Good afternoon and welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The Durham Planning Commission are appointed members as an advisory board to the city council and the board of county commissioners, and you should know that any of the items before us this evening, the elected officials will have the final vote on any of those issues. Tonight's meeting is being held virtually using the Zoom meeting platform. In this virtual meeting platform, participants do not have the ability to talk or be seen on video by default. To maintain meeting decorum and a discernible record of the meeting, the chat function has been disabled. Speakers will be given the opportunity to speak during the meeting. If you've been pre-registered, we'll call you when we get to the case, and you'll be able to give us your name, your mailing address, and make your comments. If you joined the meeting and didn't sign up in advance, you'll have the ability to raise your hand using the Zoom function.  To join the meeting, to call in, you can dial<PHONE_NUMBER>. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative, so if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is not favorable. May we have the roll call, please? Good evening, Chair Busby and other commissioners. Chair Busby, I'm aware of two absences for this evening. That would be Commissioner MacGyver and Commissioner Cease. Do you know of anyone else? I believe Commissioner Durkin as well. Okay. We'll start the roll call. Commissioner Amandoya. Here. Baker. Here. Busby. Here. Cameron. Here. Cut right. Here. Cainchin. Here. Low. Present. Miller. Present. Morgan. Here. And Williams. Here. Okay. Great. And we have a quorum. Thank you. If we could make a motion for the chair. I was going to make that motion. Thank you. Commissioner Miller. I move that we get a motion. We have a quorum. Thank you. If we could make a motion for the chair. I was going to make that motion. Thank you. Commissioner Miller. I move that we excuse from service this evening. Commission members Durkin, MacGyver and Cease. Seconded. Thank you. Motion by Commissioner Miller, seconded by Commissioner Morgan. And we'll have the roll call vote. Okay. Amandoya. Yes. Baker. Yes. Amandoya. Yes. Right. Well, I'm going to ask our. Councillor. Yes. Busby. Yes. Cameron. Yes. Cut right. Yes. Canyon. Yes. Yes. Oh. I. Commissioner Miller. Yes. Yes. Morgan. Yes. And Williams. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And we will move to the approval of the minutes and the consistency statements from our May 11th, 2021 meeting. If there are any items that people would like to make changes to we can make those now and if not we can have a motion for approval. Chair Busby I just wanted to let the commissioners know that we did make some edits based on Commissioner Cease's request. So the minutes were updated online per Commissioner Cease's request, hopefully, I'm assuming they were. And just out of curiosity, which direction did we go in? He had two options to dial it back or add a little detail. I think we added some detail. The staff member Mr. Cahill took care of that and I apologize. It was late night last night. I think we were with option two. So option two. Great. That was my preference. I'm comfortable accepting a motion and a second if commissioners you are. Is there any way to share a screen so that the people who are participating can know what we're talking about since we're all talking about something that happened by email offline. Even though it's just the minutes, I'm always a little uncomfortable when when we do business cryptically. If I could get someone to share the minutes on the screen please. The minutes for May 11th and we'll just scroll down to yeah they're working on it right now. We'll scroll down to that section so everyone can see it. Grace while we do that in the interest of saving time if you live any adjustments to tonight's agenda. Staff does not have any adjustments to tonight's agenda. We would like to remind everyone that we will be inviting commissioners Miller and kitchen back next month for resolutions. I just wanted to point that out to be sure we would like for the for both of them to be present next month and we will make sure we do that at the beginning of the meeting if that was if that works for them and but no adjustments tonight now would like to state for the record that all public hearing notices were carried out in accordance with state and local law. Thank you. It looks like our excellent staff is going straight to the section that was updated in the minutes and we added the the information about the purpose of the PDR district as stated in the UDO. Right good. Was it just that one section? Yes. Thank you. Well under those circumstances Mr. Chairman if it's in order I'll move the approval of the minutes as amended. Second. Thank you. Move by Commissioner Miller seconded by Commissioner Amandolia and we'll have the roll call vote. Hang on one second. Okay. Amandolia. Yes. Baker. Yes. Busby. Yes. Cameron. Yes. Cut right. Yes. Kenshin. Yes. Low. Miller. Yes. Morgan. Yes. Cease. Oh Cease is not here. Excuse me. Williams. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll move to our first case this evening. It is case Z1900027 griffin place and we'll start with the staff report. One moment. Let me pull that up. Any culture with the planning department. If you recall this case was continued from the April 13th 2021 Planning Commission meeting to allow for determinations to be made on the northern Durham Parkway alignment for this site and the adjacent industrial proposed industrial site to the south. Since it's been two months that the case has been heard I am going to provide a another preview of this case. The request for the case Z1900027 griffin place was received from Fred Shekels of 10 Oaks Realty LLC who's the applicant and Jamie Guerrero Morris and Richie Associates in North Carolina. PA acting as the agent for three parcels located at 2308 East Geer Street 2315 Feral Road and 2402 Carpenter Road totaling 84.84 acres. The site is within the county's jurisdiction submitted under the city's approval for pending annexation of case BDG 1900015. The applicant proposes the changes zoning designation of the site from rural residential are residential suburban 20 RS 20 and industrial light I L to plan residential of the development residential 5.5878 PDR 5.578 for a maximum of 462 residential dwelling units 168 single family and 294 townhouses. The sites located in the suburban development tier and the falls Jordan watershed protection District B or FJB overlay and also the mass transportation corridor 85 overlay or MTC 85. The future land use map for the flume is designated as office low density residential industrial and recreation and open space. If the zoning is approved the recommended flume proposed is low density or low to medium density residential and recreation open space. And the zoning context. If you notice the threat of the area hatched in that's hatched is the site. And culture sort of interrupt. We actually can't see anything on the screen at the moment. Oh, it's not showing up. Excuse me. Let me go back. It's not being shared. I don't see it. I apologize. It didn't share. Is it being shared now? We're getting there. Okay. So that the actual let me do a cancel so that we stop share just green share. It should have actually pulled up the presentation to share. My apologies. There we go. Let me see if that clicks on. There it goes. Okay. So can you see the arrow mount for the context map now? Is that showing up? Yes. Yes. Okay. I apologize. It just didn't share. Anyway, the in the hatched area is the the site. If you notice, there's adjacent industrial and commercial to the north. And also there are several different zonings, real residential RS 20 and PDR types of zonings. And also the site is being in on the right and shows the proposed zoning as PDR aerial photo. It's currently undeveloped with mixture of pine and hardwood vegetation. There are also jurisdictional streams and some honey deer floodplain. If you notice to the north of the site, this is a super Walmart. And also there is the the Glen Elementary School and surrounding neighborhood single family housing and vacant land in all directions. There's key text commitments for the site, five foot sidewalk connection for the intersection of the site access and in East Gear Street to the existing sidewalk located along North Gear Street that fronts Glen Elementary School. 25 foot green light easement along the Western parcel boundary. They're proposing electrical vehicles electric vehicles charging stations. They're increasing their stormwater capture systems to 100 year storm event, several recreational open space components and also there are many traffic commitments listed for this as required for the TIA existing site conditions. Again, mixed pine and hardwood site is bounded by Gear Street and also the parcels are split by Farrell Road, Junction Road and Carpenter roads. Proposed conditions. It's there's proposed collector street network by the Dornland-Burton Parkway. It shows the external access points. The tree coverage locations, project boundary buffers, maximum densities, required open spaces, the impervious surfaces are committed at 50%. And since the previous public hearing along the Northern Durham Parkway, the applicant has committed to proffering project boundary buffers adjacent to both sides of the Northern Durham Parkway. And again, you see the flood plain and the stream buffers to the south. And the comprehensive plan policies are all being met except for the future land use designation. So if the applicant, if the plans approve the request for the flimed in that designation would be for the low and medium density designation. And staff has no other comments and is available for questions. Thank you, Mr. Coltrue. We will open the public hearing. And we've got a number of individuals who signed up to speak on both sides. So we will start with the proponents. I'm going to jump around here a little bit. My list is a little is all kind of co-mingled, so I'm sort of unpacking it as we go. But we can start with the applicant team, which I know is Jared Edens and I believe Fred Shekels. And Mr. Edens, if you can kick us off and let us know who else is with your team, and then I can work through the proponents from there. Thank you, Chair Busby. Jared Edens with Eden's Land. Mr. Shekels is our client and developer on the project. I believe that's the only team member that we have with us this evening. I appreciate everyone's time tonight. As Danny mentioned, this project was deferred at the April Planning Commission meeting mainly due to alignment concerns with Northern Durham Parkway. I'll just try to hit a few high points and give an update on the parkway and the alignment. As you recall, at the time, we definitely lobbied to get to deferral. We felt the application could proceed as is. We did not win that argument, obviously, but we wanted to take advantage of the time that we had. So we did have an additional neighborhood meeting about two weeks ago. And we were able to make at least one plan change as a result of some of the concerns of one of the neighbors. And I guess I'll present that now. And this was a late change as a result of the meeting. So it's not on your plan, but we were able to widen one of the buffers to 50 feet on the property. This is adjacent to Mr. Bedoula's farm. I can name the parcel numbers later for clarification if necessary for the change, which will let you know we widened the buffer per his request. As Danny mentioned, we added the buffer to Northern Durham Parkway. That was a specific concern of some of the Planning Commission members at the last meeting. Speaking of Northern Durham Parkway and just traffic in general. So we had a joint meeting on Friday of last week with the Scannnell Group, the Industrial Park property and ourselves and NC DOT. As a result of that meeting, so yesterday we got an email from DOT that was approving the compromise alignment that both groups were shooting for at the last meeting. As you recall, there were three alignments shown. One was our preferred woman Scannnell's preferred and there was a blue interim alignment. That was the compromise alignment. DOT did approve that as a result of Kimberly Horne's hard work and our meeting on Friday. So I was glad to hear that. I think we have the alignment issue resolved. I also want to point out as part of that meeting, we were able to convince DOT that this would be a 35 mile an hour section of Northern Durham Parkway. As you recall, we've had recent the parcel K Planning Commission case where Bradley for residents are obviously having issues with Northern Durham Parkway and the 45 mile an hour speed near the school. We made