Thank you. And good afternoon. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council and the County Board of Commissioners as an advisory board to the elected officials. You should know that the elected officials have the final say on any issue before us tonight. If you wish to speak on an agenda item tonight, please go to the table to my left and sign up to speak. For those of you who wish to speak, please state your name, your address, clearly, and when you come to the podium you'll be doing the same things, be clearly into the microphone. Each side, those speaking in favor of an item and those speaking in opposition to an item will have 10 minutes to present for each side. The time will be divided among all persons wishing to speak. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative so if a motion fails or ties the recommendation is for denial. Thank you. Can I have the roll call? Mr. Brian? Mr. Busby? Mr. Freeman? Present. Mr. Ghosh? Mr. Gibbs? Mr. Harris? Mr. Harris has asked for an excused absence. Miss Huff? Miss Huff has asked that she be that this will be a delay. So when she comes in will mark her present. Miss Hyman? Mr. Kenshin? Mr. Miller? Mr. Van? President? Mr. Whitley? Miss Wonders? We are ready for adjustments to the agenda if there are any. Good evening. I'm Grace Smith with the planning department. We do have a few adjustments this evening. First of all, cases A150002 and Z150006 North Roxboro Road retail were withdrawn. So those cases will not be acted on this evening. In addition, the Shannon Road retail plan amendment case A1500022 was withdrawn. However, we will act on the zoning case tonight and I'll explain that when we get to that presentation. In addition, we would like to add an item under new business, a resolution for appreciation from Miss Wonders Service to the Planning Commission. And the planning staff has all affidavits on file for notification and advertisement as per the Unified Development Ordinance and State Statute. Madam Chairman, if I may. The chair recognizes Commissioner Miller. Madam Chairman, because we have a lot of citizens here tonight, I notice that item five on our agenda is the annual evaluation and assessment report and why we do plan to hold a public hearing on that. I was wondering if the chair might ask those folks in the audience if there's anybody here to speak on that. And if there isn't anybody here to speak on that particular item, that perhaps we might move it to the end of our public hearing agenda. I will ask at this time if there aren't any individuals here to speak on the annual evaluation and assessment report. Hearing none, then I'd like to have a motion to move the item to the end of the agenda. Madam Second. Commissioner Busby, first and Commissioner Miller Second. I'm sorry, was it Whitley? Okay. It's like you're in my immediate ear. Okay. The clerk gets so recorded. Thank you. All in favor of this motion, let it be known by raising your right hand. All opposed. I, Savit, will make that change. I'm sorry. Change is grazed. No, ma'am. I have a clarification, please. Mr. Miller, would you let, at least verify exactly where, did you want it after item D under public hearings? Is that where you wanted it? Okay. Just move five after seven. I got you. Okay. Let's, let's make sure that we note that just five. Okay. The next item on the agenda is the public hearing. Oh, I'm sorry. The next item is approval of minutes for the May 10th. Can I get a motion to approve the minute? Madam Chair, I move that we approve the minutes and the attached consistency statement. Second. Has been moved by Commissioner Brian and second by Commissioner Busby. Did I hear that correct this time? That we approve the minutes with the attachments. All in favor of this motion, let it be known by raising your right hand. All opposed. The minutes have been adopted and move forward. The next item we have is a public hearing plan amendment and current zoning map change request, but we'll move to item B. Shannon Road Retail, item number Z1500336. Are there any individuals here to speak to this issue? I do see one individual raising his hand. So you're in opposition. Okay, in support. Let's start with the staff. Good evening. Grace Smith with the planning department. I just wanted to be sure that I'll distribute it to each planning commissioner revised staff report. Does everyone have that at this time? I just wanted to make sure. Okay, so I'll get started. So as you know, this case was continued from our last regular meeting. Vivian, can you come help me with the mic? Okay, it's actually on. Okay, sorry about that. All right. Can you hear me now? Oops. Can you hear me now? Okay, sorry about that. We've had some might troubles in here, so I didn't want to assume that it was working. So this case was continued from our last regular meeting in May. The applicant requested the continuance so that they could go back and work on the development plan a little more. The staff had some concerns about whether or not the applicant's proposal, the prior development plan, whether or not it met some of the design criteria for transit oriented at build out. So I'm going to mostly cover the revisions. I'm going to kind of breeze through what we already covered last month since we have such a large crowd. So this is a Shannon Road retail case D 15 00036. The request is from RSM to CND. The acreage is 1.913. And the proposed use is 9500 square feet of floor area for commercial use. This is the context map as you'll see it's two lots on Shannon Road existing lots. So the zoning standards for CN are listed here. I'm not going to go through all of these because we did this last month, but the proposal doesn't meet these requirements. This is the existing conditions for the site there to well, there's a single family dwelling on each site. I believe they're both vacant. This is the development plan with the parking envelope and building envelope shown in the note of 9500 square feet of building area. The summary of commitments, the intensity of course will be 9500 square feet of building area. They are committing to one vehicular site access point maximum impervious surface of 70%, which is 1.31 acres and the tree coverage of 15%. They have some graphic commitments also shown on their plan, location of site access points, location of tree placement areas and building and parking envelope. I basically just covered all of that so I'm not going to repeat it. There is going to be a construction of a northbound left turn lane on Shannon Road for the site access and four feet of additional asphalt along Shannon Road for a bicycle lane. So the new design commitments that they committed to since we last met are basically addressing the need for transit oriented build out. So the prior plan did not really, the staff felt like we had some concerns because as you're aware, the form was recently changed or the future land use for this area was recently changed to design district for compact neighborhoods here. That just happened just a week ago at City Council. This application was already in process at that time. So we met with the applicant and we kind of worked with them to get them closer to compliance. And they proffered these design commitments as a result of that meeting. So the first one is to use a storefront window system that wraps around the building corner to the building side facing Shannon Road. They're going to provide awnings and or canopy features along the storefronts. They wanted to provide a four foot paved or concrete walkway along Shannon Road to the storefront entrances. They're going to incorporate a pedestrian gathering space with benches and specialty paving at the walkway connection into the property from Shannon the Shannon Road sidewalk. And they're going to incorporate a low wall fence or columns with low shrub hedge along the streetscape of the site with a minimum height of for these elements of three feet. The staff felt with this small site it was very limited in what they could commit to and the things they could add. But they they got creative and they did as much as they could to work towards that transit oriented at build out. The policies are obviously the future land use has changed since we last met. It's now designed district with compact neighborhoods here. So it is not technically consistent. The zoning is not however because this application was submitted prior to the adoption of the revised land use and compact neighborhood tier. We have staff has met with management and we all agreed we had about a handful four applications in house that were in that flux where they came in while the amendments were being made to the future land use. And we felt that if we worked with these applicants to get their development plans as close to compliance as possible that we would support those. So the staff determines that this request meets the UDO standards for transit supportive development had build out. The request is not consistent with the future land use map of the comprehensive plan but staff is supporting the request because number one the application was submitted during the same time the staff initiated comprehensive plan updates regarding compact neighborhood tiers and design district land use designation were underway. And number two the applicant has committed to design commitments that are consistent with design district designation goals and policies. So that's the end of my presentation. The staff is available for any questions you might have. I have one individual who has signed up to speak and Mr. Jared Eden at this time. Good evening. Jared Eden's with Eden's Land Corp. I want to thank Grace and staff for their time over the past month or so helping us get this application cleaned up a bit. I don't have a lot to add. Grace had a lot of detail in her presentation. We did make the changes that she mentioned earlier. I do think it's much more in line with what the city has in mind for this area with the recent land use amendment that was adopted. We have no neighborhood opposition that I'm aware of. I've not been contacted by anyone. We now have staff support so I'd appreciate your approval tonight. I'll answer any questions you have. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to close the public hearing and bring this back to the commissioners to see if I have commissioners who would like to speak on this issue. I'll start on this side. No. I'll start on Commissioner Miller. Okay. Commissioner Miller and Commissioner Winder's provided there is anything left to say. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chairman. I'm not going to take long. I did want to mention that this case has with any case that comes along to rezone property inside an area where we are working on creating a design district. I think the correct analysis is whether or not the rezoning that's planned is going to if it's if it's adopted whether it will has the potential to interfere or frustrate the planning process as we go through the design district planning process. So using that analysis I opposed the Farrington Road case that we had some months ago because what was proposed there was so big that it was clearly going to get in the way of the ability to effectively come up with a design district. In this instance though the project that's proposed is so small that it cannot conceivably interfere with the design district planning process and so had we voted on this at our meeting last month I was prepared to argue for it even though the staff had reservations. I'm glad that it's all been worked out now. I appreciate what the developer did to make adjustments to the design commitments in the development plan to bring it more in line with what may be called for in the design district rules and regulations and so at the appropriate time I'd like to be able to make a motion in favor of this rezoning. I mentioned the winders. So how many this is going to this is going to be how many units will this be? Which it's just a retail shops building so it's a maximum. Existing. I'm reading the existing. No residential. And the so we have some new design commitments that would be that are on the development plan but we haven't got a copy of the development plan. Is it okay? To clarify Grace Smith with the planning department the only thing that I handed out that was slightly revised was the staff report. The development plan that you received is correct. Okay. Okay that's all. Okay I think we are ready for a motion. Madam Chairman I move that we send case number Z-15-0-0-0-36 forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation. It has been moved and properly second that we send case Z-15-0-0-3-6 to the city council with a favorable recommendation. All in favor of this motion let it be known by a show of your right hand. All opposed. The motion carries unanimous 11 to 0. Thank you. Madam Chair may I ask staff has a request we would like to basically bypass item C for right now and move on to item A under public hearings if you don't mind and we'll get back to item C and just at some point during the process of the evening we if you wouldn't mind could we do that please. Can I get a motion from this commissioners to- Madam Chairman I move that we pull items 6C from our agenda and return it to the agenda agenda following the repositioned item Roman numeral 5 just before new business under Roman numeral 8. Okay thank you very much. Commissioner Miller and Commissioner Busby second that we move item C East End Corridor 2 and we're moving it after 6C for new just before new business is that correct. That's correct Madam Chair. Thank you all in favor of this motion let it be known by showing your right hand. I think it's actually after we moved my item 5A so it will be after 5A. I got you. Wait a minute make sure that I have it it'll be after 5. 