plan. This is S plan dash 2023-0012 82 41 Park Lane Road request major site plan approval for the construction of a 140,000 square foot public health laboratory. This is the South Carolina DHEC lab building. The property is zoned INS Gen Institutional General District and that is it for the consent agenda. All right thank you. All right is there anyone in the general public that would like to see a consent agenda item removed and placed on the regular meeting agenda? Seeing none hearing none is anyone from planning commission that would like to see an item pulled and moved to regular agenda. Mr. Chair I don't see any need to have it removed but I do have a question about case number 82 41 Park Lane Road if I could ask the staff a quick question. Is that something that would require a removal if it's just a question clarification? We can see if your clarification can just be answered by staff without having to discuss it. Okay yeah my only question was about the traffic study in terms of what did that look like and how much was included in that in terms of the times that they maybe that the study was performed. Yeah I think if we were gonna discuss that which we can we would need to pull that off consent. No I don't want to do that thank you. Okay so no items to be pulled by the planning commission from the consent agenda on the regular meeting. Seeing none I will accept the motion on the consent agenda. Mr. Chair I recommend that we approve September 14th 2023 minutes along with today's consent agenda with any staff comments. Got a motion to approve the meeting minutes and the consent agenda. Can I get a second? Second. Got a motion and a second all in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? No. The ayes have it. Motion is approved. Okay now the planning commission will now move forward with those items on the regular agenda. We will use the following outline for regular agenda items. The administrator will introduce the case. The applicant will have 10 minutes to make a presentation. Planning Commission may ask questions. The public comment period will be open to those present. The public comment period will be closed. The applicant will have five minutes to respond to any public comments and planning commission may ask additional questions of the applicant and then deliberation and action by the planning commission will occur. Once the planning commission begins deliberation no additional comments will be permitted by the applicant or the public. So the first case on the regular agenda, pardon me, is a zoning map amendment. This is ZMA-2023-0014, 2401 Gadsden Street, 701 Chester Street and the parcel next to 701 Chester Street. This is a request for a recommendation to rezone the property from RSF3 which is residential single family small lot district to MU2 which is a mixed use district. I will go ahead and read the staff recommendation. This is in the Elm Park neighborhood. So this is about a 0.91 acre collection of parcels which is currently vacant and being used as storage and the staff recommendation it says while there are MU2 parcels adjacent to the properties the proposed rezoning is for three lots that front Chester and Gadsden Street which are both part of the single family residential street grid. Staff typically does not recommend rezoning single family zone properties to a more intense mixed use district particularly when there is a clearly defined boundary that would be eroded as a result and or when is it it is inconsistent with the future land use for the area. Staff finds that the proposed zoning is inconsistent with the future land use classification in the Columbia Compass Envision 2036 and with the adopted area plan and recommends denial of the request. And I would also just like to mention just for the record before we get into the discussion is that there have been some letters received a few of which you received via email when we had the original meeting scheduled for the 12th and then you've got a couple that came in today that you should have hard copies of as well. Okay we've heard the case we've heard the staff recommendation are there any questions to staff before we hear from the applicant assuming the applicants present any questions at this time for staff is the applicant present would like to give a presentation yes ma'am do you want to present anything on the zoning yeah please step forward and I'm Jennifer Powers and I own the property that's in question. This property was purchased somewhere around 2015 and Coxson-Dinkins had given me a survey of the property or there was a survey filed at the time. The property was zoned a pud zoning at that time and the sewer line that I discovered after much to do with the city and Coxson-Dinkins runs completely across the bottom part of the RS3 at Chester and Wayne Street. This reduced the possibilities of any type of development significantly and it has not been resolved as the city did not want to take responsibility for a prescriptive easement and they are using the sewer on my property without an easement so they felt that I needed to pay to move the sewer. So that is just not something that I'm financially able to do so I have been trying to maintain the property at a great expense fight the urban camping and the homeless people in that area. So this property has been quite a challenge for me for a long time now at the top of the hill is a VFW building it's approximately a thousand square feet block building with about an eight inch concrete floor two bathrooms and it was used as a VFW for 50 years so I have been using it because I have a license a business license across the street I'm a general contractor so I've been using this building in conjunction with my business and for storage and such so I've noticed that the MU1 on Wayne Street that some of