he most hurtful thing we saw was there was no African Americans associated there's no shaded yellow at all in that report when I looked at that and my family looked at that they've taken our property way back in March of this year through intimate domain we've been at every meeting they knew we were African Americans why did they falsify the information to you to convince you to make a bad decision and present it to the government because if you're familiar with the Environment and Justice Act it's a protected class where you can't put rails highways and neighborhoods that has a majority population as I stated over half of the land they've taken to put intimate domain on the bill of light rail along by African Americans across the street all the way up to Creekside Elementary School which is another 15 acres that is still land on by African Americans that we reside there from our great grandfather that was the late Isaac Newton Jones from slavery for them to come in and do this false report and present to you to try to make you think that they were giving you good information the same information they gave you to reject that. Would you stand here and let a police officer give you false report and act on it? No, you would send it back and say look, you come before this council you bring us accurate, integrity information to act on and that's what you need to do or go trying to you need to send vote no for this rezoning and send it back and say when I give support information to this council it must be accurate and you should vote no tonight thank you for your time Excuse me for some order please I'm going to call these names and if you I believe that Mr. Woods was speaking for you just to make sure Ms. Ella R. Woods Ms. Ella Day Turrentine Are you all here and would like to speak? Thank you Okay Michelle Robertson Robertson Brian Sohair I think this is SOHER Mr. Sohair here Okay, I'm going to call a few more names and if you all would join Mr. Sohair over here please Brian Sohair Jenny Force Donna Koon Andrew Sorry I'm having trouble reading your handwriting Abamousa Bob Yao Tom Stark Dan Jensen If you all would please join us over here to the right in the order which I called your name is Brian Sohair, Jenny Force Donna Koon Andrew Abamousa Bob Yao Tom Stark and Dan Jensen Mr. Sohair welcome please give us your name and address and you have two minutes Thank you Mr. Mayor City Council members My name is Brian Sohair I live at One Coggins Mine Court which is basically 100 feet the other side of the creek side so I'm pretty familiar with the sound of I-40 at night and it's actually not such a bad thing it's a bit like the ocean but it doesn't happen intermittently and it doesn't shriek at high decibels I think the thing that worries my wife and I the most is the concept of the light industry so close to our property but also the fact that it's all night I wish I'd gotten any sort of mail or email or any notification before about a month ago from Go Triangle about this 100 feet the other side of creek side elementary are three or four different neighborhoods and as we've heard from a number of people a number of actions or lack of actions from Go Triangle that really presents a story of bad faith on the part of this large venture for an important thing like light rail, I'm a big fan of light rail I would love to ride light rail to do it everyday that's where I work but honestly this is all pain and no gain for our neighborhood it's a everything that people presented are legitimate concerns but there's not even a stop there for us to ride to work on go shopping with I'd have to drive in order to take advantage of this four foot berm I really loved that presentation that was great 20 foot setback trust me I've lived in a neighborhood for 8 years I know how quickly or not very quickly you know ornamental trees grow about 10 feet in about 8 years it doesn't stop noise seriously I want to go home and tell my children that I didn't stop light rail my representatives tell a corporate entity that we want to do it right I want to be able to tell them that democracy worked I want to be able to tell them that you looked at this as an issue for the people everybody in the city of Durham and voted on its merits not just on necessity due to poor planning vote no please thank you Jenny Force Jenny Force Yeah I have two minutes welcome Hi everyone my name is Jennie buenos I live at 4211 Taylor Hall place that's in the Trenton neighborhood you know I am not opposed to the light rail or mass transit but I have been working very hard to activate my neighborhood on next store setting texts emails my name may be familiar to some of you as well so just take a moment to stand here so you can see the whites of my eyes and here my opposition again that I oppose this location of the romp. It is too close to the elderly community, so many of which are here today, as well as the Creekside students, and as well as my family. I want to be able to sleep at night without hearing those wheel squeals. I want to be able to have the students at Creekside learn during a day. So I urge you to vote no, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Forrest. We'll now hear from Donna Kuhn. We'll now hear from Donna Kuhn. Ms. Kuhn, are you here? All right, then we will now hear from Andrew Abumusa. Obviously, I am not he, but he is... I'm sorry, you can't speak for him. We don't yield time. Okay. If Dr. Abumusa is here, he can feel free to sign up and speak. He did sign up to speak, but he got called. He is a neurosurgeon. Yeah, you've already spoken as well. Have you not? I have. You spoke very first, yeah, I'm sorry. We don't yield time, so thank you. Mr. Bob Yal, followed by Tom Stark, Dan Jensen. Yeah, those three are next. Welcome, Mr. Yal, please give us your name and address. Dr. Robert Yal, I live 5138 Niagara Drive in Cove, Arbor. I would just like to put my two cents and worth tonight to say that I agree with all of my compatriots that have explained to you very clearly what the problem is. I was born here in Durham almost 82 years ago and practiced OBGYN here in Durham for about 40 years and delivered babies in Duke, Watts, Lincoln and UNC and Durham Regional. So I've been around a long time. I know Durham's part of my history. I love it and lived six different places in Durham, myself not counting the house my mother and dad built from Greggsons Street in 1940. So when we finally decided to go to Cove, Arbor, two years ago, we started looking and it was just great for where we wanted to be and we heard absolutely nothing about any of what we've talked about tonight and it's just my feeling is that somewhere along the line this should have been brought out and explained to everyone involved. But we love our neighbors out there. We love Cove, Arbor and we do not think that the romp should be across the street from us. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Yell. Next we'll hear from Tom Stark. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, my name's Tom Stark. I'm here to represent the Oaks 3 in Cove, Arbor. I live at 105 Coway Drive and my office is at 5925 Farrington Road just down the street from this. We have a proposal in front of us tonight that is supported by a group of politically active folks because it has to do with light rail. That is in spite of the fact that the project evidence is serious environmental noise and compatibility concerns. It would never be approved but for the fact that is the cause celeb for folks who want to see light rail. It's not the fault of the opponents that go triangle, dismiss the other alternatives that were in commercial and industrial areas more suitable for this kind of facility. The proposal is fatally flawed because it involves a refusal here or you're being asked as members of the council to dismiss the ordinances that protect properties. The overlay district, the MTC buffer. We're gonna mow down a 100 foot buffer that we decided was important for highways and replace it with 20 feet around a facility that's clearly much noisier than the highway. It's not a proposal that makes logical sense. The environmental assessment was just amended 10 days ago. How does that fit with NEPA? How is that a legitimate consideration of the environmental alternatives? When there aren't alternatives offered and the assessment was just updated. How do we do an approval that is in violation of the considerations that a council has to look at in order to pass a rezoning? And then changes the ordinance just for this site. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Dan Jensen and Mr. Jensen, before you get started, excuse me one minute, I'm gonna call the final group of speakers if you will join Mr. Jensen over here to the right. John Williford, Jennifer Hernandez, Kelly Riley, Peter Sanzalian, Jay Williams, I think it's a spreezy. Sorry if I've got that wrong. And let me also ask now at this time, is there anyone else who would like to speak in opposition to the romp tonight? Is there anyone else who would like to be heard in opposition to the romp at this public hearing, this rezoning? Anyone else in opposition to the rezoning? Okay, so I believe these are our last speakers in opposition. And again, I've gotten here, Mr. Dan Jensen, followed by Mr. John Williford, Jennifer Hernandez, Kelly Riley, Peter Sanzalian, and Jay Williams, spreezy. Spranzy, sorry, thank you. Okay, Mr. Jensen, welcome. We're glad to have you and you have two minutes. Thank you. My name's Dan Jensen. I'm at 106 Nottingham Drive. I'm about a half a mile from the proposed maintenance facility. I really don't know a whole lot about what is happening. I have not been informed learning a lot tonight. I've written down a few observations, but first town council and Mr. Mayor, I applaud you.  It's exciting, and I hope we continue to see that, but this is a maintenance facility that we're talking about, and it's in the wrong area. If you look at the people that are speaking tonight, opponents versus opponents, opponents outnumber proponents in speaking about two and a half to one. If you look at the room with the red, variation of red, you can see that the opponents there are also outnumbering the proponents. The opponents have shown up with the experts, with the data to really put it before you why this facility is wrong. You're disrupting a residential area. Who are the people that are talking to you? Senior citizens and mothers representing their children. That's a pretty good demographic. And now to learn how that land was acquired? Oh my gosh, how does that get by you? There's other areas that we can, that this facility, facility, we're not opposing. I have not heard one opponent oppose light rail. They're opposing a facility. The documents are coming from folks go triangle. What's their interest? Oh, they're going to do it. They're going to build it. Sure, they're going to have all the data. Please vote no. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Williford. Mr. Williford, welcome. You have two minutes. Good evening. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I'll keep this very brief. My name is John Williford. I live at 4716 Carmen Lane Durham. That's impressed that case place. I'm the vice president of our Homeowners Association. I can confirm to you that over the last two years that I've sat there, not received nor has any member of our board or our administrator of our board, one single notice from go triangle when they were considering this proposal. When we look at this, our neighborhood is 101 homes in it. If we conservatively estimate that we're at $36 million worth of property value, what portion of that just in my neighborhood that's going to be here is going to be impacted by this facility? Maybe the remediation efforts are okay. Maybe they're not, but we do not have an actual financial assessment to make that determination. If just our labor hood's going to lose 10% of its value, that means that those citizens, those 101 families are going to be bearing the burden of $3.6 million worth of losses as a result of this. So when you look through here, look at us, look at the citizens of Colt Harbor and the other neighborhoods around and ask how can we make that assessment of whether these remediation efforts are correct or not without the whole picture to see how everyone's going to be impacted as a result of this. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Jennifer Hernandez. Welcome, Mr. Hernandez. You have two minutes. Hi, Jennifer Hernandez, 4316 Taylor Hall Place. That's in the Trenton community as well. I think you've heard a lot of the points already about the inconsistency of rezoning this land given the context. But I think one of the things that I wanted to underscore is the communication from Go Triangle and the evaluation of alternative locations. And I know there were five. I heard some of the backstories at a previous meeting. One of the locations got utilized for car dealership instead. One location we were told got a lot of letters written in from the children at the Jewish Center and that's why it was removed from the list. And that explanation got me thinking, well, geez, if there's a elementary school, did they not let that elementary school know because they didn't want to hold one of the flood of children's letters coming in to dissuade them from using this site? And hearing a lot of the stories tonight that I had not previously heard from the Creekside parents really drives that home. And I looked through their website recently, saw a lot of their publicly listed events, some of which I attended because I happened to drive by the intersection frequently and don't have children and was able to just attend on a weeknight. But I also received a letter from them earlier this month and got to see firsthand how disingenuous that communication could be. And what I got, and I have a picture of if you would like, was a letter stating three open houses to discuss the recently released supplemental environment assessment, which is hundreds if not thousands of pages long, extremely technical. Thank you to the community members who offered their expertise to help us lay citizens decipher the information in there. But the letter was postmarked after two of those three dates had occurred. And by the way, the third one was two days later, i.e. I didn't open it before that date occurred. I looked on their website and found out there was a later one too late. Thank you, Ms. Hernandez. We'll now hear from Kelly Riley. Welcome, Ms. Riley. Hi, my name is Ms. Riley and I live on 4712 Carman Lane. Mr. Baker, I was really excited to see you here tonight. I attended your Wake Forest alumni dinner that you hosted where our topic of conversation was character and leadership. I believe the character and leadership is demonstrated when decisions are made that concern all citizens. That's why reiterating what the lady just said that I was very concerned to hear that the romp location that was considered on Cornwallis Road was next to a private school. And when the parents protested that location, it was changed. And now that the romp location is next to a public school, I would like to know why the public school students are not given the same concern. A lady earlier tonight said that today's issue is about race, agreed. More students attend Creekside Elementary of Color than the students who attend the private school. So I'd like all students at Creekside to be given the same concern as the students at the private school. While we're on the topic of race, I'm so glad that Mr. Woods was here tonight to represent his family. When I read the article in Indie Week this week, I thought about another romp location that was discarded because it was an historical site. I couldn't believe that a family that has owned their lands since slavery is not considered an historical site. Perhaps race has something to do with that. My second concern is property values. I read the eight page report by GoTriangle to mitigate concerns, property values are not mentioned. Let's be clear, we only have a romp, no station. There are actually neighbors in the surrounding neighborhoods who still believe that the romp includes a station. Well, that could attract buyers. A romp in itself would not draw buyers, it would detract them. And that causes crippling financial situations for my family and many others. I do ask that you consider, just because you do not live in our neighborhood, if you do live in a residential neighborhood, would you want it to be turned into an industrial one with no station nearby, and no benefits when you want to sell your home? Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Riley. Peter Tinsolian. Honorable Mayor Schull, council members, at great effort, I will try to keep this brief. I'm Peter Tinsolian, a concerned citizen that lives on Stockton Way. And as you consider your vote, please ask yourself, how can we call progress when we rezone a residential community in equilibrium? With a Title I school in very close proximity, a retirement community across the way, a cemetery nearby, and people of faith worshiping on Sunday morning the same Creekside Elementary School. Rejecting the mismanagement by go triangle, not to find a more suitable industrial location should not be conflated with rejection of the light rail. Light rail could be very positive for Durham with an appropriately located romp in an industrial, not residential community. Please vote no. Thank you. Thank you. I will hear now from Jay William. Spransy. Spransy. Yes, thank you, Honorable Mayor Schull and councilors. My name's William Spransy. I live at 4707 Marina Place, which is less than a half mile away from the proposed site of the rezoning. I'm a real estate developer and investor, as well as a adjunct faculty at the UNC Kenan Flagler Business School. Preface this by saying I'm not against the light rail as many of my compatriots who are opposing this rezoning are as well. We've heard a litany of arguments both for and against and while go triangle claims to have engaged the community about this process, first off, they didn't meet the required zoning signage requirements prescribed in the UDO. Additionally, only in the last eight weeks have they released the impacts of the noise study and some questions suitability and accuracy of the report. Not enough time has been given to study the level of noise and the impact on residents, students and those surrounding areas. The economic impact to those within the noise impacts will also be immediate and severe. The rezoning creates a lottery system that has designated our surrounding neighborhoods as the loser, burdened to pay the loss of property value without the benefits of the light rail winners that included many of the proponents who spoke earlier tonight, particularly those that live close to stops. I request that you vote no or if you must vote yes, add additional language to the rezoning to require either a full-time stop at this location or some economic benefit to those impacts. I think it's fair to do a fiscal analysis to understand the impact of this station now that the zoning, now that the noise study has been completed. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. I have made some rough calculations. First of all, before I give them to you though, I just wanna thank everybody who's spoken so far. We've had a great discussion, both pro and con. I really appreciate all the hard work that everyone has done and the information that you have brought, the seriousness which you've taken the topic and the civility which you have exhibited. So I wanna thank everybody for that. I did some rough calculations, Madam Clerk and I believe that there were 52 speakers in opposition, 18 in favor. Is that about what you have, Madam Clerk? Okay. Just wanna do a little time calculation here. Mayor, I have 18 as well. Thank you very much. All right. So then doing a little bit of quick math, let's just say that the proponents would have 68 minutes if you chose to take it all. In the, to comply with our rule that everyone on both sides of a every zoning case gets an equal amount of time, pro and con. And as I said, of course, you don't have to take it. I'm gonna first ask our staff members from Go Triangle if they would like to now come and add any additional comments that you may have now that you have heard both the opponents and the proponents, can you come down? I wanna say to respect your time and everyone's time, we'll answer questions and we're ready to do that, but we don't need to take time right now. Okay, all right. Let me just hear then, are there any other proponents before we get into the questions that we'd like to speak? Any other proponents? Okay, is there anyone else? Is there anyone else that would like to be heard in this public hearing? Is there anyone in this room, either pro or con, who would like to be heard in this public hearing? He would like to be heard. All right, thank you. Please come down here. And while she comes, I'm gonna give one last chance. Is there anyone pro or con who would like to be heard before we go into our city council questions and comments? Is there anyone else? Last call, okay. Mr. Savara, you would like to be heard. Would you please make your way over to the podium as well? Did I hear it, see another person? I know he's, let me explain the rules again. Every, both the proponents and the opponents get equal time. Okay, that's the rule. I gave everyone two minutes and then the leftover time can be used by any proponent. Okay, so the fact that he's already spoke, he can speak again. Okay, just to be clear about how it works. Okay, thank you very much. Would you, first of all, after you've spoken, if you wouldn't mind, if you go over that table right there and fill out a yellow card would be great. And can you give me your name and address and you have two minutes? Yes, I'm Tamara Finn and I live at 412 Nottingham Drive, about two streets away from the romp. I'm not gonna repeat what everyone has said, dressed in red. This was a very, very hard outfit to choose with this, so I put a lot of effort into it to show my taste for this decision. Hopefully it's going to be a no. I just wanna say a couple things in response to somebody's comments about things that we heard at the last meeting. A gentleman on the go, triangle committee, said that it was proposed to be in front of the synagogue but since they thought it was an eyesore, it got turned down. On top of all the other things that we're all talking about of all the reasons it shouldn't be there, eyesore is definitely one of them that I feel and I think we should get as much consideration as the people at the synagogue are getting. I have read in a couple different articles as well that there'll be no painting at this facility as well as something else that's supposed to not happen at this facility. I'm wondering where the painting will happen and if there's a facility set up for the painting, then why can't the whole romp be put where the painting will be done? So I'm not sure what the other part of the painting is, I can't recall right now, but if there's definitely something where the painting is gonna be done, then let's just move the whole romp to that area as well. I'm at the intersection all the time of the homes that have been boarded up and it makes me very sad and just to hear the family story tonight brought tears to my eyes and I think it's going to be a very, very sad decision for so many reasons, the children, the families, the schools, the arbor, having elderly parents, I can't imagine that they would be living there being subjective to this and thinking they spent their whole lives in the retirement funds to spend money on a house that's gonna cause them grief with sounds and property values and things like that. So that's all I have to say. I just hope it's a big fat no. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Finn. Mr. Svar. The Jim Svar. Again, I just wanted to make a couple of other comments about the site. Many of the speakers who are imposed referred to this site as being in the middle of an established residential area. It is beside a residential area. Beside, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, Ms. Svar. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I think we have had no, every single speaker has been treated with respect and we're gonna maintain that the rest of the night. And I'm totally expecting that and I think everybody else in this room is expecting that too. You agree with someone or you don't agree with them? I expect every speaker to be treated with absolute respect. Thank you, Ms. Svar. Okay, well, I mean, it's, the site chosen is beside Culpe Harbor Neighborhood. When looking at the area, I was surprised, but noted that it faces away from Farrington Road. And there are a few houses that are close directly across from the site that we are told by GoTriangle could have some moderate impact, but over 100 units can extend beyond and further back. There is only one house that faces the site along its full distance. We are hearing assumptions about noise and negative impact and I hope that GoTriangle, there will be questions to them to address that more fully. But the school is not right beside the site. It is a third of a mile by the crow fries to the structure, but the other part of the romp is behind that. So I think we've made assumptions about the level of the impact and the proximity and how this interferes with in the middle of an established neighborhood. And that just does not match the characteristics. Thank you. Thank you. Any other speakers? Mr. Hales? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We appreciate fairness on equal time for both sides. I'm gonna do about one more minute on the comments from our CAN meeting with our 27 participating member organizations and many hundred Durham citizens involved. This specific site is designated on the adopted future land use map of Durham's comprehensive plan for commercial and office uses, not residential. This area has also seen a number of higher density development and rezoning in recent years as water and sewer services have been extended into the area. A stated opposition to this request has been tied and at the Plain Commission, it was stated as this as not my backyard concerns. I would note that the benefits of a rail transit project are clearly city wide. I would also note that NIMBY driven decisions oftentimes have the negative result of dumping controversial projects and locations where local people are not as organized and have their own voice in the rezoning process. We certainly don't want to see that done here. I would also point out this project would have to meet and exceed all local and state environmental requirements in areas of stormwater, tree protection and other issues. Would point out if this project is rezoned, the restrictions on the proposal will not allow any other use of the site, not residential, not commercial, not industrial, without a new full rezoning request and process. And I would also note that staff recommendation is in favor of the request, thanks. Thank you. All right, I believe that is our last speaker. And now I'm going to ask my city council colleagues if they have any questions at this time. Mr. Mayor. Council member Reese. Is this a time for us to leave the public hearing open and ask questions. Public hearing is remaining open. Okay. Thank you for that question. I have some questions for GoTriangle staff, if they're amenable. GoTriangle staff, if you all could please come down to the podium up here to my right. I think both John and Dave, that would be good. Thank you. How's it going gentlemen? I have a question about the memo that you passed out tonight to Charters. What is that supposed to mean to me? So what we've heard in the various community meetings that staff has attended and has expressed with great concern this evening, of course, is this 136 DB A, this noise number and representing that that's going to be the noise from the wheel squeal when the light rail vehicles come off the main line of the track and curve to go into the maintenance facility. So what we've- Can I interrupt you for a second? Pardon me. Can I interrupt you for one second? Sure. That is what your report said, right? That's the 130 6 DB is in the noise vibration report. What that number is, is not an instantaneous noise from the wheels that go around the curve. It's over the duration of a particular noise that's prescripted by the Federal Transit Administration for all noise and vibration analyses. So it's an accumulation of if a noise of the light rail vehicle going around the curve to go into the maintenance building takes say 10 seconds to get through the curve. The 130 6 DB number is the addition of or the accumulation of that noise energy over that 10 seconds boiled down to a one second noise. The FTA guidelines for the noise analysis also require an instantaneous noise of 100 decibels to be part of the standard noise analysis. And the FTA guidelines are meant for all across the United States to have a level playing field for all of the analysis of all of the light rail transit projects. So FTA has guidelines that every analysis has to use those numbers absent of the specific radius of the curves or the mitigation that the agency will do to calm the wheel squeal. The purpose of the handout this evening was for equivalent curves on the Norfolk light rail system and equivalent speeds of the vehicle five to 10 miles an hour going around the curves. What was in that report are two sets of noise readings. One of the mitigation items that we've talked about in the analysis is to lubricate the rails. So you'll see some noise numbers that are attributed when the rail is lubricated. And those are on reference to the page in the report. So on the second page of the report, you'll see a list of a couple locations in Norfolk on the light rail system there. And it identifies whether the track was lubricated. And then the next page, there's a couple that are not lubricated. What's important, what we're trying to represent is the maximum value for DBA is around 80 or so if it's not lubricated. And around 70 if it is lubricated. That is in comparison to what the FTA conservatively requires in our noise analysis to use a noise level of 100 for an instantaneous noise. So what we're trying to represent is the FTA analysis that everyone in the country, all systems are required to follow is conservative and rightly so because there are very many variables. But when you start looking at the specifics of the radius of the curve and the type of mitigation that will occur to calm the wheel squeal, the amount of noise is much less than the analysis requires for an even playing field. So I apologize for the complexity or inconsistent information that was just shared with you but I'm happy to answer any other questions. But that was the purpose was to show we will be lubricating the rails, the curvature on the rails at the main facility are of the same radius as these examples from Norfolk. Similar vehicle, similar speed of the vehicle. And so we were trying to compare apples to apples and share with council and the public that the actual in place noise is gonna be much less than what the FTA requires for the analysis. That's actually really helpful, I appreciate that. Can you talk changing gears slightly? Can you talk a little bit about the recent revisions to table six dash three from the October 2018 document, the proposed refinements to the noise and vibration technical report. This is a document that was provided to us by some of the folks that live, I believe in the Culver Arbor and one of the folks who spoke in opposition to the rezoning showed us some revisions that were made to the document. You walk us through what that's