5 moved down after 7D. Okay just move this other thing after 5. Okay I've got it thank you. Commissioner Whitley did you have a comment? Just a question is there anyone here to speak on this before we move it? There may be and we'll just we'll make that adjustment when we get to it so. Then I'll vote against it. Okay. Madam Chair staff had and not anticipated moving some of the prior items so the main staff member who is later to present that project is not here. Okay so she's anticipated to arrive slightly later that is why we are asking for it to be moved. Thank you so much for that so we'll make the adjustment. Thank you for working with us. Okay Okay. All right let's move to the next item. We have the public hearing zoning map change request number A is Farrington Place South Point. Didn't we vote? We did vote. Yeah we did. I'm well I want to be you know I want to be clear that we did you know everybody's saying we did we did vote. I voted. Great. Staff we're ready. Good evening my name is Kyle Taylor the planning department. I just I just want to make sure something was withdrawn no for the text amendment I'm talking about. Okay so A North Rocksboro retail that's been withdrawn and then B Shannon Road retail the A-15. You just voted in favor of that. I thought that was a Z-15. No the A was withdrawn. Is the A was withdrawn. Okay right now staff. Okay Good evening my name is Kyle Taylor the planning department and I will be presenting zoning cases E-15-0028 Farrington's Place at South Point. The applicant for this project is Tony Whitaker with Civil Consultants Inc. This project is currently located within the county but this request is in relationship to an existing annexation case that will be going they will be going together to council so this will be considered underneath the city jurisdiction. The requests go from RR to RS-20D. The approximate acreage of the site is 4.35 four acres and the proposed use is for up to six residential single family detached lots. This is the context area for the site. The site is located at 7221 Farrington Road at the intersection of Farrington Road in Curlew Drive in the Suburban Tier and the it is located within the FJB Watershed overlay. The site is currently located with the county however annexation is associated with this place and will be rezoned underneath the city's jurisdiction. There is an existing single family house located on this site. This project is consistent with the standards for the RS-20 district as outlined in this last in the staff report and the and the staff report that you have however I will make a note that there is two typographical errors in the staff report for this case on page six which also has the same information that it currently states the there's 35 25 for the street yard and side yards that actually should be 35 for the street yard and 12 for the side yard which is the minimum requirements for this district. The existing conditions as you can see on this page the site is heavily forested but there is one single family residential home located on the site currently. This is the proposed conditions page on the proposed conditions page you will see that this project meets the requirements the development plan for a RS-20 district zoning district. The proposed condition page does commit to the location of six driveway accesses off of Curlew Drive. The commitment shown on this is the six no more than six residential lots will be allowed up to six driveway access points of Curlew Drive impervious surface maximum of 21.6 percent or 40 000 square feet. There are three text commitments associated with this plan the first one being the only use allowed shall be single family homes of residential access for uses in home occupations. The second one is no mass grading is defined by section 16.3 defined terms or clear cutting is defined in paragraph 8.3.4 clear cutting will be utilized during construction and before the very last one before issuing of the final plots dedicate 20 foot of additional right of way for the frontage of the site along Farrington Road. This project is consistent with the future land use maps but designates this area as very low density residential two dwelling units per acre or less and it is consistent with comprehensive plan as identified in this slide and also the staff report and staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances and staff is available for any questions. I do have one individual who has signed up to speak David Vines. Good evening commissioners my name is David Vines I'm with Grace and their homes uh Tony Whitaker is our engineer he's on vacation so I'm here to stand in for him this evening so I'm available for any questions yet. I have no other individuals to speak so I'm going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the commissioners do I have commissioners who would like to speak I'll start on my right commissioner brine one and commissioner Miller two that's it okay we'll start with commissioner brine. Just a couple of quick questions when I visited the site I noticed that this land is for sale are you buying or selling? That's correct commissioner we have a contract to purchase pending annexation and rezoning. Okay thank you and the 20 feet of additional right-of-way along Farrington Road does that include the four feet that was requested for the bicycle lane? That does include that. Thank you. Commissioner Miller no question. Commissioner Busby and I'll make a motion at the appropriate time as well I did just want to say in addition I appreciate the text commitment on the no mass grading I know we hear a lot about flooding issues we know things have to be to code for stormwater but this is an issue that's growing in Durham so I know not to have mass grading will certainly help with that issue so I certainly appreciate that and at this point I would make a motion that we move favorable recommendation of case number Z1500028 to forward with a favorable recommendation. Motion by commissioner Busby and second by commissioner brine that we move south point forward with a favorable recommendation all in favor of this motion let it be known by showing of your right hand all opposed? Motion carries unanimously 11 to 0. Thank you. Thank you commissioner. Madam chair it's nil over here. Before we open the public hearing for the next item I would like to be asked to be recused for the project. Commissioner Gosh is asking to be recused from the next item which is the barini drive assemblage. Madam chairman I'm not sure I always understand exactly what the correct procedure is but whatever the procedure might be I'm sure this will cover it. I move that we excuse a commission member Gosh from consideration of this next case on grounds of conflict of interest if I'm not mistaken his law firm represents the applicant in in this case is applicant and at least another case if not this case. Thank you commissioner Miller for the motion second by commissioner brine all in favor of commissioner Gosh being recused from this item please raise your right hand. Motion carries 10 to 0. Now we are ready for the public hearing for the barini drive assemblage item number z 1500039 staff. Good evening again Kyle Taylor with the planning department. I'm going to be presenting zoning case z 15 00039 barini drive assemblage. This project's applicant is Randy King with the poultry group. This project is within the existing city zoning jurisdiction. The requests go from RS 20 to PDR 3.755. The acreage is 83.31 acres and the proposed use is up to 300 single family and town home residential units not to exceed 100 town home units. This is a request to rezone four parcels located at 4115 brini drive between brini drive and NC 147 in the suburban tier. A small portion of this request is located in the north a small portion that's located in the northwest quadrant of this project is located with the EA watershed district overlay. This project does meet the requirements for the PDR zoning district with a acreage of 83.31 acres a 3.735 dwelling unit per acre density and a no more than 35 maximum foot height. The existing conditions as you show that's shown here show the parcels are heavily wooded with the exception of parcel number<PHONE_NUMBER>97 which is 4115 brini drive the largest parcel associated with this. There is a pond and existing transmission towers located on this parcel. The developer does propose to remove those towers prior to the first subdivision plat and that is one of their text commitments that we will get to later. There are also several streams and required stream buffers shown on this project to the south and also the east on this project. The proposed conditions as shown on this page this project meets the requirements for a development plan for the PDR zoning district. The proposed conditions commit to access points buffers and excess of ordinance requirements a building and parking envelope a stream crossing stream stream and buffers as required to be for preservation location designated for single family detached lots only and location of tree preservation areas. The intensity for the site is 300 residential units no more than 100 and no more than 100 town homes. There will be six access points as I mentioned for this project however the one from Brooke Chase Lane is currently restricted to emergency pedestrian access only impervious surface for this project is limited to 70 percent or 56.24 acres and tree cover just 20 percent at 16.66 acres. Graphically this project commits to the tree preservation areas access points building envelope building and parking envelope area for reservation for single family detached lots. There are a number of text commitments proffered with this property including prior to the recombination of the first uh subdivision plat all on site transmission towers will be removed maximum number of units within the project will not exceed 300 maximum number of town home units will not exceed 100 prior to the recording of a subdivision plat for the 250th lot a main activity main active recreation area will be provided containing at least a club or house or changing room as well as a swing pool. There are a couple of tia improvements that are required on this site they include some for coal mill and burini drive the first one being subject to the they include several traffic improvements that are required they can be outlined in the staff report on this slide and also on the development plan. The development was required and did proffer design commitments with this project they include the general architectural style the rules will be pitched and they did say that there are no distinctive architectural features identified at this time. This project is consistent with the future land use map which designates this area as low density residential for dwelling units breaker or less. It is consistent with these comprehensive plan policies as well and staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan other adopted policies but is not consistent with UDO section 12.3 UDO section 12.3 requires street layouts and new development to be coordinated with the existing street system with connections made at all stovouts. This project does not provide for a connection to Brookchase lane or a stub to the southeast corner of the site that would allow for a future public street connection to Shockery Drive. Thank you and staff is available for any questions. I have quite a few people who have signed up to speak. I have 15 17 individuals who are speaking against this item and I'm going to ask for a suspension of the time rule a motion for the suspension of the time rule. Commissioner Miller. Madam Chairman I move that we suspend our customary 10 minutes per side rule and in this instance because so many people have indicated a desire to speak that we give all speakers at least three minutes to speak in that in a division of time between those in favor and those opposed that we give equal time to both sides. Second. Motion by Commissioner Miller and second by Commissioner Brian that we suspend the time rules and allow three minutes for individuals to speak. I'm going to start with the list that I have. I'm sorry. I know. I was thinking that we could get by with two minutes each. Okay so are there other are the other commissioners who would like to speak to the time issue before. I also agree I think on two minutes should be sufficient. I consider you have 17 persons. I do have 17 individuals. Madam Chairman I'd like to be heard on the motion. The chair recognizes Commissioner Miller. Madam Chairman we're here to hear from the citizens and have a right to a public hearing under our rules. In my opinion a public hearing it's great to be fair and I want to be fair but a public hearing is is an opportunity for them to come and say what they have to say and not worry about the running of the clock. We all volunteered to be on this commission. I got nothing else more important in my immediate future than hearing what these folks have to say and I don't want to have people cut off or have the bill ringing them off the way from the podium. This is their chance and I don't want to reduce it in any way so I urge the commission members to vote for the original motion. Madam Chairman. The chair recognizes Commissioner Whitley. We have set a precedent when there's a large turnout to extend the time and to change it now will be unfair and we'll be setting a new precedent. Three minutes is better than I mean we've we've done five minutes for each speaker when there's a large turnout. Three I think is reasonable. I have a motion to from Commissioner Miller to extend the time to three minutes and I'm going to call for a vote. All in favor of this motion and I do have a second by Commissioner Brine. I'm going to call