these businesses have been closed down for years they didn't change any of their zoning they have not changed the zoning right adjacent to me on a vacant lot that is zoned MU2 on Gadsden Street so evidently they have just cherry picked me out of the out community there to change my zoning I'm contiguous with M2 zoning all around me and at the back of my houses of which I live in one the city allowed junk King to come in with a garbage transfer station and gave them a business license and I've had to fight that for almost a year to get that removed so evidently you know I feel like I've been singled out for one thing I've asked for suggestions from city development on what they think could go there because the demolishing of a VFW that was there from the 20s is not a not an easy thing to do is a demolition and there's just not enough room my street has 10 feet less and right of way street right away than the rest of the streets in Elmwood Park I'm really not a member of Elmwood Park because I don't have sidewalks I don't have street lights I don't have anything that the rest of Elmwood Park has and so but Elmwood Park you know I've always been very cognizant when I built the other three houses and renovated the one that I stay contiguous with materials with you know nice building aesthetics and I've always kept this property in utmost a condition because I own from Gadston Street all the way to Wayne Street on both sides so there's no one else other than one other neighbor that would even be affected by noise or by anything else now I'm not because it was MU2 gave me the options of maybe a little social club I thought a pickleball court then everybody got upset about you know Wall Street Journal says the pickleball court is noisy you know nobody really has any any any statistics to prove anything they just don't like it so I wrote a letter to the HOA and asked them for suggestions of what they'd like to have there or whatever so everybody just wants me to demolish the building or build houses when houses are just not going to fit on there's only one buildable lot so I have to come up with something that accommodates this sewer main that runs completely across the property and I believe one of the former commissioners is Cox and Dinkins so I hate it that Jean Dinkins missed it because I've worked with him for years but you know that's just the facts so the city doesn't want to help you with anything but I'm paying commercial garbage I pay commercial taxes I applied in 2020 for a sewer tap which was a commercial payment for that and they put the tap in but during the pandemic this zoning got done without any notice to me and so here we are and the building is kind of unsightly and I I don't know what to do with it I don't want to put a lot of money in it because the neighborhood won't let you do anything it needs I need either some help or I need the city to remove that sewer off of the lot so I can build residential it was a significant investment for me and I'm aging out I'm in my 60s now and this was you know a retirement vision but I'm afraid that you know it's gonna cause a hardship for me but I can't continue to just pay taxes on a piece of property that's not developable or somebody needs to come up with something else you know I could use it for parking to go along with the little building but I can't use it to dig into a foundation or do anything with that sewer so maybe the city can correct their sewer issue and move the sewer over further to the embankment and then the lots could be developed but then that's still gonna cause parking situations because we don't have a wide enough street like the rest of the streets in Elmwood Park so I am I'm a general contractor I was a title agent for 41 years in fact mr. Fuller I worked with mr. Fuller when I was in my 20s I don't know what else to do to try to accommodate a neighborhood that won't give you any solutions but just wants to complain the property was zoned the way they haven't done anything with the vacant lot right next door to me which is in the residential district so evidently they've just singled me out I don't I need either help or I need an explanation of why I've been singled out by the city and you know how all this came to be without any notice so getting to that I think that the environmental issues that I have with the M you won behind me which is underground leakage and this and that and I fight the homeless situation like it's the Wild West down there and I've been doing this for 24 years now so I don't know what the city or what this neighborhood expects me to do to continue to pay taxes on a piece of property that's not developable or to dump money into something that is not going to give me any return so I need help if it's a planning commission plan something but they they're not gonna you know that there's only one lot that can be built on so I don't understand the uproar of the neighborhood they just that I was told by the HOA that they were concerned about they didn't want any high rise down there well even the way it is it's three stories is is allowed so I mean I couldn't afford a a concrete four-story structure if I wanted to but I've lived down there I have built these houses in a time when the neighborhood was not desirable I couldn't even get financing from our local lenders I hopped my house in Heathwood to move into Elmwood 25 years ago I cleaned up a whole entire city block that was that wasn't worth lending on nor anybody living in and I've endured a lot and my stuff is impeccable my houses are impeccable my yards are impeccable but to just to maintain that lot across the street cost me about twenty five hundred dollars a year so I pay two hundred dollars a month for a guy to come and cut it and I'm getting no help from the city all of the adjacent property is