elopment in Durham and clearly tonight's hearing is evidence there's going to be a great deal more. And that's appropriate given the fact that so many more people are coming here, as the mayor has said. But I hope you all will consider this as sort of a modest way to a iron out of discrepancy in our current laws and to acknowledge that it's important to hear the concerns of ordinary. Some use the term citizen planners. I'm not sure I've earned that term yet but just ordinary people who bring forward ways to improve things. So thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. McDowell. We'll now hear from Camille Blumber. And I hope I've said your name right. Thank you. And please give us your name and address. You also have three minutes. Camille Blumber, 52 Beverly Drive, Durham, North Carolina 27707. Mr. Mayor, city council members, where do you stay? For those of you who grew up in Durham, I'm pretty sure you have either been asked that question or have asked it yourself. The significance is the answer meant something. By responding Northgate Park, Walltown, East Durham, you immediately knew the community a person belonged to. It was a neighborhood, not a development. I believe all of our Durham neighborhoods are significant and we have an obligation to be good stewards of these communities. I also support growth and change. And yes, we can do both. We do not have to destroy the character of our neighborhoods to do both. We just have to be thoughtful and deliberate. To that end, I support and I'm asking you to support this amendment. This will allow our neighborhood to grow and increase density without the risk of losing the forests and forest hills. By the way, a couple weeks ago, I attended my 40th high school reunion, Durham High School class in 1979, Go Bull Dogs. I mentioned to someone that I had moved back to Durham about 12 years ago and he asked me, where do you stay? It's good to be home. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Blommer. We'll now hear from Christy Ferguson. Dr. Ferguson, welcome. Please give us your name and address and you have three minutes. It's Dr. Christy Ferguson, 1011 Homer Street. Good evening. I'm here to request that you vote for this amendment. The current flammer flume is at odds with what's on the ground in the neighborhood. Taken to its logical conclusion, it means we want forest hills to disappear. And I don't think that that's what anybody wants. Contrary to the stereotypes of forest hills, it's economically diverse. There are very large houses, but there are also small houses. There are some under 1,000 square feet. The current policy encourages builders to roll up several small homes, knock them down and build something expensive in their place. As part of the new comp plan, Durham could design something more nuanced and flexible more nuanced than bubbles of increasing density drawn in somewhat arbitrary locations. We could have a plan that would allow our neighborhoods to evolve instead of endangering them. Forest hills still has undeveloped land that could incorporate more diverse housing types. For example, there are two large adjacent parcels with owners who've signaled their intent to sell in the next couple of years. We could plan something in those and other locations that would meet the goals of the city. Maybe quadruplexes, maybe apartment buildings would be right in those locations. We risk losing the opportunity to be intentional by continuing to ignore both the reality of what's in place and the actual real opportunities that we have. If you think that as a matter of policy, Durham's historic assets are worth preserving, not for me, not for the current residents, but because they're important to the city, then I ask you vote in favor of this amendment. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Ferguson. Mr. Proffetta, and as Mr. Proffetta is coming up, if I could ask the next three speakers to please come over here to my right. That would be Merle, Richie, Tom Clayton and Ellen Pless. Welcome, Mr. Proffetta. Please give us your name and address, and you have three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem and the council. And my name is Tim Proffetta. I reside at 1014 West Forest Hills Boulevard in Durham. I'm also a signator, as you noted, on the petition. I just want to speak to that briefly. When I signed as the party on this petition, I was signed on behalf of a large coalition. My neighbors had organized themselves. The staff's talked about the signatures on the petition. So I don't know procedurally if I should have joined myself with 40 others, but I offered myself as a signatory, but didn't intend to be a single moving party. I'm here to ask you to vote in favor of the amendment for the amendment of Flum and Forest Hills. And I want to make three quick points. I want to first say that, as we all know, Forest Hills is the distinct diverse neighborhood that serves as a beautiful resource for all of Durham. Just come to our park in the weekends and look at the pickup soccer in the park. Look at the people down at the water park. Come to our neighborhood in Halloween and see how our streets team with everybody. It's a, there's a character in the neighborhood that I think we all value and enjoy. Second point I want to make is that there's a fundamental disconnect between the Flum and the neighborhood. The neighborhood plan and the neighborhood zoning right now, which is completely unknown to most of my neighbors and residents of the, until recent years. It seems I've been creating this 2005 planning process that did not really inquire into the neighborhood's character and desires, but simply created a plan that was more based on the proximity to the town center. And it had no inquiry after where our hydrologies like our transportation capabilities look right and our historic development is. And most of us who moved that neighborhood, I moved in 2009, didn't know it existed. We just knew that the neighborhood for the character was. Third point I want to make is our neighborhood wants to be part of helping Durham evolve, not stay static. My neighbors and I are not resisting any change at all. We want to be part of creating a plan for change that does not lose what makes forest so special. We are awakening to these needs. We want to work with the city to create a new comprehensive plan that allows for growth, embraces our diversity and makes Durham thrive with forest hills remaining as part of its historic center. The council knows we're all engaging in that planning process. Our neighborhood is engaging in that planning process and hoping to bring our neighborhood together to support the city's needs. What we're asking for today and we're hoping to do is work forward with you and work with you in partnership to create a new comprehensive plan allows Durham to grow while also preserving things like forest hills that make it special. To be grant this amendment today, that'd be a great first step in that partnership by protecting the neighborhood until we can create the process to ensure the new plan fits our desires for the evolution of forest hills. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Profeta. We'll now hear from Merle Richie. Ms. Richie, welcome. Please give us your name and address and you also have three minutes. My name is Merle Richie. I live at 1552 Hermitage Court. Mr. Mayor and Council. I've lived in four houses in forest hills since being born in Watts Hospital, now the North Carolina School of Math and Science in 1942. Durham has always been a diverse city but diversity has increased as population has grown. Durham is now on a roll. It is fully celebrating its diversity. Sometimes we think of diversity in terms of people but I want to speak to you with regard to diversity in terms of neighborhoods. The feeling that I want to impart to you tonight is that forest hills represents a factor in Durham's diversity. It is internally diverse and externally diverse within Durham. If it is made more dense, it will lose its special character. Presently, I think all the races, girls on the run, moonlight biking, all the races, I don't have the statistics but they all come by my house and it's wonderful really and it's nice that they have this place where they can experience a tree cover and not so heavy traffic to have these activities which benefit our community greatly. Perhaps our diversity is what makes Durham special.  We should celebrate our diverse neighborhoods and not change the diverse character that has put Durham on the map. Please vote in favor of this amendment. Thank you very much, Ms. Ritchie. Ms. Ritchie, I run by your house a lot of Sunday mornings but you're in really call it racing. Yes. Well, I wanted you to actually race. I know they did. I know they did. I know because it's very consistent. Scholars and people who have data. Yes, that's true. Thank you. Mr. Clayton, welcome. You also have three minutes. Thank you. My name is Tom Clayton. I've lived at 1016 Homer Street in Forest Hills for 33 years. Unfortunately, a couple of you have heard me make a very similar statement at the Durham or the City County Planning Committee meeting recently but I think it's most appropriate that I make the same point with the rest of you tonight. So what I'd simply like to say is that cities don't grow in concentric circles as there are more significant factors impacting housing decisions like varied topography, prior development, proximate, proximity to transportation arteries and existing commercial enclaves than imaginary lines on a map. The purely theoretical concept on which the current future land use map is based might be elegant in its simplicity yet entirely flawed in depicting what exists. Far from conforming to homogenized tiers, Durham's multi-talented, innovative and independent citizens have created a rich patchwork of neighborhoods and housing options throughout the city which for the most part are quite viable. And now with the implementation of expanding housing choices and the affordable housing bond can become an even more beautiful, thoroughly realized quilt. So I urge you to support the proposed Forest Hills Amendment to the Flum as a step away from the hopelessly flawed doughnuts of density concept and a step toward a comprehensive plan that more appropriately reflects the multi-hued city we all have built and which provides an effective way forward that avoids the imposition of such an ill-fitted, entirely artificial construct. Thanks so much for your consideration. Thank you very much, Mr. Clayton. And now we'll hear from Ms. Pless. Welcome. Thank you so much, Mayor Shul. I'm sorry, I forgot to write my name on the card and I appreciate you catching it for a return for you correcting my math. Thank you. Please give us your name and address. You also have three minutes. Yes, indeed. My name is Ellen Plus, I live at 706 East Forest Hills Boulevard and you have heard the staff's report so this is kind of a citizens report. The site is located between Moorhead Hill and Tuscaloosa Lakewood neighborhoods both of which already have special designations. One has a local historic district and the other has an NPO. The site is not contiguous to the downtown. The site is developed and built out according to the original designer's suburban plan. That plan and its associated district are recognized by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service. The site contains a mixture of hardwood and pine forest including old growth trees surrounding an active and expanding FEMA floodplain, floodway and floodway fringe. The site has numerous steep slopes and supports headwater zones for the most contaminated stream in Durham County, Third Fort Creek. Third Fort Creek flows into Jordan Lake and serves as a source of regional drinking water. In their 2019 Third Fort Creek TDML response plan planning staff site construction and development sources of sediment and runoff from impervious surfaces as significant contributors to the stream's unacceptable and worsening condition. Third Fort Creek's water quality indices continue to decline, excuse me, despite a previous stream restoration project. The site overlaps the National Historic District of Forest Hills, protections for which are available through the state of North Carolina Session Law 2015-86. The site is developed and built out according to the original developer's intentional suburban plan. Through consistent citizen stewardship, it has remained one of Durham's most intact historic assets for almost a century. The intentional suburban plan and curvilinear street layout support one of the historic district's most major landscape features which is the hardwood and pine forest for which many streets in the neighborhood, which, sorry, for which many streets and the neighborhood itself are named. In turn, the forest supports the environmental stability of the steep slopes and Third Fort Creek. The applicant proposes to adjust the future land use map to more closely match the environmentally sensitive built-out environment, whereas the current future land use map prescribes densities that fundamentally threaten the forest, the recognized historic built environment and its setting, and the damaged creek. This application is consistent with compliments and or is supportive of the comprehensive plan, Chapter Five, the Eno Hall Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan, Third Fort Creek 2019 TDML Response Plan, North Carolina Session Law 2015-86, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the U.S. Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines for the Treatment of Historic Properties and Districts written by Sally Jewel and Ken Salazar. It is important to note that these guidelines call for, quote, retaining the historic relationship between buildings and the landscape. Thank you, please vote in favor of this. Thank you very much, Ms. Plass. Before I call the next two speakers, I just wanna ask, is there anyone else? This is a public hearing item, and I have Mr. Dick Hales and Mr. Dan Bach who are here to speak. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on this item? Mr. Ghosh. Okay, did you do it on this item? I did, and the next one. Okay, well, I don't have the card, but... I won't out-promise. Mr. Ghosh, are you an opponent or a proponent? Proponent. Proponent, you're right here, it's my apologies.  You have three minutes and please give us your name and address. No problem, and my name is Neil Ghosh. I'm an attorney at the Morningstar Law Group at 112 West Main Street, here in Durham. Good evening, Mayor Shuler, whatever you're going by these days, and Mayor Pro-Tim Johnson and members of the city council. Be careful, be careful, Mr. Ghosh. Actually, I didn't know. Anyway, I'll be brief in my comments because the residents here in Forest Hills have done a lot of great work and said a lot. I mean, said basically all there is to say. And frankly, I'm very proud of them for being a group of neighbors that has taken advantage of a development process which oftentimes I think neighbors find themselves trying to catch up when there's a development in their community, trying to catch up on learning how to do that and what it all means. And they have taken, I think, an extra step in actually taking advantage of the tools available to them in the unified development ordinance, which is not something, as Mayor Pro-Tim Johnson alluded to, not something that you see happen all that often. And I think this case is important for exactly that reason. And I know that it's not conceptually something that we're used to seeing and it's not an easy case. And I think the 6-6 vote at the Planning Commission supports that conclusion as well. But these neighbors, I think, are making a statement about what they would like to see in their community. And I know that there is an effort in the city to redo its comprehensive plan and rewrite its comprehensive plan. My sincere hope, regardless of what my clients think, and I mean, just as a citizen of Durham, my sincere hope is that we move away from the concentric circle ideas because Durham is more than just a set of circles. There are neighborhoods in the urban tier, what we call the urban tier today that are not urban in nature and they were designed that way. And one of them is Forest Hills. And I think that in our next iteration of a comprehensive plan, I would hope that we take the time to be more intentional about how we're describing our different areas and what we want to see there in preserving some of those areas, those neighborhoods that are worth preserving. And I would say, I would argue that Forest Hills is one of those neighborhoods. Sure, it is not at a density that is consistent with what you would see in an urban tier. However, it is an important part of Durham that I think is worth preserving. And this application, of course, is not associated with any type of development plan or concept for the next construction. This is literally a policy statement and these are your constituents and they are asking you to make that statement. They are making the statement for you. They have applied for you to vote on that. And they hope, and I hope, that you will support their application tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Ghosh.  Our next two speakers are Mr. Dick Hales and Mr. Dan Bach. Let me ask again if you all could please come over here to my right. This is a public hearing item. Is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item tonight? All right, Mr. Hales, welcome. You also have three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. I'm proud of my neighbors tonight too. I live at 100 Briar Cliff Road in the Forest Hills neighborhood. I'm in the Southwest part of the neighborhood where the lots are considerably more compact than the larger lots you see down along the park, up on Hermitage Court and other parts of the neighborhood. So I really don't have any opposition to anything I heard any of them say. It's just that the proposal on my property would make my property non-conforming with a future land use map because my lot's a little less than four units per acre. In addition, the possibility of being able to build an accessory dwelling unit or a duplex, particularly my part of the neighborhood where houses are smaller and so on, could make the density considerably higher than that. So I expressed this concern a year ago. I've talked to Mr. Bryan and Mr. Ghosh. And the Southwest part of the neighborhood, particularly within a block or so of University Drive, the lots are considerably smaller and the proposal for my property doesn't fit and technically makes me non-conforming. So that's why I'm speaking in opposition. I also, definitely, I've lived in many locations around the city and county in the last 40 years. And I think the area fits in a suburban tier just fine. We have a shopping center nearby, we have a big park, we're close to restaurants out on Chapel Hill Boulevard and so on. I don't think that's really much different than if you lived in other large neighborhoods in East Durham, Trinity Park, Watts Hill and Dale and other places. I think I certainly love being easy distance from downtown and everything down there and I think that's a good reason to keep an urban tier. Thanks so much. Did you say this is not different from suburban tier neighborhoods like Trinity Park or did you say urban tier neighborhoods like Trinity Park? I think it's similar to other urban tier neighborhoods. Okay, thank you. You don't find neighborhood grocery stores in the middle of Watts Hill and Dale and not many parts of East Durham or Trinity Park either. Thank you, Mr. Hales. Thank you. Mr. Bach, welcome. Please give us your name as you have three minutes. Dan Bach, 915 Urban Ave. I was talking against this proposal. It goes against the staff recommendation, it goes against the planning commission recommendation. More importantly than that, I think it goes against our values as a city. Our values are, one neighborhood should not be able to come to the city council and get themselves exempted from the rules that apply to everyone else. And our city growth should happen equitably, not just in gentrifying neighborhoods, but in all neighborhoods, including in Forest Hills and in my neighborhood Trinity Park. And our city growth should happen sustainably, not just by clear cutting forest to build a car dependent suburb outside of town, but through infill development, missing middle housing built within walking and biking distance of employment centers and centers of shopping and other amenities. And so that's why I'm against this. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Bach. All right, this is a public hearing. Is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item? Is there anyone else tonight who would like to be heard on this item? All right, now I'm going to ask council members if you have any questions or comments. Councilmember Freeman, is that a yes? I'll take a moment. I think Councilmember Austin. Councilmember Austin. Thank you. And forgive me for folks in the staff if you address this in your staff report, but could you discuss the alternatives that you referenced briefly in the staff report, the infill standards in local historic districts? So addressing infill standards would be form, setback. Ms. Rosenberg, would you speak up a little? Sure, thank you. So infill standards, those could be fleshed out more fully in the future to include more standards regarding setback and form and the character of the neighborhood. And then the local historic district would be a citizen initiated request that would cover the historic portion of the neighborhood to cover to preserve the historic character as has been described, covering landscape site and the actual building structures themselves. Just one follow up. Let's say hypothetically, this neighborhood order would go through that process for the historic neighborhood designation and succeed if an individual property owner wanted to say remove the historic designation from their properties, that's something that would be possible. I'm just trying to understand the parameters of this. Once it has been designated. Right, like hypothetically. It would have to go through another process. It would have to come back to City Council. But it's possible. Technically it's possible. It might be expensive. Sure. Okay, thank you. I might have a follow up, but I'll let someone else jump in. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Freeman. Thank you. The last speaker kind of threw me off. And I have to say this. A resident from Trinity Park that has a historic district is telling Boris Hills that doesn't have a historic district. They shouldn't have a historic district. It just messed me up. I'm sorry. There were a number of concerns raised or a number of reasons why this was raised. And I really appreciate as a former inter-neighborhood council president and member the thought that you've put into this process and recognizing that there's not very many handles that neighbors have to do anything about what's happening in their neighborhood around development. And so I can appreciate what you're trying to do and trying to put some parameters around how development happens in your community. I do also understand the comment around, I think it's some decal and saying that your property would be non-conforming, but I would only be an issue if you were planning to tear your house down. Could staff help me with this? And then also with the ADU, the expanded housing choices is not prevented by the density. It's not prevented by any of those things that were raised. And I'm just trying to make sure that I have this clear in my mind before making a decision. So it wouldn't prevent you doing accessory dwelling units and it wouldn't prevent you from, I mean, it doesn't force you to do anything different with your property. Am I right? Am I missing something here? Good evening again, Pat Young with the planning department. So right, nothing in this proposal would prohibit non-conformities from continuing. And nothing in this proposal would undo the provisions that you all recently passed in the expanding housing choices. Thank you. And so I just wanna note that this was the issue in passing the expanded housing choices I was concerned around and not having the conversations on a more local kind of localized basis so that neighborhoods understand what their handles are. You get this kind of knee-jerk reaction to try and stem the tide of having any untold number of units being added or developments happening. And I think that I'm clear that we just need to be better stewards of how or better communicators in how we provide these resources that should be available through planning and zoning to community members who feel like there's an upcoming zoning or parcel that should be addressed. I don't know that this overarching push is really where you wanna, the direction you wanna go. But I mean, if the purpose or the point is to get to the fact that it takes three to five to seven years, like in our case for the local historic district, and you don't wanna have a number of developments coming along in that time period, I think it's important to know that if you've already acquired an attorney from Morningstar Law Group that they could essentially assist with that. So I'm trying to understand how this all came to be at this point where you have an attorney and you're putting forth a plan to change the flum for the whole neighborhood. That was a question, right? You are. Yeah, okay. Is that a question, Council Member? Yes, that is a question. Is that for Mr. Gosh? Yes, Mr. Gosh, if that's... Yeah. Or Mr, I'm sorry, Mr. Prof. Prof. So when we met with the neighbors in Forest Hills, the first thing we talked about doing, in fact, the first thing we attempted to do was to apply for an NPO. And that, I know you know how that process works, but just for everyone's edification, it was on the back of the Old West Durham NPO, right? So we applied after that one was approved. And I think that at least my understanding is the Old West Durham NPO, that process maybe didn't work out the way that everyone had hoped that process would work out. And so there had been I think some discussion with planning staff and probably amongst you all about changing that process. And that's the point at which we applied for an NPO in Forest Hills. And it was, I will say tumultuous to get that thing to, I mean, to JCCPC, whether it was going to be prioritized, it was also on the same budget as the current rewrite of the comprehensive plan. So it was prioritized, but there was no money to pursue it in terms of the budget. So that application has fallen off the map, but I wanna be clear that this neighborhood has tried to take advantage of the other tools in the UDO. And just the way it all shook out, the NPO application is now at this point essentially expired. It's not going to be prioritized before it ever gets any work done to it. And so one of the other things we did, which is going in our minds is less effective than an NPO would have been was this, apply for a future land use map change, which is a process that can be run through its entirety without a lot of staff hours. So it doesn't have that same, a prioritization type of limitation that an NPO or local historic district would have had. So we were working from a limited bag and we actually did try to make use of other tools in that bag. It just wasn't successful, not for lack of trying, just for lack of budget, frankly. And so we're also taking advantage of another tool in that bag. I appreciate that. And then I just had a question for staff. I would have, if you have a clarification, I think. I was just informed by Ms. Plus that actually we were able to get reprioritized for the NPO with the JCC, all the acronyms, meeting. Yeah, yeah. So we are not technically on the product, we were able to get it. I, since I have the microphone, just want to sort of speak to, we have looked at like, we do want to pursue every option we have. We're not asking for stasis. We're asking while we can work through the comprehensive planning process, while I can work through the NPO process to stop this complete, the