the argument that we have the same condition here. We have a parkway and a school nearby and residents against a park adjacent to the parkway. So DOT went along with us there and we know that the posted speed limit for this section will be 35, which we think is a win for everyone. General traffic comments. I know there are concerns about traffic, but I mean, honestly, we don't have many residential projects that are committing to 3 traffic signals. If warranted by DOT, 2 of those signals are at 85 on and off ramps, which I think is a benefit to the community. And the staff report, if you just look at the numbers, the zoning is a great reduction in trips from what the current zoning is. It's almost 9,000 less trips in a 24 hour period as compared to the current zoning. The staff report also points out that Farrell Road, which is the main road impacted here, is only at about 30% capacity currently. So although I understand the concerns, I think with the signals and existing conditions, I don't think it would be a long-term issue. Stormwater, we did detain a hundred year storm as mentioned previously. I want to talk a little bit about density if I could. We're at about 5.6 an acre. Some argue that that's too high and it should be lower than I understand those arguments. But I also think that you could make an argument that it should be higher than what it is. To be honest, if you look at the area in general and its location, it's definitely undergoing a change. There's several reasons to have density here. I mean, you have very close proximity to shopping, very close proximity to major employment. It's not just the million square foot flex space that's planned adjacent, which is going to have all those jobs and manufacturing jobs and things like that. But if you look at the location of the site, it's a 13 minute drive to downtown Durham. We've heard of all the employment coming to downtown Durham. It's a 22 minute drive to RTP. RTP is undergoing record job growth even during COVID. The bus line is right at the site at the Walmart Center. That bus line runs through downtown to RTP. You're within walking distance of a school, your convenience 85 and all that flexibility that provides. So we think that density is would be a good idea here. Couple other things to point out, we do have an extensive trail system planned. We're committing to a total of one and a half miles of trail on the project. This is this is all trail located outside of the sidewalks that line the roads. So if neighbors, you know, once you're at the development, you'll have access to those public sidewalks and roadways and they connect to the trails and which connect to the pocket parks and dog parks. And I think those are all things that would benefit people that live there now. Again, I appreciate your time this evening. I'll be glad to answer any questions you have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Edens. We will call on the other individuals who signed up to speak as proponents. So we had four other individuals. And one was a definitive yes, we do a new thing. I'm just going to explain it so people understand when people sign up, they're given the option now to say yes, I'd like to speak. I'm undecided if I'd like to speak or no, I don't think I want to speak but I put my name down. I'm just going to read through all those names just to give people that opportunity. And that way if you're here, and you want to speak, you have the opportunity if you would like to decline, you can decline and we can move forward. The first speaker is Patrick Biker. Yes, good evening, Chairman Busby. Can you all hear me okay? Yes, please go ahead. Wonderful. Chairman Busby members of the Planning Commission. My name is Patrick Biker. I live at 2614 Stewart Drive. I'm an attorney with Morningstar Law Group. I'm here tonight representing Scannnell properties. As Jared mentioned, Scannnell is in the process of annexing slightly more than 200 acres directly south of this of Griffin Place. Within that 200 acres, we anticipate building in excess of one million square feet of light industrial space. We are proponent for Griffin Place. In accordance with the staff report that you just heard, we think housing is appropriate. This location close to the jobs that will be created within the Scannnell properties light industrial part. Our only request on the record is for the determination that was just recently made by NCDOT. Again, we thank the Planning Commission for the 60 day deferral because it took NCDOT 59 days to arrive at that conclusion. But for that determination on the alignment of Northern Durham Parkway to be reflected on the development plan and the site plan for Griffin Place. With those conditions, we are proponents of this project. Thank you. Be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Patrick. Next is Taryn Kavanaugh, who also signed up to speak as a proponent. Yes, hi there. Can you hear me? Yes, please go ahead. My name is Taryn Kavanaugh. I live at 120 Turkey Oak in Cardinal Oaks neighborhood. I believe the proposed land is as right off off of that and she wrote I am I'm glad I was able to just learn more about about this. I'm not opposed to the development. I think what we have learned based off of last meeting in this meeting has been beneficial. So thank you. Thank you for your comments. Before we move on to Lindsay Dawn, I did notice that Jamie Guerrero signed up and was not looking to speak, but I see that they are in attendance. So Jamie, if you would like to speak, I just want to give you that opportunity. You're welcome to say I decline and we can go from there. So Jamie, I think we have unmuted your microphone if you are. Chair, I'm sorry, this is Mr. Jen. He's actually part of our development team. I didn't realize he was on the call. So I apologize for that. Thank you. No problem. Jamie off. I'm a little talk again. You can go ahead, Jamie. I apologize. Looks like he's muted at the moment. This is Jamie Guerrero. I have nothing to add at this time. But I'm here in case there's some questions that come up. Thank you. As we will move on then and these are individuals who signed up who would like to speak as opponents and each individual will have two minutes or so. So again, give us your name, your mailing address and share your comments. And we'll start with Lindsey Dunn. Hey, everyone. Lindsey Dunn here, 2522 Farrell Road. Nice to see you all again. As Mr. Edens mentioned, there was a community meeting held by him that residents were invited to attend via Zoom. And that was helpful in being able to ask questions. My sticking point was and continues to be the density of the development proposed at 462 units with that average of 5.6 units per acre being as high as it is. It's such a big contrast to what we have now. There were two questions asked I thought were pretty insightful. One was Mr. Edens, would you want to live there in the proposed area? Mr. Edens, I think you're from place. And his answer was that he had lived somewhere similar before indicating he's moved out and on. And everyone acknowledges we have a housing crisis, especially one of affordable housing. Yet the price continues to skyrocket. Another question that I asked is why did you choose the number that you had being that 462 units? And the answer seemed to come down to that meeting a minimum standard. And I'm just wondering if this is the best we can do for our residents. I asked the planning commission that you wait until someone proposes a development that will be an asset to our city and neighborhood instead of and something for the good of the residents and to reward companies who have taken the time to really get to know what will fit into a community. I look at examples like the Eastern Glenstone neighborhood as proof that such a thing can be done. And this is not it. One more thing he mentioned the industrial park. I still haven't heard what will be in this park.  So I'm not sure you can name that as a great place that people will get jobs. And that's all I have to say. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Next is Jason Bezdula. I know Mr. Bezdula had emailed us before and said he may not be able to make tonight's meeting. I don't see him here, but I just wanted to give the opportunity in case he's here under a different number. All right. I don't I don't see him here. The next is Faith Neary. Thank you guys again for being with us and helping us work through this and understand what's going on. My husband's with me. He's actually going to bring something up, but Jason if you could just come back to him towards the end and just see if he was able to tap in. I'd like to back up what Lindsay Dunn did say especially about the industrial park and actually having jobs for people when no one's really filling up this one that's right around the corner. This one around the corner hasn't ever been full and right now it's only at half capacity and they're in and out. So I was just very curious as to what you proposed to put in this newer industrial park. I hope it will bring more action that will stick around and not just flee because the leases are too high and of course there is always the concern of many houses on one acre, but as I was reading through the document I noticed that there are you're predicting less than a hundred students in the middle middle school, high school, and elementary school, but yet 462 units. How does how do you come up with that number? Like high school, maybe 31 students, elementary school, 21 students, and I'm just wondering how do y'all get these numbers? If there's going to be 462 units I imagine at least half of those are going to have children in schools that need an education and need somewhere to go where they're not overcrowded. It's number two, the impact on schools. Hi everybody, my name is Joe Deary. I'm just going to add to my wife's comments. It says that there's an estimated 31 elementary elementary students, 16 middle school students, and 21 high school students that would impact the local school system. I just find that that is unrealistically low. And I'll just add another note. As a county resident, I've really come into a lot of contest with the county and the city as far as code enforcement. It seems as if there is none in several conversations with who I understand to be the code enforcement officer for the city of Durham. He told me that there is no one for code enforcement in the county. I've looked at all the code ordinances. There are an awful lot of residents running businesses out of their homes. There's an awful lot of litter in this area. The neighborhoods that have come up just down Carpenter and on the other side down Cheek Road. It just seems like the county and the city are not supporting these new developments and I fear the same in this case. I've also been in contact over the last 15 years with state DOT trying to get the speed limits dropped on Feral Carpenter and join the road to no avail. I don't see any mention of speed limits changing on Feral Road. I do anticipate over the years of this development before its completion due to the railroad tracks there at Junction and in Feral that there won't be any long trailered construction equipment going across that intersection and the only thing I see is all this construction equipment coming down Feral Road from the north which would go right across my driveway. I'm at 2517 Feral Road just east of the Carpenter Road intersection and lastly I'll mention I don't see anything in this DOT or traffic let me see traffic impact. I don't see any mention of the intersection at Carpenter and Feral right there at joiners. There's going to be a light there as well. I just would encourage the county commissioners and the planning departments to really think out the traffic patterns a lot better. I feel like this is going to impact a lot more than this being anticipated. Thank you. Thank you both for your comments and just so you know Mr. Eden's and the applicant team they have a few extra minutes so if if they would like we will give them the opportunity to make any additional comments including answering some of your questions that you raised. Thank you very much. Next is Robin Sorrell. Yes can you hear me? Yes. Okay hi I'm Robin Sorrell. I live at 2519 Joyner Road with my family and we've lived here for 41 years. I believe according to the map the development comes right up to the back of our property and it affects our land and our property probably the most of any of the neighbors on each side of us. Mr. Bezula and Mr. Price. So we planted trees along our back line 41 years ago in anticipation of perhaps you know a development coming back there. We just felt like it probably would at some point and you know at this point we're sort of okay with that but as the others I certainly would like to see it be less dense per acre and for us to have for for the developer to not strip that whole piece of property as they do in most cases to leave us a buffer so that we're not looking at the the side or the back of people's homes and you know we feel like you know our personal property is being infringed upon and so that would just be my comment that that the land not be totally stripped and I know it makes it easier to build but that it not be stripped completely of all the trees and that the density be lower. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have three other individuals who signed up. I don't see them with us but I'm going to go through each of their names just in case. Leanne Camp, Andrea Sumner and Nicky Taylor. I don't see any of them here and Mr. Bezula has not had a chance to join the meeting either so let me ask at this point is there anyone else who would like to speak on this particular case during the public hearing? You can digitally raise your hand via zoom or if you're on the phone you can press star 9 to raise your hand. I don't see anyone else but Mr. Reedens I do want to give you additional time for any final remarks including the opportunity to address some of the questions or concerns that have been raised. Yeah thank you Chair Bezula. I appreciate that. I'll try to speak to four or five of these quickly if I could. Yeah I was asked at the meeting if I would live in a neighborhood like that and yes I my first home was in a neighborhood exactly like that with lots that size and I did move out of that home but that's because I lived in a starter home and this project that the target market here is starter homes and people often start that's why they're called starter homes because they did move on to the location so I didn't move out because of lack 11 the neighborhood I just outgrew the house is what tends to happen. The student count observation of course that's a staff report we do not generate the numbers and that's not what we do the staff does that but I think that report is comparing proposed zoning to existing zoning and what the difference in kids would be I don't think that's saying that out of 462 homes and I'm going to have 32 elementary students Danny can clarify that but I think that's being misinterpreted. I understand the code enforcement issues in the county fortunately this project will be annexed into the city as part of the project so the city does have an active code enforcement office in a planning department. Keep in mind we're also going to have an HOA for this neighborhood the city mandates that we set up an HOA HOA's also do some of their own enforcement just keep that in mind. I'm so concerned about possible construction equipment I understand that often on large projects like this ncdot will serve existing adjacent roadways that require applicants or construction companies to put up bonds delweb if you recall Andrews Chapel Road delweb rebuilt large portion of that and that was due to ncdot inspection and bonding so I don't know how DOT is going to approach that here but I would imagine that would be in the cards and also to to Miss Searle who requested the buffer I mean fortunately we did add a buffer to her property as well only Mr Bezula ask us for the additional for the wider 50 foot buffer but we did extend it up those four parcels him and the three parcels north of him and again I can give Danny those numbers later but but we did add a buffer there per her desire and I'll be glad taking any other questions thank you thank you we are going to close the public hearing and commissioners we will move to you and Commissioner Miller I see your hand is raised we'll start with you sorry landline was ringing so I have some some questions kind of all around if I can I would like to ask Jared some questions Jared remind me is the right-of-way for the North Durham Parkway through Griffin Griff place dedicated or merely reserved it's being reserved this is similar to um we do this also at Briar Creek for the ACC Boulevard extension we reserve that right away at delweb also all right thank you um and I also it's not really a question but I wanted to thank thank you and Patrick biker and all the parties concerned for straightening out the the North Durham Parkway alignment and so the question that flows from that is did the change in the alignment affect your unit count Jared not to the point of needing to modify the application I mean the changing the alignment has always been extremely minor on our side of Farrell Road most of the alignment changes are are through the adjacent property but it's not a major impact to where you would change any of your your pdr density count or anything like that all right thank you very much and then because commission member Durkin isn't here I will ask the questions that she normally asks is there anything in your development plan and the commitments associated with it relating to affordable housing or housing affordability I appreciate the question yeah we always we've we've proffered affordable housing payments on every reasoning we've had since inception of the fund we always make that proffer at council because I feel that that that's council's fund and a council decision but we have a rate that we've used for years now and we would definitely be proffering that affordable payment at at the council meeting what's that rate $150 a unit we've used that probably eight ten times thanks um the buffers that we learned about tonight if to rehearse those you're proposing a 20 foot wide buffer down each side of the north Durham Parkway as it goes through the single family homes portion of the project is that right correct anywhere there are lots adjacent to northern Durham there'll be a 20 foot buffer and can you tell us what the opacity figure for that buffer will be I believe we're matching what the the standard is for the boundary buffers which is 0.4 yeah it's 40 percent and and then there was a proffer of a 50 foot buffer for the properties that face joiner but back up to your property um what would the opacity in that be that's honestly I don't I don't know those numbers uh the chart has I would imagine it may be 0.6 but I don't want to say because I don't I'm not the landscape percenter office as to what that would equate to but it would be per the the code standard for a 50 foot buffer would it be safe to say that it's uh 0.4 or higher I think that would be correct yes this is dany culture uh the equivalent of a 50 foot buffer is an 80 percent opacity oh 80 and so dany uh because this is a concern of one of the neighbors who spoke can you explain what that means um well the opacity is how much you can see through a buffer so you know 80 percent is is pretty opaque 100 percent is fully opaque that you can't see through it at all and so what we're talking about is is is mature plant materials or other materials would have to be put in the buffer to create that 80 opacity at least at maturity is that what that means well and actually if if a buffer is is uh is proffered at 80 opacity uh that means you can't actually even grade into it it would have to be left untouched uh if if it's uh if it's vegetated if it's existing vegetation you wouldn't be able to grade into that uh you would have to leave it uh untouched as is and and you might even have to supplement vegetation to bring it up to 80 percent opacity in places maybe and so and then what would be on the other side of that buffer would probably be the backyards of single family homes is that right that's as possible i i would need to look yeah i would need to look and see where that's located to yeah it would be the depend on the site plan but but nothing other than uh single family homes and perhaps uh some amenities style building would be in that there would be nothing in that buffer uh no no in the in that section of the project that's the single family home section of the project uh that's possible uh yeah and i i'm not even sure where that location is uh jared hasn't defined for me where that is all right but jared it's it's safe to say that we're talking about the buffering the the property line of those uh of those properties that currently face joiner that's correct and i can read the parcel numbers because i keep promising to you i can't later but you're going to the to the right location that our eastern property line that that is adjacent to those four lots uh the northern side on the northern half of your project exactly jason to mr bajula uh yeah right excellent thank you and then um so then i have a kind of a related question to buffers uh that maybe uh mr biker uh can answer but somebody can answer for me so we're going to build uh residential units in property that is if this is approved we'll be building residential units uh south of gear uh in property that's currently zoned i l uh and so when you've got an i l property against an i l property there's no buffer so i'm assuming that the skinel people have not built a buffer into their plans um and so how uh if at all will will the residential units that would be built in the i l zoned portion of the property how would those be buffered against what's going on the skinel property how well i believe though um i'm not sure the status of the annexation or site plan for skinel but you know if the zoning is ultimately approved and this becomes a residential zoning district that takes effect prior to their site plan annexation be approved their buffer buffers required then they would be required on the skinel to match the most current conditions i believe and and what would that buffer be again i'm i'm not uh maybe dany can yeah um let me look at this again so i can at the development plan um so currently and this is to the to the southern most this is that southern portion the low gear street uh because the skinel property is undeveloped currently the the this site only requires the 20 40 percent opacity buffers a 20 40 percent opacity buffer now let me look in the unified development ordinance at the project boundary buffer table uh and so i can see what the requirement is because that is an i l zoning for that one i believe it's a point eight total commission so when it's all done it'll be a point eight allocated between both uh Griffin Place and skinel properties uh where our annexation is pending before the city council we have we have not submit a site plan and we we really can't do that until after the annexation is approved but beauty requires a point eight total i just wanted somebody to reassure me that this won't be one of those situations because of the shifting zoning that we could wind up with a residential project next to an industrial project without an appropriate buffer is that possible or likely depending upon timing of this it will not be it will not be there there would still have to be the applicable buffers between both properties right it might be on one or the other or shared by both it would be shared by both it's just that because that other one's vacant this one only requires the lesser of the buffer and the other one when it comes in it will have to supplement the remainder of the 80 buffer all right and i'm hoping that when when and if that occurs that the two developers will coordinate a well-designed and well-tended buffer and then switching back to the the north Durham parkway this is for city staff can somebody give me a picture a mental picture of what the a section of that road would look like in the griffin place property the north side we're going to build the north Durham parkway through there we learned today that's going to be on a new alignment that shifts a little bit towards the west and that the design speed will be 40 miles per hour for an actual speed limit of 35 miles an hour and that we're going to have homes backing up to that that will have a 20 foot wide planted buffer but what will the actual section of that roadway look like itself can anybody tell me what that would look like what what the planning would be miss thomas that would be better for early yes yes early in thomas transportation so the full build-up out crawl section for the northern Durham parkway is a four lane divided facility with bicycle and pedestrian facilities incorporated so so starting at one property line i'm envisioning that we would have some right of way and then a sidewalk and then a little bit more right of way uh because sidewalk you don't want the sidewalk right up against the curb and then we will have two lanes and then then we will have some sort of division there uh which may be concrete but it may be with with 110 feet we've got some room to work uh it might actually be grassy and then we would repeat the same thing on the other side unless unless alignment inside the right of way required us to use it