for a vote. All in favor of this motion let it be known by raising your right hand. The motion carries unanimous 10 to zero. Thank you and I will the first individual Francis Mock these are all the individuals are four. I'm sorry these are all of the individuals against there was a question since there is a smaller number of individuals who are against would there be an objection to you know yeah I mean most of the individuals are against I'm saying okay excuse me I'm four Madam Chair yes typically the order is that the proponents go okay very good then I'm correct then that is correct we'll start with Francis Mock thank you the people in favor speak first oh the proponents I'm sorry the proponents go first so those individuals let me find someone on the list Robert Epley okay Patrick it has just been brought to my attention why don't I let you go first and organize the rest of those individuals who are four thank you thank you Vice Chair Hyman members of the Planning Commission good evening my name is Patrick Beiker I'll be the only person speaking at this point in time but I will introduce the rest of our team obviously we'll be here to answer questions at the end of the list of speakers that you just referenced so again good evening members of the Planning Commission my name is Patrick Beiker I live at 2614 Stewart Drive I'm an attorney in Durham the Morningstar Law Group I'm here tonight representing Polti Holmes for this zoning map change I'd like to introduce the rest of our team who's here tonight Robert Epley is our traffic engineer with VHB and his colleague Lyle Overcash is also our traffic engineer he's on his way here at this moment and should be available for a question and answer our landscape architect is Bob Zoomwalt with McAdams and then Bob Anderson and Randy King are also here from Polti by way of introduction we wish to highlight that we are asking for 3.7 units per acre in the case before a tonight 3.735 represents the appropriate density for acreage that is adjacent to a freeway and is designated on our future land use map for up to four units per acre while our future land use map looks forward I think it is important to take a moment to look back for the generation after World War II from the 1950s to the 1980s it was fairly normal for Durham to develop houses with a quarter or half acre lots like the houses north of Burini Drive that mindset changed starting in the 1980s with a development in South Durham called Woodcroft I hope every member of the planning commission is familiar with that neighborhood I find it compelling that Woodcroft is zoned PDR 3.65 almost identical to what Polti is requesting tonight while Woodcroft has a wide range of homes and lot sizes some of those lots contain only about 6,000 square feet a major shift from the post-war generation and reflecting much more efficient and wise land use practices in a similar vein when I started working in economic development for the Chamber of Commerce back in 1994 we never really contemplated the fact that Durham would someday run out of developable land even though Durham has always been a fairly small county with fewer than 300 square miles fast forward to 2016 and it definitely feels to me like most of the developable land in Durham is developed accordingly Durham has to be a good steward of its limited land resources while PDR 3.735 does correlate with homes on relatively small lots this zoning map change is consistent with current market trends and sound planning principles again it is simply good stewardship of the limited land Durham has available to develop in order to meet the housing needs of our growing population to reinforce the consistency with the surrounding area of Polti's application before you this evening I wish to highlight the demarcation on our development plan that calls for the potential development of up to 100 townhouses closer to the freeway this component of our development plan mirrors the existing 100 townhouses located approximately one half mile west of this site a townhouse community known as Sparger Springs Sparger Springs is adjacent to the freeway and his own PDR 3.59 therefore the development plan before you is consistent with both the future land use map and the existing development that is nearby of course it is incumbent upon any proposal to provide appropriate buffers for current and future residents as shown on Polti's development plan there is a 30 foot 40 opacity buffer along Barini Drive and 100 foot buffer along the freeway there's a great deal of existing tree coverage that contributes to the 100 foot buffer I just mentioned last based on a recent meeting with residents of bank grass lane we've agreed to a 50 foot buffer along the lots adjacent to our site that are located on bank grass lane in order to achieve 60 percent opacity with new plantings and existing tree coverage prior to the issuance of a building permit in addition it is important to note that this zoning map change constitutes infill development and Durham's comprehensive plan states quote both urban and suburban both urban and suburban infill development become more important as the population of Durham continues to grow infill development including residential non-residential and mixed use are an important aspect of smart growth and will help support transportation alternatives and alleviate congestion related issues unquote in my opinion it would not be wise public policy to utilize the existing r20 zoning at this location given its proximity to a major freeway and the aforementioned need to use our existing vacant land in an efficient manner moreover as a textbook example of infill development this site is conveniently located with relatively short commutes to major employment centers such as downtown Durham and Duke University Medical Center I think this site also provides a very reasonable commute to Duke Regional Hospital and Trayburn Corporate Park I bring up these potential commuting patterns because according to Forbes.com the triangle region has the unfortunate distinction for generating more vehicle miles traveled per household than any other metro region in our country in the triangle quote the average household racks up 21,800 miles per year unquote now that is unsustainable we need to do more to encourage shorter commutes and this type of infill contiguous residential development is the way to do just that last in regard to traffic it is important to recognize the hierarchy of the traffic network which for example is noted in the city's street impact the ordinance that references freeways thoroughfares collectors and local roads in this section of Durham east of the orange county line south of the eno river north of 85 and west of coal mill one finds 85 represents the freeway coal mill road is clearly the thoroughfare that transports traffic from the collectors to the freeway barini drive and other streets that intersect coal mill while they may be local roads also serve as collectors to take traffic out of the neighborhoods to coal mill road as a two-lane road barini drive has a capacity of approximately 10,700 vehicles per day and according to our traffic study it currently carries approximately 1500 cars per day accordingly it is functioning at approximately 14 percent of its capacity coal mill road according to the staff report is functioning at approximately 60 percent of its capacity of course no one wants more traffic in their vicinity however if we do not utilize these infill opportunities to accommodate new residents of Durham these persons moving to the triangle will move further out from our employment centers increasing sprawl increasing vehicle miles traveled for our region and decreasing convenient housing choices for people moving to Durham in order to avoid these negative outcomes Durham needs to move forward with infill development such as this zoning map change that follows our comprehensive plan for all these reasons we respectfully ask for your recommendation of approval tonight and our team will be happy to answer any questions we respectfully ask to reserve the balance of our time for a buttle and we thank you for your time Francis before you a staff yeah staff would just like uh staff would just like the developer to clarify whether he was proffering additional uh brother buffer along bed grass that's currently shown on the development plan yes that's correct increasing it to 50 feet thank you well thank you i'm not sure i think i need vivian here i have a power point presentation and i'm not sure how to get that pulled up my name is francis mock and i live in 14 west haven place and to be clear i'm not here to oppose any development on this barini assemblage i'm here to oppose the request to rezone it and double the density of that property since we learned about pulty's intention or desire to double the density of this land our community has been united in its opposition we have filed with you a packet we mail to you this packet that provides a lot of information you may refer to that and follow along as i walk through a power point included in that as the signatures of 225 um residents who are showing their opposition to this zoning request and while we understand that the protest petition is no longer a legal option for us we wanted to show our unified um uh opposition to this request as you can see there are a number of people here um who oppose this request if you are here to oppose this zoning request please stand thank you you may be seated so the best way to articulate our um some of our oppositions is through a power point which shows pictures of our neighborhood and that and what is proposed so they developer has pointed out that the comprehensive plan would allow up to up to four units per acre but the udo requires um that it be consistent with the neighborhood and in fact the number one thing in the udo says that the ordinance is to protect existing neighborhoods and to prevent their decline and promote their livability and that's what we're here asking this commission to do udo section four four one says it has to be compatible with existing patterns of development and this development is not here's a satellite image of our uh neighborhood and i want to try to show i think it's hard for you to let me see if you can see my map the red obviously shows this this is barini drive along this red area here is bent grass i'm going to show you some photos of that which is the street that would be to the east of the property this is kimble um which would be one of the main entrances is proposed to be right here on kimble drive i'll also point out that the traffic study that you'll hear more about later from a different resident um did not even consider the impact on kimble and even though a main entrance is poised to be right there so i want you to notice as you look at this the density the amount of trees that we have in our property and the density of the housing so here is a zoning map this is the city's zoning map um the all of the yellow areas as i'm sure you're aware are rrs 20 the including the concurrent area that the developer is trying to change the areas in tan this sort of lighter shade um here and over here is actually rs 10 which allows smarter lots smaller lots but if you can see this development here is really the lots are essentially the same as all the rs 20 lots around it this area in blue here is that my time running down allow you to finish sure what your your statement yes caroline akkar okay thank you miss akkar so this area in blue here is zoned pdr 2.0 so essentially almost all of the area that you see allows has lots that are up to about a half acre lots so having um this change to the 0.16 acre lots that the developer is proposing would be a significant change to our neighborhood so here's a satellite image this is the street corner of kimball and barini this is the entrance and you'll notice the density of the houses and the intense wooding the wooding around it this is bent grass the lane to the right of the property to the east of the site and you'll see the proposed development site that butts up against it and again if you'll notice the density of the houses and the trees there so um magnolia walk is a property that pulty has developed in apex i think it finished last year i myself have met with bob anderson um three different times to discuss this development and he told me that magnolia walk is exactly this is a quote is exactly the same development that they'll do in barini he said the lots are exactly the same size and the houses are the same size this is what that looks like this is the same scale of what i just showed you um for the bent grass avenue and as you can see these are 0.16 acres so you can basically fit three of these houses on the existing lots um in our neighborhood so when you compare these if you'll look at the cul-de-sac you'll notice that the scale is about the same i'm not playing any tricks here um that that's the difference and that is not consistent with our neighborhood here's a street view this is kimble and barini again i'm at one of the main entrances you can see it's a lovely wooded neighborhood you can barely see the houses from the street here's bent grass we have the same thing you again you can barely see the houses here's a street view of magnolia walk that pulty has developed here's another view and as you can see there's no architectural diversity the lots are significantly smaller all of these houses have front facing garages they have small front porches and they have upper all the roof lines are essentially the same so these two are not consistent this lack of architectural diversity and the um significantly smaller lot sizes are not consistent this is the distance between two houses on bent grass this is the distance in magnolia walk where you can almost