current Vice President of the Watts Hospital Hill Nail Neighborhood Association I've been on that board for four years previous four years I've served as president I live at 2410 West Club Boulevard I'm not in West West Durham but just north of it and I'd like to point out that we are we are as the neighborhood association very much in favor of the NPO I have a a motion that we made and have written and I'd like to submit as evidence to the commission I'd like to add that my house happens to be in the historic district of Watts Hill Nail and so as a contributing structure twice we've had to go through the process of getting a minor COA to do in one case a renovation in another case necessary repairs and it provides an additional structure to our process in dealing with the contractor and dealing with that step but that I understand that the NPO is different but people are concerned about the additional burden of that process on staff and I think that that's something that folks should understand staff is willing to work with everybody and that's not going to be an issue in my opinion the other thing I want to add is that there's been discussions about concerns about density and in my opinion the issue about density is one that's not going to be addressed the NPO is my train has left I'm going to cede my time to others and if you don't mind if you can leave that resolution you can give that commissioner to commissioner Alturk on the end and he can pass it down he's closest to you and Watts Hill Nail I'll do better next time thank you thank you very much I believe we may have seen that already if you haven't there you are good evening my name is Jennifer Justice I live at 1025 Carolina Avenue in Old West Durham but I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina back in 1952 my dad James Foy Justice was from Hendersonville where there is a justice street because my grandfather James Foy Sr. was a state senator long enough to bring roads to the mountains dad was a civil attorney in Charlotte for 50 years his practice formed around arguing imminent domain cases on behalf of families who were in danger of losing their homes my dad loved the law and he devoted his work to bettering people's lives and I introduced myself to you this way so that you might understand that from a very young age I have known that might does not make right and that in a functioning democracy all voices must be given equal value and so I stand before you tonight to speak for some voices who in all the loudness and I really am sorry for the meanness might have been lost or not heard I understand the objections of the opposition perhaps precipitous financial investments and also political ideology opposed to the democratic liberties expressed by the community through the NPO I speak for renters who financially support 57% of the homes in Old West Durham without us it would not be there ok like most OWD renters I settled here because of the small duplexes and single family homes that made the comfortable neighborhood affordable these small residences are the reason OWD has sustained a community that is diverse in age, income and race and in our city with our history around issues of race, poverty and housing these are not insignificant considerations the front page of this week's independent refers to Durham's affordable housing crisis I do not believe that the best way to address the crisis is to destroy housing that is small enough to reasonably remain affordable the moment a developer put a four bedroom four and a half bath single family home with a one bedroom mother-in-law apartment over the garage next door to me and began charging $750 to $900 per bedroom per month and $1200 for the mother-in-law my rent on my modest one bedroom duplex immediately left from $550 a month to $850 a month the duplex on the other side of me is now being charged a rent of $1000 a month I'm an elderly woman living on a small fixed income that I labored my entire life to secure by late spring I'm going to be financially forced to leave my home and neighbors of 10 years in OWD and though I am well supported by friends and by Durham social services in my hunt for a home after six months of searching there is nowhere for me to go and social services has me on their list of people at high risk of homelessness I respectfully submit to you my absolute support for all that the NPO can do to uphold the historic identity and core values of old west Durham diversity is not just a word we say it is a commitment we make and we sacrifice to that commitment or we lose it and we may as well not speak the words thank you thank you very much my name is Susan Sewell I live at 2904 Legion Avenue I am here first representing Tuscaloosa Lakewood Neighborhood Association Board being the first neighborhood that went through all the years of work and talk to develop a neighborhood protection overlay as our only neighborhood so far that has completed this overlay we appreciate the years of work required by this ordinance we applaud old west Durham for doing the work to reach an understanding of the special elements of their neighborhood that deserve protection and we appreciate the efforts they have taken to find a diverse group of zoning tools they hope will protect their special elements and we encourage you to support this I also as a member of the Interneighborhood Council I want to remind you that the Interneighborhood Council took a vote in support of this neighborhood protection overlay and of the work that old west Durham has done and on a personal note I wish we thought of that backyard tree thank you hi my name is Christine Cupidow and I live at 246 Englewood Avenue in Old West not in Old West Durham in Watts Hillendale and I'm within 600 feet of Old West Durham and the house on Laundale that you saw pictures of the giant McMansion is behind my street that's in my block and I saw a perfectly fine blue single family home bulldozed down and replaced with this giant maestrosity and it has two front doors it has a front door at the back two mailboxes and then the giant garage with the mother law suite above it and it just totally dwarfs everything and it just makes me so sad I'm in the historic district so we have more protections than Old West Durham does and this MPI while it isn't as strong as the historic district it's the next best step and I so wish that Old West Durham could have been in the historic district when Watts Hillendale did it because part of the charm of Durham is these old millhouses and the unique architecture of each one it's not a cookie cutter like Cary the house that was built is like Cary if you want that move to Cary but Durham is unique we have the beautiful architecture each one is unique and special and we need to preserve that in our neighborhoods there's been a lot of contention about this with the pro and con and a neighbor in Old West Durham pointed out that the MPO process began immediately after the UDO was adopted during the public meetings and hearings on the UDO many of the people in Old West Durham wanted a more protective zoning category the city planning department told us the MPO was the best way to proceed the conservation began then and as some of the first participants in that process they were assured that some of the specific developers and his properties were not mentioned the aim was to protect the character affordability and diversity of the neighborhood including the modest older homes and perhaps create an incentive to preserve that character the city took a very long time to allocate the resources necessary to work with the neighborhood association on the MPO and while the city fiddled with their quite exorbitant rental rates do unfortunately serve as models of exactly what the MPO was trying to prevent but at no point was this process begun against any landowner or send of properties targeted so I just share that with you and urge you to vote for this and even though I'm not a resident of Old West Durham I live within 600 feet and a lot of my neighbors in Watts Hill and Dale we totally support Old West Durham and their efforts for this MPO and I encourage you to all vote yes thank you very much so there are two minutes and 40 seconds remaining for the proponents I do and I may have missed this Simeon Furman okay great thank you everyone so we have two minutes and 40 seconds to hold for rebuttal okay thank you yeah two and a half minutes we will we will hold that time we will move to 30 minutes for the folks against the proposal and as we did for the proponents there's a set of folks who we're going to bring up in order who have signed up again a total of 30 minutes so there are 16 individuals who've signed up against so ideally a little bit under two minutes each if you can or you can cede your time to other speakers and work with me if I get this right we have Mrs. Martin to speak first Mr. McFarling and if you know your order you can come up and line up please come and speak again your name and your address into the microphone great you may come and speak please if you're first yeah please come my name is Leanne Nelson and I live at 2404 Indian Trail I'm a non-resident homeowner in Old West Durham over half the property in Old West Durham is non-owner occupied my small lots are disproportionately affected by the proposed NPO I am against the NPO in 2014 a petition to explore an NPO was circulated in Old West Durham this petition was not brought to my attention or the attention of other non-resident owners years later I learned of the NPO when I received a mailing from the city most of the information about the NPO was disseminated by the Old West Durham listserv leaving out those who do not access that list based on information provided by during city planning I noticed that the original petition was circulated with accompanying information clearly stating that the NPO would not affect additions to existing houses that is untrue for the NPO as proposed today the NPO petition gained the signatures of 31% of unique homeowners in favor of exploring the possibility of the NPO remember their signatures were given based on misinformation about how the rules would affect existing houses with signatures of only 31% the joint city county planning committee allowed the process to go forward in spite of the recommendation that no NPO be pursued without 51% support the signatures on the original petition represent a small fraction of the total parcels since the original petition the owners of 117 parcels have asked to opt out of the NPO the desires of the owners of 225 parcels are not known it is clear that adequate support for the NPO has been lacking from the very beginning please vote against the proposed NPO thank you very much I think you're going off of a little different than what I have so I'm just going to let you keep running with it if you get your folks in order please come up and I'll make sure that anyone who's remaining is brought up to speak I need this you got it move it back my name is Glenn Martin and I own three rental properties in Old West Durham I'm here to talk about survey results from third and last NPO city planning meeting in November 17 this meeting had the largest turnout of the 2017 meetings city planning showed 70% support for the NPO among the participants filling out the 86 surveys the Old West Durham board used these numbers at least the JCCP meeting to say 70% of the 293 unique homeowners support the NPO okay so let me step through the 86 forms because only 86 of these surveys were valid from 86 subtract 9 because of duplicate addresses probably husband and wife they each filled one sorry unique homeowners subtract 5 because of non-owners subtract 7 because of addresses not even in Old West Durham subtract 9 because no address was on the survey at all this leaves 56 valid surveys 40 for the NPO 16 against so 40 out of 293 means only 14% of the unique homeowners have demonstrated support for the NPO the survey methodology used is not adequate to form conclusions for the overall support because the sample was neither