about, what that shows, whether or not there is a significant impact to homes even on the edge of Culver Arbor. Yes, certainly. So on that table six dash three, and we certainly apologize for the honest mistake, it was not something meant to represent any of the information, of course. What you'll see on table 6.3 are columns that are labeled M-O-D, which is moderate or S-E-V, which is severe at the top in the blue color. What that pertains to is, for the FTA's guidelines, they have thresholds of noise that come out of the analysis. And if the threshold is greater than a certain number, it falls into a moderate category. If it's even a higher noise level, it falls into a severe category. And the reason that's important is per the FTA guidelines, of course, all of this is using public funds. So the FTA is trying to make sure that the noise mitigation is cost-effective and does the job that it's supposed to do. So per the FTA guidelines, anything that falls into the severe impact category must be mitigated, must be addressed, whether it's a retrofit of the actual rail facility or the houses are retrofitted with better noise insulating windows or treatments on the house itself, as an example, or including berms or vegetated buffers, other elements to block the noise. If it's a moderate impact, the FTA does not require the project sponsor to mitigate those as a strict requirement. What go-triangles in the process of doing because we have numerous moderate impacts all across the 18-mile project, not just adjacent to the ROMP, all the way from Chapel Hill, all the way down Alston Avenue in Durham. So what go-triangle is doing is working on a policy to identify based on the numerous variables that are involved, whether it's just into the moderate range or almost close to the severe range as to what we need to spend public money on to mitigate. And so there's a lot of different variables that we'll be putting together. We have a policy going in place right now that we're working on. So that's just, so what we're showing in the table here, the first, the upper line, the upper row that the number was changed from 2.2 to 4.7. The 2.2 and 4.7 were transposed by the consultant by just by a typographical error. The top row there, those are the houses, the Culp-Arbor houses directly across Farrington Road from the site. Can I just interrupt you for one second? Yes. So what you're telling us is there's the road numbers along the top that's Culp Hill Drive to Ephesus Church Road. Correct. Those three boxes increase FTI criteria moderate and severe. No, they stayed moderate. So if you look at the third column from the right, yeah, okay. It says 4.8 would kick it into a severe category. 4.7 is lower than that number, so it stays in the moderate range. But the number's 4.0 now on the revised version. Now on the second row, so I'm looking at the top row that... So the new numbers on the version I have in the increased column are 4.7 on the top row. Top row 4.7, correct. 1.6 moderate, 4.0 severe. It's on the second row. So the corrections that we have from our consultant are the top row, the 2.2 changes to 4.7, which is close, but it's... This is what I'm saying is in some cases if the moderate is close to the severe, we have to pay more attention to mitigating that. So what you're telling me is that the document we were provided by the opponents doesn't reflect that. So what you're saying is the only thing that changed is the increased column, right? The top number and the bottom number were flipped. Is that correct? To further clarify, and I have a marked up copy here, I'm happy to share with you as I look at it. The 2.2 and 4.7 were flipped, correct. The second row, the 1.9 became 1.6, and then the 4.8 became 4.0, but that's on the second row of numbers, not the top row of numbers. So the second row in the moderate and severe column became identical to the top row? No, this is the second row for the moderate and severe instead of 1.9, it's 1.6. So the top row right in the initial report was 2.2, 1.9, 4.8. The only number that changes in the top row is from 2.2 to 4.7. Okay, okay. That's, again, that's not what's in the document we have here, I don't know where, the ponies, okay. Yeah, I marked mine up from the errata sheet that we received from the consultant, and we're happy to share that if there's any other questions. So essentially, we're still in the moderate range, we don't have any severe, but this is an example of, in both of those cases, in one case, we're very close to falling into the severe, and in the other case, we're well below the severe, and that's what the moderate impact work that we're gonna do to address those going forward. And so those are the text commitments you've made during the planning process, the berm, the buffer, the setback, all that stuff. Okay, one more, and then I'm sure some of my colleagues wanna get in on this as well, and then wanna hog all the time. But can you, if I'm not mistaken, the site selection process for the ROMP was pretty lengthy and included approvals on behalf of a number of different elected boards and appointed boards here in Durham, I believe Orange County as well. I think in 2015, October 2015, the city council approved what's referred to the NEPA alternative, which included this site for the ROMP, the Metropolitan Planning Organization for this, for the Triangle, also approved that, I think about a month later. Can you spend just a couple of minutes because it has become, and it was raised by a number of the opponents. Can you talk about the siting of the ROMP at this location, why it was determined to be the best of the five alternatives? Actually, I believe there were something in the neighborhood of 19 sites that were originally considered would've whittled down to five primary alternatives. And I know that as former council member, Diane Cattati mentioned, she was part of a group that went around and looked at all these sites and tried to help figure this out. So could you walk us through why this site was ultimately selected? That would be great. Absolutely. There are a number of criteria that, and this is documented in the draft environmental impact statement that was prepared in 2015 for the project, and the draft environmental impact statement, in addition to, and I'm looking at starting on page eight dash 16 in chapter eight, in addition to the actual text of the draft environmental impact statement, there were numerous appendices to that document back in 2015. One of the appendices was a noise and vibration report. So the information on noise and vibration was not just new for this supplemental environmental assessment that was published in at the end of October. The supplemental environmental assessment that was published at the end of October, the purpose of that document was to take a study of any changes to the impact on the environment after the 2016 record of decision that we received from the Federal Transit Administration. So starting in 2017, this is after the project included the three quarters of a mile to NC Central down Alston Avenue. After that, amended record of decision was approved by the Federal Transit Administration. The rules, so to speak, are any changes to the project, example, shifting the alignment, considering the addition of a Blackwell-Mangham Street Station, any changes to the project after that record of decision, a new environmental checklist is shared with the FTA to explain to them what the changes are. And the FTA says, based on the volume of the changes, whether go trying on needs to prepare another supplemental environmental assessment, which is what was published at the end of October. So that document includes a refresh of the noise and vibration report that was in the appendices from 2015 based on those changes. So to answer the question about the different ROM sites. So I'm quoting from the initial DEIS from 2015. And it notes that the Farrington Road site is the most desirable from a construction and operation standpoint. It's a 25-acre site, approximately, the largest site of the alternatives that were considered. It's located on a long straight section of track, which accommodates crossovers and access to the yard. So, and I'll talk, if it's permissible by council, I can go through each of the other four alternatives and let you know why those were not selected if that would be helpful. You can do it riskally, that'd be helpful. Okay, so one of the other alternatives for the ROM site was actually just south of this site and on the Curtis Booker property, that's area there is a historic property, and the FTA requires if there's a reasonable and feasible alternative to not damage or disrupt the historical site. So that site was discarded. Can you just stop for a moment? What made it a historical site? It's designated because of the importance of the farm that was there and the buildings that are on that site just from the historical significance. It's been designated as a historic district. Been designated by whom? By national register. That's what I'm looking for, thanks. Okay, sorry. So that was one of the five that was eliminated. The next one was near Patterson Place and it's actually at the site of the new University Ford Kia dealership that's under construction right now. That site was, the ROM would take up all of that site where the University Ford is being built now. That site was only feasible for going over New Hope Creek near 15501. In the DEIS we evaluated three separate alignments, one of which went straight due north across New Hope Creek and then the other two deviated up closer to 15501. And it was chosen by the FTA, the least environmentally disruptive was the alignment closer to 15501. That alignment goes right through the site where the ROM foot had been. So that takes care of that site. The next one has been mentioned by the audience is near the old Pepsi plant which is now a self-storage facility by Western Bypass. That site had a number of logistical issues. The problem is as if you may, if those that are familiar with that site as you go north on Western Bypass heading towards Duke Forest and Cornwallis, the road drops off pretty steeply down to Cornwallis. That's where we have an aerial structure going over Cornwallis and such. So the ROM site there has been talked about the access off of the main line of the track to get to the ROM facility. You would have had excessive number of tracks that were up in the air to connect to this aerial structure. And that in conjunction with part of the site had a deeded property that was part of the proffer for the self-storage building that would have taken a chunk out of the middle of the site. So logistically for the rail operations to work, there were many difficulties in accessing the main line. So that was the third of the five that got thrown out. Lastly, there was a site, the last site was near the Brentaer Chemical Facility off of Pettigrew Strait east of Alston Avenue. And there are a number of problems with that site, specifically, obviously it's a chemical plant and there are a lot of hazardous materials on the site. There's a railroad spur that comes off of the main line of North Carolina Railroad that would have been disrupted and that business presently employs more staff than the maintenance facility would have employed. So being sensitive to creating jobs and not displacing jobs, that site dropped out. Is it the three big questions I had after that? Thank you very much, Council Member. Thank you. Other Council Members with questions at this point? Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening to everyone. Thank you for your patience tonight and for the decorum and the high level of discourse that occurred here tonight. Mr. Chairman, I wanna talk about the reputation of GoTriangle throughout this process. There's a narrative that's been proliferating in our city from a number of different constituencies and groups that suggests that GoTriangle at some times it's not been forthcoming, even unresponsive at times to queries. Different from business holders downtown, a letter from a DPAC came out today suggesting that there was some unresponsiveness on the part of GoTriangle. So I want to speak directly to this council and this city dealing with an honest broker in this process. I think that the voices of the people who live on Farrington Road and from Culp Arbor are just as important as the booming institutional voice of Duke, just as important as the voices of wealthy landowners downtown. And for each of those constituents' concerns, we're doing a lot of genuflecting and doing a lot of negotiating to keep them happy and to work out the situations there. So I guess my first question, this'll be one of two, assuming that noise is a problem or will be a problem and assuming that we vote to rezone tonight. Are the mitigation strategies that are being recommended by GoTriangle are being suggested or are proffered by GoTriangle? Are they the most aggressive mitigation strategies available? Are they the least expensive? In other words, are you suggesting the utmost that can be done to mitigate noise insofar as there are legitimate concerns at that property? Where do they fall if you had to tear the response? That's a good question. We certainly try to do things all across the whole 18 miles of the project to respect and be good stewards of the public's money. So we're trying to address any impact that's brought up by the community, by the universities, by the hospitals, in a cost-effective manner, and address the comment or impact as best we can. There's always a limit to what can be done. But at the ROMP site, we've proffered and talked about, it was one of the young women that had a comment about the car body and paint shop issue. In many, many light rail projects with the maintenance facilities, if there is an accident with the vehicle, then they have a paint shop and a body shop right on site to repair the vehicle. In respect of the community's concerns, we've told the design team, no, we will not have a paint shop in that building. We will not do car body work, which will be noisy in that building. We will take it off-site to where our bus operations are or another vendor, but we've made it clear to our design team that that will not be included as part of the building on this site. We've included, as I mentioned a little bit on the address the wheel squeal. The wheels and the rails that cause the noise will be lubricated with special devices along the curvature of the rail. The light rail vehicles will be specified with what's called resilient wheels, and they're specifically to cut down on noise from wheel squeal going around curves. Got it. It feels a spin for just a second, because, and I appreciate the wonkiness, but let me just ask more of a conceptual question. Are we being as aggressive in responding to the concerns of the folk who live in Culp Harbor and along Farrington Road, as we are with Duke and Folk downtown? Because those fixes may potentially cost a great deal of money to keep it on its current path. Are we being as aggressive in addressing those concerns for these folk as we are with those other two major constituents? I believe we are. Yes, sir. My second question is, I'm heartened by the great deal of concern about African Americans in that area, and I certainly hope this concern will go beyond just this issue. There are any number of crusades that one can get involved in the city, so I appreciate the concern. I actually spoke with Mr. Woods as well. There was a direct, and I come from a community that has some familiarity with negative impacts on projects that have been pushed through in the name of progress, so I'm highly sensitive to that. A specific charge was made that eminent domain was used in a way that grabbed black folk's property, and that's dangling out there. Would you address that specifically? I think one of the hardest things to do on a project like this is to have to recommend to the GoTriangles Board of Trustees to use eminent domain to get property that's needed for the project. And in this case, after the good faith efforts of offering the fair market value for the property, it was clear that several property owners at the romp sites were not satisfied with that offer, and we were then forced to go into eminent domain to be able to move forward with the assemblage of the property and the rezoning request for the facility. Did any white people get their property taken? Yes. And then that starts a process through which we communicate their rights to, in this case, stay on the property, lease back the property from us. Everyone got that communicated through August 2019. There's only one property owner who's chosen to do that. Others have not chosen and for whatever reason. And then after a certain period of time of either not, well, not communicating that they're going to lease it back or telling us that they are not going to lease it back, then we have to ask them to vacate the property and give them notice about that. And so that's the process that this has gone through. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have other questions, but I'll yield in the interest of time to my colleagues. Thank you. Council members, questions. This is your opportunity. Council Member Caballero. Yeah, throughout the night, we have a big turnout here of Creekside parents. And based on what I'm hearing is that the initial decision was made in 2015 at that time where their communications made with Creekside and with whom? So I don't unfortunately know the answer to that question. I might turn to some of my other staff here who might be able to answer how we communicated through to Creekside. So let me get Jeff Green here, our senior planner to answer this question. Jeff Green, senior planner, co-triangle. We did communicate with Durham Public Schools. They were included on our notification during various parts of the project. There were at least I believe about a dozen letters sent to the schools, not to Creekside, but to Durham Public Schools Administrative Office. In addition, we did reach out to the Deputy Superintendent for operations back in 2015 about the project. Thank you. Council Member Alston. Jeff, you may want to stay. Are there other romp facilities in other cities that are located in close proximity to schools that you're aware of? I can't really, I unfortunately can't really speak to that. We have taken a look at that recently and just looking at the Charlotte romp, sort of the nearest example, there's a middle school that's about 4,400 feet away. There's Collinswood Language Academy that's about 3,800 feet away. Dillworth Elementary School is about 3,300 feet away and the playground at Marie G. Davis Middle School is only about 1,300 feet away, which is roughly the distance that Creekside Elementary is from the Farrington Roadside. Thank you. Council Member Rees. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This may be a question for our staff and not go triangle, is that still okay? Mr. Mayor. Absolutely, yes it is. Yes, questions for our staff, or go triangle staff is all a fair game. Thank you. Awesome. I've heard a bunch of folks talk about our noise ordinance. Ken, could I get someone to talk to me about how that would work if this facility, if this rezoning were to be approved, the facility were to be built? I'm gonna call on the city attorney to answer that question. Council Member Rees, I do have a copy of the noise ordinance. And let me be clear, I have been involved in these conversations in terms of what's coming down, so I haven't read any reports or haven't heard any specifics about noises that would be emanating from the property. But I do wanna be clear that the noise ordinance, as it's currently written, does speak to noises that go off the property. So it's not so much what the noise generates in and of itself on the property, but it is measured from off the property. And there are some standards that are in the, particularly the decibel reading standard. There's two basic standards, the unreasonably loud and disturbing standard, which is a product of a North Carolina state law. And then there's the more objective decibel reading standards as well. So those are here. I have not had a conversation with Go Triangle, so I don't know if there are any federal laws that may preempt state statute or city ordinances. But there are specific noise ordinance requirements as it relates to the decibel readings and that would be measured off the property. And there's a time limit as well from, I think from 7 a.m. to, well, the noise level changes between whether it's a nighttime noise or a daytime noise. But there's no exemption for the light rail facility in our noise ordinance, correct? Not one that exists today now. And certainly no plans to create one as far as I know. So I guess, okay, that's actually, that was a good answer to my question, thank you. Council members, more questions. Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to go back to the noise question briefly because that is the primary concern that we've heard from opponents. And we've heard the 136 decibel number. As I understand from what you all said, that number is an aggregation created by the, that that's aggregated as an aggregated total of a much lower amount of noise emanating over a longer period of time. Correct. So what level of noise would you, like what is the noisiest you would anticipate this facility actually being? I think a good example of the noisiest would be the wheel squeal. And we're talking about as an example from the Norfolk light rail report that I shared, it's around 70 decibels. Could you give me an example of something else that's about 70 decibels? Sure, 70 decibels would be, actually more than 70 would be a lawn mower, a city bus. So that wheel squeal is less than those examples. And that's at the site, like at the train, not like at what distance? Sure, that's typically measured 50 feet away from the generator of the noise as a consistent. In the environmental document in the noise and vibration report, there's actually a table, a little, I call it a thermometer that shows what the transit noise would be compared to common noises that you might hear on air conditioner. So the light rail noises around the curves is less than an air conditioner, less than a lawn mower, certainly less than a bus at 50 feet away. Okay. And so given that the site is next to the highway, is that part of the reason that the overall noise didn't reach severe impact in most, like for most of the area nearby? Is that considered when calculating the level of noise? Correct, what's called the ambient noise level is all of the background noise. And so the traffic, as many of the speakers noted, the traffic on I-40 and even on Farrington Road generates a certain level of noise. And that's taken into account on how much additional noise might be generated through wheel squeal. Okay, thank you. I just wanna make sure that we're all perfectly clear that 136 decibels of noise when trains go around, the tracks is not going to be coming from this facility. Correct. Thank you. Thank you. Are there questions? Councilor Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This perhaps is for some of the opponents or I don't know if there's a lead spokesperson, but some, a number of the emails we received asked for the possibility of a delay to hear from other residents. I'm wondering what, if that were to happen, I'd say it's gonna happen, but if that were to happen, what are we missing? What would need to happen in that interim period? What do we need to hear? I don't know if there's a, not that we'll let once, but if there's a single spokesperson, those who call for a delay. Ruth Ann, please do. Ruth, you're the deal. You got this, Ruth. I've been working with the group, primarily working with the group that's been negotiating with John and his crowd for the last four weeks. So I'm just gonna step up and take that question. I think that what we would need to have for an extended period of time would be two things. And if I'm missing something, one of our group tell me I don't think well on my feet. The first thing we would need is a new and valid noise study. We're working on, we're not just panicking in thin air, we're working from their numbers. The numbers Charlie on that chart that you were asking about were from Jeff Green, a 4.0 number, not the 4.0 that was from Jeff Green. So we want a different noise study. We want to have a neutral expert look at it. We want a neutral company to conduct it. And then we want to be satisfied that we're not putting our spouses and ourselves and schoolchildren at risk. It seems unconscionable to me to make this decision based on information. The only numbers we have that are going that direction. The second thing that we want is we want to look at a different site. They've already had, they've got sites they've looked at. They've had sites they haven't looked at. We've been in the room with them and to their credit, GoTriangle has been very forthcoming one-on-one in the last four weeks. But they keep telling us things, keep getting rolled out that make it worse. So there are places where you have rail stops, train stops where people can get on that are not yet developed, that are planned for developments, that would be perfectly, as far as I know, a more logical planning decision to make. So we would like other sites looked at and compared given currently now, 2018, what's happening, what's the development out there? And we would like a noise study. Am I missing anything from my crowd? Excuse me. Thank you. Sit down, okay? Notify, Creekside parents. Yeah, please take a seat. Okay, I think that there's a major issue with the Creekside parents that because of the way the school has been set up and this is not, so the schools have taken a position that political issues cannot be discussed on school grounds. I don't know the reasons for that, but I would think safety is one reason. And so the parents don't get information when GoTriangle contacts the administrative offices. Not only the parents are not getting any kind of direct notification, but the school refuses to pass that information on. I've seen those emails myself. Do you consider the attestations made by your neighbors who were relying on their expertise by virtue of their training and past experience? You consider those attestations neutral? I'm not understanding your first word. Do I consider what neutral? The folk who said, who made comments about the noise based upon their, are they neutral? Our two noise experts? Yes. Do I consider them neutral? I do consider them neutral. I also talked with, what is his name? Stewart, from Stewart Acoustics, and he's retiring and he didn't have time to take it all on, but he's the first person I could get hold of. He's the one that all my lawyer friends recommended to me, and he was kind enough to email me three or four times back. He is certainly in agreement with them that the study is at best confusing and at most alarming. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. No, I'm sorry. Public hearing's open, over. We've, no, sorry. He asked for some numbers or whatever. Sir, you can't give me that, right? You can't give me that, sir. You can give it to the clerk. Thank you very much. Okay, any more questions? At this point, I'm gonna declare this public hearing closed and the matter is now before the council. There may be more questions for staff or if council members at this point wanna make any statements. Any more questions? I have a couple for Go Triangle staff. Mr. Charters. When you thought you were out. Mr. Charters, my question is, what would you anticipate the noise that would be heard at the school would be? Because I think that the, one of the most salient concerns I've heard from people is that the noise at the school at the creek side would be very loud. It would be interrupt instruction. It would hurt the ability of kids to learn. Kids would have to wear noise canceling headphones. I mean, what's your sense of what the noise levels we might expect at creek side would be? Mayor, the analysis that was done doesn't have a, because it wasn't an impact to the school. It's not documented exactly what the level is there. We know that it's about a quarter of a mile, some folks have mentioned a third of a mile away, and the noise is gonna dissipate significantly. We would suggest that the noise from the school buses that are there are as loud or louder than what they would hear from the maintenance facility. I mean, the. The decibel level of a school bus that's starting up. Right, so by the time the noise gets, we're talking over 1,000 feet, 1,300 feet or so, from where the noise is generated on the curved track, some elevation up and over and across all of the wooded areas and the different buildings and such that are gonna block the noise. I can't imagine that it would even be heard to tell you the truth. Thank you. When you think about working with this community, let's assume that we were to approve this rezoning and you all have talked about mitigation. How would you anticipate over the, this light rail, we're 10 years away from running a light rail, assuming that the light rail does get funded and approved and so forth. How would you anticipate working with a community should we choose to approve this rezoning and should the light rail get built in terms of future mitigation of noise? What would you think, what would a process look like and how would you make decisions about any future mitigations? That's a great question. So one of the things that we had mentioned or shared with the community and one of the, actually it was at Creekside, one of the past public meetings is we had a kind of a workshop where we had a palette of different choices for fences and building finishes and vegetative buffer to solicit from the community what were their choices that could be along the perimeter along the edge of Farrington Road. And we're certainly happy to revisit that since it's been maybe over a year or so since that occurred to see if there's any difference of opinion on the type of fence, how opaque it is, how solid it is versus permeable to view. That's certainly one of the things. The other thing is, as mentioned, the level of the noise is prescribed by the FTA on what has to be in the model. Going forward as part of our mitigation plan that's under development for the moderate impacts which Cope Arbor is under, we are certainly looking at measuring the noise that actually comes out once the facility is built and once the light rail vehicles are going around a curve that's lubricated or whatever the vehicle ends up being because obviously we've not purchased the vehicles yet. So there's a little bit of uncertainty there, of course, on a finished product. And we can certainly work with the community, take noise level readings even at their houses if that is something that they'd be interested in as we have the facility built if we're so lucky to have the rezoning pass this evening and work with the community to actually measure real life readings similar to what was in the Hampton Roads light rail report that I shared after the fact is always a lot more accurate than trying to decipher a model. So am I to understand then that, let's say the time that you would have some sort of reality there would be nine years from now or something where the light rail is not operating but you're beginning to run trains into the romp and you're able to actually measure that actual situation. Correct. And then so you're saying that that would give some real life to what is otherwise basically modeling and using the experience of others such as the Norfolk. Correct. Right, okay. Okay, I think those are all my questions. Any other questions? Council members? Council Member Caballero. I