the embankment it billows into my property they do nothing with the MU two people next door it's just it's just what they want and they've spent copious amounts of money on this greenway rail to trail that was given away I happened to be there at the time when the deal was made by Jim Papadia with the people that formally owned that property and I saw the transaction and it was not copacetic so I don't know what the city wants to do but I need help and I'd like some consideration and some help not just complaints and not just changing my value of my property thank you before you step away just real quick are there any questions for the applicant from planning commission at this stage no sir no that's the MU to you'll see that little triangular jut that comes into Gadsden Street that's it between you and the rail that's right yes ma'am any other questions for the applicant thank you you're welcome and is there any other folks here from the public that would like to speak for or against this particular project this case yes sir come on up please state your name okay Alvin Porty junior just a reminder we'll have two minute increments for others for against the project I've been a neighbor of miss powerful good many years over there on Chester Street and she's been a good person for the community and those three houses she fixed them up because if you've seen it before she bought it it was bad and when she got in she cleans it up and it all those houses look real good I would like to see that the city would move the drainage over so she can do something with that property and she's been a good person for our community and I'm support her for doing that and I hope the city would see fit to do that it's gonna cost y'all money to move that drain over but then she could put houses on it and then y'all could probably put a sidewalk in and that'd be more taxes more money for the city to make money you can you can tax them so that'd be a win-win for everybody she's been good look out for thank you okay all right is there anybody else here from the neighborhood that would like to speak for against yes sir hello my name is Joe checker I live in the Elmwood Park neighborhood I live close to these lots that Miss Power zones and I would like the property not to be rezoned and remain single-family home I think a business in that corner would bring a lot of traffic and a lot of noise almost any commercial business that you put there is is not going to be good for the neighborhood I think building single family homes on the property would help maintain our property values and help our resale values keep the neighborhood a family friendly neighborhood thank you thank you all right is there anybody else here that would like to speak for against yes ma'am hello my name is Celia Macintosh I've been a resident of Elmwood Park since 2009 and over that time we have seen incredible growth and progress in the neighborhood and like others have stated I would encourage the city to do what they can to be in good governance of Miss Power's properties but rezoning that to an MU2 is not the right answer here yes there is the MU1 yes there is the MU2 but her lots are critical in maintaining the fabric of the neighborhood that has developed over the last 15 years on Wayne Street there are maybe eight houses now very large homes and so the fabric of that side of the neighborhood has drastically changed if we were having this conversation in 2005 it would look very different but today it's really important that those stay residential that traffic through that area stays residential she herself mentioned that the streets are narrow so any sort of commercial activity in that area just needs to be kept to a complete minimum there's a charter school planned for that MU2 behind her and the neighborhood worked very closely with them to keep their entrance and exit on Elmwood under the overpass rather than coming into the neighborhood and so to rezone this property here would be flying in the face of all of that to try and keep a cohesive sense of residential atmosphere in that area and we're gonna hope to continue that the development is just walking right down Wayne Street and I mean as you guys will see tomorrow night we'll have 2,000 trick-or-treaters running around a neighborhood that is seeing a complete 180 even in the last 10 years so thank you for your consideration thank you alright is there anybody else from the public that would like to speak for or against seeing none Miss Powers is there anything else you would like to say as it relates to the comments you've heard is that somebody's left their phone here so they might want to come and get it is that that is an incorrect statement as to what the property would have looked like in 2005 I've been down there since 97 in 2005 nobody wanted to move on my street and there were no houses in the back and I will agree with the lady that I mean she's not one of my immediate neighbors so she must live up in the Elmwood Park somewhere but is that I have industrial behind me or or MU one which is pretty invasive I don't know if she gets to listen to the dumpster that's dumped at 2 o'clock in the morning and but I do and the city doesn't seem to care anything about that you know as far as the neighborhood is concerned because it's right it's within maybe 15 feet of my back door so I still feel that you know they cherry pick me and most of the people I sense I own the whole block there is no one else other than the one neighbor that just spoke and the lot right across from him is in you to the lot right directly across from him is zone MU to so it doesn't matter if my lot is residential or not he's got MU to across the street from him whether he likes it or not so I just don't see the rationale but thank you yes ma'am thank you that will close