random or representative the meeting was stacked with NPO supporters okay so they can so this anyway that's my point no one has demonstrated real numbers there is no vote and that's a flaw in this whole system I think it's a minority pushing it through you're hearing their voices you're not hearing the majority voice please vote against the NPO thank you very much thank you Mr. Martin good evening commission members my name is Marty McFarling I own 1020 health street also 1022 1024 Carolina I've been a property owner in Old Westarm for 30 years now I had the opportunity or I have the opportunity I'm one of the lucky individuals I have an empty lot in Old Westarm and in talking with the planning department and trying to do some building on that lot I found out a lot of interesting facts and I thank Matthew Filter for kind of clueing me in on how things work in that neighborhood the lot that I have is actually 49.75 feet wide at the front what does that matter well right now the current regulations the minimum width of a lot shall be the smaller of the average width of the adjacent lots fronting on the same linear block or the median of the widths of all the other lots fronting on the same linear block so according to Matt's calculations the average lot width was around 52.5 so really there was no difference between the existing regulation and the proposed NPO regulation current zoning so it still works fine both will require a 50 foot wide lock for me to do something with okay that said he had a caveat in there you may want to double check your deed or inquire with the Durham County Tax Assessor my two locks are thrown together on one tax bill so it looks like there's one lot but it's actually two separate locks well I went ahead and spent the money I spent 750 bucks on a survey and I spent $400 on a so I can stand here and prove to everyone that I actually have two locks they have been designated that way since the surveys were done originally back around 1908 1911 I think they were with all your said so thank you Jesus no matter what happens with the NPO I've got a buildable lock so that's something to think about current regulations are really working just fine also there's another consequence to this my neighbors across the street have a empty 50 foot lock beside their house they're going the opposite direction they're combining the two locks so that they'll have enough room to add on to their house to still be under the far that's taking a building lot out of that neighborhood right there once it's combined it will never be separated again also and that's reducing the infill the infill possibilities another unintended unintended consequence which was so passionately pointed out rents are going to go up I was told by Pat Young he was very nice and answered an email back I was thinking the NPO would help reduce property values keep property values low Patrick said no and their observations usually property value start going up well increase in property values increase equals an increase in taxes equals an increase in rentals and rental costs that have to go up and that's why the sudden increase in that neighborhood thank you for your time I am opposed to the NPO good evening my name is Howard Sykes I've been a Durham resident since 1994 and I reside at 15 Twinleaf Place I have a background in computer science engineering and a master's in project management I've spent decades analyzing data so I came in to look at some of the data that are in all these regulations and restrictions of the proposed NPO to try to determine how that would affect specifically of whether you could build the neighborhood that exists an old west Durham if the NPO had been in existence from day one I also spoke to Matt Felter a number of times he was very helpful part of what Matt told me is he felt that 94% of the properties there was some give or take in that because he said some of the older properties they didn't really have exact measurements for but he was starting with the assumption 94% of the structures would be okay but when I looked at the server and the information that that was based on I found the residents had only looked at heated square feet but yep the regulations referred to in the calculation of the FAR and that was the item that seemed probably most contentious so I looked at it says well we're going to count your garage space we're going to count any structure that needs to permit that's got multiple walls around it we're going to count ADUs and so forth but they weren't counted in what I saw that got to that kind of 94% so we also looked at property records and at least what's on the web includes heated square feet but does not include a lot of other square feet so through the tax department they were able to get me the complete property records I would have loved to have done it for the entire community but they were sort of limiting how much we're willing to give out so what we did is we tried to pick a representative street and the street that we've got that we ended up picking was we picked Alabama we got the records for every parcel on Alabama to do the calculation including the unheated square footage and we found five parcels exceeded the FAR at its current regulation now of course there's been lots of comments of well we've got these new houses and we're trying to prevent new so I just want to clarify these five houses one was built in 1911 one in 1919 one in 1922 and two of them 1930 so I'm not saying we're talking about the new houses exceeding the FAR as it exists in the proposal I did end up putting some of the data out early on some servers when it was draft and still not accurate I found I got a lot of additional people that told me they were against this regulation and there's certainly a lot of people in a lot of different feelings depending who we want to talk to but we found our number was growing so beyond the five the next thing we wanted to do is we took a look well how many parcels and I've indicated here in the yellow would be able to add less than 50 square feet because you're certainly not going to do an addition that small and then even if we drop that up to 275 square feet so that's barely more than a single car garage I think it was noted earlier that the bulk of the homes in this area don't have a garage so putting a single car garage seem great a fourth of the homes can't do that and again we are talking older homes so we certainly I am certainly feeling that this is not a desirable addition and thank you and we'll defer to the next person thank you very much and then just as a final comment 25% of the parcels on Alabama have that very small restriction hello planning commission I'm Jim Bach my wife and I bought our home on 1010 E.D. Street in 1962 we raised three fine children most of them were educated right there at AK Poe and on Durham High and into college we've talked about this NPO rules and regulations and we just wonder if we can get enough money for a house who would want to buy it with all the stipulations that the NPO has people would buy property would have to deal with and I just want you to consider that as we have talked about it ourselves thank you so much thank you sir Hi my name is Terry Street and I am a property owner in Old West Durham I love Durham and frankly I love Old West Durham neighborhood and I understand how we all need to work together as this beautiful city grows and there are challenges that are inherent in that however I think you will hear from the speakers that come up there are varied and reasonable objections to the NPO it was mentioned early on there was a deviation from the stated objective and there has been kind of a flawed process at least in my estimation of it was driven through the listserv and as you will hear there are a number of us who are not active on the listserv the listserv was really I thought lost dogs and more neighborhood focused rather than something of this critical nature the result is a current proposed regulatory overlay that many of us just don't feel we can support should it be the decision of the planning commission to move forward we've created a representative map where the owners of the parcel on this mock-up of the slide that you see wish to be excluded from the overlay and I think what you can see from that is there is some disagreement about the proposal as it currently stands as there is a lot of concern on the opposition side just as there are a number of people here who are for it a number of folks have taken time to come and be a part of this and turn around I would like those who are in opposition to please stand thank you my name is Adam Hall and I live at 2719 Crest streets and tonight I'm here on behalf of the legislative committee for the Durham Regional Association of Realtors I currently serve as the chair thank you for everyone being here tonight and thank you everyone on the planning commission for allowing public input I would like to start by recognizing why we are discussing this NPO the Old West Durham neighborhood residents feel threatened by this new development that is happening all over Durham the root causes of MPOs are increased housing demand as a result of an increasing population North Carolina is one of the fastest growing states in the U.S. and Durham along with the rest of the triangle is one of the fastest growing areas in North Carolina as a result this growth and an increased demand for more housing neighborhoods are changing McMansions as they have been termed are popping up left and right and lots are being repurposed to support higher density I want to be clear that we understand this is troubling to the residents of Old West Durham residents first invested in this community and bought their homes or chose to live here this was not the type of neighborhood they saw we see you and we understand that you're concerned however the long term effects of these protection overlay districts cannot be ignored people want to live in walkable neighborhoods that are close to fixed amenities public transportation and job opportunities by shutting down the markets ability to meet the demand for housing the affordability of these neighborhoods will plummet as a result would be residents are pushed further and further out MPOs serve as an artificial restriction on supply while completely ignoring the demand for more housing in these highly desirable urban centers if we're going to expand housing options in Durham we must promote policies that will create opportunities for development and creation of missing middle housing with this high level of growth Durham is experiencing these old neighborhoods will have to change in order to keep up with the demand or run the risk of shutting out everyone who cannot afford an expensive old house again I would like to state that we understand why residents feel threatened however we can find better solutions that do not exacerbate the housing problem we urge the planning commission to reject this proposed MPO and instead focus on how we can broaden housing options and prices throughout Durham thank you thank you my name is John Temple I live at 1015 Elstree and I have for 54 years in June so this argument that it's developers against the neighborhood does not hold water to me because I've lived there all this time I was born in Durham and watched hospital about three blocks away I learned I love Durham so much that I commuted to Burlington to teach school for 31 years 68 miles a day I love my neighbors I just disagree with some of them right now because I think the MPO is completely necessary in fact I think it's misnamed it should be an NRO neighborhood restrictive ordinance because it takes away private property rights I don't want to have 67 and a half percent of my land that I cannot ever build anything on while at the same time I get the pleasure of paying property taxes every year on the property taxes I bought this house in the 1960s when I went there I rented it for two years for $50 a month speaking of affordable prices and houses when I bought this house were $10,000 