similarity between the way we're zoned and the way we're planned. And just if you could, so the request here is really for the neighborhood to be able to not have to fight any other processes coming through while we do it, while we work in partnership with you to figure out the right way for this neighborhood to evolve with the city. And if there was anything that was not in compliance or conformity with this, that was not our intent. Was for this, every parts to being conformity with what we were requesting. Thank you. I just wanted to follow up with staff on the noting that it is within your, is it in this year's work plan, next year's work plan? And then also noting like, I'm concerned that this is going to create a situation where more residents are going to feel like this is the only option they have to kind of stem the development that's urbanizing their community based on their understanding of what's happening in planning and zoning. Well, I'll first, Council Member Freeman, I'll first just co-sign what Mr. Perpetta just said. The earlier this month, the Joint City County Planning Committee did re-endorse, reprioritize the NPO application. So we will be seeking resources for that. We don't currently as same as we were, same situation we were in this time last year, we do not have the internal resources since we're doing the comprehensive plan primarily internally. So we will be seeking a potential budget allocation that Council wants to resource that item. I think Ms. Rosenberg did a nice job of characterizing the opportunities that are available through the local historic district and then through any potential modifications to the infill standards. If I might take just a moment, I think I would want to acknowledge on the record kind of consistent what I think was in the year of staff report from Ms. Rosenberg that the tier model that was developed with 2005 comprehensive plan is imperfect. It does kind of look at it concentric rings going from the middle. We all know communities don't develop that way. But what it was getting at was a very, at the time very innovative idea, which is that we want different things from different place types. We want them to feel different and operate differently. And there are now place type models in planning that are much more subtle and nuanced and sophisticated. We intend on using those with the ComPlan update that's underway. The 2005 ComPlan had density as a foundation. I think we want to look more at form and function and impact on services and infrastructure. So that's again consistent with that more nuanced approach to a place type. But I will kind of end quickly with, I think what we are using as a guiding principle, unless we get substantially different input from you all from the public, which is that the high demand for urban living and the scarcity of urban land are the key drivers of housing unaffordability in Durham. And we think every neighborhood needs to be able to adapt incrementally and modestly to change. And if we're gonna begin to substantially address our housing affordability problem, you all approved a project late 2018 in this neighborhood called Pinecrest Project. There was, went from 12 acres with one unit on it to when they're gonna be about 57 or 60 units. And we think because of the design commitments and other review that you all provided that project, it's gonna be very context sensitive and fit in with the neighborhood without damaging, destroying, or diminishing the character of forestels neighborhoods. There are opportunities for substantially increased density without creating the negative impact we've heard about from the proponents tonight. So thank you for the opportunity to just expand on those items. Just one more question, Patrick, around I guess the availability of staff. And I think it's clear that the resources are slim and planning to even address. And so any time you see residents hiring an attorney, seriously, there's already an issue because I think it should be a public service that we're providing to our residents, especially as taxpayers, to make sure that they have the information and like available resources. And so is there anything in your work plan that's gonna address that aspect of this conversation? Because I think that this case would be very different had the residents in the community had access to staffing. Well, the best way I can answer that, Council Member Freeman, is with our intent is to address that through the comprehensive plan process and applying this place type Rupert, which looks at more form and function rather than density and addresses the concerns, the rightful concerns the neighbors have about protecting character, neighborhood quality, environmental quality. To do it on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis is incredibly resource intensive. We spend over 1700 hours on the old West Arm MPO and with us implementing the comp plan, we don't have those resources in-house. So that's why we'll be seeking resources for an outside consultant to help with that. Thank you, Mr. Young. Thank you, Council Member. Other Council Members, questions, comments? Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. A couple of questions for staff. Sorry. Lots of up and down tonight. Thanks, if this, if forestills were part of the suburban tier, would that prevent a resident from converting an existing home into a duplex? Duplexes are allowed because of the housing choices. So the expanding housing choices provisions are applicable within certain districts in the suburban tier. And it's a smaller list of districts that are applicable in the urban tier. I don't want to speak from the hip on what those are, but the RS-20 district, which is somewhat prevalent in forest hills, is already exempted from some of those provisions. It may limit the flexibility of EHC in some of the districts. So if you look on, it's on page nine of the staff report, it goes through item by item where those changes would be. So I would not limit the ability to do the duplex in the, so bear with me. Sure, thank you for looking it up. Yeah, the, right, so the duplexes are already disallowed in the RS-20, but in RS-10 and RS-8 districts, it would be disallowed if it was converted to suburban tier. So in part of the neighborhood, part of the neighborhood is already not allowed to do duplexes, even under EHC, it would disallow it in the part that is currently allowed. That's correct. Okay, and is that the same for doing the small house, small lot, flag lot situation? Yes. Okay, are there any other ways that it would functionally limit, that this change would functionally limit people from building more units on their existing lots? I can't think of anything else, but. Only the ways that we just discuss. Okay, thank you. Right, because the provisions you referenced are tier-specific in the EHC. Right. So the other EHC provisions would apply, but those would be limited. Okay. Council Member Caballero. I have a follow-up question to that. Thank you. So based on that, but with local historic districts and MPOs, most of the EHC stays intact. That's right. The local historic districts don't speak to the underlying zoning. What they do is allow a case-by-case consideration of the design to ensure that it's historically contextual. So by designating this whole area, a suburban, it basically usurps EHC. It reduces the applicability of some of the provisions of EHC. Thank you. Within some of the districts, zoning districts that are in foresales. Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Profeta. Mr. Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Romulan leader, Nero, in the Star Trek movie, when Spock was about to crash into their ship and ignite the red matter, said, fire everything. And that's what Forest Hills is doing. I actually pushed for the MPO to be reprioritized, and it was. So there's an MPO live, and this request is live right now. So they are almost firing everything. I don't know if there's a historic designation request forthcoming. Every neighborhood is special. Haytie is the actual Golden Goose of Durham special. East Durham special. Waltown special. Forest Hills has retained its character for years, even while downtown was blighted. So what's happened? What has happened now is the market is asserting itself. That's what's happening. And neighborhoods want to protect themselves from the market asserting themselves. No problem with that. Some neighborhoods have fared better than others in our city's history. I'm glad the development, and I forget the name, but that was alluded to earlier where we approved a character sensitive and aesthetic sensitive development in Forest Hills. I forget the name of it, but we approved it. And I think that demonstrated our ability to, as a council, the people you hire to respect the character of a neighborhood on a case-by-case basis. But it seems to me to use government power to essentially, at least in my assessment, dramatically change a designation to protect an area, essentially from market forces, when we can't do that for any other area that's being gentrified. Government can't do anything about getting Haytie back or East Durham. The market is the market, we always say. And to suggest that, in a prior case, I talked about urbanizing the suburban tier and now we're talking about codifying the suburbanization of the urban tier. Because I think the most telling phrases I've heard were character and feel of the neighborhood. I get it, I get it. We want to preserve the character and preserve the feel of the neighborhood to the point where we're being asked to disavow or disregard the recommendation of the staff to go against our comp plan and to change our future land use map. And it may be pressing in it, I don't know. But from a neighborhood that most people, I think in our city, consider downtown to the suburban tier, I'm wondering if we can preserve the character and feel of Forest Hills while also preserving our integrity as a government. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think on a case-by-case basis, you got the NPO already in the chamber. A historic designation might be something worth looking at. But I think on a case-by-case basis, and it's a beautiful neighborhood. We can preserve, but there are many of them in Durham, we can preserve the character of this neighborhood without so blatantly using government power to essentially change the rules or flip one, even if it's within our ability. I'm wondering how the rest of the city, particularly folk who live in neighborhoods that the government could not preserve the character or preserve the feel, how it would appear to them for us to do this in opposition to the staff's recommendation, in opposition to where we say we're going as a city, particularly in the urban tier. Nobody wants to destroy Forest Hills. We've passed tree canopy standards. We've got all kinds of things in the pipe to preserve our city as a whole and character in our city as a whole. Nobody wants to destroy the character or feel of Forest Hills. There's no neighborhood envy going on here. But I think we ought to be very careful about the message we send if we use the authority of this government to simply call it suburban because of concerns about character and feel. And those concerns about character and feel are now prevalent because of market forces, market forces that are having its way all over the city right now. That's what this is about. The folk are now at your gate. And what's going on in downtown and what's going on in the city is now upon us. And that's why we're here now. And I think the question before us is are we capable as a city with sending a message about values to the rest of our residents and preserving the character and feel of this incredibly beautiful neighborhood among many beautiful neighborhoods in this city. That's what's informing my vote. That's what I'm struggling with right now. And I've yet to hear a compelling case as to why we need to change the flum as opposed to doing what we've been doing and preserve the character and feel of this neighborhood while not signaling to the rest of the residents in this city that will just change designations or tier designations if you present the right case. I'm struggling with this. As a resident, as a citizen of Durham, I love the feel of foresters. I love many neighborhoods going through many neighborhoods. And I understand of the character and the feel sentiments about the neighborhood. This is one of those moments where I think the decision we make will send a signal to a lot of people in the city who far beyond of Forest Hills. And it'll also point to, I believe, values. We should protect and preserve Forest Hills to the best of our ability, but we should do it by being able to look to rest of our residents and citizens in the eye as well. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Is there anyone, this is a public hearing item. Is there anyone else who would like to be heard on this item who has not been heard? All right. Any other comments by members of the council at this point? If not, I'm gonna declare this public hearing closed and the matter is now before the council. I actually have some comments. Anyone else have any comments? Sure. Council Member Austin. Sure, and I'll largely kind of echo my colleague. So first, I also kind of appreciate the goal of preserving the character of this neighborhood. I understand that and appreciate it to some extent Forest Hills is a beautiful neighborhood. I do think along with my colleague that this flum change creates too many concerns for our infrastructure and our values for it to be a good decision for the city. We can't simultaneously promote density and promote the values that kind of underlie are the expanding housing choices initiative and also approve this kind of carve out. So I intend to vote against this flum change but I do wanna kind of say and reiterate that I appreciate the goal and I am interested in alternatives whether it's the local historic neighborhood designation or the MPO process which we might have an opportunity to have some input on in this budget cycle this upcoming budget cycle. I'm interested in those and kind of look forward to hopefully kind of continuing this conversation but just not through this mechanism. Thank you council member other council member Reese. I promise I will be gentle with everyone's time. First I wanted to say that as with every kind of resident initiated process I have so much respect for the folks that go out and do this. As we said when the last MPO was here before us this is one of the only the MPO and this kind of flum amendment are some of the only levers available to ordinary residents to impact directly these types of planning issues. And so I know it's not easy to come up with this stuff it's not cheap and I respect the work that's happened with it. I think my concern about the as council member Middleton said Forest Hills saying fire everything is that we are not about to start or put it making an effort to as Mr. Goche said but we are actually currently rewriting our comprehensive plan. That's work that is happening right now in consultation with many people across the city using an engagement community engagement process that is going to be cutting edge of world class and that will I think uncover many issues like the issues raised by folks today with respect to the slum amendment and other parts of the city. And I just think from a process perspective it doesn't make any sense to me to amend the flum right now for this particular process for this particular neighborhood when as our planning director has said the concentric circle model is an outdated way of thinking about it and our new comprehensive plan will come up with lots of better secret sauce to solve these problems aside from the concentric circles. So for that reason I'm going to oppose the flum amendments tonight, thank you. Thank you council member. Any other comments from council members to this point council member Freeman. I just want to make sure that I make clear that I can't see how a flum is how we ended up at this point without recognizing that this is an over like this is a miss from the city standpoint and not being able to reach. This has been an ongoing issue for community residents. As a resident myself I faced this with golden bell and as the internet council president I faced it with a number of other issues that have come up to a ride like that have arisen in having conversations with the planning department. And what I'm consistently noting each and every time is that we don't have enough planning staff to cover the area of how much our city has grown and to the level that we need. So that each and every neighborhood is respected in a way that makes them feel included in the process of planning which is why I've been consistent in saying that we need to do the planning at a level that is engaging on a neighborhood basis so that there is some feedback because it doesn't feel like that's gonna happen the way that things have been going in the past. And I will say that history is the best predicted of the future and based on how the NPO process was handled I would be here, I mean if I were in your shoes in Forest Hills I could see being here saying you guys are ignoring me and I have to pay an attorney to come here and say the thing so that you will pay me attention. And so just noting like I recognize that this month this NPO was submitted at least a year ago and while I may not agree with the context of how it's said, recognizing that I do think that this area can afford more density I don't think it's appropriate to push density onto neighborhoods like Forest Hills. And so I'm mindful of the tension but also recognizing that I wanna be clear that I do support building more density in that area. I actually was one of those folks who were pushing for Prinecrest to actually build more units. And so I hear you, I think we need to do a much better job of making sure that we hear you consistently over the course of the year because work plans are developed in a silo. And once we see them it's kinda like you gotta fight to jockey to get your project ahead of another project and it doesn't always work out for you year after year after year. And so that process has not been updated. It hasn't changed since I've been here and I'm committing to you all to make sure that I pay closer attention to it because it's unfortunate that you have to go through this flum process to try and make the change is necessary to feel the protections that you need for your neighborhood are in place. That being said, I cannot support using a flum change to make this adjustment but I will support pushing forward your needs and desires for your neighborhood to keep this character and context in our community because it is important. I did not graduate from Durham High School in 1979 but I can realize what it means to grow up here in Durham and watch every single street that you go down change block by block and not have any say so over it. And so I just wanna be mindful of those things and note that I hear you but I can't support this. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Any other comments? I have a few. I appreciate very much the residents who've done the work to be citizen planners and it's hard, I know that. We have a lot of residents in our city who are working hard on all kinds of issues and this is an important one and I wanna appreciate you all for doing it. But I do have to make a decision on this not based on who's bringing it to us and I'm very appreciative that you all are doing the work to bring it to us but on the merits and let me just tell you my thoughts about the merits. I do believe that the staff response to this was very compelling. I think that the problem with privileging Faris-Tills in this way would be that it would have deleterious effects on other neighborhoods. I don't believe that the expanding housing choices will result in a changing character in this beautiful tree-lined Faris-Tills neighborhood that we all cherish, whether or not we live there. But I do believe that will result over time in some increase in density in Faris-Tills and as in all of our central city neighborhoods and that this is very important to the life of our city that this be a possibility. No central city neighborhood should be granted the status of effectively being single family only while other neighborhoods in the urban tier are and always have been open to other types of housing. And also it is true that Faris-Tills was originally developed as a suburb. I live in Watts-Hillendale, it was also originally developed as a suburb and I don't think that either of our neighborhoods are by any reasonable definition of the term suburbs. I hear what you're saying about the topography and so forth but in my belief, Faris-Tills like my neighborhood is right smack dab in the center of Durham and clearly should remain in the urban tier. I have also another concern and it's an enormous concern for me that supporting this application would simply open the door to other neighborhoods in the urban tier coming to the council for their own special exceptions. How would we deny them those exceptions if we granted this one? Each of those neighborhoods would have good reasons as you all have and it would result I think in Council Member Middleton said this earlier and I completely agree with the situation that would be untenable. The Faris-Tills neighborhood is beautiful, it's very special. But as you all know and as you've said it's no more special than the many other neighborhoods in Durham which are inside the urban tier. Each of them is special in their own way and each of them should share the same opportunities for the creation of duplexes, flaglots and density. I do not believe by any stretch of the imagination that the policies that we have on the books now are going to have, I can't remember the exact term that was used earlier but are going to change the essential character of Faris-Tills or are going to damage it in any way. I believe that Faris-Tills is going to continue to be a neighborhood that's very beautiful, that is tree lined. It may have a couple more duplexes than it used to. Expanding housing choices just to put it perspective is predicted to produce about 45 more units city-wide in the next year. We're not expecting that expanding housing choices will create a whole ton of new housing, we are expecting that over time it will marginally increase density. And I think that's very good and very important thing. So I'm going to be voting against the proposal. I appreciate the work that's gone into it but in my mind the merits are clear. All right, colleagues, I'll now accept a motion on the item. Sumo. Second.  I move we approve a consistent statement. There's a motion that we approve the consistency statement, it's been seconded. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? I'm sorry, could you open the vote again? Please close the vote. The motion fails seven zero. Thank you very much. Do we need to do the other ones? Do we do the other Madam Attorney? No, because we did not adopt the consistency statement. All right, so we did not adopt the consistency statement so we will not be taking up the other motions. Thank you very much. Thanks to everyone who came today. I know this is disappointing for some of you but I think we have given good deliberation and tried to make a decision on the merit. So thank you very much. I will now move to item 17. Let me remind colleagues that it's now 1047 and we do still have two more items. Item 17, Consolidate and Annexation, Kendrick Estates. This is Struthers welcome. We'll now hear the report from staff. Good evening, I'm Lace Struthers with the Planning Department. I will now present Consolidated Annexation Item, Kendrick Estates, BDG 19-0014 and Z19-00049A. Request for utility extension, voluntary annexation and initial zoning map change have been received from Neil Gauch of Morning Star Law Group for 20.927 acre parcel located at 3,500 Randolph Road. The property is contiguous to the city limits by the northwest corner of the property. Additionally, the property is connected to existing city limits by two lengths of Kendrick Road right of way. If this annexation petition is approved, two areas within the county will become surrounded by city limits creating what is referred to as donor holes. The site is presently zoned for residential suburban dash 20, RS 20, and staff recommends an exact translation of the zoning designation. Based on an administrative site plan that is currently under review, the development is anticipated to include 38 single family lots utilizing the cluster subdivision development standards, cluster subdivision standards, allow for reduced lot sizes in exchange for an increase in open space area. Again, this is a, in relation to administrative site plan which we don't typically have when we're reviewing annexations. Ms. Druthers, could you say that again, I'm sorry. Sure. What I'm referencing there is that we have a site plan that's currently under review administratively. We don't typically have a site plan to reference when we're doing annexation. So this, I am providing more information than sometimes because more information is available than others. And then sometimes because more information is available than sometimes. Thank you. That development through that site plan would have to meet or exceed ordinance requirements. And with regards to open space, as that's been an item that has come up recently, this site plan would include access to Hollow Rock Nature Park, 30 foot natural buffers are shown between the site and the adjacent parcels. And that parcel specifically is not identified on the New Hope Creek corridor open space as an area with recommendations. So given that background on the site plan aspect of it, jumping back into the annexation specific elements, city and county operational departments such as solid waste, fire, police and EMS have reviewed this request and have not identified any significant negative service delivery costs or impacts. The public works and water management department performed the utility impact analysis for the utility extension agreement and determined that the existing city of Durham, water and sanitary sewer mains have capacity to serve the project. The budget management service department performed a fiscal impact analysis which determined that the proposed annexation will become revenue positive immediately upon annexation. Should the council act favorably tonight, approval of the annexation petition and zoning would become effective on December 31st, 2019. Staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances. Three motions are required for this application. The first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into a utility extension agreement. The second is for the consistency statement and the third is to adopt zoning ordinance. Staff is available for any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Struthers. You've heard the report from staff and I'm now gonna declare this public hearing open and first I'm gonna ask, are there any questions by members of the council for staff? All right, hearing none, we do have a number of speakers. I'm gonna ask a couple of speakers who signed up and did not indicate whether or not they were proponents or opponents. So Ms. Driscoll, are you here? Are you a proponent or an opponent? Opponent and Ms. Boyarsky? Not sure yet. Okay, thank you. Okay. All right. We have signed up one proponent. That is Mr. Ghosh. We have Ms. Boyarsky and then opponents, we have one, two... We have 14 opponents. I'm going to give each speaker two minutes, two minutes. Mr. Ghosh, I'll give you more time than that since you're the only proponent. I'll give you five minutes, Mr. Ghosh. And I'll give each of the opponents two minutes. And as well as you, Ms. Boyarsky. All right, Mr. Ghosh, we'll start with you. Welcome. Please give us your name and address. And you have five minutes. And if you want to reserve for your time, Mr. Ghosh, you feel free to do so. Thank you. And good evening again, my name is Neil Ghosh. I'm an attorney at the Morningstar Law Group at 112 West Main Street here in Durham. I'm representing the applicant for this annexation tonight. I'm gonna reserve the majority of my time, but I will start just by simply saying this annexation request is kind of a unique one in the city of Durham because the county properties that abut our proposed annexation area actually are serviced today by city of Durham Utilities, sewer and water. So while it does create a technical donut hole, there actually are utilities being run right down Randolph Road, right in front of the property that we're having annex. And there are county properties that are being serviced by city of Durham Utilities. So we're not creating kind of a satellite area where you're gonna have to extend services to an area where you otherwise wouldn't have to run the garbage truck already. It's already going there. It's just that those areas are operating on a double rate for water and sewer rather than being directly annexed into the city through an agreement that my understanding isn't typically used anymore. So why don't think we have that available to us to get access to city water and sewer through a double rate, which is why we're applying for annexation. So I'll reserve the remainder of my time for a medal. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gosh. All right, we will now hear from, I'm gonna call the rest of the speakers.  First, we'll hear from Barbara Driscoll. Second, Gail Boyarsky. And third, Tiffany Friesen. I hope I've got your name correct. And if you all could come over here to my right and we'll begin with Ms. Driscoll. Ms. Driscoll, welcome. Please give us your name and address and you have two minutes. Hi, Barbara Driscoll. I live at 504 Redbud Road in Chapel Hill. I'm here as the president of New Hope Audubon, which covers Durham, Orange and Chatham counties. In 2006, Durham, Chapel Hill, Orange County and Durham County all came together to create Hollow Rock Park in order to protect this critical corridor, which connects the Enell River watershed to the Jordan Lake watershed. New Hope Audubon has several concerns about this proposed development, which borders Hollow Rock Park. The Baker development is proposing to clear cut 20 acres of land next to the park, which will create an edge effect. The area of the park closest to this open edge will fill more impacts from wind, invasive plants and will no longer get the protection afforded by contiguous forest and brush. In addition to the loss of habitat, there will be new neighbors whose land has no protection or buffer for the current woods. Their property will create runoff and degradation of the park, especially in light of the frequent heavy rains that we have been receiving lately. Our recommendations are to increase the buffer next the park to no less than 50 feet, consider options other than clear cutting, leaving some existing trees which will increase residential home values, cut the number of lots to 35 or fewer, require native trees and shrubs to be planted, no invasive plants to be planted, discourage or eliminate lawns, reduce or help the use of fertilizers and reduce street lighting. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Driscoll. Ms. Boyarsky, welcome. Please give us your name and address and you also have two minutes. Okay. My name is Gail Boyarsky. I live at 6410 Mamosa Drive in Chapel Hill. I'm actually right over the county line from Durham and some of my neighbors have a Durham address. And just so that you don't think I'm an outside agitator, I am a native of Durham and I'm going to my 50th Durham High School reunion in April. There you go. I'm not going to, I'm coming to you as a citizen. I was a member of the first New Hope Corridor Planning Commission that started in 1989. Our charge, and I'm going to quote then mayor, Chester Jenkins, is to preserve an open space corridor linking the Eno River State Park, the New Hope Creek Army Core Land and the growing communities of Durham, Chapel Hill and Carboro for aesthetic, educational and recreational purposes as a mean of shaping the urban form and the environment. We started work in 1989 and the master plan was adopted by the town of Chapel Hill, the city of Durham, both Durham and Orange County in 1991, the beginning of 1992. I have to say it was historic that all four of these jurisdictions worked together since we all know that that's not usually done in this area, sadly. So I'm not really speaking for or against rezoning. I'm just saying that the city of Durham, there are lots of reasons to be careful about how that land is treated. Anything we do there will have an enormous impact on the New Hope Creek, which is drains into Jordan Lake, which is a league of drinking source. And I'm asking that whatever is done that the council consider how to minimize the negative effects on the New Hope Creek and the New Hope Creek corridor. I think I don't need to go through all the corridor acts as wildlife habitat, it's got important botanical interests. It's one of the few open spaces left between Durham and Chapel Hill. It's having a corridor keeps the wildlife being fragmented. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I have one more thing and that is the city of Durham and lots of people have made a big investment and a lot of effort has gone into this. I just ask you to honor that investment and that commitment. Thank you, Ms. Boyarsky. We'll now hear from Tiffany Friesen. Welcome, Ms. Friesen, did I get your name right? Yes, thank you. Great, and please give us your name and address if you have two minutes. Okay. Hello, I'm Tiffany Friesen and I live at 4313 Branchwood Drive. A few blocks away from where Kendrick Estates will be built. I received an email today about this issue and wanted to share my personal experience with stormwater with the city council. I live in a nearby development. Hope Creek and the property I live at is frequently flooded by stormwater from blocks away. The current path designed for stormwater does not provide for the volume of water that comes from Pickett and Cambridge roads and upstream from that location and Kendrick Estates will be very close to Pickett and Cambridge roads. Four homes, including the one I live in, routinely have flooded yards, landscaping destroyed and standing water sometimes for days or weeks and this is from water upstream that makes it way above ground to New Hope Creek. The path it currently takes goes through our yards and through the adjacent school's property. I am concerned more development nearby without assessing this existing issue and solving it will make it much worse. To protect our foundation and physical structure we've raised the backyard two feet and put in a stone wall, added a new sub pump with a water backup in case power goes out and purchase flood insurance but it doesn't solve the water problem it only protects our home. Prior to this we routinely head up to two feet of water during storms in our backyard sometimes pouring into our foundation. Another concern is what this current water issue and flooding does to the market value of these homes. A new developer may not be aware of how their plans affect us a few blocks away or realize the current design doesn't manage the current volume of stormwater. So please delay zoning for three months so this can be evaluated by city engineers and the impact understood to downstream property owners. This isn't just about how the developer manages water within their site but how it affects the property owners downstream. Along the path the water takes to get to Hope Creek and the need for a dedicated path. Thank you for allowing me to voice my concern. Thank you Ms. Friesen, I appreciate your being here. I now like to ask three more speakers to come to my right. Thomas Link, Audrey Wynn and Buck Wharton. And we'll hear first from Mr. Link. Mr. Link welcome, please give us your name and address and you have two minutes. Thomas Link, 126 Salterra Way, Durham. Our community, which is the Co-Housing community is also right next door, right next to this proposed project and they're proposing a 30 foot barrier there with trees but even their drawings show that the barrier is not there. They cut the barrier off where they have a traffic turnaround lane. So even their drawings don't comply with what they said they will. My main reason here, I just received a whole study of the New Hope corridor open space master plan. There was approved by city of Durham, Durham County, Orange County and town of Chapel Hill in 1991 and 92. And the things that they raised, which were approved is preservation of 100 year flood plan. Steep slopes should not be modified with 20% or greater. Creation of open space and access areas. Protection of wildlife, maintaining the environment. And the 200 foot buffer needs to be maintained, adjacent to the flood plain. Now, I don't know if anybody studied any of this. I'd like to know and this has to be studied either by one of your engineers or we'll hire one. And that's why I'm asking for a delay for three months so all of this homework could be done. Thank you very much, Mr. Link. I appreciate your being here. Ms. Nguyen, welcome. You also have two minutes. Thank you. My name is Audrey Nguyen and I live at 134 Solterra, adjacent to the proposed development. As I'm sure you know, the Holorock Nature Park was the culmination of much hard work and fundraising efforts by people from all walks of life, as well as the Durham and Orange County governments. With this in mind, I feel it's most important that the city of Durham now do everything within its power to ensure that there are no negative impacts to this magnificent open space that they helped to create. It was created as a gift for future generations and as such we owe it to them to preserve what has been achieved so far. There are other major concerns about the annexation that other people would be addressing so I will just speak of two. One, we are concerned about the public street lighting that would come with the development and request that it be as non-invasive as possible. Downward oriented street lights would decrease the amount of light pollution which would not only have a positive impact on the neighboring homes but the wildlife in particular. The proposed development will affect the wildlife in the park. Something as simple as down lit lights could limit that negative effect. Additionally, the proposed buffer between the development and the park is a concern. As currently proposed in most areas it's only 20 to 30 feet. This development borders onto a nature park that was created to preserve the land and its wildlife. Surely the buffer requirements for the nature park should require a different consideration than say if it boarded on to a strip mall. Therefore, I request that the size of the buffer be increased to limit the negative impact to park lands. One way to do this would be to reduce the number of proposed home sites. Once you clear cut and build on a parcel of land there are no do-overs. Let's get this right to preserve what others before us have worked so hard to preserve. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wynn. We'll now hear from Mr. Horton. Mr. Horton, please give us your name and address and you have three minutes. I'm sorry, you have two minutes. Okay. Mr. Horton is speaking if Mr. Brett Walters and Ms. Catherine Stone and Kerry, Ms. Kerry Bishop Coon could also come to my right. That would be great. Go ahead, Mr. Horton. My name is Buck Horton. I live at 156 Solterra Way in Solterra. About 24 years ago when Solterra was formed there was no park. We had no public access to that land and yet we built into our covenants or a prohibition against using chemical fertilizers, non-organic fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, et cetera because we wanted to preserve the pure water in those creeks. Part of that land was bought with money from the Clean Water Fund. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of it was donated by people from our neighborhood and neighborhoods all around Irwin Road. And a lot of the reason was to preserve that land and not have it polluted, but for some reason it's not in a watershed protection zone. I don't understand why that's true because it's the high park, it's the top of the valley that forms the park and all the water that falls there and forms rain is gonna go into those creeks. There's already been a little bit of erosion just from the minimal clearing that was done by a developer to make soil tests. I know they're gonna have erosion control plans, but my experience with that is erosion control plans can fail. 30 years ago I lived in a different neighborhood. They built an apartment complex on the hill behind us. The first big thunderstorm we had, my entire property, one in three quarter acres, was covered with mud. There was a creek there before the flood. It was a nice little sandy creek that my kids could play in. It never recovered in the 17 years that we lived there. So my question is, what happens if the erosion control features that they do employ fail? Is there any, there's no, sorry. Thank you very much, Mr. Horton. Mr. Walters, welcome. Please give us your name and address. You have two minutes. Good evening, Mayor Schull. Members of Council, my name is Brett Walters. I'm at 108 Solterra Way in the Solterra neighborhood. Next door to us, as mentioned, is Hollowark Nature Park. If you haven't been there, I suggest you go. It's beautiful. I was just there the other day hiking with the kids. We noticed a new Beaver Dam on New Hope Creek. This is within a couple hundred yards of Erwin Road. So the wildlife is thriving there. Tonight, I'm thinking about the theme of the Durham Sesquicentennial. Particularly this question, what decisions do you as a council make and vote on that will become part of Durham's legacy 150 years from now? As you know, and you've heard tonight, the water that runs downhill from the land called Kendrick Estates makes its way to Jordan Lake by way of New Hope Creek. That can be part of this legacy. Practically speaking, it's the drinking water for all of us here, our friends, families, neighbors of Durham. And clean water, I believe, can be one of those legacies we leave for the future generations of Durham. I think all of us here would agree with that. But how do we, as a community, deliver on that legacy? I would argue it's through deliberate, methodical, and thoughtful consideration of items that come before this body that will have a potential impact. The future generations will look at not only what we pronounce by our actions and their second order effects. And to this end, I ask you to delay vote tonight on this. I don't think we know enough about the effects. You've heard some things just this evening that may be new information. I know that as residents, we weren't notified, I think other stakeholders, truly for the New Hope quarter, were not notified. And so I would ask that you consider delaying, allow us to understand the effects and really think this through. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Walters. Now we'll hear from Ms. Stone. While Ms. Stone is speaking, if Ms. Bishop-Coon. Like me, I'm sorry, I didn't, am I supposed to speak now? I'm sorry. Hang on, I'm sorry, I apologize. No, I heard you. I'm sorry. Silence. No, hang on one second. Ms. Bishop-Coon, Mr. Nekomias, not sure if I've got that name right. And Ms. Ballin could make your way over to my right. Thank you, Ms. Stone, sorry. You have two minutes. Okay. First of all, I'd like to thank y'all, the city council, because you guys do a lot of work in regards to balancing the vibrant community that's growing and also preserving and being a steward of our environment. So thank you for that hard work. There's a couple of things, 12 days ago, we've received something in snail mail that said there's gonna be an annexation and zoning change and I had no idea what that meant. But over those 10 days, I've gained some information and I have a lot of concerns. There seem to be a number of inconsistencies. The annexing arch, when changing the zone from county to city, it doesn't seem like a lot on the books, but the reality of it, when you walk that property, there's a significant change. That property itself is also directly spoken about through the new head corridor plan. So Durham has five different conservation areas and the first one that was ever created is the new head corridor and that's land that we're speaking about, that tract of land, the Hendrick Estates, is directly on that corridor. So the decision you make here is really, I would say it's really historic for a number of reasons. The property itself, it borders the nature preserve, but it was also funded through the EPA's Clean Water Act of 303D program, which protects waters that are sensitive watershed areas. This property is uphill that contains wetlands. It's on the 100-year plane. There's a wildlife area. It contains the easement, but I think the biggest thing is the fact that in the master plan that was created in 1991, there is reference to that specific piece of land and it tells us what to do with it. And can I read that? You may. Okay, because in this, so on page 36, it gives you a map of that component, which is component four, and this section, area A, is the property we're speaking about today. And then two pages later, it tells us what the recommendations were made back in 1991. And it said, at Durham County, I'm compon- Ma'am, would you get a little closer to the mic, please? Ma'am, would you get a little closer? Sorry, I wanna hear it. Okay, thanks. Excuse me, Ms. Sumair. I wanted to make sure you guys could at least get a little bit of a feel for it. But it said to acquire, the recommendation is to acquire the developmental rights to land zone R20, which is one dwelling per half an acre, so that a resulting density is one dwelling per two acres, which is considered, it's consistent with a rural buffer that they're trying to create. But the second part of this, which I think is really important, if that's not created, the second option is to make sure to preserve a 200-foot undisturbed buffer adjacent to the wildlife area and the flood plain. So I feel like we already have a document that was created through Durham, City of Durham, Durham County, Orange County, City of Chapel Hill that all came together for this. Thank you very much for your comments. And I think we should use it. And I hope that you could just give us time. Thank you, Ms. Stone. Ms. Bishop, Bishop. It's actually Bishop Coon. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Apologize, is Ms. Stone here? Sorry about that. Ms. Bishop Coon, my apologies. Okay, thank you for their extra time. Ms. Stone. Ms. Quigley. Please give us your name and address. I'm Catherine Stone. I live at Six Blue Bottle Lane. Good evening, City Council, Mayor Schull. I received a notice from the City of the proposed annexation of the undeveloped land to the east of the preserve. I did appreciate the time the developers took to meet with the neighbors after they were contacted with questions from us. It felt like they were responsive to our questions and following the city's planning rules. I did hear them address concerns of how the development would impact the park. However, I became concerned that it might have fallen off the radar that this is not just a park, but a culmination of much hard work by multiple cities, counties, individuals, and organizations to preserve a special resource. The preserve adjoining the development is not just a park, but a part of the headwaters for New Hope Creek, which ultimately empties into Jordan Lake Reservoir. This serves as drinking water for a large portion of the triangle. After doing a small amount of research, I saw that the New Hope Creek Corridor master plan had some conservation easements abutting the land, easements to protect the water, wetlands, and unique flora and fauna. So we have one chance to make sure all of the stakeholders are involved, including the New Hope Creek Corridor Committee advisory board. And I would ask the city to make absolutely sure they're doing their due diligence and to make sure the development will not create any long-term problems for the preserve that cannot be undone. I feel a delay on the annexation decision would be prudent to be absolutely sure any development is planned responsibly. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Stone. And now Mr. Nechamayas. Yes, thank you. Sure how you say your name. Council, I live at 122 Saltero Way, adjacent to the proposed development. Rather than reiterate what everybody has said, just would like to say, I would like to ask for a continuance on this. The reason is we see 50-foot buffer on a development that was approved. Here we have a 30-foot buffer. The other night the developers said in some places it might be as small as five to 10 feet. So I would say there's a bit of disconnect here. Why does it get approved with a 50-foot buffer elsewhere? But here it might be approved with an average of 30 or maximum of 30. So I would ask for a delay in order to further study the subject. Essentially that's what my message is. Not anti-development would just like to be have smart development. And we would need to be on top of all of the factors. At the moment, we're not. Thank you, Mr. Nechamayas. I appreciate you being here. After this. We'll now hear from Ms. Ballin to be followed by John Kent and Jo-Ellen Mason. You all could come over here to my right. Ms. Ballin, welcome. Please give us your name and address. You have two minutes. I'm Lois Ballin. I live at 122 Saltero Way here in Durham. I want to speak about two issues. The first one is lighting. The conditions of approval that were submitted by the developer to the city include requirements for lighting to be downlighting. And last week when they came to our neighborhood to answer questions, which we actually really appreciated, they seem not completely familiar with the concept of downlighting. So I just want to emphasize that downlighting makes a difference in the life of both the nearby residents as well as the wildlife that are in the preserve. So actually their conditions for approval define really clearly what the lighting should be. And I'm asking that if the development goes through, that the city make sure that they follow their conditions for approval. And that we, the city, we hold them accountable that all exterior street and home lighting be downlighting. And I actually have this handout of, well, I'll give it to the developer of the appropriate and inappropriate types of lighting as examples. The second area I want to address has actually been addressed really clearly by most everyone else. And so I just want to reiterate that I understand that smaller lots are in the plan so that they could put the 30 foot buffer between the lots and the preserve. And that trade-off, we don't know enough information to know that that is enough land to protect the preserve. And so I'm requesting that the decision about this project be deferred, be delayed so that we can evaluate. And when I say we, it's not we the neighbors, we need to pull in some experts to evaluate the impact on the watershed. It's possible that decreasing the lots from 38 to a few, perhaps 32 lots could allow for a larger buffer. But the most important. Thank you very much, Ms. Ballin. We'll now hear from John Cant. John Cant, 39, is this on? Okay. Yes, it is, John. Thank you. Yes, I did take the bus and the bike tonight, so. Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. So I live at 394 Cup Creek Road in Chapel Hill and I'm a technical advisor to the New Hope Creek Corridor Advisory Committee. John, can you step back just a little from the mic? Is that right? Perfect, yeah. So this has not been routed through the commission which was set up by the four jurisdictions that passed the New Hope Creek Corridor Open Space Master Plan back in 91 at City of Durham, County of Durham, Orange County and Chapel Hill. And I am thinking that it's not unreasonable or unresponsible for the council to delay this and see that it's routed through the committee before acting on this. Also, for 29 years now, I have been checking the water in New Hope Creek last. We did our 350th month this weekend. And one of the best sites for habitat on New Hope Creek is Irwin Road. That's one of our sample sites from the beginning. And this drains through the park into that area. This is a robust area because you have the Duke forest, good land use and you have waterfalls that aerate the water. But if we abuse, we're just not going to keep the wildlife that we have. We have something like seven native mussels that are state listed endangered in this area. And we need to keep that. Also, if you need an adequate buffer, you have what's called the edge effect from development over the property line. And it degrades into the forest. I am just, the, I just wanted to, my final thing is there has been a massive effort by the conservation community to study the Eno New Hope Wildlife Corridor. And they have just come out with their plan and that would be involved if we can get this put off and better advice on how that it's the New Hope Creek corridor between the Jordan Lake, Jordan Lake game lands, the Duke forest and the Eno to the north. There is no alternative. If you've heard me talk and Bob Healey would be here tonight, but he's not out of town, but on Patterson Place. And so we're back, same issue. Thank you, Mr. Kent. Thank you very much. Ms. Mason, welcome. Good evening, council members and Mayor Shull. I'm Joellen Mason and I've been a resident here since 1993. And my current permanent address is 3822 Hill Grand Drive, which is not in any way adjacent to this property. I'm speaking from several perspectives which may seem like odd bedfellows. I'm a realtor in the area and have had a career here since 94. You would think that I'd be all four more houses, especially this close to Duke. And I am asking for more time just for this to be studied and reviewed more carefully, especially from the other odd bedfellow to this, which is that I have a very strong belief in the environment and environmental conservation. I served on Durham Open Space and Trails Commission for a while and also on the Eno River Board. Procedurally, I just am concerned about the lack of voice in this and that's where I would love to see some more of the time spent if you will grant a delay for this. And I do respect the expense and frustration that that causes a developer. I know that there's a lot in that, especially if any funds have been borrowed for the land purchase. So I get that. However, I reached out today to colleagues at Durham Open Space and Trails who didn't, the ones I spoke with didn't know about this development. Also reached out to Matt Kopeck with Environmental Affairs Board. He was here earlier and he asked me when he was leaving if I would just reference his comments from before that they'd like to be involved in the discussions, particularly when there's an environmental sensitivity. So just requesting more times so that those processes can be included. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Mason. All right, those are all the speakers that have signed up. Is there anyone else? This is a public hearing. Is there anyone else who would like to be heard who has not been heard tonight on this item? Yes. Come forward and give us your name and address. Hi. My name is Spencer Jennings. Let's give us your address and you have two minutes. 3612 Randolph Road, 3614 Randolph Road. I'm on the south side of the property. So I'm directly affected by the runoff in particular. And that's my biggest concern is the amount of runoff that I'm gonna experience as this development is built. My concerns are it's gonna probably devalue the property. We plan on building back on that property some time ago and I had not gotten to that point yet but my concerns personally is we're gonna be directly affected by the amount of runoff that's gonna be directly on our land. I've seen the plans, I've just got those today so I've not had time to really get into detail on it to study what the impact is gonna be. I know that there's gonna be, there's quite a bit of impervious area. 30% I think is gonna be the area that's gonna be impervious with the streets and the rooftops and driveways. And so there's gonna be a lot more water flowing through that property. They've got a sedimentation pond built for it. I just don't know how that's going to work and how that's going to mitigate the amount of water that's gonna be flowing through that area. So I'm just got really concerned about this, the stormwater runoff in that area and as it personally affects me. And I'm in support of this Sultara neighborhood folks. I love the area and as much as possible. So. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Sir, would you do me a favor? Would you go to the table and fill out a yellow card so the clerk will just have a record of you being here? Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item who's not been heard? Mr. Ghosh, you have reserved some time. Thank you. And I'm glad I got to hear the comments from a lot of our neighbors at Sultara who we did meet with as they mentioned and some other folks. But I will say I was surprised to hear a lot of the misinformation just now because we shared a lot of information with those folks and maybe we didn't do quite as good a job as we should have. But I wanna make a couple of things clear. First of all, you can see Sultara neighborhood here in the blue, which ironically enough is about 37 lots on about 20 acres, which is the same type of development we're talking about in the area to be annexed. The other thing is the buffers. It was mentioned that the buffers might be as low as five feet and a maximum of 30 feet wide and that's simply incorrect. It's a minimum of 30 feet and that's, I don't know if the mouse works. No, along the west side, that's a minimum of 30 foot buffer. On the north side up against Sultara, our buffer is actually more like 100 feet wide. In fact, there's about one acre adjacent to Sultara on the north side that's completely undisturbed. The only place where there's five feet of grass is adjacent to those roads that come out to Randolph Road and that's literally the grass strip next to the road. So there's far more than five feet of buffer around the entire thing. And I'm surprised to hear that that wasn't clear from us in our meeting with the folks in Sultara. I understand that there is a concern about runoff. And I know that this council is fully aware of the stringent requirements that the city has with respect to runoff. And to be clear, 100% of our impervious is treated on site. What I'm hearing a lot of is, the annexation is going to allow them to build a lot more houses than they could in the county and that is true. However, it's also important to understand what county development looks like and what that looks like is multiple septic systems near these very important headwaters. And instead of getting a lot of very clear city treated water and runoff, what you would get is effluent coming out of the septic systems near these important waters. But some of the environmental features on this property I think were overstated. We are not near a floodplain and we don't impact any wetlands. There are important natural features here and it is important to take a lot of things into consideration, especially with how the property drains. However, it's not accurate to say that we're impacting the 100 year floodplain or impacting wetlands. That's just not accurate. And all that can be verified on the site plan. Full cutoff lighting is required in the city of Durham and that's what we're using. And I believe the site plan will show that or at least there is a lighting plan that would be associated with site plan. And the other thing I wanna touch on is that there's been a lot of talk about how this is a special resource and we could not agree more. This is a small neighborhood that is not capable of supporting its own pool clubhouse. We're only talking about a handful of homes. Our amenity for this neighborhood is Hollow Rock Park. So our interest in Hollow Rock Park matches that of the people who live there. And I recognize that we don't live there and there isn't anyone living there yet. That doesn't mean we don't care. We want Hollow Rock Park to continue to be a very important and beautiful feature in the city of Durham. Oh, and on the preservation, what I wanted to say is the site is about 20 acres. Eight of it is open space on the site plan. Eight acres of open space of the 20 and five of that is completely undisturbed. So this is a cluster development that is meant to preserve open space on land. That is the point of a cluster development and that's what we're trying to do. Making special neighborhood like Salterra near Hollow Rock Park. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Goge. Colleagues, you have heard the speakers and I'll now ask if there are any questions or comments for staff. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. Could you tell us what could be built here without the annexation? So the buy-right density permitted is the same. The difference comes down to needing the city utilities in order to construct that number of units. So even though the buy-right density is the same, they wouldn't functionally be able to build as many homes if it were, well, in septic, that's the... Okay, do you know, like, could you give me a ballpark of how many they would be able to build on wells in septic? I don't have that expertise. I think here comes Mr. Young. I bet he doesn't have it either, but he's gonna pretend to have it. I don't have the expertise, but I've been doing this for over 25 years and I've seen a lot of sites very similar. The minimum without extraordinary and costly onsite enhanced septic systems and minimums are usually an acre. So I think that probably the maximum would be about 20. It would probably be less because not every lot can perk. So that's not an expert, but I have seen enough to feel comfortable saying that. Thank you. I consider you an expert in everything, Mr. Young. Expert enough for me. Could you also give us a sense? So if there were a delay, residents are asking for a delay and it seems they're asking for a delay for the planning department to do more research, to ensure that there wouldn't be an impact on the park. Is there any research that y'all could do additional research if there was a delay to ensure that? Well, I guess to answer that in part, I would say that we have done some research, especially as these concerns specifically have come up. So with reference to the open space plan, I had put on the screen there, the location that was referenced by one of the speakers, just to clarify that the area called out was not actually the area of the site location. It's up-site. So the 200 feet from the wetland, sorry, from the floodplain wouldn't actually apply on this site. So with regard to the open space plan, we have done some review there if we would be, I guess, open to further review by partner agencies. I think the thing to point out with this is that it is an annexation request and annexations are effective quarterly. So with the December deadline, that's why we are likely here with their goal of completing that within the year. As far as any other additional research that staff could do, just keeping in mind that this is a direct translation and an annexation. So we don't have the opportunity for proffers to be applied through this mechanism with regard to additional buffers or different buffers or wetland sorts of things. So it would be specifically meeting the ordinance requirements under the request that they've come in with. Thank you. That's helpful. Can I ask Mr. Groesch a quick question as well? Could you give us the square footage and price point for the homes? I think Mr. Bowles, who is with Kendrick, or I'm sorry, with Baker residential would be better suited to answer that question. Thank you. Mark Bowles with Baker residential 401, Harrison Oaks Boulevard and Raleigh, or Cary, sorry, the square footage range will probably be approximately the upper 2000s to maybe over 3,000 square foot and prices probably starting in the mid 300s. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, Madam Chair. Other questions? I just had a question for staff regarding, I think I heard a comment around this plan or this annexation or some part of this needing to go before a different body before coming to us or in some way. I just wanted to hear if you had a response to that comment that was made. Sure, there was a reference to the reviews by DOST or other environmental specific groups. This annexation, since it doesn't have a development plan with it that there's not much to it was not sent to those departments, typically annexations are sent to a limited number of departments. So this has not been routed through them. Yeah, thank you. I want to, I think that's worth repeating because Ms. Mason mentioned, for example, that had not gone to DOST. So just to explain that, if there is a rezoning it goes to lots of our different commissions for them to comment on. But since this is a direct translation of the county zoning to the city zoning that is usually not sent to our various boards and commissions, which I was wondering about after you made that comment. So I appreciate that clarification. I have a couple of questions as well. Mr. Young, were you gonna make some comments? I mean, just to quickly thank you Mr. Mayor just to address, expand on Mr. Other's response to the Mayor Protam, I think. Obviously, we're willing to take this back and meet with any party you deem appropriate, but we did assess the site. It does not appear from the information we have and it's on the document camera. If we want to look at it that this site was identified in the New Hope Creek plan. There's no stream buffer on site. There's no floodplain. There's no natural heritage area. There are small wetland areas that either need to be protected or modified pursuant to the ordinance standards. We have very strange sedimentation erosion control and stormwater standards. There's a 30 foot buffer being provided as required by the UDO. So we feel like the potential impacts on the park have been mitigated either through the site conditions or through the ordinance standards. But we, and we didn't hear anything tonight. That was something that was not previously addressed. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. The, just to, can you help me understand, again, the, I think you said this already. What is the relationship of this land to the, the floodplain and the New Hope Creek headwaters? Sure. So the floodplain in there, I'm sure there's a graphic available that can, I think, help show this better is considerably, the nearest floodplain is considerably to the east of the site. I would say at least 1,000 feet off site. Thank you, that's helpful. Yeah, the context map, which is attachment one, you can see it there on the east side of the Carolina Forest neighborhood, not this one. It's attachment one. Yeah, looking at it now. To the context map. The context map for the zoning report, which is attachment eight. I'm sorry. Attachment one. I think you mean the overview map, Pat? Attachment three. Yeah, I'm looking at it as it, it's coming up as attachment one and what we have here, hold on. One A would be the overview would also. Yeah, there you go. This one here shows it. That's the floodplain on the right side of the screen. And again, the subject properties on the far left side of the screen, you can see the scale, about one inch is about 500 feet. So it's well more than a thousand feet. The area down first. Okay, thanks. In the area, one more quick comment. The area to the south and east, you can see the very, very corner of it, just the south and east of Pickett Road there is the. West, I think west. Is the, I'm sorry to the west, you're right. To the south and west of the site is the another floodplain area. That's I believe Mud Creek, yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I was going to ask the density compared to Solterra, do you, and I believe Mr. Ghosh has commented on that. The density is approximately the same as the density for this. Yes. For this development. There was some questions raised about notification. Can you talk about notification? Sure. All notification as required by the ordinance was provided as Mr. Others alluded to, we have not notified, this is a direct translational zoning. So there's no, there's no change as you've alluded to and other other Council members have alluded to. There's no change in the zoning standards. So there's been a longstanding practice for at least over 15 years that we have not done extensive notification of partners since there's no change in the zoning requirements. We understand that when a property comes into the city because of the availability of utilities it makes development more likely. We certainly will look at potentially increasing or expanding that list of notified partners with these direct translational zonings, but we're following a policy that's been in place for a very long time. So we did not notify our DOS group. DOS is a group that typically as one of the speakers alluded to reaches out to the New Hope Creek Corridor Committee and so they were not required to be noticed. They were not noticed directly. Okay, thank you. I do think that's worth looking at given the number of annexations we're getting lately, but thank you. Okay, any other questions or comments? Colleagues? Council Member Freeman? I was just trying to understand. So when you have, I guess, because the area down in the Southwest, it kind of shows that they're building into the flood plain and then on the Northeast, there's also like building into a flood plain. Is that taken into consideration at all in the calculations that are needed to alleviate any hundred year flood issues that might occur? Because I'm understanding from what I'm hearing from residents is that there's been some concerns about the existing level of flooding that's occurring and noting that there's quite a bit of development into these areas that are flood plain already. How do you calculate or attach some type