the public comment period are there any questions and we will begin deliberations are any questions from the planning Commission over to staff just one question for with she mentioned that it was read it was a zoning of PUD prior to this last zoning is there any information to that regard and what the PUD zoning required yes it was previously a residential PUD development with I believe five residential homes planned so it was a residential PUD and I believe that was passed in 2007 okay ma'am we're we're in deliberations now so public comment period has been closed any cool any other questions from planning Commission over to staff if there are no further questions I will entertain a motion I'll make it Mr. Chair I'll make a motion to deny SMA 2002 3 0 0 1 4 2 4 0 1 Gadson 701 Chester and NX 701 Chester all right we have a motion on the table to deny the request is there second second all right I got a motion and a second all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed say no the ayes have it the motion passes the next the next case on the agenda is case number 8 this is ZMA dash 2023 dash 0 0 1 5 at 22 12 Senate Street this is a request for a recommendation to resound the property from RSF 3 residential single-family small lot district and the old Shannon lower Waverly historic district area a to RM 1 mixed residential district in the old Shannon lower Waverly historic district area a this is a point 2 6 acre parcel which is vacant and the I'll go ahead and just read the staff recommendation this is this lot is in a block that is consistently RSF 3 and while the recommendation to rezone a property to a more intense district within a single-family block is generally discouraged the maximum density that this lot could accommodate for duplex or multifamily use with the proposed zoning district of RM 1 is two units as well the property is within the old Shannon lower Waverly historic district the maximum density combined with the historic overlay which will require review of the design and massing of the structure provides a level of assurance that a proposed development would be compatible with the surrounding neighborhood and provide needed infill development in this area staff finds that proposed zoning is consistent with the future land use classification of UCR 1 and the Columbia's Compass Plan and that a recommendation to approve is appropriate before we have the applicant but come forward or any questions that we all have for staff sorry let me also mention apologies that I did there were yes to letters received via email from folks in the neighborhood these came in before the previously scheduled meeting on October 11th those should have been forwarded to you via email yes thank you is the applicant present would like to come forward yes sir hello everyone Timothy web so 2212 Senate Street as mentioned is a quarter acre lot it currently has 11,297 square feet with the 40% potential lot coverage so building size has the availability of 4518 square feet or potentially with 3518 and a thousand square foot ADU what we are proposing is a duplex property to family property that blends traditionally with the historic neighborhood I've also done duplexes in historic districts as it includes everywhere from West Columbia to city of Columbia so very familiar with the preservation committee and team and different teams around city of Columbia as you look at the first two blocks of Senate Street on the left side all our zone are one there's an L shape of R and one up Walnut and Senate Street and also I have a colleague or buddy of mine that also is in the neighborhood that owns a duplex on Pine Street I saw the letters that may have concerns of parking and things of that sort so I want to make sure that we are not disrupting the neighborhood with the two family dwelling that we will have and I'm hoping to hear any neighborhood feedback thank you thank you all right are there any folks in the public that would like to speak for or against this project yes sir come on forward choose me choose Thomas 19 year resident of the lower Waverley community and I welcome all development to the area as we know it's been blighted for some time especially when I got there back in 2004 look forward to different properties coming I think that Tim will do an awesome job and having a residential duplex put there and I recommend it yes sir thank you yes yes sir my name is Mike Burley I'm a lifelong resident of the Waverley area and first of all I want to make sure you definitely keep it historic my concern right now is the parking on my block alone there's only probably occupied where they're full of rental houses right now and we can only park on one side on Oak Street there are four there are only 14 possible parking spaces right there right now we're just four occupying houses there are probably 11 cars for just those four houses so I really would like to see y'all put a pause on this and just look at the parking because that's a serious issue and right now they're probably several houses that are vacant if we get any more houses I don't know what we were part I have a disabled neighbor now and he comes there they're blocking the driveway so they can't even get this out he would have to walk a block so I ask that you look at the parking is a serious issue right now in that area so please take a look at that before you consider that yes sir thank you all right in you yes sir yes my excuse me my name is Bobby Taylor I live across the street from this property now ten years ago they wanted to try to move up in there but now that the neighborhood and the law has cleaned it up and and it's peaceful now I sit on my porch at night 10 11 o'clock you come by my house anytime the light is on you cuz I keep the door open and you get to move in new people in that it'll