or $15,000 in the neighborhood but I was a school teacher making $5,000 a year then so the city thinks my house is increased in value 28 times so I don't think the increase in rental rates is as much to do with people trying to gouge people rent as it does with the fact that when property taxes increase in order to maintain their property landlords have to increase their rent in order to be able to keep the property now I wrote you all a letter it also went to the city council and it went to the board so I said a lot in that you got a letter from me to opt out because I wrote a letter to do that to Mr. Filter and I was told that it was too late because there was a deadline on January 31st well I sold them on the listserv there was no mailing announcing if you wanted to make a comment about the MPO that we should do on January 31st so that's why I sent you the opt out letter by email so you could see it now I'm watching a lot of folks nowadays on the city council the mayor included talk about the necessity for density and population I completely agree with them that the MPO will not affect density but I don't think it will affect it favorably I think it will affect it negatively that it will lessen the there's a they've someone's alluded to the fact that EK Poe is a very popular school right now and there's lots of young families in the neighborhood some of those families are growing and some of their houses on their lots already are at or exceed the 32.5% so I think when their kids need more bedrooms some of them will choose to leave the neighborhood because that will be the only way they can have more space because they won't under the MPO if it passes not be able to expand their house now I know I'm going to say one more thing I asked someone today at one meeting I went to there was a mention that we might be able to add additions in our attics that would not count against the FAR I think it's a very reasonable thing to add that because it does not add to the footprint of the house in existing houses to build into your attic I was told by someone that it was in the ordinance but I didn't hear Mr. Filter mention that and so he might be able to answer if you can now build into attics and not have it count against the FAR thank you sir and that's I think that's a question we'll be sure to ask thank you very much so just to note I still have eight speakers signed up who wish to speak against not all of them may wish to speak or be here at this point but just wanted to point it out with ten and a half minutes left my name is James Wilkins I live at 929 Alabama avenue my mother's in the back mom would you stand up please 81 years old this is the first meeting we've attended where we've actually gotten to say interestingly which is kind of compelling because we've talked about being inclusive and have an involvement and getting feedback but what you've had is a group of people that were on a mission to get something accomplished and they shut down any opposition against it my own mother stood up in the last meeting on her birthday in November and she actually had people yelling at her from corners of the room to sit down and shut up so that's the kind of treatment that the opposition has received and mr. gauche addressed it and when I went outside at break I said if you think you've been on the firing line sitting in that seat you ought to come over and live at 929 Alabama on the corner because I was the first guy out front that put his neck out and said something's wrong with this process there's a lot of things that could be said here today I could churn a lot of butter for you but let me just touch a couple real quick Mr. Filter stated that they recommend some reason people recommend 51% signatures not required but recommend and they distort the numbers and they've never been past 29% so they're not even close to that number they'll make you believe with their green shirts and their unity that this is a good thing it's not a good thing and then the other thing is one lady stood up here and talked about diversity well I can talk about diversity because after being born in a millhouse on Eda street which would today be in the parking lot of the Harris teeter grocery store 81 plus years ago she understands Old West Durham and nobody wanted to hear her feedback as to how to move forward or a lot of other people in her age range which have a tremendous amount of wisdom all these people that are pushing this are 5, 6, 7, 8 10 year owners and they're together on it but there was a lady that stood up here and talked about diversity about 40 50 years ago not 49 I started E.K. Poe to understand what that neighborhood looked like there were more black people living in Old West Durham then than there are now because these programs have pushed them out the people have come in driven prices up and they're gone you've had since that time Hicks town which was a well established adjacent neighborhood that was predominantly black is torn to the ground there's not a house left there's a letter today please let the city keep their hands off of this the folks in Old West Durham there's signs out saying protect our hood we were in that hood my family 70 years ago protecting it and I think we've done a pretty good job and we'll keep doing that job thank you I ask that you vote no and if you choose to vote yes then I ask you to shelve it today you work the paperwork and make the same rules work in your neighborhood so I don't mind living under your Durham city rules change your neighborhood and live under the same rules and then I'll come down here and applaud you for it good evening commissioners my name is Cyrus Doster I live at 1002 Oakland Avenue which is the only property I own and I've lived there for the past 16 years my wife and I initially supported the exploration and development of the MPO and actually participated in interviews with city staff even handed out meeting announcements but we now both oppose it setting aside arguments about the elements of the MPO which I do believe are still too restrictive my biggest concern is the process through which it's been brought to you you've already heard that the proposal goes significantly beyond its early or initial framing of not inhibiting renovation by current owners and I share the concerns that have been expressed that the MPO will actually be counterproductive to the grounds and decrease affordability by limiting the resource of square footage surprisingly to me or I should say starting at the public meeting in November that the gentleman before me just spoke about I was appalled when I saw decent people with legitimate concerns about the MPO getting shouted down by members of the MPO working group and I found after that point that the board and the working group became more secretive about their decision making and I have the information misrepresented to me they seem to have come to a point where transparency with the neighborhood means simply stating what they've done after the fact as shown by the latest changes that were made after unannounced meetings with city leadership I and others have been referred to as treasonous simply for asking the working group and board to support a legitimate survey to confirm the majority of support that they claim to have and tallying emails on a listserv when you know you're going to get brow-beated is not a legitimate way to gauge gauge support the board has rejected their request from multiple neighbors though in the same meeting that they approved the MPO they were more than happy to suggest having the neighborhood vote on a new t-shirt design the same board who traditionally adds new members in April is now considering delaying that process which would prevent new members joining the board who do not share their view of the MPO now after all this I still believe that the neighbors who have created the MPO have done it with good intentions but this process and their behavior is not right and it should not be endorsed by your support of this product regardless of whether the MPO does end up being adopted by the city council I ask you to please work with the planning department to either scrap or overhaul the current MPO guidelines so that no other neighborhood in our great little city has to go through as much conflict and ill will as mine has I was unaware of the criticism that council commissioner gosh had experienced prior to him announcing that but frankly I'm not surprised given the negativity that has come out in our neighborhood over this thank you for the time thank you good evening my name is Jean-Christien Roestani I've been living for almost 22 years at 918 Carolina my name may be familiar to you because you've been inundated by a few several emails that bear my name sometimes on the signature this is because this debate has been quite animated given the outrageous nature of certain things that have been going on here first of all I'm going to address two major points we are here tonight because several years ago some people were going knocking on doors asking people to sign up for a petition for this MPO on the ground that there had been excessive developments going on in the neighborhood namely by Jeff Mancine I ended up signing it for it and I now regret it I feel betrayed part of the literature that was going on then about proposing that MPO mentioned that it would only consist of minor tweaks to the existing zoning and I'm sorry I don't think that anybody can claim that the result has been minor tweaks it has been major tweaks major adjustments major loss of property rights if this measure was adopted and I suggest that I'm not expert in administrative laws here but it seems to me that if you have to qualify with a certain amount of signature and goals and everything for an MPO process to go the least that process could do is respect its intent and the intent has not been respected and so therefore just on that this MPO should be nullified and at the very least been thrown back to the drawing board the other point that I wish to address is that and that's something that hasn't been addressed tonight in regard to the FAR the FAR is by far the most contentious issue in this MPO we have been told that it's a 32.5% flat it's not, there is a floor and there is a ceiling to the FAR MPO, namely the smaller lot can are allowed 2400 square feet to build up to 2400 square feet which results for 4000 square foot in 55% and 4000 square foot is not even the smaller lot in the neighborhood and conversely it results in 30% for 12,000 lot and this is not even the largest lot there I believe at least 16,000 square feet lot for which it would result in 22.5% so the FAR, the MPO doesn't treat everybody equally the creators of the rules have picked losers and winners and I don't think that's necessary nor wise nor any public cannot even stand up to a challenge in court and I think that I'm done thank you very much before you begin, I know I have a set of speakers still signed up I don't know if anyone beyond the two of you are planning to speak, are there additional folks that have signed up to speak against this who still wish to speak so if you can come stand in line as well it's just helpful for us to get a sense of how many speakers are remaining we have one minute left in the 30 minutes per each side I don't want to extend that but I need to come back to the commission to talk about what's the appropriate way we always make sure that there's even time per speaker so I open it up to my fellow commission members I'm inclined, is there anyone else who is speaking or is it just the three of you I'm inclined to give an additional six minutes per each side two minutes for each speaker two minutes for the supporters eight and a half minutes if they wish to use that time Commissioner Williams we had a carryover of two minutes and 40 seconds from the other rounded up to three minutes that gives you approximately one minute each and what I was saying is we'll add six minutes if we give them each two minutes we'll give six minutes in addition to the two and a half minutes