was thinking through the testing portion depending on where people fall on the curb and I know there's different strategies to mitigate noise. Would it be something that would go triangle be willing to be more aggressive in the sense of instead of planting trees for an individual actually helping insulate their house, things like that because I know that there's different strategies and so instead of, I know that that's for the severe but what I'm saying is that maybe we're kinder to those folks that that's what ends up happening. Yeah, and we're happy to evaluate that when we have the real life numbers if that's what's agreed upon and to address the concerns of the community. We have to remember too that this is all public money so we're trying to do things that we need to do to satisfy the impacts that we're causing but obviously within reason. And you have moderate impacts, various places along the line I heard you say as well and so I assume these same sorts of processes would operate at those places as well not just where the romp is. Yes, sir. And so you'd be looking for mitigation strategies along the line and various once we have more information. That's correct. Council Member Freeman. Thank you. I am truly in awe of the organizing that has happened in this community and I'm very thankful for the 4-4 vote that came out of the planning commission that caused the last four weeks of conversation to come out of this and for more clarity to come out of GoTriangle. I really would like to ask, I'm glad that all my other colleagues have asked most of my questions. I'm learning to wait. But I really had a couple of questions around the buffers and whether or not you would have any phasing plans around those buffers considering that this is like 10 years out. So would you be working towards building the tree heights over time or would you just be installing after construction? To clarify the construction phase for the project, right now the way we have it packaged because 18 miles of light rail is a lot of construction, obviously. So what we're calling the civil west package which is from UNC hospitals to just east of Patterson Place is the first construction package that would be advertised to be built. That contractor will do the rough grading at the romp site, build some retaining walls, et cetera. We could consider including in that the berm construction, because there's vegetation that's gonna be planted on top of the berm. Some folks talked about a single row of evergreen trees but that is in addition to what's already planned to be planted on top of the buffer. So one of the things we can look at in our construction packaging is if we start the growth sooner, then the trees will be at a higher elevation to help block the facility. I had done some quick math and based on the height of the building along Farrington Road, the building that's closest to the entrance to the Patterson Mill Store, the south end, which is closer to the entrance to the Culp Arbor, the building would only be about 12 feet above the top of the berm, not counting the vegetative buffer. So most of that building is gonna be blocked by because of the elevation is down in the site. The main building itself, only the upper 20 feet would be above the berm, but again, the vegetation would block. But one of the things we can consider in the construction phasing, as I mentioned, the packaging is perhaps starting some of the vegetative growth in this first package so that the second construction package actually builds the ROM facility. So this growth could be in place and growing and helping to deflect the noise and the visual impact even before the building is built. So we can certainly consider that. And along those same lines, I would love to hear some of the feedback. There were some comments about building in the wetlands and filling in wetlands. I'm unclear because that's not what I heard. So the 18-mile project, and I apologize, I don't have the total numbers of square feet of wetlands or acres of, partials of acres. But the entire project, since it's a linear project for 18 miles long, it's gonna get permits from the Corps of Engineers, what's called a 404 and 401 permits to construct within the buffers and the wetlands as a project-wide permitting. Within the ROM itself, I have some data from the DEIS and the comparison, believe we're talking about fractions of an acre that are impacted, it's not large quantities. And so that, but that's all included in what would be a permit for the whole 18-mile corridor. Because we have numerous locations where we have small impacts to wetlands stream water resource impacts all along the project. And it's treated as an entire permit for the whole project. So specific to this ROM location, how many fractions of an acre would- So to mitigate those impacts, we would be contributing to the mitigation bank to address wetland construction elsewhere for the wetland impacts that we would have at the different sites along the whole 18-miles. And in this ROM location, how many fractions of an acre? So wetland acres, it's 0.33. Wetland acres is what's in the DEIS. I'm looking at table 8.2-3 from the DEIS. That's for the whole project, 0.3. That's just for the ROM area. For the ROM. I don't have in front of me, I'm sorry. I don't have the entire project. It's for the ROM, though. It's 0.3. Yes, ma'am. So that's a third of an acre. A third of an acre of what lands is impacted by the ROM facility. And then I also had an additional question about the substance list, apparently. It's not readily available. Okay, is there a specific question? I didn't have it. Oh, you don't have it, okay. And I believe, and John can correct me if I'm wrong, I believe this was a list of information that was shared with the community. So I have a copy here, which we'd be happy to share with council. Don't share it, Dave, just tell us about it. So there's a list of about four pages of various materials. A lot of it is cleaning materials, greases, gear oil. There's no gasoline or diesel fuel on the site. We specifically are requiring what we call the non-revenue vehicles. So other than the trains, which do not have any gasoline because they're electrically powered. The ROM facility has pickup trucks and other equipment to maintain the tracks along the alignment. We specifically said, no, you can't put any gasoline or diesel fuel on the site for those vehicles. They'll go offsite and fill up or have their vehicles serviced. And offsite is like to the bus. Correct, to the bus or some other contracted garage where you would normally get your oil changed on your personal car. And if there's, I'm not sure if it's you that needs to speak to it, but there was also a question around access to the airport for this rail line and how there wasn't any. And I would love for someone to speak to that specifically. Access to the airport. Okay, that's always a popular topic. Right now, the light rail project is part of a regional transportation plan as many of us are aware. So our friends in Wake County have talked about well they have a BRT plans and they have a commuter rail plan that would connect Erum and Raleigh. One of the stops or stations along the commuter rail would be close enough to the airport that there would then be a shuttle. But the purpose and need of the light rail project is not to get to the airport, per se. In many, many cities, the first light rail project since the ridership to the airport is somewhat variable compared to the density along the alignment where you would have apartment buildings and such that it's not always cost effective as the first alignment to be built. And so. So it does leave likelihood that the access could be created in the future, which is. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And then I had a question for staff about the signage requirement. There was a mention of us not meeting the signage requirement. I just want to make sure that it was. Do we have a notification for our planning staff? Notification requirement. That's one of the opponents did mention that there weren't sufficient signage. I just want to make sure that. Posting the property. Give me signage. The posting of the property. The property has been posted in accordance with the statute. We have affidavits down in the planning department to that effect. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions, council member? Any other council member have questions? I do have one more question. Not sure who this is for, but Mr. Woods mentioned that he believed that the GoTrain will had falsified information about African American families in a report. And so I was wondering if you could comment on that. We certainly did not falsify any information in a report. What we conducted as part of the EIS environmental document is what's called a title six equity analysis, title six of the Civil Rights Act. And that's required of any transportation investment that uses federal money. And it looks at the entire impact zone that's defined. So it's not just the properties itself, but the area around that that would be subject to impacts for each of the sites. So these are the five sites. And then it looks using, so we don't have a mechanism of knowing the race or the income level of each property owner. So we use what's called the American Community Survey, which is the US Census collects data every year. We use the data between 2007, 2011, it's called their five year estimate. And you look at the percentage of minority residents that are in that district around each property and compare that to the area's averages. So in this case, the study area, which was the entire LRT, DRLRT project study area, looked at the racial makeup and the income, low income above that for both those categories. And then you see if, okay, does the site impact higher than the overall average or the number of minorities, the percentage of minorities around each site greater than the study area percentage of minorities. And it doesn't have to be, then we have to set a threshold that is a meaningful threshold. In this case for the study area, it was 51% minority and the Farrington Road romp was 31% minority. And it was 43% low income and for the Farrington Road romp location was 22% low income. So we do that analysis and we say, this does not have a disparate impact on minorities or a disproportionate burden on low income individuals live around each of the, or in this particular site. That's how we do the analysis. Thank you. Any further questions? All right, I'll start off then. I very much wanna appreciate everybody for being here tonight. This has been, this is Durham's robust democracy at work. And I very much appreciate everybody being here for it, both pro and con. I appreciate all the meetings that have led up to it. I know that so many people here have done a tremendous amount of work to get to this night. You all have done your personal research. You all have had meetings. You all have organized. And Council Member Freeman mentioned her admiration of that. And let me just second that for people on both sides of this issue. One of the things about, so this is my 11th year in public office. And one of the things I know about is when the most people are in the room, that's when you know that the decision that you make can't be anything about politics. That's when you absolutely have to be sure about that. It's the easiest time to be sure for me. You have to think about what's really best for Durham because there are political pressures on all sides in a way like I say that kind of makes it easier. The other thing that I've had to think a lot about for myself is confirmation bias. Guarding against that. I am a light rail proponent. I've been a light rail proponent for a long time. And so I've really thought about this question. And so if you all have raised this, the need to really listen to read to evaluate this romp issue. And I have, and this rezoning issue. And so it's not that I feel like I can separate it from the light rail as a whole, I can't. But can I make an independent decision about whether or not this romp really has the deleterious effects that people have been talking about tonight from Colt Barber and the school. So I've done a whole lot of reading. I've visited Colt Barber recently, but that's probably my fifth visit to Colt Barber. I have visited the Charlotte romp myself when the romp sighting was taking place. And along with that were some folks from Colt Barber who we had along with us to go down to the Charlotte romp to see it at that time. And I will, I'm just, I'll talk a little bit about the details. But let me just say that I have, I have definitely satisfied that the romp that this property ought to be rezoned for the romp and I will be voting accordingly. Let me tell you a little bit about why. First of all, some of the things that I think that, I think that some of the concerns that people have expressed in the past didn't really seem to come up tonight very much. And I think with good reason. I think what we know, for example, about traffic, on Farrington Road and in this area is actually going to be less than what would otherwise be developed as the staff report shows. And I've seen a lot of our staff reports over the years on traffic. And I think they do a really good job. We'll be seeing less traffic than whatever else would be developed there, whether it be residential, commercial or office. I think that the, I have been having nothing to do with a romp or the light rail. I have visited on a couple of occasions, areas to the east of I-40, where there is definitely, there are important stormwater concerns, no question. Runoff from I-40 in that area is very significant. And I think that's something we need to take really seriously. And whatever happens on this romp site needs to have really good stormwater mitigation. It's very important. And that's something that our city has a strong regulation of and we need to make sure that that regulation is working. One of the things I did not hear about tonight, but which I think is in some ways, very important here is, what happens to property values when you have a romp? And I think that, so one of the interesting figures I've seen recently that from, these are just reported from Zillow. This is having to do with the Charlotte romp, which, again, I've been to. And, the, yeah, so just let me tell you a little bit about it. There's a 3,600 square foot home, 1,000 foot away from the Charlotte romp. And it's listed for $925,000. There's a duplex on Belton Street, 800 feet from the Charlotte romp, that's going for $579,000. Their luxury apartments, if you ever go to the Charlotte romp, you'll see this. Luxury apartments that literally overlook the Charlotte romp. And these are, and they overlook the Charlotte romp in an area where, and I've been to this romp, where you get the most curvature, where you would tend to get the most wheel squeal. There are 539 square foot studio apartments there that are leasing for $1,350 a month. The Charlotte romp has definitely not diminished property values. It is definitely not diminished them at all. I think that there are several other concerns that I think are really important here that we have to think about and that I've really tried to consider. One of the things I think is that, I get why people are concerned that there can be an industrial facility across the street from you. I totally get that. If I heard that, I would feel very concerned as well. But I think having again been to the Charlotte romp and knowing what is planned for this romp, it's not going to be a factory, which I think is what I think of when I think of an industrial facility. I think that it's going to be a very nice building. And having been to the Charlotte romp, it is going to be a building that they're proud of theirs and it looks kind of like an office building. And I think that we will have a good building