uh lopsided way will there be street trees so the udo does require street trees within the right of way so i guess if you needed a mental picture it would be similar to MLK parkway okay and who would plant those trees this is a going to be a dot who whose road will this be and who will build it this will be a dot road eventually um portions of it are being built by development and then taking over for maintenance by ncdot but currently that's not going to happen here no ncdot will once the road is constructed right yeah the no developer is going to build this uh and if the correct tdot probably doesn't care about what our udo says does it well ncdot has his own planting um guidelines and they do plant trees within the right of way and those types of facilities and so for this the design speed will there be a fence at the outer limit of the uh right of way on either side or is this facility wouldn't warrant a fence um ncdot generally does use fencing for their control for facilities that have controlled access meaning you know there are no interim access points for individual driveways um however i don't know that they do that on every facility all right right well that's very helpful thank you i really appreciate it um and i think i've exhausted my questions everybody's been patient thank you very much mr chairman thanks mr miller had trouble with my mute button uh we will move to commissioner amandolia thank you chair uh my first question is for patrick biker i know you haven't yet hit site plan and you're not in the leasing business but i'm curious if you or your client already have a sense of the type of facilities that'll be in this industrial park um some helpful figures if you have estimates would be a number of jobs estimated or number of businesses that might be in the area in kind of a sense of the industries and potential pay scales that those businesses might pay nothing specific at this time sorry um thank you uh second thing i had i did want to address um faith neary's comments about schools um because i do think sometimes the kind of projections we have in these reports can be a little confusing um and i think jared is correct that when it says plus 31 elementary students plus 16 middle school and plus 21 high school that's an addition those are additional students based off of this proposed zoning and so if it were zoned if this rezoning worked to pass that second row is perhaps the more useful to get an idea of the expected impact based off of this proposal um which would be that 40 elementary 21 middle school and 28 high school students um and i'd love to give danie a chance to add anything or correct anything that i have said help provide some clarity on that i'll try to to summarize how we derive that and i might get my michael stock to add onto that too we have a matrix that was developed years ago several years ago in conjunction with Durham public schools uh and uh it's a spreadsheet that's developed uh we put in numbers uh based on single family townhouses apartment units uh and it it spread it spits out the number for us uh based on the number of units that we derive that uh so it gives us the numbers based on the total number of units and based on each unit type uh but it was developed in conjunction with Durham public schools uh so um and that's what we utilize based on the proposed zonings that we have correct danie's correct sorry michael stock with the planning department um it's a multiplier based upon um the type of unit um it was developed with Durham public schools it's not a perfect estimate um but it is an estimate um the other i mean there's so many different um contingencies when you're even thinking about the number of kids that uh a development is is going to generate um a it's just that basic multiplier and it's an estimate but the Durham um has lots of housing not housing but um school choices um you can go to your neighborhood school you can go to a magnet school you can go to a charter school private schools um in my own neighborhood i like to bring it up um i i can pick i can think of five or six different schools just for elementary schools that all the kids in my neighborhood are going to not just my local my local elementary school where my kids go so um we are working actually right now with dps to update um that those student generation rates i'm actually we have a meeting with them this week um so hopefully um we will get um uh improved methodology um but i do anticipate that whatever methodology we come up with it'll still be a an estimate great and so uh if i could summarize essentially there's a model that just estimates how many students there are um and it's based off of data we have currently about how many students are in the school system and current population trends and we make our best guess um i do have a follow-up question for staff um about this because i've wondered about it before is it possible within the model to get kind of an idea of which schools in particular might be most impacted um i think having just kind of like an overall like high level capacity capacity information could be a little bit confusing and it might not necessarily show like particular schools are over capacity um that might be influenced by different projects uh we do actually look at the schools that are available in the immediate area and they do have capacity numbers and and we uh use those numbers against those schools that are in the immediate area uh so so we know whether they are at capacity or over capacity when we generate those numbers for these reasonings okay and so if they were ever at or over capacity would they make their way into the staff report they would okay great thank you um the last question i had was um for earling about the north northern Durham parkway um and this question is maybe a little bit weedy but essentially i'm thinking about um the impact that lane width can have on uh not speed limits but actual speeds traveled and so i'm curious if you have an opinion on whether people will drive at a 35 mile power speed limit based on the lane but it's here or if you think that the lane width would be conducive to um lots of speeding so earling thomas transportation so with ncdot's agreement to the lower design speed they will also be looking for and requiring other design commitments that um really reinforce lower speeds um with shorter straight sections of roadway um you know with the curves in the design as well as um separated multi-use path facilities for bicyclists and pedestrians so there will be other design elements incorporated um into this section that really gets toward lower driver speeds great thank you so much uh those are all the questions i had thank you chair thank you commissioner williams you're next thank you so much chair buzzby um i want to first thank uh miss dunn for her statements early on um she kind of fit the tone pretty much for um the method in which i'm thinking in terms of how we're approaching development and working on things and as i was reading through this proposal um i did have a question before i get into what my thought processes are what are the average sizes of these single family um homes as well as these these town homes square footage if you have that as of yet if you don't then i guess you just don't yeah miss williams i know that we did have a zone condition that um limits the width of the town homes to 20 feet which i know would be conducive i mean i don't have the square footages they are supposed to be smaller units uh this is you know a workforce starter home type housing so they they'll be on the smaller side but i don't have the exact numbers with me right now okay i was asking that because it was compared to malon woods with a price point of 225 thousand dollars which is fairly average in the average square foot home for that is 1360 and those are single family homes so i was just wondering if there was uh any representation for that but i did have some thoughts um when i looked at the price point at 180 thousand dollars or 220 thousand dollars i could see how that would be fairly reasonable for the average home buyer in a starter home but i did have a concern because i see that there's a um a dog park that has a square footage of 43,560 square feet yet for these kids and these people that will be moving into this area you only have a lot of 8,712 square feet for the kids to play in and i'm assuming most of these people won't have front yards so i was kind of concerned that there was more uh space given to the the pets than it was to the kids and the total linear square feet for both the sidewalk and the trail and the space for the kids only came up to a total of 16,552 square feet so that was something i was definitely uh wondering about i was also thinking about um since this is going to be convenient to this new uh million square foot lot is there some type of recommendation that's going to be given in the pitch point so it's supposed to be convenient for people to work in that new development that hey we're building this we're going to have new jobs because you possibly buy a home in this new development to kind of cut down on the amount of traffic since there's obviously no improvement to bus stops or any type of travel in that area but sidewalks are being built i know there's probably not something that you guys have worked out considering the fact that you didn't want to delay the previous meeting in order to work out the corridor adjustments to make sure that that worked with the project that was being proposed so i was just wondering because the question was posed by one of the residents as to what properties or what uh jobs would be coming to this area and since you know mr edin said that this is going to be convenient to the new working spot i don't know that we can guarantee that the people moving into this neighborhood are going to want to work there any more than we can guarantee that they're going to want to shop at that Walmart so i just think that i think that the density is high i think that 462 units is is high in this area i do realize that you are committing to a 100 year floodplain runoff and it's already being built in a 100 year floodplain area i think that given the amount of proposed units in this particular area are going to create unforeseen circumstances but due to a lack of fault process in in planning and what we're trying to get to and i definitely have concerns about the fact that density is needed in this area um density is not needed in an area where the infrastructure does not support it and i'm totally against the thought process that if you build it they will come sometimes they will sometimes they won't and the traffic adjustments being made for coming off of 85 and different things like that's not really an issue when we have other neighborhoods on cheek road and junction road those areas need to be upgraded to handle the amount of traffic that will be coming to and for this area especially on junction road because once you leave junction road and you can cross over to 98 and Ross Road and some uh long-standing neighborhoods you kind of have some issues you've gone you're going to increase traffic on those people trying to avoid 540 and highway 70 because they can cross over junction road pick up 98 take us 50 pick up capital boulevard so in 98 is a too late highway i know it's not your concern it's just that these may be things that the average developer does not think about and i think that the responsibility to the neighbors of the existing people it outweighs the sometimes the the lack of consideration for new neighborhoods as they're coming in and what those impacts will be and i think that a lot of times it's just because the land is available and i think that most developers piggyback out the fact that we've had an administration that defines density is the answer to the problem so i think that we've got to be extremely considerate in terms of how we go about doing it and i think the fact that miss dunn said that the question was asked how did you arrive at a number 462 and i think the basic response to that was because it could be done and to me that doesn't really exemplify any type of planning it doesn't exemplify any type of intention behind this project besides the fact that it's available but we have a very serious issue that we're trying to actually address within the city and the county of Durham and i think that though the resident voices were small today they definitely were heard and i think that we need to move with as much intention and responsibility as possible as we move forward and i also acknowledge the fact that we are an advising body to the city council and my notes and my comments will reflect that going forward and hopefully they will take that into consideration as they vote