touch both houses so these are not consistent with our neighborhood pulty's proposed one six acre lots that's even smaller than the point two five acre lot that their pdr suggests because they're going to have a clubhouse in a pool so these are very very small lots so they are not only really doubling the density they're tripling they're going to have house lots that are one-third the size of our existing lots so we are asking you tonight to comply with the udo and to protect our neighborhood um and to vote no on this rezoning request thank you the next speaker that i have is brian and it's um is it shusha okay share thank you thank you commissioners thank you for your time my name is brian sharrick i live at three west haven place i am a native of Durham and a local commercial real estate developer while i have a responsibility to create profitable profitable projects on behalf of my shell shareholders i do so in a manner that places good design and good place making above profits do not believe that pulty has the same philosophy pulty is quick to highlight how their rezoning quest aligns with the comprehensive plan but fails to mention how the proposed rezoning deviates from the udo pulty informed us that building on larger lot sizes is not does not fit their business model this mindset does not take into account the best interests of our community whether it puts pulty's business model and their profits first pulty has approached this development in a manner that raises a lot of red flags to me pulty intentionally cut a parcel that a butt-stackery drive presumably to avoid the possibility of connecting to it they told us they abandoned the possibility of using the right of way to comel road because it would not provide the grand entrance they desired in addition a recent stream re determination was point zero five points short of officially recognizing existing streams on the property that are in need of protection a developer truly committed to the future of Durham i hope would take it upon themselves to ensure this potential environmental neglect is avoided i hope as a planning commission you will hold developers accountable myself included to design projects that in best interest of our community not just their bottom line voting against the proposed rezoning will send a message to Durham send a message that Durham will develop in a manner that is thoughtful safe and beneficial for our community thank you thank you the next speaker is laura christensen thank you laura christensen for 118 greenie drive almost directly across from one of the proposed openings for this proposed rezoned development i support development in Durham and in my neighborhood at the existing zoning level knowing that this zoning provides one of the best uses for this land greenie drive is a quiet residential feeder street my home is between coldwood street and kimble drive a distance of approximately three tenths of a mile in that three tenths of a mile are four speed bumps the speed limit is 15 miles per hour obviously the city recognized a traffic problem and took measures to mitigate that problem years ago to protect the integrity of my neighborhood the developer could have made an access point via a piece of property that has right of way to coal mill road a major transportation corridor it is for sale and directly adjacent to the property they are buying but they have reviews refused to do so by ordinance according to my conversation with bill judge of the city transportation department brook chase lane must be an access point i understand that on two tracks of plans the developers have refused to make that an access point by ordinance according to my conversation with bill judge of the city transportation department shockery drive would be an access point except as brian mentioned the developer subdivided a small lot between shockery drive and the rest of their 81.9 acres this is a disingenuous legal but certainly in my estimation unethical act that puts me and my neighbors in a position i never thought possible the position of which i speak is having to make a risky investment by buying my home like many americans my home is my major investment when i sell my home it will provide me with funds to help me live until the end of my life assisted living can be significantly expensive as i have just discovered having just come from settling my elderly parents now this outside developer totally uninterested in promoting the beauty of this city would build to decrease my property value by radically increasing traffic and noise and make me would make me and my neighbors pay for what they need to pay vote no please thank you is glenn walters glenn please state your address which is not listed on the sign-in sheet my name is glenn walters i live at 1015 kimble drive i'd like to address the potential traffic impacts of the proposed rezoning on our neighborhood in the surrounding area in particular i want to discuss the traffic impact assessment prepared for pulty homes by vhb engineering dated december 11th 2015 in a nutshell i believe this report to be inadequate due to key omissions that make it impossible to determine the impact of the proposed rezoning on local traffic furthermore i believe that the report downplays the significance of the impacts that it does identify first traffic counts were performed on two consecutive days in july 2015 the two closest schools hillandale elementary and riverside high school operate on a traditional schedule so these counts are not representative of typical traffic volume a single count was done in october but only at the intersection of barini and coal mill drive road however as i'm about to detail the data from this single count is not a legitimate basis upon which to extrapolate the additional findings in the report second it appears that the traffic study area was selected without a complete understanding of how traffic moves through the area the impact assessment focused almost exclusively on the movement of traffic between our neighborhood and the i-85 interchange this demonstrates a lack of regard for the many trips associated with travel to the schools and to the north on coal mill road much of this traffic leaves our neighborhood via coalwood drive kimble drive and fleming drive in order to avoid making the left hand turn on to burini or from burini on to coal mill road ironically mr riker just mentioned employers such as duke regional hospital and businesses in traver and industrial park all of which would employ residents who would commute via those trips to the north and to the west on coal mill road to rose of Sharon these trips would all potentially use the internal streets to bypass left turns from burini on to coal mill the impact assessment did not identify these turning movements and did not include these intersections in their study as a result the report provides an incomplete picture of existing traffic patterns and significantly underestimates the actual impact of the proposed rezoning on traffic in the area vhb's own report cites significant lost counts within the limited area that they did study this alone puts into question the validity of their study area i believe that a properly scoped traffic study would show significant increases of traffic within the neighborhood on these smaller streets i therefore asked the board to deny this rezoning request and a future application is made that it be supported by a more thorough and may have finished thank you and complete traffic study that includes representative traffic counts during the traditional school year and it includes counts at the additional intersections necessary to accurately assess the traffic impacts on this area thank you and let me ask let me ask that you hold your applause so that just for the sake of time so that we can get through this plot at the end but let's just let's get through this the next speaker is elizabeth lambar okay elizabeth yes his hand out good evening my name is elizabeth lumbar and i live at 700 dilute street my biggest concern about the proposed rezoning request that would clear cut the trees significantly increase the density of houses and result in 70 percent impervious surface is the effect this would have on stormwater runoff and ultimately the health safety and well-being of Durham residents the developer is choosing the maximum impervious surface allowed but the minimum standards to manage stormwater runoff although not able to attend the meeting tonight mr staples the owner of lakes wananoa which feeds the northernmost headwater of ellaby creek asked that i speak on his behalf he expressed to me that he and his neighbors the vast majority of whom signed the petition are extremely concerned about the disastrous effects a high density development immediately north of them could have for both city owned and private properties along this portion of the watershed much of which lies in the fema declared floodplain currently a significant rain event raises the level of the lake as much as three feet inundating the lake spillway and ellaby creek this is evident on the slide and the handout that i have presented to you this shows this shows lake swannanoa the spillway picture taken in june of a normal day with very small flow flowing under the city's sewer the line there that has sewer and then it also shows after heavy rain and this is not a one-time event this is every time they get a heavy rain the next show the next slide shows the water as it flows under the city bridge into the ellaby creek and again you can see the extreme flooding that can happen contributing to erosion of the creek during a conversation that mr staples had with former city watershed employee greg susah last year mr susah stated that his department has an ongoing concern for the protection of the bridge creek sidewalls and the city utilities we recognize that durham has strong stormwater runoff standards however polty has a national reputation for not following the minimum standards as is evident in the three articles that were handed out about successful lawsuits against polty because of these concerns it is crucial that any development on this land adhered a low impact development principles as well as install systems to manage a 100-year flood finally at a time when the city is working hard to manage stormwater and reduce the pollution of ellaby creek and ultimately falls lake it does not make sense to change the zoning of this property this is a great opportunity for the city to follow the recommendations of their ellaby creek watershed management improvement plan and limit density as much as possible please vote no to the request to rezone this land but i'd i'd like to make one additional adjustment this time i'm going to call uh the next four people to speak and be ready to go so the the next person will be raymond pierce deborah jackson lewis bowls and john flinn thank you okay john flinn excuse to to mr pierce okay thank you madam chair my name is raymond pierce and i live at nine 12 kimball drive and i'm actually a member of a committee that represents this neighborhood um and what i have what i've heard before what you've heard before me pretty much tells the story but i want to add two points um my family is blessed to be a part of this community that we are we see here today and 12 years ago when i was invited to move here to be the dean of our law school at north carolina center university my wife and i asked specifically uh for neighborhood uh that we described that what we found but it was interesting that when we spoke to the real estate agency that there are actually very few communities like this the options were very very few and i actually found that surprising in north carolina coming from where i live uh where i came from um and and you've seen the pictures you you see the the resistance to this and i just find a troubling that it would be considered to actually eliminate a rare asset that you have uh what i was told when i moved here is that waterford is is highly sought after neighborhood um in large part for relocation of people who are coming in academia for north carolina center university and for duke university in fact the chancellor's home of our university is located in this neighborhood and it was placed there specifically because of the lack of density and so i i just find it kind of sad that this would get to this point that this is a neighborhood that is used not only to attract people to Durham um but also to uh to uh to to incentivize people who have been offered positions that here's a neighborhood that you could actually listen if you so decided to come to our community brings me to my second point um frances and brian and carolin and everyone who preceded me they just gave laid out the points the environmental impact uh the traffic study that glenn talked about uh on and on and on it just puts this in context Durham is is is fortunate to be a a city that is actually in a position where it's attracting people some of us have had the the task of reviewing grants i have and proposals uh for cities that are looking for grants because they're losing population and these grants are are are a combination of proposals from developers and academia that if they receive this money this is what we do communities that are actually losing people and if you look at those development proposals they for cities that are losing population it is foreign access of what pote is proposing here my point is we can do better than this now my good friend patrick back here is where's patrick um patrick is absolutely correct when we say we have to be good stewards patrick of our land we have to be here in Durham but i'm sorry my friend you're wrong when you say that this would be a good use this will be good stewardship this is this is poor stewardship