that won't feel anything like a factory. It'll be a sleek modern building where trains are washed and repaired. I was at the Charlotte romp in 2015, maybe 16. And we were had a meeting upstairs on the second floor. We were there to, there were myself, some of the county commissioners, some folks from Culpe Arbor, other residents of Durham. And we wanted to find out about what their romp was like for the same reason that you all wanted to. And we had this meeting on the second floor and at the end of the meeting, one of the staff members of the Charlotte romp said, did you hear any trains today? Did you hear any trains go by? I said, no, I didn't hear a single train. They said, two trains went under the office building that we were on the second floor. They went underneath us on the first floor and made a turn around into the romp. And we didn't hear them. And we were on the second floor. And I think that while our curvature is going to be more difficult in Durham for sure, it is going to be noisier than the, the wheel squeal will be noisier, I believe in the Charlotte romp because of the angle. I still think that that's a relevant experience. I think that the most salient concern definitely is noise. And I really appreciate all the things that you all have raised about noise. I would be concerned too. And I think that you all are right to talk about that. And I think it's really important that as time moves forward, once we know more about this, that there be the kind of mitigation that will make these moderate noises, ones that you all can mitigate. I do think, I will tell you one thing that I feel very strongly about though, that I think is been, I think that the noise concerns at Culp Arbor, Culp Arbor are something that we really need to be considering and thinking about as we move forward. I don't really feel the same way about the school. I've been to the, Charlotte romp site has a school as John Talmage read about the same distance away as Creekside. There are not going to be noise effects at the school. Think about this. Every time a diesel bus starts off at the school, it has an 80 decibel sound at the school. Every time you turn it on and get going. The, that is very different, much, much louder than a 60 or 70 decibel sound, 1300 feet away over all kinds of topography. I do not believe, and I am concerned that the, that the parents at the school have been made to think or led to think that there will be significant noise impacts. I do not believe there'll be significant noise impacts and I worry that people are being misled to think that. Not purposely, not that someone's trying to mislead them for some nefarious reason, but that the information isn't good. And I think that the information that Dave Charters gave is really important. The school bus that starts off in the parking lot at the school has an 80 decibel noise level every time it starts. That's more than the wheel squill will be at the romp 1300, 1500 feet away. So I think that that's really, really important to think about. And in terms of this, yeah. So I do believe that the light rail will be transformational for our region, but I need to make a decision despite that about this individual rezoning. I know that this, the question about the, about the going to the airport, this is going to be the first backbone of a regional transportation system. Our next step will be the commuter rail. That commuter rail will go from Durham to Raleigh. We have a partner in Raleigh now. We didn't used to, but we do now. There will be a way to easily transfer to get to the airport. This will, this is also 10 years away. And one of the interesting things that we have with the light rail, one of the important things is we have what we would call the bus dividend. We have 20,000 people in Durham that ride a bus every day. We work very hard to try to both improve our bus service, increase it, and keep the expenses low, keep the fares low. Well, we do, we succeeded that because a lot of people need this. The light rail will have the same fare as the buses, so people will have very inexpensive ways to get places. But in addition, the light rail will reap a bus dividend. That is the lines that are now being served by buses where the light rail will go will be able to be deployed in the rest of Durham and will really be a way to continue to improve our bus system. If we're serious about the quality of life in our region, we're either gonna be stuck in traffic in 15501 and I-40, for the rest of my life and long beyond it, unless we have a strong regional transit system, which will include light rail, commuter rail, and bus. That is an absolute essential if we're serious about our quality of life. The environmental concerns about the ROMP, the buffering, and so forth is really important. But the most, if we mean it about climate change, there's nothing we can do in our region that's more important than the light rail. The light rail is the biggest single step we can change, the biggest single step we can take in order to have an effect on climate change locally, getting that many cars off the road. And I was really appreciative of everybody in here expressing support for light rail because it is so important. But again, I had to ask myself, okay, even given that, is there a persuasive case against this ROMP-free zoning? And I really don't think that there is. I think that the noise concerns are very important and I know that over time we'll really need to work with GoTriangle and enforce their mitigation of the noise concerns, which we'll know a lot more about over time. So those are my thoughts and I'll now turn it over to my council colleagues for theirs as well. Council Member Rees. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Like my colleagues before me, I just wanna thank everybody that came out and spoke tonight. It's really a testament as you said, Mr. Mayor, to the kind of democracy we have in Durham where people can come and express themselves with here in the chamber and by email. I've been able to correspond with some of you by email over the last couple of weeks. Actually mailed a couple of actual letters last week, Mr. Mayor, to the folks who reached out. Unfortunately, I have received one physical letter Friday afternoon that I could not respond to, so hopefully I'll track that person down in the next couple of days and talk to them. I hate those crime shows, Mr. Mayor, where the judge is handing down a verdict and they're like, well, on the one hand and on the other hand, it just delays the inevitable and for a prosecutor, I had some judges do that. It was really annoying.  I will tell folks right now that I intend to support the rezoning request by Go Triangle. I'm not gonna repeat a lot of the things you said, Mr. Mayor, but I wanna say two things about this. First of all, I am one of the most persuasive arguments against, I don't even know if it was an argument against the Roth, it was an idea was posed by my colleague, Council Member Middleton at the other end of the dais. He wanted, I think, he asked a really piercing question about this issue. And that was, are we as a community bending over backwards to take into account the concerns of powerful interests in this community while we refuse to listen to the folks who live nearest this facility? I think that's a really powerful question and I really respect you for raising it, Council Member Middleton, and I've spent a lot of time over here at my end of the day thinking about this. And before this, when we were in our office talking about it, my office talking about it this afternoon, I guess I wanna say about that, what I would say is it appears to me from where I sit that the genuflecting as you put it, you're so great at this stuff. The genuflecting that I think some of us perceive is because there have been changes required seemingly at the last minute that folks in our community, stakeholders, whose participation in light rail is critical to its success have been taken by surprise about. And so some of the activities, some of the genuflecting, I guess if I wanna keep using that word, has been because of that stark reality. But I think the concerns that have been raised by people in this room who live near this particular location, it seems to me, have been baked into the design of the facility from the very beginning. And that's why Council Member Middleton, when you asked the representatives from GO Triangle, are we being as aggressive in considering these concerns as we are the other types of concerns? That's why I think staff started talking about the design of the facility itself, the mitigation features that have been baked in since the very beginning. So I think that's why they were able to give you an answer with honesty and integrity. Yes, we have considered these deep concerns just as much as we're considering the others. So I'm heartened by that. But more, the second thing I wanted to talk about is the noise concerns. I share some of what the mayor said about the kind of the reality versus perception. But I guess what I really wanna make sure folks understand is that there is no exception in our noise ordinance for this facility. It defies logic and reason and common sense to think that GO Triangle would in their hearts believe that this facility would generate the kind of sound that you all are afraid of and still build the thing, still invest. I know, they don't get paid more whether this thing gets built or not. There's no profit motive here. They believe it's an important project. I believe it's an important project. But why would they build a facility that generates this kind of noise when you can stop it with a phone call if that happens? You can stop it with a phone call. Can I have order, please? Can I have order, please? Thank you. The noise ordinance exists for this very reason. It is here to protect all of us from the kind of noises that you tell me you're afraid of. If I read that report and saw that number, 136 decibels, I would also be terrified. I would be just as terrified as you were when you first read it. I guarantee you that. I was a parent of Creekside. I was a resident of Colbarber. If I lived anywhere near this thing, 136 decibels, oh my gosh. I'm never gonna be able to sleep again. But that doesn't make any sense. It just doesn't. I know you're afraid. I know you're concerned about this. But under what possible scenario could they operate a facility at that volume? It can't possibly happen. And if we go through this entire process and they build the thing, the first night trains come through, what are you gonna do?  Please bring the sound meter down. That's what I would do if I lived where you live. Is the person who lives closest to this facility in the room right now? Is she here? Where's that person? The person who left, she left. I'm sorry she left. But Ruth, let's say you lived there. That night, that first night, you hear that sound. You call 911, you call the police down. That's what you're gonna do, right? They're gonna bring the sound meter, right? And if it violates the noise ordinance, they have to stop it. That's the way this works. Excuse me, excuse me. They have to stop it. They can't be doing it. Excuse me, Charlie, excuse me. I'm gonna ask members of the audience, please listen to council member Reese. Everybody in the audience, we've been listening, we've started about four hours ago in this hearing, maybe three and a half. Everybody's had their chance. This is now the council member's chance and I'm gonna ask you all to please respect that, okay? Whether or not you agree, it's okay. We're all gotta respect each other and listen, all right? So council member Reese, please go ahead. It doesn't make any sense to think that the law would force y'all for the next 30 years of your lives that this facility exists to call the police every time this happens. That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't.  That doesn't make sense. That's not how this works. If that sound does actually create, which I have no reason to believe it would be, based on the information that we have in front of us right now. None of you, by the way, has told me that a train making these turns is gonna make that sound level where you live or that it's gonna bother you at all. You haven't shown me that. Now, your argument is, go trangle hasn't shown us that it won't, right? Right, that's your argument. Not that it will absolutely 100% make this noise. It's that go triangle has approved you that it won't. That is the argument you're making. But from my perspective, we've had folks come up here and talk to us about what the sound will actually be compared with other types of sounds, both that are created at Cree side, whatever other things that they talked about. The fact that that number, that 136 decibel number appeared in the report, is scary, but there's no reason, there's no rational reason why go triangle would build a facility that would generate that much sound. I know you're saying then they shouldn't build it there. I'm saying, if it was gonna make that much noise, they wouldn't, okay? That's just not accurate. And I know that's hard to accept. I hear that, but there's no way that makes any sense. And so my hope is that you take away from this meeting my assurance to you, that the noise ordinance here is here to protect against the very harm you're talking about, the exact one. And if I'm wrong, which God knows I've been in the past, I will begin, if I'm wrong and they build a facility that generates 136 decibels of noise at three in the morning, there is absolutely positively no way that that would continue in this community. And I know you don't believe that, but there's just no way that would happen. And so I hope that what you take from this is not they're just gonna ram it through and make this loud noise or we're gonna have to live with it for the rest of our lives. But instead, what you take away from it is that report in elegantly described a situation which subsequent explanations have given a real description of and that there won't be 136 decibels of noise created 50 times a day at three o'clock in the morning. That the actual sounds that are created are gonna be much more reasonable, much more in line with what we have seen at other facilities, what we have, what has been talked about here. And if it's not, we will fix it. You will call the police, we will stop the noise from happening and we'll make it right. And so, Mr. Mayor, that's why I tend to vote for the measure tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. And Council Member Reyes. Council Member Freeman. Oh my goodness, I'm sorry. It's late. I think I come from a very different standpoint and recognizing that if this were any developer coming into Durham to make this request, this would be a no vote across the board. That is very clear. I'm hard pressed because I'm looking at a very, let me back up by saying, what struck me in the comments most was the comments around the children in the schools around trains. And I have to say, as a child that grew up in the Bronx, New York, underneath a train station, I mean, it's just hard. I'm just hard pressed on that, that I cannot accept. That's just ludicrous. But I get it, I understand. I recognize that GoTriangle hasn't been transparent throughout this process. I inherited this project that's over 25 years old. And we are where we are today because people have been speaking up and stating their case and actually pushing for GoTriangle to be more equitable in making sure that they were engaging the residents. It is unfortunate that it's your neighborhood that is on the chopping block, so to speak, because you have no benefit, but you carry the burden, but you carry the burden for all of Durham in this conversation. I am like, if this rail yard would have been in Eastern, none of this would have been discussed. None of this conversation, none of these meetings, none of