that were remaining for the supporters I was just not wanting to go too far and to rebuttal as certain statements have been made both directly and indirectly on both sides so just trying to get this more to the motion of the commission to carry forward for comments I'm open to any motions Commissioner Bryant I move that we give each side an additional six minutes moved and seconded Commissioner say aye aye any opposed one opposed great we will give you we can get the clock up to seven minutes I guess we have one minute left thank you and you may begin sir I'm going to help you out a little bit here I feel like I'm at the academy awards good evening my name is Tom Anhut and I'm the chairman of the Triangle Community Coalition we're a group of over 15,000 professionals advocating for pro-economic growth policy throughout the triangle we provide guidance to the triangle's leaders advocating for visionary public policy the TCC involves itself in policy decisions at the city and county levels and for both of these neighborhood protection overlays are bad public policy for several reasons by their nature MPOs restrict supply by restricting redevelopment potential old west Durham buyers who might have otherwise invested in the neighborhood will go elsewhere robbing Durham of potential incremental gains in tax revenues affordability Durham adds 20 new residents daily and the current production of housing units is not keeping up with this growth as demand outstrips supply prices increase the housing affordability issue cascades across all prices of housing and is not just limited to the most needy there is a growing missing middle in our housing inventory which will continue to grow made worse by policies such as MPOs fortunately Durham unlike Raleigh recognizes the importance of ADUs to housing affordability and author and allows their use those are accessory dwelling units however this MPO will severely limit the ability to add accessory dwelling units to old west Durham properties this is antithetical to the city's stated commitment to affordable housing thank you for your time my name is Rick Emmerich I'm also a member of the Triangle Community Coalition and I'd like to continue the discussion on why MPOs are bad public policy from a density standpoint as a rule limiting density makes housing more expensive this MPO will prevent more dense development of the neighborhood forever limiting the amount of structures Durham's mayor understands issue importance stating one of the things in Durham that we're going to have to get used to is we need more density either we build more houses or the price of housing is going to go through the roof and we need more density old west Durham is very close to the 9th street district which will have light rail stop it's essential that we have high density surrounding transit stops in the city property values owning a home is often the greatest investment and how we pay for our retirement this ordinance will restrict the type and amount of improvements that can be made in the old west Durham homes it's unfair to those who have faithfully invested in the neighborhood and precedence from a micro viewpoint if allowed the use of MPOs will spread as other groups attempt to prevent change to their areas this has happened in Raleigh where there are now 19 of what are equivalent to MPOs in Durham those areas are forever frozen participating from participating in the city's growth it resulted in development occurring further from the city's core further from transit services and adding traffic congestion and pollution a neighborhood overlay is just another way to say no to additional housing to infringe on property rights and limit the use of land and a threat to housing affordability for those reasons and on behalf of our thousands of members Triangle Community Coalition strongly urges MPOs strongly opposes MPOs in general in this ordinance specifically we urge you to deny the request thank you hello my name is Waldo Fenner I live at 1119 Klaner Street I don't let you know in front I oppose the MPO I heard a young lady speak earlier about being homeless well I encourage all of you should have been at the tax office or the county commissioner's office when it was raising property tax that's one of the reasons why you have the high price of homes coming up in your neighborhoods now I've been in my home since 1994 walltown has grown tremendously I oppose anything that infringe on my constitutional rights to have home ownership to do as I see fit to do with my property that is why we purchase our homes to do as we see fit to a certain degree to limit me the ability to do what I want to my home to infringe on my rights I say that is because the 14th amendment guarantee us that no local government or state government or federal government should enter any kind of ordinance or laws to infringe on those rights because again I would love to see this support when it came down to teachers getting a raise your children being discounted not have supplies don't have things they need to perform in schools as we sit here and debate on whether or not how to infringe on a homeowner's rights what they want to do with their property so I encourage you to turn this down because it does do just that infringe on our rights as homeowners thank you thank you very much is there anyone else who has not been able to speak this evening against there's a one minute and 17 seconds remaining and if not we will allow the supporters to have an additional it was about nine minutes if you round up and I'm assuming you will not need the full nine minutes but we will offer you equal time if the supporters would like to make any additional comments and then we're going to close the public hearing and we're going to do what we do best which is deliberate yes I just my name is Dan Welch 923 Alabama Avenue and I just wanted to address a few things I heard and just add some clarity to it hopefully first of all I heard about the initial petition there was some concerns at that and I just want to point out that at the top of the initial petition this is for the application to initiate the NPO it clearly stated at the top that there was no text drafted at this time and the NPO the purpose was to start a process of engagement to initiate an NPO and find out what neighbors wanted to add or what kinds of protections they wanted to add to the neighborhood so we feel like that was clear and I just want to point out that the NPO members who were signing the initial application there was a gentleman who tried to minimize the support in a member meeting and said the room was packed with NPO supporters and it's just like tonight we put out notices and people show up we had a good showing here tonight and I want to thank the people that did show up but our supporters don't write as much but they show up and they register and we don't feel like it should have to be there should have to be pages and pages of emails written and so forth but in any case the people as you can see showed up tonight just like they have in the past the FAR study that chose Alabama Avenue I happen to live on Alabama Avenue in the block he was talking and if you'll notice it's at an angle with the rest of Old West Durham I don't have a map here in front of me but it's at an angle and most of the lots on one side of the street are pie shaped and they're very small that block actually has the smallest lot in Old West 1836 square feet it's where the neighborhood grocery is it has like a 68% FAR or something crazy like that but it's because these are really tiny lots they're very unusual lots that was not a random choice to pick Alabama Avenue to do a survey and show that the FAR was trying to demonstrate that the FAR was certainly not random and I want to be clear mostly about this idea that we're anti-density anti-affordable housing this was never about trying to prevent density and in fact this is an overlay it's not a complete rezoning taking us out of the RU-5 and 5-2 area we didn't attempt to change our zoning so we could get multi-family units and that's true but that was in the realm of what an NPO could do anyway but what was available in the NPO was to do things that could encourage some additional units and we took advantage of that by addressing the ADU situation I think fairly aggressively and so we did some studies on how many additional ADUs could be added based on the NPO there it's true that with the lots with the highest FAR some of those cannot will not be able to add an ADU we looked for example at a 500 square foot ADU there's about 16% of the lots that will not be able to add a 500 square foot ADU because of the 32.5% FAR cap so there's not enough buildable area we acknowledge that but on the flip side on the other side by reducing the the square footage or excuse me the percentage of heated square feet you need to build an ADU we found that 63% of the lots will be newly able to add a 500 square foot ADU so we lose 16% of the properties cannot build a 500 square foot ADU 63% of the properties are newly able to add a 500 square foot ADU net it out that's 47% of the properties that are now will be able to to add a 500 square foot ADU that was one of the ways we felt we could affect the density situation in terms of density of housing units we also have a lot of duplexes still in Old West that have not been built on I think the count is around 120 or 125 and we're fully accepting of those being built out into duplexes and increasing the density in the neighborhood all we're asking is that when that happens it's done in scale with the neighborhood the duplexes of before 2000 the average duplex square footage was around 750 square feet I don't have the exact number but we were looking at that a couple days ago and the average square footage of duplexes that have been added in the last 10 years that's 750 square feet a side the average duplex size that have been added in the last 10 years are there at 1500 square feet a little bit more than that actually and so you know this is not affordable housing when we're adding these huge duplexes this is 1500 square feet per side they're going for way way more rent than the existing duplexes that are in place and so you know we feel that there's a lot of room to add duplexes and a lot of potential lots that can add duplexes we just want them to be in scale so they'll be more affordable and they will fit in with the character of our neighborhood so great thank you very much so that said we will close the public period of public hearing I appreciate everyone having come tonight and to share your thoughts we will now deliberate as commissioners and as I said earlier we may we will likely direct questions to staff we may direct questions to some of you and ask you to come up and help us make sure we fully understand the situation and the votes that are in front of us so I'll open it up for commissioners commissioner we'll start with commissioner Alturk and then commissioner Warren Buckle thank you chair I feel like I'm talking a lot today I first I want to thank everyone for coming for emailing sending letters calling you know I know that this has been a very contentious case and it has caused a lot of attention in the neighborhood but I will say it at least in the correspondence that I've had most of the emails have been very thoughtful both from opponents and proponents so I appreciate the feedback and it has helped me think about some of the issues that are really important I do also want to thank the staff for this great report I mean this is the report they gave us is excellent so I will kind of draw on that in a couple of cases but let me you know I have for me there are three probably more than just three questions but three broad questions that I'm going to kind of discuss in my comments and one is what would this NPO have what's the effect of this NPO on new construction and related to that second point is how would this affect affordable housing and density which has been brought up and third you know what are its effects on not just