we can do better to suggest that we can't have a developer come to us and present to us a plan that actually shows investment in our community partnership with our community and actually respect for our community is to shortchange ourselves i mean they said it all so i respectfully ask this commission review this take it for what it is and deny this request this city and this definitely his neighbor can do much better than what has been presented here by this developer thank you i've called several people in order so the next with deborah jackson louis bowls mr flinn well we didn't use all of his time i thought that was carolyn oh maybe that was miss ackards okay um louis bowls okay so louis has thank you my name is louis bowls i'll live in five duffers place fairway woods i've been there for 31 years my property is within 100 feet of the property to be developed um i don't disagree with anything anybody has said so far um i have a slightly different way to come at it and it is this of the 300 houses property uh being proposed up to 100 or townhomes and i believe townhomes which i'll refer to as multifamily are the single biggest flaw in this development it puts too many uh parcels inside this 84 acres and uh it would have i think several impacts one would be uh i believe it would impact our the value of our homes second multifamily is uh if you take those hundred and they all have to go out at least now on the barini drive entrances it's that much more traffic on barini drive that's the reason i think the multifamily is the biggest flaw in it if this was just a single family development i don't think i'd be here uh in opposition to it the last development of any size adjacent to me was stony brook cottages so that was 2002 to 2008 it was on 20 approximately three parcels 21 acres uh the lot sizes of the homes are about 0.15 acres my property not to be bragging is 0.9 acres uh two of those parcels uh actually three of them actually touched my property everything's going well they were well built houses 2,900 square feet to 3,700 square feet and uh well built homes uh there's the that neighborhood has incorporated into the entire neighborhood i believe very well it was all single family i think the flaw in this that poli has proposed is multifamily which they're calling town homes if that were removed that would be a big obstacle to at least allowing this thing to possibly move forward so i'd recommend that you vote no thank you so now we have Bonnie Flynn um is it alan restley and chris deeps dripps good evening i'm not going to take long but i do want to correct something that was said by the gentleman representing the developer he said that during world war two we were building houses that were um the size that ours are our development was built my house was built i live at 800 kimball drive right on the corner of barini and kimball my husband and i retired there to waterford our house was built and our whole neighborhood was built in the 1980s my house was finished in 1986 so to give the idea that these are houses that world war two and we do something or that during that time frame and we do something different it's just a false uh i i didn't think that was well said so i wanted to clear that up thank you thank you and alan alan restley followed by chris dripps good evening i'm alan restley i live at 4206 coles pond drive in durham i'm also president of our owners association in coles pond coles pond is located along coal mill road near the site the pulty is proposing to rezone coles pond was one of the first communities in durham developed under the cluster development rules the cluster development was appropriate for our site because as the name would imply it is built around a pond a really beautiful environmental feature a sensitive environmental feature and something that is the most attractive feature of our community uh the barini road assemblage also has a large pond obviously you can't build on the pond you can't build within the riparian buffers around the pond and pulty proposes to have additional recreational facilities there to me as someone who has had the benefit in living of living in a cluster development that is taken advantage of specific environmental features to enhance the neighborhood i believe this property is a perfect location for another cluster development like coles pond coles pond the underlying zoning district is rs 20 as are the surrounding areas but because the pond and land adjacent to it was set aside as open space the developer was allowed to incorporate smaller lots most of the lots in our neighborhood are about 16 000 square feet but the overall density is no greater than the underlying rs 20 zoning um a developer who would come in and appreciate the environmental qualities of this parcel could design another larger cluster development that would take take advantage of the specific beauty of the site if you haven't visited you should it's a very beautiful site it would allow by doing a cluster development it would allow more homes and would be allowed under the rs 20 but it would respect the density of the surrounding neighborhoods waterford westwood estates and be sensitive to the neighbors who are here be sensitive to the environment and create a neighborhood that would be i think a uniquely beautiful spot in there so i encourage the commissioners to vote against the rezoning there are other options that could achieve higher density but preserve the special features of this site and chris hi commissioners my name is chris drepps i'm the executive director of ellert creek watershed association 331 west main street but we also own property on shockery drive just downstream of the proposed development site the proposed rezoning site we have many concerns about this request uh first ellert creek watershed association has been trying to protect this site for about 15 years and even the city's very own ellert creek watershed management improvement plan uh calls this land a keystone property for protection why spend a half million dollars making a watershed plan if you're going to throw the recommendations out the window as soon as the next big development comes along pulty homes approach to this development is right out of the 1990s clear cut the trees masquerade and compact the soils destroy all the streams by putting them in pipes deny the state's wetland deny the site's wetlands are really wetlands by calling them man-made build 70 impervious cover which is as high as what we have in downtown durham most people don't realize that through nutrient trading pulty can check off all the boxes in their stormwater requirements and meet the minimum standards by paying for restoration somewhere else on cheap land outside of durham and the result will be that the now relatively clean headwaters of ellert creek will no longer comply with north carolina water quality standards though all the requirements have been met at a time when the city is spending millions in an effort to reduce pollution in ellert creek it would be irresponsible to allow pulty to add density and pretend that they can't do any better for stormwater the city's ellert creek watershed plan recommends multiple restoration projects just upstream of the site this pulty homes development will cancel out and overbalance all the good that these projects could do come on this is 2016 are we an innovative community or home of the minimum standards we have done research developed the technology and seen hundreds of low impact development projects all around the country the engineering firm working on this project mcadams has done low impact development and could easily do it again on this site but not under this proposed rezoning request a comparison was made to woodcroft and i just want to add this which is on third fort creek which has the lowest water quality score in durham state of our streams 2014 report as low as the that water quality in south ellert creek in downtown durham so yes that's a good comparison the what the woodcroft density to this to this density finally this proposed rezoning sets a bad precedent there are so many more sites on the urban fringe with similar potential saying yes to this rezoning will make restoring water quality in our creeks and rivers even more difficult and expensive please finish your sentence please vote no on this rezoning thank you request and then the the last person that i have listed is chris baker thank you thank you commissioners my name is chris baker i'm the president of stonybrook cottages homeowners association which is to the east of the development proposed by poultay i've been a residential realtor for over 10 years just to give you a history on stonybrook cottages which is probably the newest development in the area close that abuts this development at the front closer to coal mill road the zoning is currently 3.14 and then as it gets closer to the green neighborhood it drops down to 2.72 i'm guessing back in the early 2000s that's how they transition to a rs 20 neighborhood um i see a lot of people here speaking today and one thing that really we were a failed development from 2008 to 2013 so obviously i'm a little bit uh up on city code standards and everything um our neighborhood is our association is a little disturbed that city staff is calling us as a should be a connection point for main traffic our roads are 50 feet wide that includes curb and gutter and there is no turn lane off a coal mill road the subdivision was designed for 45 homes at the time of the developer so that's why nothing else was added and there's really no way to widen the streets because you'd be in people's living rooms basically as opposed to older neighborhoods that are set further back from the street um one thing that i've said to the developer from the beginning is that something of this magnitude it would be really nice you envision it with their own private entrance and things like that but obviously that per land that doesn't seem like it's going to happen i do need to rebut what laura christian said very emotionally which i can understand nobody really wants this in your backyard but you know to see city staff if you drive down our neighborhoods and obviously was impact like that there's just no way cars could come through there obviously brook chases call it a lane and not as dry like brini is and we don't have speed bumps because we don't have to through fair traffic um so again my observation in all this is just i see the passionate in here of people that doesn't feel this fits the neighborhood and i again vote you to probably send this back for some more consideration for the developer and probably vote no against it thank you thank you um i'd also like to check now to see if the developer would like to have some additional time that would be mr. baker biker i'm sorry sorry madam vice chair our team is ready to answer any questions that you may have okay thank you now are there other speakers i'm we do have our our lead traffic engineer here if you want to go into questions about traffic we're happy to do that right now go we defer the commission i am sure there will be questions about traffic a little bit later if we may since we have a fair amount of time if our traffic engineer lial overcash could just address a few points okay and then we'll open up yes we will allow him we you still have that time thank you good evening my name is lial overcash managing director of the rally office of vhb we prepared the good evening my name is lial overcash with vhb the managing director of the rally office we prepared the tia and in conjunction with the city of Durham and ncdot we scope the tia back in the summer of 2015 in anticipation of submitting the tia during the summer the city and the dot were okay with collecting traffic counts during the summer during that time we evaluated the connection to the neighboring stony brook and changed the plans as we understood that the traffic would be attracted to go through that neighborhood and move the drives to access berenie only since we then we're into the fall of the year we went back out and we collected account in october as the gentleman mentioned we took that count and then we rebalanced the rest of the counts so we actually took a more conservative approach than if we had submitted the tia during the summer as originally planned regardless the tia was submitted to the city and dot and they concurred exactly with our recommendations for the two driveways on berenie as proposed on the site plan and also we recommended a traffic signal at the intersection of berenie and cold mill due to increased traffic load on berenie which would be a benefit I think to the residents and also the two churches that are on berenie we noticed during the study the accidents that occurred at berenie and cold mill actually occurred on sunday evenings so we were wondering if the you know the signal would help in that situation as well a couple of points want to point out the speed limit on berenie is actually is 25 miles an hour the advisory speed for the speed bumps is 15 miles an hour we did a speed study on berenie the speed bumps are working the observed 85 percentile speed was right at 25 miles an hour so they are working as installed the intersection of kimble and berenie was brought up we did study that intersection per the city and dot recommendations that southbound movement on kimble operates at a level service a currently with the development it will decrease down to a level service b which is just a couple of seconds extra delay we based on the traffic counts we collected we assigned 20 percent of the traffic to the north and 80 percent of the traffic to the south in the study are just based on traffic patterns with a signal installed at berenie and cold mill we would actually anticipate