go right back I feel as if it go right back where we just worked hard to get from it's peaceful there old people live there you don't know what we might get you know I'm talking like so let's just keep it like it is thank you thank you yes sir good afternoon I'm Reverend Michael Buxon I am the senior pastor at Chappelle Memorial AME church which is right around the corner from this property this that property number one the parking is going to be one thing it's already tough for us and I can imagine what it's like for the residents that live there now my other concern is that this is a historic area and I know that we're doing some building at Chappelle and we are held to a certain I guess standard or whatever to make sure that the property blends in with the neighborhood I know that's different from what this gentleman is planning to do but there's already one side that is zoned for duplexes and my fear is that if we open the door for this then it will change the entire landscape of this historic district that we're in and I know at Chappelle we're fighting very hard to keep historic Waverly and lower Waverly as close to what it is and help others to renovate their homes to kind of just keep it's because it's a historic area and I'm just afraid that if if you allow this property to be rezoned it's gonna open the door for some others to be rezoned and the historic lower Waverly community will not be what it is now if you're gonna put something on that lot let it be a single family dwelling there are plenty of other ones in that area and I think that the area that's already zoned for duplexes is enough plus the parking I would hope that you would consider this very seriously thank you good afternoon my name is Vivian Clark-Armstead I'm president of the MLK lower Waverly neighborhood association and as part of a spokesman for the community we are not in favor of changing the zoning or of our community we are a residential community we are a historical community we have been under siege from regeneration we're overrun with students we're overrun with cars we're overrun with even foot traffic in our area between us and five points a duplex will only bring younger people predominantly students back from school into our community and we're fighting that as we speak now because of the foot traffic it is increased littering as they walk from restaurants and cook out and different things that they throw their containers along the streets so we're constantly having community cleanup campaigns the property value in that community will be impacted we want to remain a single family zone residential community historically an African-American historical community is what lower Waverly at one time no one wanted lower Waverly when it was old Shandon and so now that people are seeing that it is advantageous and profitable to be near five points to be downtown to be in our community we are being under siege we're being sent letters we're being sent false postcards we're getting phone calls daily from people trying to buy our property actually went one day and there was a man actually in my yard taking pictures of my property saying that they were want to develop it into something different we do not want our community to be something different I have been in that community I bought my home there in 2015 but prior to that my grandmother lived in that community and I went to the old Waverly elementary school which was closed during regeneration we are insistent that our community remains a historical residential single-family homes they are welcome to build a single-family home there do not change the character of community and do not change the status of the zoning for our community is our request to you to consider today thank you thank you is there anyone else that would like to speak for against yes ma'am thank you my name is Julie Hartwell and I own the lot adjacent to this property and I have every intention to develop that lot as a single-family home I think you also have a letter from the property owner on the other side who also has every intention to maintain the single-family status of our neighborhood I'm requesting of course that you deny this request I am a lifelong resident of the neighborhood I attended hand graduated from Drew High School and still reside there today and would like to see the character and property value in my neighborhood maintained single family houses are selling in my neighborhood and there is plan development of at least four vacant lots as single-family dwellings as I said as a lifelong resident of the neighborhood I ask that you deny this request to divide the block that is currently 100% single family and slice in this zoning designation that's different as my neighborhood president said we receive constant calls from developers to buy our property and create halfway houses and other residential types that are incongruent with our historical designation so I'm asking that you please deny this request thank you yes ma'am thank you good afternoon and I'll be very brief my name is dr. Bambi Gaddis I live at 904 Oak Street my husband and I have resided in that location since 1992 I have raised a 43-year-old daughter from her almost infancy I have 226 I have a 26-year-old grandson a 16-year-old grandson all of them resided at some point at 904 and now I have two great-grands who visit frequently I don't have to repeat what has been said but I know that it is irresponsible of me not to express my concern of what has been stated we really need your support to try to the best of our ability we are we are I am all for business I am all for business development of continuing to deteriorate the community that we're just trying to keep together so I appreciate your consideration in all of this is there anyone else in the public that would