on this so i did want to be vocal about my standpoints and my concerns about where the priorities lie in terms of this development where's going why it's being implemented and why it's there and i do appreciate traffic lights i do appreciate the ability to control certain amounts of things that you can control and i don't know that traffic lights are the answer because traffic lights generally cause more congestion than it cause anything else they definitely don't really help unless you turn it across four lanes of traffic and there's no turn light a lot of times traffic lights just cause traffic so that's pretty much all the comments that i have as far as your development is concerned um yeah that's it Williams any other commissioners who would like to speak i will just say to my fellow commissioners uh i had a lot of concerns when this was in front of us last time a number of them have now been addressed it's not this isn't everything i would like to see but i think as commissioner william said we we have seen some citizens who came tonight to support this in in the area and some who have raised some concerns that i think are valid concerns um but i'm on the fence i i think the fact that the speed limit has been reduced i high concerns about the higher speed limit right near a school i still have some concerns about the the parkway being right there but i say all that to say i would welcome any additional feedback or comments from my fellow commissioners if you have them before we would move to a motion for approval and a vote on this i don't see anyone else raising their hands so it is also an appropriate time for a motion mr chairman in connection with case z 19 0007 uh the development at griffin place i move that we send it forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation second it's properly moved by commissioner miller seconded by commissioner amandolia and we will have roll call vote amandolia yes baker no let's be yes cameron cut right no can chen yes low pass miller no morgan yes williams no it passes six four commissioner well were you passing to vote again in a moment or passing in for the entire vote not only yes oh i'm sorry he voted yes i heard pass my my mistake i'm sorry i apologize that's okay thank you everyone we don't i don't think we have a pass option not even on your last meeting um commissioner i was sitting here thinking i've never seen that before uh my apologies for mishearing that and we will move to the next item and we have case z 2 quadruple zero four six the old behemah fire station and we'll start with the staff report thank you very much michael stock with the planning department uh my colleague alexander cahill will be running the um uh presentation so might so i don't cut out on you um also that is why i'm not showing my video so i can stay in contact with you um let's see it i'll start once it pops up there we go cool thank you very much um this is a request by the uh behemah volunteer uh fire department um for two parcels um both have the address of 1426 behemah road located in the county the existing zoning of of the parcels are one parcel is owned commercial neighborhood at cn and the other parcel is owned rs 20 residential suburban 20 and both are located in fact that whole area is located in the uh lake mickey little river watershed overlay the existing future land use designations is commercial for the cn zone property and very low density residential for the rs 20 property it is in a rural tier all the behemah areas and with rural tier and the overall site site acreage of both parcels uh totals uh 0.76 acres the proposal is to bring both parcels under one uh zoning designation cn with the text only development plan so we'll have a d on it so it would be cnd and the recommended flume would be to if it was approved zoning would approve it would the designation of the very low density residential parcel would change to commercial to match with the cn the text only proposal is to prohibit bars nightclubs and other similar establishments that serve open alcohol on the premises that those uses would not be allowed next slide please as you can see the site is along behemah road just just south of the intersection with stagville the the site fronts along behemah road and you can see in the peach color uh the area that is currently zoned cn including the that one parcel and then the back parcel is zoned rs 20 um next slide please and the similar uh uh flume designations match those zoning designations uh pretty much again uh the parcel fronting along behemah road already uh designated as commercial and the request if approved would change the back portion also to commercial designation uh next slide and there is an aerial shot um generally uh all the development around uh that site is of a commercial uh development uh small-scale commercial development there's a old post office there there's um electrical contractor's office um there's a gun shop and there's some other uses around there also um next slide this is just the um plat um of the area i tried to in my shaky drawing hand kind of show the outline of the two parcels as you can see the parcel that fronts along behemah road serves as the driveway and service entrance to the site of the building itself which is and in the report you've seen uh photos of the fire station itself um next slide um and again uh the proposal would be for uh cn with a text only development plan and the prohibition as proposed by the applicant is to prohibit bars night clubs and they know there's some more uses serving open alcohol we're on site and um there was a neighborhood meeting that was held this application was submitted um prior to the uh uh covid outbreak it's an older application they did uh hold neighborhood meetings in conjunction with the requirements at that time uh and that information is provided there was one phone call that staff received and i wasn't i did not receive the phone call um and it was from a a neighbor who indicated that she would that she was sort of i believe it was a female caller um uh indicated a concern about property values but um that that was the only uh resident or any other community member contact staff had had received and this case has not been on social pinpoint uh for that long um so the point um is a newer application next slide final slide and again um except for the flume designation for that one that rs 20 parcel um staff determines that the request is consistent um with comprehensive plan and other adopted ordinances and plans um and again if the uh zoning is approved the site um that has a designation a very low residential would be converted to a commercial designation thank you i'll be happy to answer any questions and i believe the behemoth uh representatives from the behemoth fire a volunteer fire company are also present thank you we'll open the public hearing and we did have three individuals who signed up to speak as proponents and they are len needham brian eaton and jennifer ganzer and so you are welcome to give us your name your mailing address and uh take a few minutes to share your comments everyone here right now yes okay sorry about that um uh good evening chairman buzz me and the rest of the commissioners my name is ryan eaton i live at 105 pinecrest drives i'm the president of the hand fire department board of directors i'm also here with uh chief len needham who's the five chief of hand fire department uh we are both proponents uh for the zoning change and essentially we're just here to take any questions you might have thank you both very much and jennifer ganzer is she in attendance hi i'm in attendance thank you um i support the petition as a nearby neighbor no comments at this time great and what's your mailing address miss ganzer um 95 18 quail roost road thank you very much thank you if there is anyone else who was in attendance they would like to speak on this item you can raise your hand and we can recognize you okay don't see anyone new who's raised their hand so we will close the public hearing and commissioners any questions or comments commissioner miller yeah this is kind of interesting i wrote out there i have a couple of questions um uh i mean it's obvious that this building was kind of tucked back behind because it was convenient the property that actually front's behemoth road is pretty narrow it just provides a driveway um and then there is a kind of a drive that runs all the way through the property and comes out like is that stagfold that it enters on to or i don't know what that road is at the that when it cuts the corner there is that just a drive or is that a public street can anybody answer that kind of the back way out of this property yes but this is brandy and again that is just a driveway and will that stay or will that get cut off that would stay at this time yes sir and so then my question for the staff is is if this property is being used uh uh for cn uses can you have a driveway a private drive that goes over residentially zoned property for access well it's an exit doesn't michael stockwood playing departments existing condition um technically that would not be something that would meet ordinance requirements but um i'm not aware of anything that would prevent someone from using it if they so chose to use it obviously it's running through a different person's private property and um if they had concerns they would definitely uh not want that traffic uh going but um that would be addressed at site plan um and then the question comes is is if somebody brought a site plan for this property as a cn piece of property could a site plan be approved with an access point over a residential piece of property it's an existing condition so i don't i'm not aware of any condition that would require them to cut it off or um remove the driveway but they can't propose it as their as their only entrance um and um it would be an enforcement issue after that if they made uh improvements to the parking or or something like that would they be allowed to keep it i don't see why they wouldn't be allowed to keep it because it's an existing condition um all traffic would be required to be um directed towards behamer road all right uh and then the next question is is i want to make sure i understand the cn zone as it might be applied up up here in behamer uh how big a building could that could could be on this property zone cn with what are the dimensional requirements that help me with that because there's a square footage requirement there's a height requirement can yeah let me pull that information up for you hold on for one second thank you michael i thought i had to pull it up and i apologize for the delay i'm sorry i should look myself i didn't think about it until we were talking so in the rural tier cn is obviously allowed um they do have um it was noted that um this there's a minimum lot area actually the eight minimum lot acreage because of the overlay um has a three acre minimum that's currently nonconforming but um it's an existing nonconformity so it wouldn't necessarily prohibit development um there's a uh the maximum building square footage is 20 000 square feet project floor area um building coverage percentage though is a maximum of 23 percent and the height would be 25 feet maximum so some follow-up questions so this site isn't if we rezoned it we would have a site that would still be too little for cn can we do that yes it's a currently it's currently nonconforming no matter what the zoning is because because of the watershed overlay so um so it's the issue isn't that um the cn zoning is is creating any new nonconformity the watershed overlay already has that three acre minimum it's compounding the nonconformity to double in down on it actually it's actually it would alleviate the nonconformity because it's adding property to a site that's already zoned cn and it's it's reducing the nonconformity by enlarging the site it's reducing it but it isn't reducing it enough that's that's okay by ordinance all right that seems strange to me and so the existing building then is the building that's going to be there uh because even if this is approved you wouldn't be able to build on the the nonconforming property unless you stayed on the footprint of the current building is that right what could you make on this property if this rezoning goes through you could i don't know the exact plans for you might want to ask the application but i want to know what i can do not what they plan to do i understand that thank you um there are setback requirements which are minimum 25 feet so and a lot of the surface is already impervious surface so they could build a bigger building if they so chose um 20 000 square foot maximum but 23 percent building coverage i don't know the percentage of the building to the