maybe some of the traffic that's using kimble and some of the other streets would actually be attracted to the berenie cold mill intersection and then make that move with the assistance of the traffic signal concerning the townhomes townhomes actually generate 60 percent less traffic per unit than a single family so it's not all bad always inserting townhomes in development as they actually per unit generates less traffic than a single family home those are just some of the points I wanted to touch on are there any additional comments uh mr biker no thank you we're happy to answer any questions thank you close to public hearing and bring this back before the commissioners to give them an opportunity to speak and and have questions so all those commissioners who would like to speak I will start looking this way I see mr I'll start with miss huff okay I'm gonna go down this side um Patrick I didn't I'm sorry miss the first part of your presentation my understanding is that you all are not going to build any kind of buffer sound buffer between the property and the interstate is that true you're not sorry you must have missed my comment there's no I said I wasn't here okay I'm sorry you must have just missed it because I remember seeing you come in it's there's a 100 feet forested buffer between the interstate and the first residential dwelling units on our property we are leaving a 100 foot forested buffer the exact same as the mc mtc buffer that's along interstate 40 now I also read in information I got from the community that you all had said that the townhomes that are going to be I presumably along the interstate is that that's correct just like the other townhomes a half mile further to the west that they would constitute a sound buffer is that what you said I was not there but the buffer is going to be 100 feet of of existing forest they'll remain intact along the interstate before there is any property line for a residential dwelling unit on this project okay um I would like to say the gentleman who spoke about cluster development it's exactly where I'm coming from on this piece of property it's a beautiful piece of property it could be they could take advantage of of the landscape I'm an artist I went out there I was I was moved by this lovely lovely piece of land I am appalled at this development I absolutely am it is a virus that it's a it's a virus that is going to come in kill the piece of property and just go away and you guys are going to be left with the consequences of it I mean there's much to say about it but gosh I'm voting no thank you chair recognizes commissioner brian thank you I'd like to start just by thanking everybody who came out tonight and for all the many messages that I've received if I didn't respond to you they were coming so fast I ran out of time uh I do have a couple of questions for transportation mr judge please I am really concerned about barini drive being able to really handle this traffic it doesn't look like it's as solid as the street that I live on can you comment yes bill judge with transportation I think what you're referring to is more just the pavement structure and the ability to handle traffic it is a city maintained street the our public works department engineering actually is more responsible they reviewed the they not only reviewed the rezoning request but if any developments approved whether it's this one or any other development they would go out in advance of the development evaluate the pavement take an inventory document the existing conditions and then if any damage were done by the construction then they would hold the contractor responsible for that making those repairs thank you for that I just so people know I currently have three development projects going on within one mile of my house and I learned more about large equipment than I ever wanted to know and I was really concerned that bringing this into the area over barini would really tear a barini drive up there are a lot of environmental points and actually historical points about this site one that I only saw mentioned briefly but it happened to be one I was familiar with crossing a portion of this site is a remnant of something that is known as fish damn road fish damn road is historically or actually it's a remnant of a historical roadway it was initially used by the native americans and then by colonial North Carolina the fact that there is a piece remaining and it runs parallel to barini about 200 feet off of it I believe to me this is something that I think should be preserved for future generations uh and uh I just wonder if the developer would have any interest in preserving this to me it could be incorporated into a pedestrian way or something like that so commissioner brine Patrick biker with morning star law group Patrick biker with morning star law group uh commissioner brine will will certainly evaluate that we're not able to commit to anything this evening I am familiar with the concept again having worked with development over the years but I was not aware of that condition that you just brought up and will evaluate it but we're not in a position to make any commitments about this evening okay and a couple of final observations uh I agree with the comments about the elebre quick watershed management plan it doesn't make good sense to me to spend half a million dollars of taxpayer money and then ignore the result of the recommendation and I would add that I believe that the falls lake rules would support the watershed management plan and I'll be quiet for now thank you uh commissioner Whitley Robert um traffic yes sir lyre of a cash is a number of the citizens that um gave testimony said that they asked that more um exit be used so that just spread the traffic weight around and that was denied can you tell us why yes early on we looked at connecting to shockery and also the stony brook and we recommended to the developer that against doing that that it would be better to connect to a road such as barini that has a capacity of 10 000 cars per day so shockery is a small road and that is kind of funny it is real funny I uh I'm just quoting what city city staff gave me as the capacity of the road we evaluated connecting to stony brook as well stony brook intersection those approaches actually operate at e and f and so we felt like given the proximity of a distance that a lot of the traffic from the development would be attracted to that exit and as the gentleman spoke that that neighborhood is not really designed to handle that kind of traffic load coming out and would compound the level service problem there we felt like if we assigned the traffic to barini and then made an improvement at barini and coal mill which has a considerable amount of turning traffic traffic signal will be enhanced and hence safety at that location and enhance ingress egress for not only the residents but also the institutional uses in the area but we did evaluate both both connections to shockery and stony brook and and our advice to them was to connect to barini getting out of the question and you were under an impression that it could it could take the access traffic yes I have no doubt that it will handle the exit traffic from this development easily do you know to your knowledge do you know whether the developer ever been on barini oh I'm absolutely sure he's been on barini thank you yeah thank you I had a chance to let me thank everyone from the community those that sent me mail and those that didn't in fact when I was getting so much mail I thought it was coming up immediately and I want to thank all those that sent me emails and those that didn't um I had an opportunity to go out there and um and before I could depart my car I had already figured out there's no way of development is going to going to be able to handle the traffic on that street no way no and before I could and I wanted to I didn't have the proposal right in front of me and so I wanted to ask someone was I correct in this being an entrance and exit point and I knocked on the door and they came out to tell me exactly where it was and and how it's supposed to be developed and who they have talked to and I was amazed that the developer thought that they could put a project like that in a neighborhood like that without any adverse response and um I um I think this should be um rejected um for three reasons traffic watershed and um and the developers refusal to listen to the community that he wanted to put the project into thank you commissioner quickly commissioner busby thank you madam chair I had a couple questions for mr biker one question that hasn't been explored yet is the um the issue of flooding and stormwater management and I mentioned that earlier tonight in a in a different proposal where they were putting in a text commitment for for no masquerading no clear cutting the photos that we saw earlier I know are not on this site that's correct but they are they're very disturbing and I was interested in hearing your thoughts your plan to adequately capture stormwater as you move forward with this proposal well just want to highlight the fact that there is no flood plain on this site so that's not a that's not a flood plain issue I would like to ask our landscape architect if there's any other issues that we have but our our intention is to pursue the rigorous process of of complying with the city of Durham stormwater ordinance for this location it's a very rigorous process and it is to my knowledge the toughest stormwater ordinance in the in the region if not the entire state therefore given that there is no flood plain on the site it's a a development that I think will comply with those ordinances and therefore because it's a new development it will not add to the pollution situation in in Falls Lake or because the the problem is existing development the pollution that pollution loading that we're experiencing is take any take oxford commons for example just to pick an old shopping center there's no stormwater controls there whatsoever and it's the existing development that was built prior to all of our ordinances that's that's the problem I don't think new development really contributes appreciably to pollution loading in in the watershed water supply basins Bob do you have anything to add on that okay that's I think I think I'd I think I'd respectfully disagree but I I hear your point another another question the you mentioned the the 100 foot buffer from the highway is that along the right of way and I'm wondering there's a pond specifically I think that you're draining and is that part of that buffer Bob's I'm all with McAdams if any portion of it is void of vegetation we would have to vegetate it to the point six opacity okay just just to be clear commissioner that is 100 feet completely within the property of that that's under consideration none of it is counting what's in the existing right okay great thank you and I'll echo my other commissioners I've heard from many probably all of you and and interestingly enough the this rivals the commitments or the the comments that I've heard from folks around the Cornwallis development as well which had a lot of similar issues these are the two I've heard the most about in my two plus years on the commission I share very similar concerns I think concerns about water quality runoff issues traffic issues this doesn't in my opinion fit with the neighboring landscape and as mr. Drepps from the Ellerby Creek watershed association pointed out it does seem like this is the wrong approach when we're making investments just upstream this I believe we'll counteract that so I plan to vote no thank you commissioner busby and I'm going to turn to my right I'll start with commissioner Gibbs and other individuals on this side who would like to speak commissioner winders kitchen commissioners okay and then all right commissioner Gibbs well this has been a long drawn out conversation and I fully expected the outcome that I think we are all expecting I would like to echo what commissioner busby just said that the protest petitions are not legal but what you folks have done and what the folks at cornwallis road have done when you speak out we listen and that's why I never really thought protest petitions were all that great anyway but at any rate I I'm not going to keep belaboring all of the points because everything has been covered I'm familiar with it with the area and I don't I don't think this is a good good fit for the area in fact I I am a real supporter of what we're having to do with the water quality in the whole area regardless of what the general assembly has done in the watershed back down to where we are and beyond uh Durham has well we're in Hock or will be starting from the middle of town through the uh where the OYMCA is now that is in a floodplain uh nothing has been done yet while that that building sits and rots and could be used as a community recreation center but that's another issue but I wanted to put that in but to make a long story short regardless of its impact on the community I would not support it simply because it it is in the watershed and I would hope that the city would turn it into a park or that would protect it from even rs 20 it's just a beautiful area uh that's that's my comments yes thank you very much um after uh first um again to all those persons who have come come here on this evening uh certainly and for those who have certainly um contacted us I certainly want to say that um as you might know quite a few trees died and we we got your point um and that was my my point much earlier um as they say out in the midwest um you don't have to eat an entire cow to know you've eaten some beef and that was my point all right and as we say when you're winning take your win okay I do want to say that I certainly um echo