new construction but the ability of homeowners to make renovations and add to their homes so you know couple of the things I guess big picture thoughts is that old west is relatively dense already right I mean what we saw earlier that it is six to eight units per acre which is you know more dense than a lot of the you know obviously suburban neighborhoods that are less than four in some cases less than two units per acre so it is a relatively relatively dense neighborhood and it seems right from the numbers you know and I'm glad that Howard pointed out that the numbers in some cases are not completely accurate from the the tax assessor's office because they don't include garages and whatnot but right if you just include square you know heated square footage six percent seems like of all homes right now of that thirty two point five so that's a couple of dozen homes that are above the the proposed FAR the all these acronyms FAR and ADUs and so the proposed maximum floor area ratio of thirty two point five so this is to me a pretty low number but having said that right I still wanted to see let's say that this NPO was adopted in say two thousand nine and what kind of effect would it have on new construction and I looked again at the tax records from the county and it looks like you know not including twenty seventeen but there are thirteen houses built in Old West Durham and if staff has some you know if anything I say seems completely off please let me know seems like there were thirteen houses built in Old West Durham since twenty ten again based on those county records sorry thirteen single family homes and duplexes just to put that in context I looked at all of Durham County and there were five thousand single family homes and duplexes built in that same time so I guess what I'm saying is that this is a very small number of homes that are built right in all of Durham County thirteen houses compared to you know five thousand in the last seven eight years in Old West Durham County but I wanted to see of those thirteen how many of them would have been affected by this NPO and it seems like by my calculation seven of them would not have been able to be built now that's seven houses in the last eight to nine years that would not have been able to be built under this NPO now I guess you can cut the numbers lots of different ways you can say well that's fifty percent of new construction or you can say well that's one home a year that would be affected I mean you know and I do want to address this density question that let me see Tom and Adam and others from the TCC mentioned that you know is an NPO a good policy measure or is it bad for density and at least right if we're interested in affordable housing we do have to consider the supply question it seems to me that this is a minimal effect on supply right potentially right again this NPO would have from what I've seen an effect on one house a year and you know my assumption is that one house would probably be a little bit you know someone would build it to be under the 32.5 so that you know my kind of big point on this is that it seems like the supply will be affected very minimally the second question I mentioned was you know is it going to have an effect on media excuse me right can you add on to your home and again you know from the from the staff report it looks like the median far right now the floor area ratio is around 18 to 19% of the lot size that suggests to me that 50% of houses would be able to add an additional 14% of their lot size right onto their homes or as an accessory unit you know if you think about that right that's 14% of this initial 18% that is an addition of 3 quarters of your house so I was thinking about this well people when they do renovations how much do they add is it reasonable to add 75% extra I mean that seems pretty high to me right so I looked and the National Association of Home Builders suggests that a bedroom these days is about 12% of your home master bedroom family rooms about 12% you know say a kitchen is another 10% I mean if you add all of these things it seems to me like under the current or the proposed NPO 50% of homes would be able to add a considerable amount onto their homes and 75% who are at 22.5 far or below would still be able to add on a considerable amount to their house again either on their primary structure or the ADU but this brings me to what I think is for me a concern and this has come up the ADU the accessory dwelling unit so I'm going to ask staff a question before I make this comment so ADUs one of the things I noticed in the staff reports we don't have and this is maybe harder to find you know do you have a sense of how many lots in Old West Durham or even in all of Durham County have ADUs and if so what's the median or average size of those ADUs so in Old West Durham and actually some folks in the neighborhood Barbara well and that's where you have Barbara who's been doing a lot of the data analysis might have it more at the tip of her fingertips than I do but I would venture to guess there's maybe a dozen at most ADUs in Old West Durham most of them are new construction there's one developer in particular who has an ADU model and they seem to be similar size my understanding is it's about 733 square foot square feet unheated ground floor garage and there's usually roughly a 733 square foot accessory dwelling unit above that and that's been replicated several times I don't know off the top of my head how many though feet added right and so and then that is based on or the max at least right now under the UDO is 30% of the primary structure is that right so the accessory dwelling unit in that example would be capped 30% under the current regulation not the garage not the garage the difference is under the proposed NPO there are some tradeoffs they are bumping up the heated square footage to 50% versus 30% and that's where it is now but they are also now counting that in the FAR and capping it at 700 so there's a little bit of a tradeoff there I think Mr. Welch's point earlier seems accurate I don't have the data in front of me that you are essentially taking for folks that are near or at or above the 32.5 that are eligible to add an ADU they will no longer be able to do so but that is a relatively smaller population for folks at the other end of the distribution who may be having 11 100 square foot house 30% of that is a little more than 300 square feet not a very market viable ADU bumping that up to 50% then allows them to go a little bit higher and maybe have a more market viable unit I don't have the data in front of me that's just kind of first blush off what I've heard tonight and some of the data I've seen okay thank you and that last point is what I was getting to a considerable number of homes that are relatively small that are at 18% far right now maybe 20% which means they can add another 12.5% of the lot size right as an ADU and so my concern is if there is room to build an ADU and it falls within the far why restrict it to only 700 square feet to me if you have a 2000 square foot home and rather than adding on to the primary structure you say well maybe I'll build a 1000 square foot or 900 square foot ADU that rather than being an efficiency it can be a two bedroom or something to me this potential restriction of 700 square feet I think may have a more negative effect on affordable housing than the far because as I've shown I think the far just based on the numbers does not seem to affect the supply that much so I guess I don't know if the proponents if they would like to kind of answer this question of why does the ADU cap to the 700 square feet and could that be changed and then to any proponents who are kind of concerned about ADUs is there something about the ADU provision as it is written right now if it was changed you could support it thank you let's just start with bringing up one proponent for one minute a commissioner has asked you to come up as part of their time and if you can directly address that question please Dan Welch 923 Alabama Avenue and as I recall our discussions around the ADU the 700 square feet we converged on that from number of directions first of all a major concern as we showed in some of the slides earlier about oversized accessory structures that overwhelmed their very they can be allowed to be set into the far back way up against the into the setbacks and they tend to loom over backyards or two-story affairs that with a lot of square footage and so there was a lot of I think there was general consensus of a lot of people that we needed to do something about minimizing the the accessory structures and so we looked at what would be appropriate to do and I think we actually homed in on the 700 square feet I believe going back and thinking about that partly because there's a viable business model coming in several of the ADUs that have been built in fact maybe the only Matt said 12 units or so probably half of those have been built in the last few years as these carriage houses where the ADU is 733 square feet and so it seemed like 700 square feet was kind of a good a good number because that's what the market was demanding that's what they're able to sell and that would kind of meet our objective of not having these overly huge accessory structures on the back lot lines looking over into people's backyards and and so forth so that's I think largely where it came from. Commissioner Alturk, if you want to bring up one proponent or opponent to answer your second question and then we are going to have to move to some of the other commissioners. Yeah, sorry about that, yeah. Thank you. And one minute as well please. Jean-Michel Rostani, the ADU we thank you for bringing this up because I do think that the restrictions of the is one of the weakest point of the NPO as a matter of fact if the object was to prevent excessive development this could have been achieved by just increasing setbacks and preventing from overpaving the back of the lot instead of that because the proponents wanted to restrict developments overall they brought all kinds of measures that stiffen creativity and prevent people to decide for themselves what they want to do and this ADU question is a perfect illustration of it. They want to decide for homeowners whether they want to have a huge dwelling or use there a lot at far and balance it between between a main structure and an ADU and I think that's one of the weakest point of the current proposal. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any closing comments? I mean I will say one more thing there's been a lot of so I've tried to address two questions that have come up a lot there's another one that has been brought up which is about the process again it seems like it has been a contentious one and I have heard both good and bad about the process and so at least for me I cannot make my decision based on that because it it's hard for me to assess whether it was you know was it a perfect process I doubt it was it a terrible process I also doubt that. So I'm going to just you know kind of base it on the merits of the NPO and I do appreciate all the comments but I cannot make the decision based on the process itself. Thank you. Thanks Commissioner. Commissioner Bryan. Thank you. I also want to echo Commissioner Al Turks thank you for your attendance tonight your thoughts your input via email and so forth. I do regret that the process seems to have become contentious another thing that seemed to come out to me tonight during the comments was that the process of communication within the neighborhood may have relied a little too much on the listserv and people who don't go online and don't use listservs and stuff and I happen to be one of them are left out and had I been living in the Old West Durham maybe my wife would have figured out what was going on but I might not have anyhow. I have several comments and a few questions I'll do the comments first I want to actually start with the night street plan which was adopted in November 2008 and in the night street plan which created the night street compact neighborhood part of which is immediately south of Old West Durham it is acknowledged that the residential the residential mill village which is what it was called in the night street plan could really experience pressure from being adjacent to the compact neighborhood and it also noted that one way the neighborhood could protect itself is with a neighborhood protection overlay which was a new tool in the box at the time it just took a long time it appears to actually get around to trying to do one and during that period of time which is not quite ten years it seems like a lot has happened some perhaps for the good and some not so good from the perspective of the neighborhood some comments on the draft it goes I have concerns about some of it I can understand the use of the FAR to regulate bulk I think Chapel Hill does it and I think they use even a lower number but I do sympathize with one gentleman who pointed out that it doesn't quite treat everybody equally if I own the 12,000 square foot lot I would be able should be able if you followed the FAR to have something like 3850 square feet of building but they cap it at 36 so that's one thing that bothers me a little bit I understand how they are regulating we're trying to regulate the height but what bothers me here is that we seem to have adopted a position that one height fits all and I don't agree with that I think if you own a larger lot and can afford to give more setback then you should be able to build higher if you gave some setback and one thing I suggested to some of the proponents was maybe one foot of additional height for two additional feet of setback and I also think that the setback proposed for the accessory structure rather than just jumping up 10 feet when you get over 16 feet I suggested that that be a gradated thing and on the subject of trees the requirement of backyard tree I think the concern here is tree replacement where people have maybe come in and cut down the trees to build a larger structure but it doesn't really say that and when you state that you know this seems like it would apply to any lot in Old West Durham that's a concern to me because you may have some elderly people living in Old West Durham on fixed incomes who just so happens they don't have a canopy tree back there and to be told that they would need to put one in is an expense that I don't think they would want to look at and the other consideration that comes in if you look at section 8.3 of the UDO on trees what you see is that developers are given a certain credit in terms of square footage for trees that they plant and for a 2 inch caliber caliper canopy tree that credit is 175 square feet and if you're hoping that 2 inch tree that you plant might grow into a 4 inch tree you really need to allow about 275 square feet and I bring that up because somebody who maybe has built a McMansion and you want to see a tree back in the backyard could maybe hire an arborist to come in look at the property and come back and tell you that there's not enough room for a tree then what are you going to do and I don't have a good answer to that the other thing that struck me about the tree is that you're obviously concerned about your tree canopy but there's nothing in here about tree preservation I think if you're going to try to manage your tree canopy you need to encourage tree preservation as well as tree replacement and you seem to only be focused on replacement to me that's a fall and now I have some questions for staff one thing that I see is a lot dimensions maximum lot area minimum lot width and so forth when exactly would that apply just pulling up a copy of the NPO so just bear with me for one moment so that would apply with an attempt of subdivision or a lot consolidation it's only if somebody comes in and buys up properties and wants to resubdivide exactly, yeah I think that there's pretty limited circumstances where something like this might occur and I don't want to speak for the neighbor association perhaps someone can volunteer to follow up on this but kind of preventing against large scale redevelopments where someone buys a few blocks and wants to consolidate and kind of tinker with the lot sizes under existing zoning would the maximum lot area requirement prevent somebody who is presently a property owner who owns two adjacent lots from combining them if they would get a lot that was over 12,000 square feet yes that to me again is a provision that I'm uncomfortable with because if I were a property owner living in the neighborhood and you told me I couldn't combine two of my lots I don't know whether I'd win or not but my response would be I'll see you in court I would say and again I don't have all the data handy with 428 parcels but I do think there's a very very limited set of circumstances where there are two people that have properties contiguous with one another who might be interested in doing that perhaps the neighbor association has more comment on that but your point is taken if I may Mr. Chair I would like to get the neighborhood association to comment on this maximum lot area and how many lots and how many possibilities there might be for combination by current owners you may do so but we will want to limit time if each commissioner does wish to speak so if you can address the question and we can bring up one individual for one minute so how many how many properties are there in Old West Durham where two lots side by side owned by the same owner if combined would yield something that's 12,000 square feet does anybody know if someone does have the answer please come up to the microphone and you may answer the question


You're welcome everyone, second session. So today we will start with Rafael Cetri. Rafael is a professor at the University of Tecota, in Nice, France, in Serbia. He's an expert in private theory and also the graphic thermodynamics, and he will give a Blackboard lecture about the conditional problem. Thanks very much. First of all, I want to approach you because yesterday I was not here for welcome you. So I hope that all your eye-wild was good. Second thing that you will see, my English is very bad. I have a terribly French accent.  It's not a problem. However, Tecota has not planned at the beginning. So don't worry. If I speak just five minutes and that you ask me 50 minutes of question, it's not a problem for me. So moreover, I think I have also a slot tomorrow for speak. So and I have not so much things to tell you. So don't worry. So finally, I decided to speak to you to something very elementary. So probably most of you listened this story before, but maybe it would be useful for you to have this example in head for the lecture of the second week, in particular the lecture of information that will arrive in the second week. These people can ask me questions also online. Okay. So I have also other problems that probably this is a very little charged. Nobody have an iPad here. Do you have an iPad? No. Okay. So I will start with this and maybe at the first time where it stopped, I will pass to Whiteboard. So the story that I want to start is that when you do base, the message will be very simple. The conditional probability from A to B, if I know B, is in general the dependence of B. Of course, it's different that A, if I know B prime. If I write this, this is for you evident. But no, I will tell you a story and I will see that in the real life, sometimes this totology for mathematics, sometimes you don't see really the difference between B and B prime. And sometimes this is the root of some paradox. So the story, the paradox that I want to tell you now, the first paradox, it's called, let's make a game. So it's a game, TV, TV game. So it's a real TV game. And it's called also Monty Hall paradox. So who is Monty Hall? He's a TV presenter, American TV presenter. So Monty Hall is a name which during no time presents this game at the TV, which was called, let's make a term. But what was the term? The deal was that there was in this game, three door, the door A, the door B, it must be the same. Sorry, it's not the same. And then in front of two doors, behind two doors, there was gold. So this was a losing door. And behind one door, there was Ferrari. So this was a winning door. Then some people, I don't know if in English, the player arrived and select one door. For example, what is your name? Can you pose it? Okay, perfect.  Okay, this is Jose. Then Jose to the door A, but he don't open the door. He put in front of the door and he said, okay, I think it will be the door with the Ferrari. He wants the Ferrari. This is a prerequisite. Then Monty Hall. This is important. Monty Hall, no, where is the Ferrari? Monty Hall, no, where is the Ferrari? He chose the place. So then after that Jose chose, Jose don't open the door.  Then Monty Hall will open a losing door different that A, different that the door that Jose chose. So Monty Hall, open. This is the two notion that I know are important. A losing door. He can't open the door with the Ferrari. A losing door with a different that A, so different, different that Jose door. Okay, then from this door that Monty Hall open, imagine he opened B, then a gout go out. And then, and this is the main question which is interested for us, then Monty Hall asked Jose, no, that a gout go outside from B, it remains just two doors. Your door A or the door C. So what do you want to do? You can change if you want. You can go to a C or you can stay with a choice.  This is the main question of these patterns. So I must to tell that historically, this leads to a big debate in this TV show because the TV show runs a long time and after some times, some people, not scientific, try to understand if there is a good or not a good strategy. And then some reader asked to a woman, which was not a mathematician, which is called Marilyn Van Savant, which I think at this time a chronic on times kind of clinic where you can ask anything, any questions. Why? Because she has a very big, probably 210. And then in this sense, she was, she was a people think that she was good for understand to all type of question. Then they asked this question. And these girls give a good answer to the strategy. She gives a good answer.  Okay. And then there was a big conflict like long time between some people, mathematicians, physicists or not, or just the new fits, which arrives to the fact that at the end, she gives, she gives, she gives the good answer, the good answer. And then this lead to big debate, big debate. So at the end, there was so much debate, that Montiol himself, which is not at all scientific, decided to go in the countryside house, his countryside house with a lot of friends during our weekend, and to organize numerical simulation with the real life numerical simulation. So he tells to one friend, okay, you will change every time of the door, you will change, you will never change your choice. And then after playing many times, they see who is the winner. So you organize real life numerical simulation. I can do a break. Did you understand all the rules of the game? Okay. So now, since this is very popular, I am sure that you listened to the story before, it's arrived in movie, for example, Las Vegas 21. It's arrived in video game, strategic video game where you must choose between these three doors. So in this room, I can do things. Who thinks that we don't need to change the door? And who thinks that we must change the door? You must choose. Everybody must choose one choice. So who tells, okay, I don't care, I don't change the door. No, no, you can think that you take him around. No, no, no, but there is two choices. If you take him around, you must do one choice between the two. So who tells, I must change. Okay, so maybe here, I will tell 20%, who tells I don't change? No, but everybody must vote. Sorry. I come back. Who tells I don't change? I don't. I don't. One, two, three, four, five, six. Then who tells I change? Oh, you still don't vote. Sorry. What is your vote? No, no, no, the girl. Okay, okay. It's good. We pass. So there is two, there is two philosophy. There is no changest. And there is the changest. In this room, with the limit of the game, I will tell that, okay, maybe it was 70% of no changest, 30% of changest. Then I will try to to tell you what is more or less the argument of each family when I speak with them without math. The math will be very elementary after you see, but what is the argument of it? The non changest, the argument is based on equipability. If you speak with them every time at the end, the argument it is at the starting of the game, the three door, the three door was equiprobable. Equiprobable. What means this? It means that the probability was one third, one third, one third. Then after the effect that Bambtiol opens the B, it remains two door, and there is no reason why this two door is not equiprobable. I would. Lazar, do you think? Ah, okay, okay, no, no question. So the argument of them, it is after that the door B was open, it remains equiprobable. And then it is one half, one half. And then why it will take a risk to change if it is the same probability? In French, we tell the same or we can tell that the first intuition is always the better. Okay, then at the end, all this philosophy arrives to the fact that we don't need to change. Is the people in this room, which was non changest, agree with my explanation? Is their explanation is more or less the same? Okay, no, I will speak of the other philosophy, the other family, the changest. This is maybe a little more complicated, but not so much. So at the starting, there is two possibilities. Oh, José did a mistake. Oh José, as true. So if José did a mistake, what is the probability that he did a mistake? Two thirds, two on three. He has a probability of two thirds to do a mistake.  