building coverage requirement so that would have to be taken into consideration so even if the lot is too small you could still build outside the current footprint yeah but nonconforming lot doesn't equate to nonconforming structure those are two separate nonconforming situations and i'm not i'm not certain that the building itself is a nonconforming structure in and of itself yeah it's it would be close it's two full stories and it it could be right at 25 feet or even a little high right all right well that that's all very useful information and that helped me um thank you very much those are my questions mr term thank you commissioner miller commissioner low thank you chair i really don't have a question that's going to make a comment to um i i met with uh ron eaton and and she uh and then meet him yesterday at the site and uh spoke in depth and just wanting to say that i will be voting for this and hopefully other commissioners will be voting for it as well uh i think the primary purpose here is to prohibit any bar in life of other places of business that serve alcohol consumption and uh again i'll be voting for it and hopefully other commissioners will be voting for it as well thank you thanks commissioner low mr covered uh i guess this is a follow-up to um commissioner miller's concerns and maybe a clarification to commissioner low's i guess what is the point of this um this uh this rezoning i guess i'm not clear like why we why you'd be doing this and so this is for uh mr eaton or uh chiefly need him this is chiefly in need him on 5800 brickhouse road can you hear me okay yes sir yes yes we are um we're wanting to get rid of the property um and just put a little low resident i mean commercial use in there we just want to make it confirming we want to restrict it to try to keep the community and a little small community keep anybody you know in there from alpha hall or anything any disturbance just want a little small shop in there the fire department has moved from that location and we want to take that taxpayer money and put it into some more fire equipment and not have to finance stuff as we can get rid of that property and not have to maintain that so that's what we're doing is just trying to take care of the taxpayers money at the best of our ability very helpful thank you thank you commissioners any other questions or comments seeing none i will accept a motion mr chair then in connection with case z two zero zero zero zero 46 the old behemoth fire station i move that we send this case forward to the is it the board of county commissioners with a favorable report is that is correct that is correct thank you second thank you moved by commissioner miller to send to the board of county commissioners and seconded by commissioner amandoya and we'll have the roll call vote amandoya yes baker yes let's be yes Cameron yes cut right yes kinship oh yes low yes miller yes morgan yes and williams yes thank you chinanimous thank you we're going to move to the next item we do have a new business item which was on the agenda this is the planning commission policy committee block length information item and again this is just information tonight but uh the commissioners that have been working on this committee have given us a update previously and have a the packet in front of us this evening for review and information so we won't vote this evening i think our intention is to look to potentially vote on a resolution next month but i'm going to hand it to commissioner baker and the other committee members to take it from here thank you chair yeah as you mentioned uh the planning committee has the policy committee the planning commission has been working away i'll get into to a little bit of that shortly i have a little powerpoint presentation i have been working closely with commissioner amandoya commissioner williams and commissioner miller um before that we had uh commissioner santiago and and altura before they left the left the commission and um we have we have a number of of work items that that uh we we came up with um the first work item was to to look at connectivity street connectivity specifically looking at block lengths um i'm going to go ahead and and uh share my screen here this short presentation um we so what i'll do is i'll just run through this presentation um hopefully it just you know sparks some interesting conversation uh mostly just pictures of aerials um of different places and then i'll go i'll get into a little bit about what's actually in the packet so hopefully people have had a chance to review it if not you can take a look at it now it's pretty pretty short and sweet um and pretty straightforward uh and then if any of my fellow committee members will like to speak about the item or how we arrived at this item then i hope that they'll they'll feel free to to speak up um so when we talk about connectivity the first thing i i want to bring up is just this uh really old uh map of of durham from 1891 um there's a lot going on here um this is a view of uh downtown durham so you're looking north um from downtown durham you can see uh blackwell street um sort of on the left side of this the screen um we're looking north so you know going west over this way you get to east campus um you know this is where the downtown loop is uh there's a lot going on but i think the main reason i wanted to share this picture was because i think it illustrates the history and the origins of of our streets and our blocks in durham and as you can see what we built off of is a very tight-knit pattern and small blocks and short streets um and the the then suburbs of that time if you look on the upper left side of your screen you can see the then suburbs which is trinity park um highly highly connected street network highly connected uh pattern uh to be built for future development um and so over time uh what we've what we've seen happen in cities not just durham but cities really across the united states especially in the sunbelt um is that that pattern has changed over time as we moved away from travel by uh train and by walking and by horse and buggy um we we moved more toward um travel by automobile and so we started building our cities not for people to travel around but for cars to travel around and you can kind of see how that's impact our impacted our uh our urban um network of streets uh and the main change is the disconnected pattern um blocks used to be small you know 300 to 500 feet in length and today as you can see in the bottom right um blocks are now thousands upon thousands of feet long and sometimes even never connect um and i'll i'll get into that here in a little bit so this is kind of and commissioner baker just just one item i wanted to i should have flagged this in advance i apologize sure we are required to take a break at 730 and it is 705 so i i i was hoping i think my expectation was kind of a brief informational item this evening and we there's one other thing before we wrap up i would love to finish before the break if we can as opposed to needing to take a 10 minute break and then return so i'm just if we can make that work i'd appreciate it sure um so uh let me just skip ahead um we have changed our built pattern over time to become uh less connected uh so here's an example from you know hay tie the close knit block pattern and when we destroyed hay tie we replaced it with this pattern that continues to today the way that we built things today few different examples of that it's important the the connectivity that we have is important because it creates more possibilities from getting from point a to point b um it also divides us it separates us uh so this is a development in Durham that has a variety of housing types um you know townhome single family duplex multi-family commercial but they're all absolutely separated from one another because of the the street pattern that that we build to uh and and what it results in is is is uh is something that looks about a bit like this there's a sidewalk but you could probably stand in a place like this and um you wouldn't see too many pedestrians um bottom here kind of shows our current pattern of growth uh with highly disconnected separation of uses separation of housing types versus the more close knit pattern um and to skip over all this stuff so what why do we care about street connectivity well it shortens walking and biking distances it enhances pedestrian safety it creates more physical activity in our and uh and spurs more physical activity in our built environment lowers um lowers travel times lowers response times from EMS um allows reduced street widths it's kind of an endless endless number of benefits um this is a quote that i won't read out from the journal of the american planning association that gets into those um there are well-known best practices uh from policy guides around the country there are best practices from communities around the country uh and so where how we've gotten to the items that are before you today uh we held five different meetings with the policy committee we developed the committee charge and and working principles and consolidated the list of comprehensive plan policies we then went out to the planning commissioners and talked about priorities and and got feedback established those work items and then we ended up developing three different iterations of the block length standards and as you can see this is our list of work items that was based on that feedback provided by the planning commission and item number one is street connectivity and block length standards so what's before you today is a resolution a draft resolution um and the actual standards themselves so uh one thing i want to point out here with the resolution is um the the first two lines here first of all um the unified development ordinance states that a request to amend the text of the ordinance may be initiated by the planning commission uh and then also when a text amendment is initiated the planning director doesn't need child draft and appropriate ordinance and present that ordinance to the planning commission what we've done here is gone ahead and uh put together an ordinance that that we feel is the best ordinance um this is to initiate a text amendment so uh what we see here and when it comes back to us we will not be voting on it to go forward to the elected bodies uh next time we see this the next time we vote on it we will be voting to initiate the text amendment process just the way anyone else would initiate a text amendment process goes back to the planning department the planning department makes any modifications uh that you know does any studies that need they need to then it would finally come back to us uh so what is actually in the draft ordinance that we came up with it really boils down to this table uh and what the table is showing is on the left hand side you have various zoning districts in the udo uh moving to the right you have a maximum average block length so uh let's say a developer comes in uh they want to build a development on a 80 acre parcel for example as we saw today well their maximum average block length uh in that land would have to fall into this category depending on the zoning district um there's also a maximum block length so there's a maximum average and a maximum uh block length so that would allow more flexibility for for the developer and then there's a maximum perimeter uh block length and then actually the majority of the draft is exceptions so what does not have to follow uh these uh proposed block length requirements of course there are steep slopes there existing buildings and existing neighborhoods and you don't want to cut through a building to uh to meet these standards there are railroad corridors and there are existing roads and wetlands and water bodies and streams and so whenever there's a development that is impacted by these items then it would be accepted from from these requirements and then lastly uh anytime there there were to be a development anytime there were to be a block length that exceeded the maximum average block length but of course met the maximum block length there would need to be a pedestrian connection through through the block uh so next steps as I mentioned this is an informational item today again the the planning commission is not voting on anything this is not a public hearing but the public but the planning commission next time we see this will vote to adopt the resolution to initiate the text amendment then it goes back to the planning department the planning department does its review and any modifications then the jccpc reviews and then it goes through the typical process then we it would finally come back to us we would make a recommendation to the elected bodies and with that um I want to turn it over