of analysis around acknowledging that we're already building into those flood plains? Right, so if there's evidence or information that the proposed development is going to significantly exacerbate an existing condition, our stormwater development review team tries to work with the applicant to mitigate that, but our ability to do that is limited because it's a problem that's not being caused by this developer. So what this developer is saying that they've done analysis, and this is what's required by the ordinance that there will be no increases in the one, two, and 10 year storm events at any point of analysis leaving the site. So there'll be no net impact, no increase in flow at those designed storms leaving their site. And so because of that, there was no basis to require this applicant or even request this applicant to do offsite mitigation of an existing problem that predated significantly and predates. Some of these developments were done prior to the stormwater controls. And then just noting that I heard another question around the failures of those mitigation tools. Is there some way that we're checking like annually? I'm trying to make sure I'm answering that question because I think it was raised around if there is a failure that occurred in the stormwater mitigation that's occurring on site, how is that reviewed? Well, during the construction and development process that's handled by the county sedimentation erosion control office who do inspections on the site. I don't know the periodicity. We'd have to have those folks in here to get into more detail than that. After it's completed, there's a stormwater maintenance bond that's required and an inspection prior to the facility being, prior to being COed. So there's a administrative mechanism to both ensure that it's functioning properly at the time of closeout of the project and in perpetuity going forward. So annually it's reviewed to make? I don't know if there's an annual site inspection. Again, I would need someone from our stormwater team to speak in further detail than what I've given. But there's a bonding requirement that if it fails and it's not maintained by the HOA that the city can come in, the city can have access to the property and complete it and then use the bond proceeds to reimburse the city. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Young. Any further questions or comments this time? I'm gonna just make a couple of comments. First of all, I appreciate the neighbors coming out and thank you for staying with us so long. To me, there were a couple of important questions raised that one is the question of notification. And as Mr. Young said, certainly the planning department followed our regulations. I do think that there is, I think we frequently faced with the need to change. I think that given the frequency of annexations and what they mean, even though there's a direct translation of the zoning, I do think it's worth looking at that again. And I appreciate Mr. Young mentioning that. In terms of the concerns of the folks in Salterra, I very much understand that the folks in Salterra enjoy and love the beauty of the park that is right behind your neighborhood. And you have a wonderful neighborhood. And this annexation and the translation of the zoning to be the same zoning as it is now will allow another neighborhood almost exactly the same size as your neighborhood to also enjoy this park. And we have a lot of people moving to Durham all the time and they need places to live. And we need to make sure that it's done well and we have regulations to make sure it's done well. But I do think that we, I think that all of us who live here now wish that all of the nature that we have next to us could be preserved. I know that this is not built on now this land. And yet we ourselves have come here and built on nature. And so I think it's really important that we be consistent in that way and that we recognize that new people need to places to live to. So I especially appreciated the concerns that were raised around the issue of the New Hope Creek headwaters. And the floodplain. But I am satisfied upon hearing the explanation and looking at these maps that there is again roughly a thousand feet between the development and the floodplain. That's a long way. And that again gives me confidence that what we all agree as a cherished resource won't be damaged by this development. In terms of stormwater, that's the other important issue. And we hear this a lot.  We know that. And as not only the climate changes, but as we build, as we build in pervious surfaces, it creates stormwater that needs to be managed. And we have in the city, I think very good regulations for the management of the stormwater. It is true that there are times when stormwater facilities do fail. Certainly true. But it's also true as Mr. Young said that we have an inspection system that we have a system of bonds. And I have seen the system in operation over many situations over a long period of time. And I've seen these bonds come into play. And I have seen stormwaters. I have seen the failure of stormwater systems that have need to be corrected. And it's not impossible that that would happen. But I do think we have good inspections and assurances in place that would be corrected. They don't often fail, but they do fail on occasion. So given this, I'm not inclined to support a delay. I think that none of the concerns I've heard, and I'm speaking only for myself, not for my colleagues, rise to the level that I think that a delay would be and a good way to get at change. I think that the, or to get at something better. I think that the density on this is quite reasonable. I think that the distance from the floodplain is far. And I don't think the stormwater concerns are any different than we have in any development in Durham all the time. In any development, we have the same stormwater concerns. So those are my comments. And I've welcomed any comments that my colleagues might make. And then we will close the public hearing and proceed to about it. Council Member Caballero and then Council Member Ruiz. Sorry. I would just like to say that I would actually be in favor of a delay, partly because the checks and balances that we do normally put in because it's an annexation did not happen. I am concerned that DOS did not get a chance to vet this. I am concerned that the New Hope Creek Order Committee folks who did an excellent job on Patterson Place and were able to get a result where everyone was happy, the developer and the folks who had environmental concerns. And so, although I may get outvoted, I would propose to do a delay. Thank you. Council Member Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to second Council Member Caballero's remarks and adopt that position as my own. Our four local jurisdictions came together to protect the New Hope Creek corridor.  So it's been some time. And integral to their plan was the creation of what ultimately became Hullarock Nature Park. And I don't think that the southern portion of Hullarock Nature Park, that is the portion south of the Pickett Road that is of gravel right now, is necessarily at risk from this potential development. But I think the northern portion deserves some consideration. The developer is attempting to develop a piece of property that is adjacent to that portion of Hullarock Nature Park. And as Mr. Goch is ably advocated, they are required to follow the city's requirements when it comes to stormwater, buffers, whatever the other impervious surface, et cetera. My position is that given the proximity of this particular piece of property adjacent to the northern portion of Hullarock Nature Park, that it deserves some additional consideration. And that's why I believe a delay is appropriate here. We have seen the folks at the New Hope Creek Corridor Advisory Committee work well with developers in other situations. And they meet on the second Thursday of every month, which is coming up not too far from now in January. And I think a delay would be appropriate to allow the developer to go to the advisory committee and talk to them about their plans and see if they can work something out that's amenable to all the folks that are having concerns here. And that's how I intend to vote tonight. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Council Member. Other colleagues? Mr. Mayor. Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate the concerns raised by both my distinguished colleagues, Councilor Caviera and Councilor Rees. However, I do not feel that this development does violence to the original intent of said organizations. I was listening very carefully. I'm convinced. Well, I don't know what more, based upon what I've heard from the staff thus far, unless they want to add anything that we will learn during the period of a delay, what study we would commission, what fears would be elade. And I'm certainly open to hearing that, if there are some substantive matters that can be uncovered with a delay and how long that would be. But I'm satisfied with the information we've gotten from staff and from the developer that the original intent of that conglomerate of interest that came together to produce this beautiful park, no violence is being done to that intent, at least as far as I'm concerned, and I will support the development. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Council Member Middleton. Mayor Pro Tem. No, no, thank you. Okay, Council Member Freyman. Mr. Mayor, I would also agree with Council Member Caviera and Council Member Rees as well, noting that the noticed information has not been shared with many of the folks in the neighborhood. That not alone leaves me calls for pause. And I would acknowledge, even if it were just a two-month delay, I would be willing to make that motion if you felt like it was appropriate. Well, it's clear to me that what I'm seeing, I haven't heard from Council Member Alston yet, but we're not here from Council Member Alston. I hear at least three people who are interested in a delay and I think that's good enough for me. I'm gonna keep this public hearing open. And I'm gonna keep it open until Council Member Rees, when did you say that that group meets? Well, they are scheduled to meet the second Thursday of every month at 5 p.m. And as he well knows, he's putting his thumb up. I can't tell you for certain whether or not they have a meeting planned for January, but they have every other January that in the list of minutes. So I suspect it'll be. I'm gonna continue this public hearing until February 3rd. And that will give anyone interested a chance to talk to the folks at the New Hope Creek Quarter Study Group. And as usual, collective wisdom is a good thing. And I appreciate everyone's thoughts. Council Member Alston, do you wanna add anything by the way? Well, I think the Mayor first had a comment as well, but you are moving in the direction that I was going. Yeah, I think this is not to burdensome on the process. I just wanna know what's gonna happen. I mean. In the interim? Yes, what is the effect of the delay that we have? I think that the neighbors will need to go to the New Hope Creek group and talk to them. And if you wanna have further conversation with our planning staff, Mr. Young, do you have any thoughts, comments? I would just make a request. If there's interest in continuance, staff has a number of conflicts on the evening of February. Do we have any other items scheduled? Could we ask for either the meeting before or the meeting after? A meeting after. February 17th. February 17th. February 17th, then the public hearing will be continued to February 17th. And we'll look forward to seeing you all back here. Don't plan on everybody getting up and talking again. No, I can tell you that right now. Okay, thank you all very much. I'm gonna continue this public hearing to that time. Colleagues, we're now gonna go back, unfortunately, to item 16. And we'll hear from our attorney. We need to take one further action. I apologize to the members of council. So I thought that when the council voted down the consistency statement on the Plum Amendment that that would moot the second motion. But my esteemed colleague and land use guru was watching the meeting and said, you know, you guys need to vote on the second motion. So if we could go back to item number 16. Colleagues, we're back at item number 16. Excuse me, friends. We have two more items of business to do. It's gonna take us a while. So we're dying to go home. So y'all could take the conversations out. It'd be awesome.  All right, motion to adopt the ordinance of entity comprehensive plan. Is there someone like to make a motion? Someone saying it. With the intent of voting no, I would assume. Madam clerk, could you please open the vote? We're on item 16, motion two. Okay. Everybody with me? Please close the vote. And the ordinance fails, zero to seven. Thank you so much. And thank you, Madam attorney and Mr. Young. And now we'll move on to item 18. This is the Urban Avenue Street closing and development agreement. And we'll hear from Ms. Struthers. Good evening. Ms. Struthers with the planning department. So regarding Urban Avenue Street closing, due to a high degree of uncertainty around the timing of resolution regarding issues associated with the street closing plot, staff recommends the public caring be closed and the item referred back to the administration. Once all outstanding issues, including those related to the location of Duke power easements and related concerns have been addressed, the item will be re-advertised and rescheduled. The staff is available for any questions. Thank you. Does that require a motion? So you would have to close the public hearing? Close the hearing? Yep. You close it. You close it. Did I, did I, it was... You can close it. It was closed open. I will now close the public hearing and refer this back to staff. Correct. Is that all you did? Yeah. Okay, great. Close it, close it. I don't believe there's any more business to come before this body. I'm going to declare this meeting adjourned at 12 o'clock. Oh, good. You've been made.