And he has the probability one third to be in front of a winning dough. Okay, this I think everybody agreed.  In all the case where he is in front of a losing dough, if he changes, he wins. Why? Because the Montreal opens the door B, a gout goes outside. If he was at the beginning in front of a gout, it means that C, the door C, was winning. No other choice. So if he changes, in this case, if he changes, he wins.  Yeah, I don't know. For this, that I tell you that there is probability of two thirds, of two on three. There is another case where he is in front of the winning dough. But then in this case, if he changes, he loses. So conclusion, he must change. Two, if he changes in two, if probability two thirds, two on three, is a good strategy. If probability one or three is a bad strategy. So the conclusion here is terribly clear. He must change. So if there is in this room some non-changes people in the left column that know are convinced by this strategy of the right column or nobody is convinced by this. Is audio okay now? Okay, you can continue. Okay, so I came back. I hope it's good for everybody. And then, no, I will give for me ultimate argument. Is it to consider 1000 dough? So there is 1000 dough. And this 1000 dough, there is 999 goats. And one Ferrari. Then I will down the door quickly. 8, 9, 10. Okay, 500, 500, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Okay, 900, until 1000. This is 1000. This is 500. This is 1. So those arrive, they choose the same door, any door, but then by symmetry, we say that he choose the first door. Then Montreal arrive and you open the door too.  And then after goat, goat, goat, goat, goat, goat, until the end. And then it's remain on just two door, the first door that Jose is in front. And the door 504. And then he tell you, okay, no, what do you want to do? Because I jumped.  It's funny. In front of this 999 door, I just jumped this door. Why? Because she's winning probably. So do you change the point of view now? People which before was not inclined to change, no, do you change in this case? Yes. If there is somebody which still tell no, there is two door, the point is one half and then I stay with my door. Somebody? Okay, so in this case, if you change the door, the point is to win, will you become 999 on 1000?  In the other case, I will prove no, it will become two-third by changing. But then you can tell me, okay, but two-third, I don't care. I mean, I prefer to have one-third and two, okay. But if you change this, in this case, it's 999. And also you can tell me, okay, but I don't care the theory. Okay, but then imagine the life, imagine the game where it is your life, which is in question. The good door is the fact that you stay in life. Then you see that it's better to have 999 on 1000 for the probability that you have one over 1000. So no, for still people which are not convinced, I will do the mathematical elementary proof. But you will see the mathematical elementary proof, in a sense, we don't give you the words of the problem.  Where is, where is the Ferrari? Where is the Ferrari? F is for Ferrari. Now this belongs to A, B, C. I will call P the random variable, which is the door open by Monteo. And this belongs, a priori, also to A, B, C. And then one important thing, in all my conditioning probability, I will not put one important thing. It is, I put in red and this is true all the time. Jose is in front of the door A. He don't open, but he is in front. And so what I want to calculate for, for, good answer, mathematics to this conflict, it is the probability that the Ferrari is in A if I know that Monteo, the presentator, open the door B. Okay, so this, what I can find? For example, I can find maybe one half. And if I find one half, then people of no changing will be true. I don't need to change. It's equiprobable. It stays two doors. The two doors has one half, one half. But I can maybe, I can maybe find one third. And then this was the other column, the changes people, the changes people. And then I can find other things. I don't know. So I will do. So it's very elementary base probability. If the Ferrari is in A, is a presentator open B base, tell me, this is one of the most important formula, I will tell in science, but this is true just in classical physics, which is that it's a very easy A and the presentator open B divide by the fact that the presentator open B. Okay. No, once again, I will use for the numerator against base, but I use that it is the point is that the Ferrari is in A times the point is that the presentator open B. If the Ferrari is in A and in the denominator, I will use the total probability. I will decompose my event that I want for it is that the predator open B on the partitioning of the space, which is the place of the Ferrari. And then I will arrive to the Ferrari is in A times the presentator open B, if the Ferrari is in A plus the Ferrari is in Bay B times the probability that the probate predator open B. If the Ferrari is in B plus the probability that the Ferrari is in C times the probability that the presentator open still B, if the Ferrari is in C. Okay. Is everybody agree with this elementary question? Oh, so somebody have done so of what I did quickly. Jose, it's okay. Sorry. Okay, so the denominator is called the total root probability. In fact, for proof to pass from ear to ear, you must to put the information here. But now you want to add the decomposition until the partition of the space, which is the position of the Ferrari. So in fact, you will tell that P equal B, the event that you want, it is P equal B intersects with all the space. But all the space, it is Ferrari equal A, union Ferrari equal B, union Ferrari equal C. And then you do this intersection of union is union of intersection. And after you do the sum and you find this. In fact, we do this every time without giving a name. But okay, this is the name of total probability, but this, this is totally natural. But this is wrong. Okay, yeah, it can be strong for you. But I want to tell you that this is, for example, is this force is wrong in quantum probability. This is a very something trivial in a sum that we become where we would stop to be valid when you use this born projection and all this. Okay, so now you will help me to find the value numerical value of all the terms that they put in color. Okay. Okay, and last blue. Okay, so first, can you help me for tell me, tell me what is the value of the yellow. The yellow in front, it is the probability that initially without any conditioning, we need without any help from nobody. So it's at the starting of the experiment, what is the point is that the Ferrari is in C. One over three. Perfect. So all this go one over three. Okay, no, I will do, I will jump the green which is maybe the most hard. So I will focus on this, the blue. First, I will for you read in French, sorry, in English. So what is the probability that the presenter openly is if the Ferrari is in C and we don't forget the Ferrari is in C and Jose is in front of A. So remember that Montiol can't open a winning door and can't open the door for Jose is one. Exactly. Perfect. Okay, no red. The probability that the presenter open B is the Ferrari is in B. Zero. Perfect. And green. Green is more hard because we have three doors. The Ferrari is in A, is behind A, and Jose is in front of A. One half. Very good. He has two choices. He has two possible doors, B or C. So that you open B is one half. Okay. So is he already agree with this value? But then it's one third times one half on one third times one half plus one third times zero plus one third times one. So it is one over six. One over six plus zero plus one over three. It is one, one plus two. And surprise, we find one over three. The one over three of the challenges. Because no, what we find is the probability that the Ferrari is in A if the presenter Montiol open B. This is one third. And because the other, the point is that the Ferrari is in B, is the presenter open B, but this is zero. And then the last point is that the Ferrari is in C if the presenter open B, must be two third. And so you see that the conclusion is clear from a mathematical point of view. We must change. Is there any question? So in a sense, this gives you an easy answer to your problem. But my feeling is that this is what happened. So we will do a supplementary calculation. What is the probability that the Ferrari is in A if I know that the Ferrari is not in B? So once again, we will do very simple base. It will be the probability that the Ferrari is in A and that the Ferrari is not in B on the probability that the Ferrari is not in B. But on the numerator, if the Ferrari is in A, she is not in B. So one is included in the other. So the intersection is just the Ferrari is in A and in the denominator, it is just A or C. And then it is one third on two thirds. And then catastrophe, what I find here, it is one half, the very bad one half of the non-changing people. So this is very bad. So what I do here, I come back. I just I prove that if the Ferrari is in A before I prove that if the pre-emptator open B was one third and no, I prove that Ferrari is in A when Ferrari is not in B, equal one half. So the question which arrived, it is, what is the relation between these events, the pre-emptator open B and this event, the Ferrari is not in B. So did you see one event which is included in the other? Oh, do you think that they have to say? It's not the same, no, because the random variable which door the pre-emptator opens is not the same path, the same event that the Ferrari is. Okay, so can you tell me if there is one inclusion? I think it's more correct the second. Okay, first, forget the public story. Is this inclusion is true? If the pre-emptator open B, have you, the Ferrari which is not in B? This is true or not? Yeah, this is true. This is true, we are arguing. And we can't discuss this, this is true. If the pre-emptator open B, a gout go out, a Ferrari is not in B. The question is, do we have reciprocal? Is this true or wrong? This is wrong. The Ferrari can be outside B and if the Ferrari is in A, the pre-emptator can open C. So there is no reciprocal. So you see that we have an event, P equal B, which is more precise, which gives you a more precise information. So the