for any comments or questions or discussion but first I would just want to say a huge thank you we've had some really awesome conversations we've had several meetings uh again three iterations of this draft working very closely with uh commissioner williams amandolia and miller and then of course uh we we had a lot of good work from alturk and santiago before they left so uh with that I just want to turn things over to karm and austin or tom if they want to say anything thanks commissioner baker and why don't we come off the screen it'll be easier to see everybody and see who's raising their hand uh commissioners on the committee if either any of you would like to make any statements of on this resolution you're welcome to do so so what I wanted to say because I won't be able to vote with you on this uh is is that I wish I could uh the work that's been done is good uh I think it's valuable on two levels one in its substance I think this is a useful addition to would be a useful addition to our code and will make for better designed residential developments uh which is something that I have wanted us to be mindful of uh for as long as I've been on the commission but the other thing that I think the useful part is the exercise itself of us um looking at uh places in the in the udo that uh could be changed based upon our experience and acting on it uh and initiating it uh taking a more active role as a planning commission rather than a the passive role that we have where we wait things to come for things to come to us and then we vote on them I'd like to see the planning commission uh like I said uh taking taking more active role uh by initiating things and I'm grateful uh to our committee chairman Mr. Baker uh for uh getting this rolling so when this comes to you for a vote I hope you will vote for it and support it and if you're interested in helping Nate and the others who were serving on this committee um uh then that you get involved because lord knows I think there are a lot of things in the udo that the planning commission could make better uh and and uh through the benefit of the experience that we all have thank you thank you commissioner miller commissioner mandolia sure and I'll be brief thank you chair um I just echo everything that commissioner miller said I wanted to add that one of the reasons I'm excited um about this proposal um and hope that it moves forward it's because we frequently talk about the auto-oriented nature of Durham and kind of rail against it at times and I think this is one step towards counteracting that pattern I think it's the first of many necessary steps we need to take to make Durham a more connected pedestrian bike oriented place and I hope you all will support it and welcome any feedback or questions you'll have both on this proposal and the process in general thank you thank you and uh commissioner wams is the other current member yes um this was extremely meaningful to me because as you guys know whenever we have developers coming in and they're talking about they're going to build these sidewalks and they only only build them like 15 feet past the development and they don't go anywhere that that's an issue for me because for me it's about kids riding on sidewalks or riding in streets and a lot of times neighborhoods do not create true curb and gutter so the streets aren't wide enough for people to actually do anything with so the short walkable blocks introduces the ability to people to have odds are smaller to have a fenced off backyard and be able to interact with their neighbors in the front it's so they choose and I think by tackling bite size chunks of what residents are facing by creating these situations where the sidewalks and the connectivity are there it invites developers to build things that serve the communities that will increase the walkability for people to be able to take advantage of these sidewalks like putting in grocery stores and restaurants and places to gather that are closer to residences and opposed to over developing residences and then there's nothing for them to get to that's the reason why they don't extend the sidewalks so I think that we're kind of forcing the hand when development comes about with creating built-in considerations that they have to implement or at least have to consider when they're wanting to build and going beyond just the scope of the fact that the land is available and they should use it so I like the work that was done on this and I'm definitely like the dialogue that was had thank you and Commissioner Cartwright you've been patient thank you this is I'll say that I think this is really good work I think that it's I would I would say it's creative in its nature it's I think it's a really good idea a question where there's idealistic one thing we need to think about is I guess this is part question and part statement one have you do you have or have you considered utilizing a development council or developer council if you will the first thing I think about when I see this is high infrastructure costs so if you start to think about creating these neighborhoods now all of a sudden you've increased my cost of developing this neighborhood because my infrastructure costs are going through the roof with all of the development that are all of the the roles the additional roles that need to be created and on the other side of that coin we want affordable housing and you know whether it's big a or little a in this case little a right workforce or housing that people can actually buy and increasing my infrastructure costs sometimes may have an adverse impact on the cost of the housing now I need to increase that in order to cover that cost just the thought I'm just throwing it out there I think this is good work I think we should move in this direction somehow the question I think is how do we actually get this implemented and how do we mechanize this such that developers can actually put this forth in a time where lumber through the roof you know all your commodities are through the roof and so now you're also increasing my infrastructure costs it makes it really difficult to execute and get these things to pencil so that's just my thought my two cents I'd love to figure out how to actually make this work if you've done some work on this maybe now it's not the time but I'd love to make you Commissioner Baker you've you've invited me to to sit in on this and and I'd love to do that and have some additional conversations with Williams and Amandola as well about how we actually potentially make this happen. Thanks Commissioner Cupwright Commissioner Baker you look like you would like to maybe offer a response and then I see Commissioner Williams. Yeah Carmen did you want to say something that first? Yeah in doing the work on this and most of the times my consideration isn't for developers because developers don't have consideration for the residents so my consideration first and foremost is for the residents because that's who have to live in these properties and regardless of the price of lumber and different things going up if you can't creatively come to the table with something to resolve your infrastructure issues then it's obvious that this is not the place for you to build. Commissioner Baker. Yeah I I did have some slides on this that I skipped over but actually it's it's actually less infrastructure on a per capita basis to have a more walkable connected environment. It's it actually uses less infrastructure and there's less impervious surface on a per capita basis. There's less parking there's the roads don't need to be as wide but what I think is really interesting that you're getting at is that this is just one piece of the puzzle that there are many many other pieces that need to come together to make this truly sustainable and equitable and fiscally balanced but this is a really critical piece and and I don't want us to leave here thinking that that it's more infrastructure because there's there's a lot of there's a lot of research on connectivity and certainly an important part of having a connected city and a connected neighborhood is that it uses infrastructure very wisely and it doesn't use more infrastructure it tends to use about the same or even less. Yeah and and I'll just say to wrap up the item for tonight and again this will be back next month part of the reason that it's going to be presented tonight but not be the resolution won't be voted on tonight is that we do want to also just have transparency in all of our work so we wanted to talk about it this evening then we'll bring it back next month for for a vote in addition you know I think we our other committees that the planning commission has created in the past few years have been always very clear about the work and the time that they've put in so given all the turnover I think in terms of transparency what also we need to do is you know wrap up this work and we can create additional committees over time as appropriate with new members as they come on board so I think the planning commission we have been creating these different committees over time and so knowing we've got a lot of turnover at the end of this month that's something that we can vote on this in July and then we can look at additional committees that we will form moving forward with new members as they come on board I also know the staff and this is something I think we'll hear more from them with the comp plan will be creating a set of different committees as well and I think that's something else that we on the planning commission should also be looking to engage in we don't have to get into that tonight but I think that's something else I want us all to be looking at hearing from staff having planning commissioners on all the different comprehensive plan committees that'll move that work forward as well but I think that transparency is really important so with that thank you again to Commissioner Baker all the other commissioners on the committee and we'll have this on the July meeting agenda before we close the meeting I want to do two final things that that was the official meeting I do want to share that we had a request from Brandon Williams with the walltown community for the planning commission to consider signing on to a letter from the walltown community that some other neighborhoods have signed on to that's going to the city council and it's related to zoning and development issues and so I I've sent this along to the staff number one to get their guidance about is this appropriate is this in our rules of engagement for the planning commission their feedback and michael stuck and talk to this but their feedback is that yes it's related to zoning and land use issues that is in our purview I also sent the actual letter so grace or whoever has that letter if you could put that up on the screen and again they are looking to transmit this letter to the council in the next week or two so it really was a tonight issue for us and so let me just stop there to begin with and michael stock anything that you would want to add from the staff perspective on considering and potentially signing on to this letter hi chair busby I do not um as you stated um the letter goes specifically talks about um you know requests to potentially rezone and that's a rezoning is a is an issue that obviously you're all aware of that you you uh uh taken into consideration uh monthly um it doesn't your rules and procedures don't say that you actually have to have a case in front of you to make a comment or recommendation so um we don't see in this instance uh that there would be any concern with uh whatever resolution that you would like to draw it thank you and other commissioners welcome the give you the opportunity to speak uh this letter has been circulating in the public and uh the mr. Williams reached out to myself and vice chair attention along with commissioners baker and miller and so uh commissioner miller give you the opportunity to speak yes my way of a parting shot mr chairman uh since I won't uh be voting I have already personally signed on to this letter in my individual capacity um and uh I actually am going to ask the planning commission you folks to consider something more than signing on to a letter um the uh I live in this area over near north gate and it is the subject of a huge amount of buzz and some of it is it's not been very satisfactory I think you're all aware and have read in the media the exchange of messages between the mayor and the developer uh uh over there and I there is a huge amount of anxiety in the community especially in the wall town community but also the neighborhoods that radiate out from wall town who are working with wall town um uh and I have attended uh many meetings uh the the wall town has sponsored uh