what Commissioner Gibbs has noted um in that um you know I believe in smart growth um but also you have to also respect the impact that developments have on communities and I know what folk in my neighborhood would say um to a project like this and certainly you have to think along those lines um so um for that reason for um not only the valuation and impact on the property value that I noted three main points that helped me to craft out my idea three that's all too valuation impact traffic and the density issues and so I think those three um key points will very well said very well made uh and so and for that reason of course I too will be um voting um against this project thank you commissioner van commissioner winders would like to also thank everybody for for the amount of information that you provided not just what your opinion is and what your feelings were but the actual information um and um I I um including uh Patrick biker's comments about uh uh the style changes in style of development uh and maybe um uh I didn't I didn't understand it as being that these houses were built in world war two but the the separation of land uses uh you know is like the old style development I have no problem with uh I consider this low density development you know 3.7 is low density development and I don't see anything wrong with having townhouses across the street from from you know million-dollar homes you know uh but but um in fact I think that's a good kind of design I think we need to have mixed incomes and mix socioeconomic uh groups living as neighbors uh and I would like to approve vote in favor of this this development for that reason but I do see problems with the with the transportation and um that all the traffic's going out this one street and I'm not uh and I'm not uh so uh is it a collector street um but or is it just a residential street with speed bumps all over it you know collector streets don't usually have speed bumps on them I don't think but uh and you know so there's no other place for it to go well that was a failure of planning in the past sometime you know there should be if we're going to use this property for residential development there should be a way to get to it you know um and so that's a concern and I think that um uh maybe barini drive could be made to be adequate or something you know but but it doesn't make it doesn't seem like good design for an 80 acre development to have all the traffic going out one street it seems like that's going to be traffic unpleasantness within the development you know uh but um then the the uh I have real concerns about this the stormwater and um I haven't heard that claim about how tough our stormwater uh regulations are too much uh lately since the cornwallis uh development kind of uh blew that one out of the water I think we don't hear about it so much but I live close to the same developments that mr brine where mr brine lives and although the rules were followed parkwood lake is completely destroyed by those developments on 54 thank you commissioner winders commissioner kitchen uh yes I won't believe with the point either I just will say that uh I live within uh two miles of about four developments um and I think uh it's not good I'm all for growth uh but not for growth it doesn't make sense I think we need smart growth and even if no one has showed up there were no emails um no opposition I couldn't vote for this because it's just didn't feel to be a good development so I would hope that the developer goes back and uh reconsidered and uh listens to all the feedback from commissioners and puts forth something that we can support because this does not uh good for doing in my opinion thank you and commissioner miller thank you madam chairman uh I did have a question really quickly for whoever can answer it what is because our packet doesn't actually tell us uh the traffic impact analysis traffic counts for barini drive what did what numbers did you come up with we got cold mill road but we didn't get barini the volume we uh we counted during the summer the ADT we did for the speed count was about eleven and twelve hundred uh if you adjust it to october counts is about fourteen hundred to fifteen hundred vehicles per day all right thank you very much so I have four major concerns about this development and before I go over those very quickly I want to say that I think one of the truest things that was said here today is what mr biker observed to us is that Durham's big green fields available for any kind of development are rapidly diminishing they're still out there but we're seeing lots and lots of development that's now being proposed for properties that were passed over by developers earlier because of problems uh cornwall's road we've talked about that that's a property that has had problems this property uh is an incredible piece of property and has been used but it is not just an open field it has problems it's trapped it's it's caught up between the interstate and surrounding neighborhoods and it doesn't have very good uh uh access uh for a lot of reasons and I know we've talked about that today and and I'll go over that so I think that what we need to do is when we use the pdr uh which is what we use for almost all new residential development we really need to use the flexibility and our ability to craft commitments in pdr to exploit these previously passed over parcels to come up with sensible development that takes account parcel by parcel the special features and limitations and work within those it's not so much a question about how many units we put on an acre it's how we use the acres and what's already there and that's what's not happening in the development proposals for pdr that we see we get these pdr proposals we get development plans that have very few commitments more commitments could make me feel better about approving these developments show me that the developer sees what's on the land show me that the developer is coping with the problems that caused the earlier generation of developers to pass this one up for a better and easier piece of property somewhere else if we can do that i'll be voting for these but we're not and we have good guidance in our planning documents we just need to exploit these things i notice that the in the staff report my good friends on the planning staff said oh well we've the proposal meets most of the requirements in the comprehensive plan but at no point do they cite any of the goals or policies out of chapter four which is all about good residential design i just don't see how we can keep doing that we need to expect more from pdr we need to expect more from other development plan required development plan zones like mixed use etc so my four problems are barini drive so we just learned that it's about 1400 adjusted trips per day this is going to add around a thousand i won't quibble 600 800 that's well it's going to have a lot of extra trips per day that's a big jump and that's that's not what these folks expected and so we need we can't add i agree that you don't want to add an access over chockery it's a it's a lousy idea you don't want to cut through these the neighborhood next door and therefore took the only way to cope with the property is to reduce the number of units that we propose to build on the property and order to be able to have two neighborhoods that work together i do not like the idea that we have to buffer one residential neighborhood against another residential neighborhood in order to say that we have compatibility of land use development patterns we should not have to build a buffer between one single family neighborhood and another single family neighborhood if buffers are necessary that's a sign that something's wrong um lrb creek i was stunned when it was explained to me we we get a version of the developer plant so small i can't read the print i was done to discover that that the developer poses proposes to grade away the stream and the pond but doesn't include some description to make me feel good some description of the stormwater measures that they propose to put in there and when they say oh well we'll comply with the code that's not enough we have development plant we have a development plan we can craft committed elements i want commitments tell me what you propose to do and where you propose to put it this is a special piece of property let's deal with it with special requirements i-85 i live in an i-85 neighborhood i live in wats hospital hillondale i-85 was uh four lanes when i moved there it's now 12 lanes and we uh got the uh d-o-t in the city of derm to build a wall and the neighborhoods that were already existed we got a wall and thank goodness we did it a hundred feet sounds like a lot my lot in a r yet uh an r u five neighborhood my lot is 110 feet wide and you're talking about essentially the width of one residential lot as the buffer here a buffer they don't and and if there's an opacity figure did i hear you say six patrick i didn't see it in the development plan but it's so little i i could have easily missed it so i don't think that's enough uh nobody wants to live near i-85 i was on this property with uh mr anderson's permission here just last week and you get over there it's noisy it's wide it's noisy it's level something more is required and i don't understand the philosophy says we're going to put the townhouses up close to the interstate if an area is not a good place for people to live why do we put more people living there i don't understand that philosophy i don't think there should be townhouses in this unit since we need to read in this development since we need to reduce the number of units anyway to control the traffic impact then let's kill the townhouse part of it um and then ultimately design this is really matters to me we have lots of fine words in the uh udo and in the comprehensive plan about good design especially residential design but we don't seem to mean it because we do not insist that development plan contain commitments for good design because they're absent here i have to vote against it and it's not just this one from now on i've learned a lot in two years on the planning commission and this kind of area of practice of law is kind of what i did but i've learned a lot uh from here on out if if a development plan for a pdr comes up and it doesn't talk about how it's going to accomplish good design then it's not going to get my vote we need a better development plan submitted at the time of rezoning applications so that's what's going to guide me i will vote for a good development on this piece of part land when it comes along i will but this isn't it i hope maybe that it can be uh so thank you very much miss madam chairman i appreciate the opportunity to address these folks and i very much thank the input that they've given us over the last year thank you commissioner thank you commissioner miller and i would just like to make one brief statement before i actually call for a motion um and um a vote and i would just like to thank all of you for the opportunity to visit your community um i did have one major major concern it's already been mentioned and it was barini i stood with the number of residents on that street on the side so that i could actually get a feel for what you were experiencing and what would happen if you experienced more so i wanted to at least let all of you know i took that information in at that time and all of this information is being taken under advisement at this time so i'm going to ask for a motion oh i'm sorry do you have um i would like if you will permit a couple more comments real quick yes i agree with mr biker on one thing and that is is that Durham stormwater requirements are very good but these are the stormwater facilities that are built when the development is completely constructed the big concern and commissioner wanders sort of referred to it is what happens during grading and construction because that's when the disaster that really hurt parkwood took place clearing was done grading was started torrential range came stormwater systems failed mud was everywhere so i think we need to be really careful about stormwater during the construction phase and the second point which has sort of been referred to by others um i do believe that a pdr could work on this property but this density to me is just too high thank you commissioner freeman i also would like to echo uh commissioner brine's comment and winders and saying that it it definitely doesn't fit for this neighborhood and i recognize and i want to thank all of you as a commissioner whitley mentioned that sent the mail and didn't send mail and emails and and all but uh i also want to acts of the commissioners to also have the same uh view in reviewing all future projects including those where folks don't show up and making sure that you recognize that for east dorm i think commissioner whitley and commissioner huff there's hope because east dorm has plenty of land that needs to be developed thank you commissioner whitley commissioner huff i didn't thank you guys for all of the letters and all of the information because and and the information that you spoke about tonight it really was important and determining my decision i mean i have a lot of aesthetic reasons why i do not like this project i don't like this kind of cookie cutter housing but um but thank you for the madam chair i move forward a motion that we send forward case z one five zero zero zero three nine with a favorable recommendation uh noting as we heard at the beginning we make all recommendations as a favorable recommendation i will vote against that favorable recommendation second the second and uh that we move the barini drive assemblage a z one five zero zero zero three nine forward with a favorable recognition all in