the outpouring of people, like all of this I recognize is because of your white privilege and your ability to organize in a way that communities of color do not and cannot. I want you to sit with that for a moment and recognize that it is your white privilege that has us here at 1127 on December the 3rd, almost a year in office. I am sitting here talking to you about this rail yard, which if it were a developer, asking for a two-story building would not be an option. On the opposite side of this conversation, I have been also a very huge proponent of light rail. I am sorely concerned about where we're going with this, and I've said it a number of times, like we continue to chop away different parts and pieces of this project, and it makes it less and less appealing to the point where the people who are proponents of light rail are standing in opposition that includes you guys who stood up and said that you support light rail, but this wrong facility does not seem like the right place. I get it. The folks who've talked about downtown around Blackwell, the folks who've been upset about different station area stops. And my main concern in this process is making sure that it's done in a way that does not create more harm than good. And recognizing that we have lived through a process where urban renewal has destroyed neighborhoods, this is not the same thing. This is not. Let's not be confused. Let's not try to wrap it up into something that it's not. I'm more concerned about what comes out of this process as we move forward, which is the reason why if you're here for the cooperative agreement conversation, you'll hear a whole lot more about how upset I've been with GoTriangle and their presentation and lack of information and complete like just myths in this conversation around Durham. Because I know that they understand that we're in Durham, North Carolina, and the city of Durham is pretty progressive. And I don't understand how there's so much missing the communications and the, I mean, even the report, like just the errors in a report that you're sending to the federal government sounds crazy to me, but we'll leave that here. Recognizing that there is very, you guys are outmatched with Durham Can and the People's Alliance and, I mean, the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit, these folks have all been organizing for the 20 years that we've been talking about Light Rail. For you new residents who have moved into Cope Harbor in the last 10 years, you're kinda at the end of this conversation and I hate it for you. I recognize that I've lived in a community and I live next, I should say, I live next to a rail line. So I understand exactly what you're saying. Now I live in Golden Belt and all of the debates, all of the work that's gone into making sure that our neighborhood is safe, that we have what we need, it is important to make sure that you recognize even if you lose this stand tonight, this conversation is not over, it is gonna continue. And I would like to offer that I would be the strongest supporter of making sure that as Council Member Rees mentioned, what you're requesting of us is not impossible. But what we are requesting of you to carry this load is gonna be, it's with a heavy heart that I ask you to do that because I am gonna support this. It's important that we are thinking about the next 30 years in Durham and it's important that we're focused on how to make this light rail come to life. And I know that this is not, it's not the best situation to be in, but I know that we are here and we're listening and I know GoTriangle over the last four weeks has done a much better job than they have in the last five, 10 years. And I appreciate that they brought in John Tomage to be the project manager because I know that he is very adamant about making sure he hears concerns from neighbors and actually it acts on them. And so I just continue to, I just continue to ask you to be open to the concept and to consistently bring your issues to us and to consistently bring them to them. But this process does have to move forward. I understand that it's unfortunate. But I mean, I really appreciate how well you guys have organized and I can't say enough, like, thank you. I mean, I don't think I would have, you've given me a whole new list of issues to ask in every zoning case that comes here. And I think folks around this day understand I have a long list of questions. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Austin. Thank you. I also wanna thank everyone for your participation in the public hearing and throughout this process. I will trim my comments. So this project, if approved, will bring change to an area that has experienced significant change over the last few years. And change like what is proposed tonight should not happen easily. Should be challenged in exactly the way that many of you have tonight. Many of your concerns, which I won't outline at this point. I'll just echo the concerns outlined by the mayor. Many of those are very important. They are worthy of timely answers from our staff and from Go Triangle. And they are certainly worthy of our consideration because this is your neighborhood. This is your community and we take that very seriously. However, while I do think those concerns are very important, they do not persuade me to vote against this rezoning. As the mayor mentioned, our decisions including those about land use must reflect the best interests of everyone in Durham. This rezoning I believe serves those interests. I believe it to be appropriate and critical to future transportation innovation in Durham and in our region. The light rail stands to move tens of thousands of people through our region every day. And in doing so, help to manage our growth, support the development of affordable housing, free us from daily isolation that our cars encourage, improve access to jobs and services that for those who need and deserve it most and help us all level the playing field when it comes to transportation options. I think this is an appropriate location for this facility. Our staff recommendation is consistent with that assessment and I intend to vote in favor of this rezoning. Thank you council member. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And also in the interest of time, I'm not gonna go through my thoughts and comments on all of your concerns. I think my colleagues have done a good job with that, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the impact of growth in the city. And we, I feel like the issue has been framed as if y'all are, I wanna make it clear that we're all having to deal with the impacts of growth, both positive and negative impacts of growth. I live in a neighborhood. I live a quarter mile from the highway. I live less than a mile from downtown. I experienced the consequences of growth every single day. Some nights the, you know, the fireworks from the, from the de-pack, I'm sorry, from the ballpark, you know, make it hard for me to put my kids to sleep. There's construction happening in my neighborhood on a daily basis. We all live in a growing city. We all face impacts from that growth. And some of those things are great. We have, you know, a lot of new opportunities that we can come into downtown and see a Broadway show or, you know, go to an amazing restaurant. There are also negative impacts to that growth. A huge housing crisis, the highest level of evictions in the state. And this light rail is a way for us to grow sustainably into the future. It's one of the key pieces of a transportation vision for our region that isn't for any of us up here. It's for our kids. It's for our grandkids. It's so that they don't have to, you know, sit in the kind of traffic that we have to sit in right now in cities like Atlanta and in cities like LA.  You know, I mean, these are the things that I'm concerned about and I think about the future of the region and the growth that we're in. And we're one of the fastest growing cities for capitol in the country right now. We're on the leading edge of these concerns. So I just wanted to make it clear. It's not just y'all. We are all dealing with the impacts of this growing region every day. And we're all doing the best that we can to manage, to manage those impacts and to manage the impacts of growth here on the council and in our communities, in our communities at large. And this project is critical for that growth to be able to create a community that can still sustain itself, that can be livable for our future generations, a place where people actually want to live and actually wanna move here. And so again, I appreciate you all bringing your concerns. I feel like the information that I've gotten tonight and the concerns that I've gotten from all of y'all, I am of the opinion that this light rail project is important enough that we need to move forward with this rezoning, but this is the best location, even with its problems, that any other place would be far worse than what we have. And actually weren't even viable. There's no other location that where we could put this facility that is needed. And that the concerns about noise, the concerns about chemicals, these are all the city is growing and these are issues that are going to occur in all parts of the city. It's not just folks that live downtown, near downtown who have to deal with the impacts of growth. We all have to deal with the impacts of growth. And I am confident that if there is a noise problem at Creekside Elementary, which I sincerely believe that an 80 decibel noise at a facility a third of a mile away will not cause a noise impact. But if there's a problem 10 years from now, that that is something that we as a community will fix. We are not going to allow the sort of issues that I think we are, that you all are concerned about. We will not as a community accept those concerns, but accept the realization of those issues. But I really don't think it's gonna be that bad, y'all. And I think this project is really important for our community. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Council Member Caballero. Just to echo, thank you for coming out. It is democracy in action when we have a packed house like it was tonight and it was definitely packed. Thanks for staying so late. It is a very late evening. I wanna echo what many of my colleagues have already said. I also wanna keep my comments brief. I will be on council for a year just in January. So I'm the newest kid on the block. And the thing that sticks with me, and this is why the parents from Creekside, I have three children. They are also under in public schools. Those concerns are not lost on me, but I also have to make decisions for everyone's kids and light rail and getting cars off our roads and planning sustainably. That is, for me, one of the most important concerns as an elected official. I have to look to the future. We have to be visionary and the light rail does that for us. So I will also be voting for the zoning. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Middleton. Do you wanna make sure that all of us speak? Just briefly, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I grew up on trains and buses. I'm originally from Brooklyn. And one of the things that strikes me reflecting on those days riding trains and buses was the egalitarian nature of transportation. There'd be a homeless person and the millionaire stockbroker all in the same place. I think no truly great city can call itself great without having the ability for its citizens and residents to access all of the things that make city wonderful without a car. We can't be a great metropolis without that type of system. I wanna say very directly to all of you, there was no inevitability in my vote for this. And I know some folks suggested that because of sunken cost and because of inertia and because so much time had already been put in the project that we had no choice. I didn't feel obligated to vote yes on this because of sunken cost. That's not a compelling argument to me. In about 20 minutes, I would have been in office first term, first year. So perhaps a combination of arrogance or inexperience made me totally unafraid to vote no on this project. I came here prepared to listen to all sides. I think there were polar point arguments on each side. On the one hand, I was waiting to hear about this brooding hellscape with this toxic smoke belching bomb factory as its centerpiece. I don't think that this project is this. On the other hand, it's not this utopic shining city with absolutely zero impact on the neighborhood as well. I don't believe that either. I'm gonna vote for this. And I don't think this is a politically expedient vote. I'm not voting for this because of any particular group. I'm voting for this out of principle. I think this is the right thing for our city. This is a legacy vote. This is a trajectory vote. This is one of those moments where you have to make a decision based upon principle. Let me tell you why I don't think this is a politically expedient vote. You guys generated a petition of almost 1,000 people in a regular Durham election. That's a margin of victory. This is not a politically expedient vote. Because I can count, I know how to count. But I think that you're not fit to hold office until you've found a reason that you're willing to lose it for. This is a principle vote. I think it's right for the city. I'm not afraid to vote no, but after sitting through this hearing tonight, I'm more comfortable with approving this rezoning. And listen, this ain't over. If it's noisy, if more work needs to be done, I think to a person on this panel, we're committed to working with you. I hope to be around to ride the trains when they finally come to fruition. And if that day comes and we have more work to do, I believe we're committed. I know we're committed to doing what's necessary to make this romp in this entire light rail project as beneficial and as wonderful to all of us as possible. This is a principle vote for me. It's not a politically expedient vote. I will be supporting the rezoning. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, council member. Alrighty, council members. Now it's time to take action on this item. The first motion I'll ask for is to adopt an ordinance annexing the rail operations main facility property in the city of Durham, effective December 31st, 2018. So moved. Second. We moved and seconded. Madam clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. I'll accept a motion to adopt the resolution admitting the future land use map. So moved. Second. Madam clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. The motion to adopt a consistency statement. So moved. Second. And moved and seconded. We adopted a consistency statement. Madam clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. And the motion, the fourth motion to adopt an ordinance admitting the UDO. So moved. Second. And moved and seconded. We adopt the motion number four. Madam clerk, please open the vote. Thank you. Please close the vote. The motion passes seven zero. Thank you. Again, I wanna thank everyone for being here tonight. On both sides of this issue, we appreciate you very much. And now we're gonna move on to item, we have several more items tonight. We have actually about, we have a lot more items tonight. We're gonna move on right away to consolidate an annexation item for weaving water. And I'll ask if we have as a public hearing item, Ms. Sunyak, welcome. Good evening, Jamie Sunyak with the planning department. Request for a utility extension agreement, voluntary annexation and a zoning map change have been received from Danielle Brestel for two parcels totaling 12.31 acres, generally located at 3912 and 3920 Rivermont Road. The annexation petition seeks to bring the parcels into the existing contiguous city limits. The subject site is presently zoned, residential suburban 20, RS 20. The applicant is requesting a zoning designation of plan development residential 1.964, it's PDR 1.964. The parcel is currently designated as low density residential or dwelling units or less on the future land use map, which is consistent with the rezoning request. If approved, the annexation petition and zoning change will become effective on December 31st, 2018. Key commitments associated with this plan, developing the property with single family, two family and multiplex, but limited to 24 residential units, limiting structures on the property to 4,000 square feet, preserving the existing evergreen vegetation along Rivermont Road. The public works and water management departments have determined that the existing water and sewer mains have the capacity for the proposed development. The budget and management services department determined that the proposed annexation will have a positive fiscal impact immediately upon annexation. The Durham Planning Commission at their August 14th meeting recommended approval of the proposed zoning district by a vote of 13 to zero. Staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan apical policies and ordinances. Remotions are required for this application. The first is required by law to approve the utility extension agreement and the voluntary annexation petition. The second is to adopt a consistency statement. And the third is for the zoning ordinance. I will be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you very much, Ms. Sunyak. You've heard the report from staff. I'm now gonna declare this public hearing open. And first I wanna ask if there are any questions for staff by members of the council? Just a quick question. Have there been any changes since the Planning Commission meeting to the case? The only change was the proffer offered at the Planning Commission limiting the structures to 4,000 square feet. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Alrighty, well now here we have two people that have signed up to speak on this agenda. Item one is Katie Hamilton and the other is Danielle Brestel. And if you all are here, please proceed to the microphone and you each have three minutes. Hi. Thank you for hearing our case tonight. We appreciate you taking the time so late at night. Can you identify yourself? Tell us where you live. My name is Katie Hamilton. I live at 1010 Skyler Lane in Durham and I work for Stuart Engineering, or Stuart. So the Weaving Water Project does not actually change the density of the land at all. It currently is zoned for RS-20. We are rezoning it to be a PDR of just under two units an acre. So we're not changing the density but we're just rezoning it to allow for buildings to contain more than one unit. And as part of that rezoning, we feel that we're meeting the city's current initiative to provide the missing middle that is discussed in the expanding housing choices that are initiatives that are in front of City Council today, which include duplexes and triplexes, which are what we are focusing on here. As Ms. Sunyak pointed out, based on the Planning Commission hearing, we have committed to only having 4,000 square foot buildings which could contain up to three units each. We also on the request of the Planning Commission did reach out to the DOT and did get Rivermont Road repaved since that hearing. Nothing has really changed since Planning Commission with the existing conditions and proposed development plan. As you can see, we're trying to keep our building envelope within an already cleared area of the property. And our preferred scenario is to actually use the rest of the land that we're also annexing as conservation land, if at all possible. From a financial standpoint, it may not be possible, but regardless, we're not going to fully develop this land at the rate of the RS-20 subdivision, which would allow, so. We're also committing to a max of 20% impervious area, which is less than is allowed by zoning by right. And we're hoping to promote a green corridor through the site, connecting the state park down to Valley Springs Park through HOA lands adjacent. Thanks. Thank you very much. Ms. Brestel? Yes. Hi, I'm Danielle Brestel. I live at 2036 Hillock Place and I'm the applicant. I decided to develop this co-housing community to provide a better quality of life for my family and others. My parents moved to Durham two years ago and had a very hard time finding a one-story, modestly sized home in a natural setting that would fulfill their desire to age in place. We also struggled to find accessible housing with a sense of community where neighbors could look out for one another like at Eno Commons or Solterra. We're seeking this rezoning in order to cluster houses into multiplexes and provide clustered areas of parking near the property entrance rather than driveways with parking at each residence. We're interested in stacking the units to provide some accessible homes for those with mobility limitations. And we plan to group two or three units with modest sized footprints from 800 to 1,800 square feet in each building. As was mentioned before, the buildings will have a maximum of 4,000 square feet to keep within the current neighborhood aesthetic of single family dwellings, which was requested by the neighbors. Our desire to develop intelligent two-story solutions with clustered parking is deeply connected to our desire to minimize the impervious surface, preserve water quality and forest coverage and encourage interaction between neighbors. Compared to the current RS-20 zoning, our plan greatly reduces the negative impact on the watershed and maintains a forested environment to maintain the Eno River State Park experience. We're providing original solution for housing needs and expanding Durham Housing Choices in an environmentally responsible way. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Brestel. Is there anyone else who would like to be heard on this item? This is a public hearing item. Is there anyone else in attendance who would like to be heard on this item tonight? If not, council members, are there any questions for staff or the applicant? Any comments, questions? Mr. Mayor, if I might just ask a quick question about price points. At this point, we have gotten initial estimates from contractors and are expecting our price points to be between $250,000 and $460,000. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Council members, any other questions, comments? If not, I'm going to declare this public hearing closed and matters back for the council. Is there a motion to adopt the ordinance annexing weaving water into the city of Durham? Move. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the first motion. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you. Is there a motion to adopt a consistency statement? So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we adopt the consistency statement. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. The motion passes 7-0. Thank you. Is there a motion to adopt the ordinance amending the UDO? So moved, Mr. Mayor. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we amend the UDO. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Please close the vote. Again, the motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. We look forward to your development and make it a good one. Thank you. We'll now move to item 39, consolidated item for Durham Public Schools, elementary school C, and we will now hear from staff. Let me just make it a little, give an introduction here to this hearing. This is the quasi-judicial hearing. I don't know that my colleagues have ever experienced a quasi-judicial hearing, my new colleagues. Oh, yeah, I've been in some judicial hearings. I've been in some judicial hearings. I've been in judicial hearings, I don't know. Charlie and you and Gillian have been in work? No, have we done one? I don't want to have the housing appeals board. Yeah. I know, the start of the first two. All right, so, I have a script. It'll help us. You need it. The next matter is agenda item 39, consolidated item for Durham Public Schools, elementary school C. The hearing of this matter is quasi-judicial in nature and will be conducted in accordance with special safeguards. Witnesses must be sworn in, they are subject to being cross-examined and written evidence must be formally offered. This quasi-judicial hearing is being held to consider the first two agenda items under agenda item 39. The first motion is to adopt in order approving the transportation special use permit. Second motion is to adopt in order approving the major special use permit. The third motion to approve the major site plan is not subject to quasi-judicial hearing and will be voted on after city council concludes the hearing and votes on the first two motions, according to our usual fabulous way of just arguing about stuff. Was that the script? Was that the script? Absolutely. Okay. Before we begin, I'd like the attorneys for the applicant and for opponents or for a representative from each side. If there are no attorneys to come to the microphone, identify yourself for the council and take a seat in the front row. I'll have a punch. Thank you, Mayor Tripotem and members of council. I'm Deborah Stagner from Therington Smith, law firm in Raleigh. I'm here on behalf of Durham Public Schools, who's the applicant in this case. Thank you. Good to see you. If Ms. Stagner, I guess you're the only attorney here for this. If an attorney or representative wishes to cross-examine a witness, please raise your hand immediately after the witness is testified and I'll recognize you. All written information, including maps. You want to be considered should be officially submitted as evidence. Copies of evidence you want to have submitted with the exception of the staff report and attachments should be given to the city attorney and to the other side. Each side may raise objections to admission of evidence on the basis of hearsay or other grounds. Questions concerning admissibility will be handled by the city attorney. Please do not hand anything directly to council members until it's first been reviewed by the city attorney has been admitted as evidence. We will first hear from city staff who study the request, then from the applicant and then from the opponents of the application. And then council members, if the applicant seeking this major special use permit produces evidence demonstrating compliance with the city's UDO, the applicant is entitled to have the permit issued unless substantial competent evidence is introduced supporting denial of the permit. Okay, I think we should hear from staff. Next Patrick, is that ready to do the swearing? We'll do the swearing. Do the swearing, okay. People who wish to testify should have signed up on the special sheet for this hearing at the clerk's station. Has that happened? Madam clerk, is there a special sheet there that people should sign into? All right, those cards. Thank you, Ashley. I'm just glad they didn't send Kensua over here. How are we doing, guys? Everybody signed up? Okay. One more. All right, people who wish to testify if you've signed up should now go to the clerk's station to be sworn in or give your affirmation and return to your seats. Madam clerk. Just one more. Okay, can y'all please? Please raise your right hands. You swear? Repeat after me, please. You swear? That the testimony you shall give to the Durham City Council shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help you God. Thank you. Thank you. Now council members, we have a different sort of set up here than we usually do. I'm gonna ask this question for each council member, for all of us. Do any council members wish to withdraw because they have a conflict that would prevent their deciding this case in a fair and impartial manner? Any council member? Have any council members heard information about this case other than what they may have been presented at the work session? If so, please disclose it at this time so that the opposing sides can address it in their presentations. Any council member? Okay, we'll now open the hearing and we will hear from the city staff. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council. My name is Danny Coulter. I'm representing the planning department tonight. At this time, the planning staff would request that all agenda materials submitted for the public hearing to be made part of the public record with any necessary corrections as noted. Do we need a motion to that effect? No, all right. Just acceptances. Thank you. Thank you. Request for transportation special use permit case T16-0001, major use permit case M18-0003 and a major site plan case D16-00105 have been received from Durham public schools for the development of an 86,325 square foot two-story elementary educational building on a 17.7 acre portion of a 46.3 acre site located at 816-830-906-920-926 and 928 Scott King Road. The zoning is rural residential and it's located within the Falls of Jordan District B watershed overlay. An educational facility located in the residential zoning district requires the issuance of a minor use permit pursuant to unified development ordinance section 5.1.2 and is subject to the limited use standards of UDO section 5.3.3K. However, UDO section 3.9.1E permits multiple applications for the same project to be consolidated into a single hearing for approval by one approving authority when a transportation use permit is also required. The transportation use permit requested tonight is under a separate quasi-digital action due to the results from a traffic impact analysis that determine the project will generate at least 600 vehicle trips in a single peak hour. Therefore, the proposed use permit is being considered as a major request for the approval of this governing body instead of a minor use permit request as typical from the Board of Adjustment. Additionally, when a site plan is associated with a required major use permit or a transportation use permit, the site plan shall be considered a major site plan which requires the governing body approval. If the council approves the transportation major use permits, then the council should also consider the approval of the associated major site plan case D16-00105. The site plan is not required as a part of this public hearing, but it does require the separate vote for approval. If the council elects to deny the transportation or major use permit, then the associated site plan should not be approved as it would not be in compliance with applicable use UDO standards. Having summarized these ordinance provisions, the first item requiring action tonight is the transportation special use permit case T16-0001. During public school's request approval of a transportation use permit for traffic impacts associated with a 716 student elementary school with 84 staff members and 102 parking spaces proposed on the south side of Sky King Road between Goldflower Drive and Lion Tree Lane. As previously stated, the transportation use permit is required for site plan projects that generate at least 600 vehicle trips in a single peak hour. For UDO section 3.9.9C, there are four criteria that must be satisfied in order to grant the use permit. The criteria identified in the staff report labeled as attachment three and the applicant's responses to the criteria and the associated site plan labeled as attachment 3A. Along with the required transportation improvements outlined in the staff report and in the city transportation and NCDOT memos labeled attachments 3B and 3C respectively. Other document attachments related to the request are also included in the overall hearing package as specified in the transportation use permit report. The second item that will require action is the major special use permit case M180003. The applicant is proposing an elementary educated facility within a residential zoning district which typically requir