and uh some some of which the developer was invited to come speak however the developer is quick kind of attending those meetings um and there's like I said there's a lot of anxiety some of the anxiety is about the future of north gate some of the other aspects of the anxiety is not actually knowing what's going on uh not understanding the rules and let's face it they're complex um not understanding what the developer can do under the current zoning not understanding uh what can be done if anything uh or mostly just wait for the developer to propose things uh some of which the public won't have any could could have no uh real input into so I'm going to ask the planning commission to consider something more than than the letter uh again as Nate has pointed out with regard to the text amendment uh the planning commission is also authorized to initiate a zoning map change um and so I would like to see the planning commission reach out to the larger Durham community and become a forum for this issue to schedule uh some place on a an upcoming agenda uh a public hearing uh and let all the people who know about it say come and it's tell us what you think uh and with the assistance of staff if there are resources available to do it to kind of lay out the issues what can north gate do without discretionary decision making and by that I mean a rezoning uh so that so that we all hear the same thing at one time and that what can the city do as an initiator um and what role can the planning commission play um the general statutes that authorized cities and counties to have zoning and to create uh planning boards as the statute refers to to us uh lays out a whole list of duties that that can be given to a planning commission one of those is is to facilitate public engagement um and I think this is a place where our organization again taking an active hand in things uh rather than just waiting for it to come to us uh can really lift this thing up I am so impressed with the folks in walltown who have been organizing uh the public engagement but I don't think that's fair um I'm glad they're doing it I'm glad that they're learning I'm glad that that that they're marshaling the resources but I think this that it's been brought to a point where uh public resources in addressing the the larger community issue with regard to wall uh to to walltown and northgate uh ought to be deployed uh this is you know we have talked about for the last decade issues relating to gentrification and displacement this is the epicenter of that issue and rather than just waiting for it to happen why don't we reach out and grab hold of it and see what we can do how can we help um uh and so I think that's a good thing and they're they're going to be people people certainly the developer and others who will will want to hear from too uh but we can maybe at least force people to come to the table we can have everybody hear the same thing at the same time and we can really explore public initiated alternatives and if this is successful I can assure you there are other dead shopping centers out there that are going to present uh the same sort of issues to us uh some of them will be most of them will be smaller than the some 60 some acres that that comprise northgate uh and they will probably be located in the suburbs but this is an issue I think that's really important um so again my guess is a parting shot is I hope you will consider uh using the authority that you have to essentially uh grab hold of this and become a public forum for this and see where it goes even to the point of initiating um a potential uh rezoning of this property from the city side rather than just waiting for the developer to decide for the rest of us and so those are my comments on this important issue again the letter is one thing but I think there is a bigger role for the planning commission to play uh and I hate to see uh citizens who are in a condition of anxiety struggle along doing what I believe we should be doing thank you very much thank you Commissioner Miller any other thoughts or comments and and I think uh mostly just getting the temperature of the commission the request from the community tonight was to review this and uh and vote to add our name to it if we believed it was one we it was appropriate and two we agreed with it so um I think to Commissioner Miller's point there are certainly additional opportunities and I will commit to continue to work with the the neighborhood association and the community to to see what else we we can do that would fit their values and what they're looking for as well but any anyone else with any thoughts or comments and seeing none I mean I I would accept a motion for us to join the letter Mr. Chairman I move that the planning commission uh endorse the letter second thank you moved by Commissioner Miller and seconded by Commissioner Baker and uh we'll have the roll call vote on the motion. Mendoia? Yes. Baker? Yes. Busby? Yes. Cameron? Yes. Cut right? Yes. Inchin? Yes. Lowe? This is one of those issues that I wish more than once but yes. Miller? Yes ma'am. Morgan? Yes. Hey Williams. Can you write mine down this absolutely instead of yes? Sure. Thank you. Thank you all. I will I will communicate with with Brandon Williams and let him know about this vote. I know the walltown community and the and the neighboring communities really appreciate that. That is it for our business this evening but I would be remiss if we did not take a few minutes to thank the two departing term limited commissioners and we know this is their final meeting. I know many of you have reapplied and I hope you get good news as those decisions move to the governing body but Vice Chair Kenshin and Commissioner Miller are both with us for their final meeting this evening and that's because they have been with us for maybe decades but certainly us a long long number of years it only feels like decades Tom but I want to thank both of you. You have been Vice Chair Kenshin serving with you as Chair and Vice Chair has been incredibly rewarding and I've really appreciated all your guidance and your wisdom. Whenever you spoke in a meeting I listened and it was always on point and really thoughtful and so and you're just a lovely person so thank you so much for your your time and your service and Commissioner Miller you have done so much the homework and the work you put in between meetings. I hope we'll continue to see you in new and different ways but you've really put your stamp on our commission and really raised and elevated the the debate and the work and and appreciate all you've done in the community. I'll also know Commissioner Miller I believe the City Council voted to recognize past the resolution in your honor last night as well so I do want to thank both of you. I want to give you a moment if you would like you will both be back and I hope it's next month and I'll communicate with you to work that out but Vice Chair Kenshin open the floor for you. Thank you Chair you know it's been an honor for me to serve for six years I've lived in Durham for 23 years now and I couldn't be prouder to live in Durham and the staff is so great and serving with you all has been wonderful. Tom Miller one of my heroes Brian you guys are just great. I always said that if you guys ever moved me away from Tom I would quit the commission and then we got to leave completely and go on Zoom so you know it was a pleasure for me to sit beside him and read his notes and confer with him and so I'm going to be sad to see him leave one of my heroes and all of you for your wisdom and Chair Busby we don't need a leader you know we need a chair to keep the commission going but you are someone who acts it'll be a leader and I will follow you many many places so thank you for I think a great job as chair your integrity your wisdom your thoughtfulness so I'm going to miss you guys I'm not leaving I've lived for 23 years I'll be 23 years more and I'm going to be fans of the work and I appreciate you guys for moving us forward so thank you for that and I hope you continue it. Thank you and Commissioner Miller. Thank you Mr. Chair. Yeah this is kind of a bittersweet thing but I certainly have had my innings and I have really appreciated the opportunity to work with all of you and and the other commission members that I've served with over time I certainly have learned a whole lot. I came to the planning commission quite frankly thinking I knew right much about it and that wasn't true and I will leave probably incorrectly thinking that I know right much about it and that still isn't true but I say we have a great staff that's really responsive and I've enjoyed working with all of you I realize a lot of that time has been butting heads with you but some of that is my nature and I think some of that's because I was right and you were wrong but but again I will be sorry to leave the planning commission but I think I believe that the term limits are a good idea and I think it's a good thing that we cycle off to give other people an opportunity so that the the commission can evolve and grow and always at every at every time reflect the interest and the concerns of the community so I'll be watching you I will not be attending every meeting no I know there will be a lot shorter thank you much and I will look forward to seeing you one more time next month grace we got new did the council not appoint two people last night can you tell us who they are they did they reappointed Aaron and then I was on that meeting until midnight last night hang on one second and I'll get to the other name I actually jotted it down and lost my name was that mr. Herrod it was mr. Herrod actually yes mr. Herrod I can tell you all he is a person of my acquaintance and although he will probably be very different than me I think he is a great guy and I think you'll enjoy working with him and of course I'm glad mr mr. Erkin is back I'm always uncomfortable when I have to ask her questions for her she she will be she was reappointed and mr. Herrod was appointed and what we will do is we will wait to hear from 40 county commissioners they're on track to do their appointments on June 28th and so once they make their appointments then we'll have a training for all new members at one time so great I would like to give commissioners I know you will have your opportunity again at the July meeting but you're welcome to make any comments and I also do want to know Mimi Kessler has is still with us and and specifically because she wanted to make some comments at this point in the meeting as well but any commissioners who'd like to make any comments right now you are welcome to do so you can just raise your hand again you can hold your comments until next month as well Commissioner Williams I will gladly say thank you so much to Commissioner Miller your impact has been invaluable I don't know that we can put any type of price tag on what you've brought to this commission at least as long as I've been here but not just to the commission but to the community to which you truly serve and I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you because I do not know that I will have these same words next month and it is on my heart right now to give you as much appreciation as I can definitely have formed my opinions and value that I probably did not have previously it would not have had had you not been present Commissioner Kitchen I want to say thank you so much you represent your community to the fullest extent possible and even sometimes you stretch those limitations with your comments and the way that you respond to things and I definitely appreciate the fact that you have pulled me to the side quite a few times and I've acknowledged the head nods that you give sometimes when I'm saying things and being fairly new to the commission and not being as well versed in certain aspects of the two of you and what you provide and the common sense matter in which you educate both the community and the the commission is it's been important to me and I just wanted to say thank you thank you Commissioner Williams Mimi Kessler I would like to recognize you and welcome your comments this evening thanks for joining us thank you very much for the time to speak I want to thank Tom Miller who and I'm thanking him on behalf of all of the residents for your instructions and your guidance and your voice for us in commission related things both in the meetings and outside the meetings you will be sorely missed and I'm waiting to see who's going to step up to start asking the tough questions have a good evening thank you Mimi thank you again Vice Chair Kenshin Commissioner Miller and we will see you hopefully at the July 13th meeting with that we are adjourned and I hope everyone has a great evening hi everybody good night