word information will be important for the next week, that the events, big events, Ferrari is not in B. And then this is the root of the problem for the people which are non-changists. When they evaluate the story, they translate in their head, what is the information? The information is the Ferrari is not in B. Then they conclude one half an hour, if it's good. But they do a bad translation of the information because the most precise information of the experiment is not the Ferrari is not in B. The most precise information is the pre-emptator open B. And then this is a moral of my story. It's very dangerous and it's very hard. But when you take a decision for your life, for science, you must to condition with respect to the most precise information, to condition with respect. If not, this can totally change your decision as here. To the most precise, I will tell fine, fine, or most precise information. For example, if you want to bet on the next match of the niche football club, it's better if you look all the match, including the last match of last week. This is a very precise information. All the match since the 10th match, that if you arrive from the March planet, that you don't see the three last match and that you must bet with your information that you see of what the match that they did two months ago, then the information is less good, of course. So in this case, we will not do, but you'll see that in this paradox, very quickly, we translate with, because we are limited as human, we translate badly what is the information. And very quickly, we tell, okay, if you open B, okay, then then you're trying to draw. You're trying to draw? Good. Equal probability, one-half, one-half. This is bad. This is not the game. The game that's open B. It's more precise that a goat is in front of B. Okay, no. For finish, I think when I have to finish, soon, no? I am totally lost with the program. I have five minutes. Okay, I will take 10 minutes and I will stop. I will do the dual paradox. So the dual paradox is called... Ah, no, sorry. Before to do the dual paradox, I want to give you a little exercise for preparation of the next week. Can I ask the questions about... Hey, of course, for that, just I give the exercise after I go to the next week for preparation of the lecture of information of Dimitri Petritis. So, yeah, I will ask you to calculus the information of the random variable F, which was the position of the Ferrari. Okay, you must find log 3. And I will ask you to calculus the entropy of F if I know P. Conditional... Entropy of F, I know P. This, you must find log of 3 minus two-thirds log of 2. So, this is, finally, the entropy of the distribution that we find at the end, the position of the Ferrari if I know P. And then, I think next week, a notion of mutual entropy will be defined between the position of the Ferrari and the place of the Ferrari, which is, finally, the diminution of entropy between the initial and the final experiment. So, you must find something. And then, this, in a sense, when next week, people will speak of mutual entropy, then you must translate in your head that this is the information that Montiol put to you by opening the door. This is the information given by the presenter. Okay. So, for do these things, I think it's just the Shannon entropy that you know. This, you can look the definition on Wikipedia, but it will be, again, the Shannon entropy, but with respect to the conditional probability, F, if I know P, that we calculated before. Okay. Now, this is the definition. And this, I think, you will have next week probably another definition, then you must remember that in this experiment, this is this information which results from the fact that Montiol appeared in the story and give you an information by opening the door. And then, maybe this can help you to have some intuition for some abstract objects to the next week. So, before to, to pass two minutes on the next paradox, I will answer two questions of Elimir. Yes. Thank you. The first question is, at the beginning, the book is uniformly. Yes. And sorry if I missed. If it is not uniform, this information. Ah, it's changed totally the story. It's changed totally the story. Change. If it's not uniform, my complication is bad. Uniformity of the, of the theory was. I put this. Yes. If not, you change the story. But then, you know, you know, for, for that the paradox is apparent, you must take the simple. Okay. If you complicate the story, then the paradox will be less apparent. Okay. The same question. So, when you perceive the event, this is behind the first off and the computer. And then you open the door. This will be always reduced. When the presenter opened the door. No, but you, you don't open the door. The candidate don't open the door. It is Montreal, which opened a losing door. And then you are true. Exactly. Look, look at this formula. You are totally true. You will pass from this entropy, which is bigger, larger industry to this entropy, which is more little. Can you say something about your relationship with an entropy? For example, you open the second door, there is a book and there is no book. But this, yeah, but this is, yeah, yes, you are true, but this is another experiment. In this experiment, you don't open the door for the world. The presenter opened a losing door, who must be about to go out. He can't open a winning door. The presenter opened a losing door. Obligatory. But you are true. Your question is more or less this. Your question is more or less this. It means the fact that the presenter opened the door, change the information context of the experiment and then give you an information, which is, which will be the mutual property of the next week. And if it is not uniform, you only point that it will change in this year and three. Yeah, but probably it will also change the paradox. It's not that all will be changed. This will change, this will change also. So all must be changed. The paradox must remain here, but I don't know it. So I will not advise you. Thanks. Is there is other question? Yes. Can you repeat the part of the most precise information? Yes, of course. So are you agree that, are you agree that if the presenter opened B, then the Ferrari doesn't B. Are you agree that if the Ferrari doesn't B, this don't imply that the presenter opened B. So this is the most precise information of the experiment. If you translate the experiment by this, you forget the information. This is perfectly all the information from the opening to Monte Hall is here. This is a bad translation. This is the analogy in the football club where you look just the match three months ago. You forget the recent match. Okay. And so my conclusion was that in the life, it's very important when you take a decision with respect to what happened before, to translate exactly what happened before. In this experiment, if you translate by P different B, you take a bad decision, which is, I don't change the job. This was my, okay. In a sense, what I claim is very easy to claim, very complicated to do. If it was easy, everybody will be mired. So we are a failed machine for taking the decision because it's very complicated to translate all the information that we have in the good ensemble. The presenter opens the door, then you can use the event in different ways. You can use it by saying, okay, this is very useful information for people. Because also in the traveling in a different way, this is a non-change. We have to be very careful. There is a phenomenon happening, which is giving information. The way you process the information from this event can be very different. Okay. So now I will just speak of the dual during two minutes of the dual paradox, which is called, which is called, which is called prisoner paradox. Just in order to interest you, I will change the context of the prisoner in a maybe more modern context. Then there is three men in this room. I'll show you a change. What is your name? Yes. What is your name? Hi, it will be hard. Can you... Gilbert. Gilbert. Miguel. And Ravi. Sam, the player. Oh, are you with the X? No. Okay. Then the three men who... I don't know if you with a good name in English, the same girl. They want to go out with the same girl. The girl have no name. Josephine. But we don't know who Josephine chose. They don't know. Josephine knows. But Josephine has the best term, which is called, I don't know, Cunegonde. Cunegonde. And Josephine tells Cunegonde who she chose. Then they are all three in a room, and then Gilbert wants to know. So Gilbert wants to see Cunegonde, which is in this room, and tell, okay, Cunegonde, can you tell me who Josephine chose? And then Cunegonde tells me, no, no, I can't. I can't. Josephine asked me to don't tell to nobody. I can't tell you. It's the beginning of the story.  So I have the solution. Then he comes back to see Cunegonde. Cunegonde is the best friend. And then he tells, okay, I understand that you can't tell me if you choose me or not. But then can you tell me between Miguel and Ravi? A man that she don't choose. Can you tell me between M and G? A man that Josephine don't choose. So Cunegonde, which is also a mathematician, thinks, thinks. Okay, I accept this. I accept you. I tell you that Josephine don't choose Miguel. Miguel is not chosen.  But know that Miguel disappeared from the story. It's remain just me and Ravi. And then, no, sorry, I have one-third. So you give me good information. And the question that I ask for you is, is this true or not? Yes, yes. So three man, Gilbert, Miguel, Ravi, which want to go out with the same girl, Josephine. They don't know who Josephine chose. But Josephine has a best friend, which is Cunegonde. And then Cunegonde, no. Who is the man from the three, which is chosen? So initially they have probability one-third. Okay, but then Gilbert want to know, then he go to see Cunegonde and ask if they are chosen and I am the chosen. She said, I can't tell you. I don't know. I can't tell you. I am not allowed to tell you. Okay, so then he came back to see Cunegonde and said, okay, I understand that you can't tell me, but then I have other question, which is between the two other, can you tell me one which is not chosen? And then Cunegonde said, okay, just like I can do for you. And I will tell you, Miguel is not chosen. So at the end he stayed Gilbert of the V. And then Gilbert said, okay, good. May I probably know his one-half. So who thinks that Gilbert is true? Nobody. Ah, one person. Okay. And who thinks that Gilbert is wrong? Okay, and all the other still thinks nothing. Oh, this is, ah, she's wrong? Wrong. Okay. Okay, so you know you can prove to Tom that he has wrong, means that this afternoon you will prove the probability that the, the, the lover is, no, the lower is Gilbert if Cunegonde tell Miguel is one third. Instead, the probability that Zollover is Ravi, if Cunegon tell Miguel is two thirds, you must prove this with exactly the same question that I did before. And so in a sense, the winner of this story is Ravi, which like nothing. And if you if you tell me okay, but what is the root of this? But it is the fact that when he asked his question, Gilbert, he is good himself. So he takes no risk. So the probability will not win. It will be not fair. The other take a risk. The other is not in the story, but the other can can be answering as people with which has not chosen. So finally, when he is not answering as not chosen, too much negation. Then this tell you telling something by the fact that maybe is more probable that he is chosen. And okay, the maths after very simple give you this. So innocent is the same paradox except that the story is a little different because you can't exchange your name. But if not, it is. Okay, I think I conclude what I want to tell you today. On this, my main message is warning conditioning probability can be not intuitive. And then conditional entropy will have the same kind of paradox of course, because it will be just the entropy related to this conditional probability. Okay, fine. Very much. No, okay. Good. Thank you.