like to speak for or against seeing none mr. Webb I'll offer if you have any last comments to state based on what you the comments you've heard and yes so very briefly I've heard the comments and my goal is not to deteriorate the neighborhood it's only to add value I'm not familiar if anyone sure if anyone's familiar with the duplex right across from the Bull Street district I have brought value to that area with revitalizing the duplex there also in the I mentioned the West Columbia Brooklyn neighborhood of revitalizing a 1900 old mill home and adding value to that neighborhood as well so I have no intention of degrading the neighborhood also the lot size is 52 by 108 so we have a tremendous amount of space as mentioned the lot is over 11,000 square feet to include and incorporate parking plan to continue the to have the parking issues that are currently the neighborhood is facing and I'm also open this duplex if approved to hear feedback from the community as well approve moving forward with this thank you thank you all right with that we will end the public comment period is there any questions from planning commission to staff have a great question yes given that the block is consistently RSF 3 and given that the recommendation to resume a property to a more intense district within a single family block is generally discouraged what makes this specific one different it's a good question I definitely think there was some you know discussion amongst staff and I think this is one of those ones that was kind of in a gray area but again because of the it is a residential mixed district so it's not the uses that would be allowed in RM are not as extensive as if it for example were a mixed-use districts still pretty much a residential use and based on the lot size the two the two unit maximum because of just dimensional requirements right it wasn't going to be able to be developed as an extremely intense district but also it's got the historic overlay but this is also great example of why we ask applicants to coordinate with the neighborhood because their opinions are certainly valuable as well so that was just the staff's kind of analysis of this parcel in this location in this district that answer your question yes thank you I have one as well so on this particular street all the houses are single family homes correct I think on this side of the street but then across the street is the RM one so there are some duplexes I believe on the other side of the street okay and it doesn't change anything and requirements do it be historical correct it would the recommendation is to keep the historic overlay on the on the parcel any additional questions this year I have a question as relates to parking how has the parking been addressed with this applicant in terms of are they meeting specific requirements or is that kind of open at this point so the rezoning is just a first step with the applicant we had a pre-application meeting with the applicant to discuss the rezoning application the applicant would need to submit actual plans later on and parking would be assessed at that time I can tell you that the requirement is two two spaces per unit although in it being with an overlay it's it's actually one it's cut in half with that overlay so that would it would remain the same regardless of the district thank you all right any any further questions from planning Commission to staff any questions of the applicant here or none yeah any additional comments or discussion but no other questions or comments I'll entertain a motion Mr. Chairman I make a motion that we approve ZMA 2023-0015 22 12 Senate Street the request to rezone the property from RSF 3 to RM 1 all right we got a motion to approve the rezoning can I get a second second got a motion and a second all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed say no no I believe the eyes have it but do we want to call please yeah that would be great mr. causey mr. cook approve miss Davis and I mr. harp mr. asorio no that was a no okay miss Thomas approve and mr. frost approve okay the motion passes five to two the eyes have it the motion is approved we'll move on to other business no no worries I think the only thing I was gonna mention today is to remind everybody of their training opportunities that are coming I know Sky and Lee have been sending all different things me email so just as a reminder there is a there is a remote training opportunity tomorrow about greenways so if you haven't signed up for that and would like to please get in touch with sky then there's an in-person one on November 17th but as you know we've got three hours per year for maintenance requirements and since it's November we're trying to squeeze all that in so please just keep that in mind I actually sent an email in reference to the remote course and I didn't get a response back oh about is it about tomorrow okay we'll follow up on that okay you'd like to attend I might would like to attend to Mars too is it is it an hour and a half full hour and a half yeah let's see tomorrow's is beyond greenways the next step for city trails and walking routes it's at one o'clock it's one and a half hours okay so okay we'll send some follow-up information on that one for tomorrow that'd be great one at 1 p.m. yep yes this is a zoom one we don't have as many zoom as we used to but there's a little bit of a mix so I think this may be one of the last remote training opportunities so yeah we'll send we'll go ahead and resend that this afternoon or or first thing in the morning thanks all right is there any other business you're none old except a motion to adjourn mr. chairman I'd like to make a motion to adjourn today's meeting that emotion can I get a second second all in favor signify by saying hi any opposed no meeting is adjourned thank you