favor of this motion let it be known by raising your right hand i'm not all in favor of this motion let it be known by raising your right hand all opposed okay the motion to approve fails love into zero our clerk our clerk is trying to announce the vote the motion fails love into zero thank you madam chairman may we have a uh five minute recess definitely you all picked the wrong one for me it was like huge huge i mean look today you guys decided you were going to be funny not that i'm in any hurry look i want to make all right let's get back in it's like where are my folks commissioners we need to call this break everybody start heading back to the podium commissioner willy is we need to call the meeting uh to order our next item on the agenda public hearing zoning map change and we're down to mose tavern item number z one six zero zero five staff good evening again my name is Mike good evening again my name is Kyle Taylor the planning department and i will be presenting zoning case z 15 z 16 0005 most tavern this probably applicant for this project is Howard a partner with culture fuel teams pa this project is located within the county the request is to go from rs 10 to cn this project does not involve a development plan the acreage for this property is 0.455 acres this is a portion of a 0.667 acre parcel it is just the back portion of this property that is being rezoned at the front part of this property is already zoned cn the proposed use for this project is a 12 by 12 bathroom addition this request to to rezone is that like i said earlier a designation of 0.455 acres of a 0.677 acre tract the site is located within the rules here in the county and is located with the mlrb watershed protection overlay as you can see by the existing conditions this site is currently developed as a commercial property this property is located within the commercial future land use map designation and it is consistent with future land use map and as such staff determines that this request is consistent with comprehensive planning ordinances and other adoptive policies thank you and staff is available for any questions okay i only have one individual sign up to speak and um mr dan jewel good evening madam chair and fellow commissioners i am dan jewel uh president of culture jewel thames 111 west main street in durham uh as as kyle said this is a rezoning of a portion of this property the bulk of which is already zoned cn the back portion is zoned residential we are here tonight simply because uh mr billie lane and his family who have owned the property that most tavern is on for many many years the uh the the tavern had operated for many years with a privy as the restroom facility uh years ago he upgraded to port a portal it's uh but very recently he decided and possibly with a little nudging from the health department that that it needed to be upgraded a little bit more so he proceeded to start working on a real bathroom addition on the back of the building when his contractors went to get permits they were of course told that they needed a site plan approval for this little 12 by 12 addition of course um and then staff further discovered that the zoning line between the cn district and the residential district exactly followed the back wall of the existing tavern building meaning the addition was in the residential portion meaning it couldn't be built there without being rezoned so the reason we are here tonight is to allow him to have a a compliant zoning district so he can then go for a site plan to get a compliant site plan for his bathroom addition and have that permitted and occupied uh he could i couldn't have said it better myself thank you mr miller keep in mind that uh this is a a piece of property rougemont does not have public water and sewer it will be on well in septic he he was able to work with the health department and put a creative little septic system in to handle this bathroom addition um i i did note that uh mr judge in the staff report said there would potentially be an increase of like 2,500 car trips or something like that but that's because there's not a development plan he had to figure the worst case scenario i can assure that you there will not be a sheets at this location without public water and sewer out there so and also one final little thing even though the property immediately to the rest the west is zoned residential if any of you have been out there or looked on street view you will notice that that residential lot actually has one of our fine county convenience centers and if you've never visited a county convenience center what it is is a collection of large construction dumpsters and recycling bins so that those county residents who do not have uh public access to having trash collected at their site can bring all their trash out and put it in the back so we don't feel that there will be any any harm to an adjacent residence for that reason that was probably a much more long-winded presentation than i needed to give uh happy to answer any questions and we would ask that you recommend approval and move this forward to the county commissioners not the city council thank you very much thank you mr jewel we're going to close the public hearing and bring this matter back before the commissioners well is there an additional staff comment yeah i forgot to mention at the beginning of my presentation that mr julie is correct there is one typo on the staff report the property to the west is currently identified in the staff report as a single-family residential home he is correct it is a solid waste facility for the county of Durham thank you and so noted so we will move the hearing to give the commissioners an opportunity to speak i'm going to start with commissioner huff and commissioner gosh i just want to say i live out there i want moes to have a bathroom okay uh when i saw the staff report and i saw the 2,500 plus trips i thought man this can be some bathroom but i'm glad you explained it to me thanks dad are the other commissioners who would like to speak commissioner busby just that this seems fine to me i just wanted to be able to say as a fan of the simpson's most tavern and a public hearing so i'm good thank you other commissioners commissioner gibbs yeah and this is just a comment i i spoke to dan well ago and i have i haven't been there but i've been by there when they were having fun so it's uh even well they need the restroom thank you commissioner gibbs other commissioners i'm going to call for the vote i mean call for the motion madam chair i move that we send case z16 0005 forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation make it a second that with commissioner huff this is actually going to the board of county commissioners not the city council yes this one i apologize that's what i meant board of county commissioners um motion by commissioner miller second by commissioner huff that we send most tavern item z16 0005 forward to the county commissioners with a favorable uh recommendation all in favor of this motion let it be known by showing your right hand the motion carries 12 to 0 thank you so much we're ready for the next item commission commissioner hyman um as i am a resident of golden bell i'm just going to excuse myself i'm thinking make a motion madam chair i rec uh i move that we uh allow uh commission member freeman to disqualify herself for conflict of interest because she lives within the notice area of the zoning case as a someone who always has to recuse himself i will gladly second this motion strict item numbers on x100 0004 we'll hear from staff good evening i'm lisa miller with the planning department i just wanted to give a brief introduction uh to the consultants who've been working on this project i also will be available for questions and additional information after they give their presentation but synthia de maranda and jennifer martin from mdm historical consultants have been retained by the city to prepare the golden bell local historic preservation plan and boundary and they are here to present that information to you now thanks good evening i'm jennifer martin from mdm historical consultants uh as lisa mentioned we are here tonight to introduce the golden bell local historic district preservation plan we will outline the work that we undertook for the project summarize the purpose and process of local historic district designation and present the findings of our work to you golden bell is a historic mixed-use neighborhood east of downtown durham it was established starting with several factory buildings in 1901 and grew in the first couple of decades of the 20th century to include the factory buildings themselves residential properties in a mill village and a commercial district the three elements that make up a classic textile mill village such villages once constituted a good portion of durham neighborhoods but most of them have suffered too much loss of individual historic resources to retain integrity edgemont once immediately south of golden bell had lost so many buildings by the 1980s that it didn't qualify as a national register historic district golden bell did qualify and was listed in the national register of historic places in 1985 it retains its historic and architectural integrity even today in fact rehabilitation of the mill buildings and some of the dwellings had improved the historic integrity by reopening bricked up window openings and uncovering original historic fabric residents concerned about continued preservation of this remarkable resource this record of durham's historical development petitioned in 2010 to have the city designate golden belt a local historic district that petition led to this project that we are here to discuss tonight up on the screen i have a timeline of the project of some brief overview again in 2010 the petition from the residents in january of last year the city released an rfp seeking a consultant to prepare a preservation plan for golden belt in june we were hired to prepare the plan we are a durham-based woman owned business by the way in july of 2015 mdm and the city planning staff held a public meeting at golden belt in the factory to introduce residents and interested citizens to the project telling them what the the plan was for the project the purpose of the project and in november of 2015 we submitted our draft plan to the city planning staff who offered comments on that draft we then submitted a final draft plan in early 2016 in january and march of this year we held more public meetings to present the plan to the public in april of this year the historic preservation commission recommended the plan for approval so briefly let me tell you what local historic districts are it is a type of zoning applied to an area of special historic architectural prehistoric or cultural significance that possesses integrity of design setting materials feeling and association it's created using the same procedures used to change the zoning on a parcel or parcels it's formed after the approval of an investigation and a report that describes the significance of the building structures sites and features and boundaries of the district and that report is called the preservation plan the zoning requires that the property owners or residents obtain a certificate of appropriateness known also as a coa before undertaking any exterior alterations to their property uh in durham we have several local historic districts all of them are mainly residential except for our downtown durham historic district so in durham the historic preservation commission manages changes to the exterior appearance in local historic districts the historic preservation commission consists of nine members and has several duties including to review and recommend planning and zoning commission modifications to boundaries of existing districts or the addition of new districts the preservation commission also reviews and revises the design guidelines which are the basis for evaluating cases that come to them for coas and in general the historic preservation commission's role in the community is to inform the public of the importance of the historic resources through education sending out leaflets about historic districts and historic resources and finally to hear and decide requests for certificates of appropriateness within local districts submitted by owners of properties in those districts on matters that exceed the planning staff's authority so a coa is a document stating that the proposed work is appropriate to the historic district and meets the local review criteria when golden belt becomes a local historic district property owners wishing to alter or change the exterior of a building structure or site in the district will be required to obtain that coa before pulling permits and beginning work i'm going to turn it over to my partner Cynthia de moranda hello everyone i'm Cynthia de moranda with mdm historical consultants um and now i'm going to take us back to the golden belt project itself our task as consultants was to update all the documentation of the golden belt district creating in the process an inventory of all the individual properties that compose the district and also to write a preservation plan in anticipation of golden belt's designation as a local historic district so the work broke down into the following tasks we photographed every building structure and site in the golden in golden belt and we researched the resources through interviews with residents and documentary sources and also files at the state historic preservation office and historic maps the files containing information we created files containing information on each resource and submitted them to the city and to the state historic preservation office we wrote a history and description of the district and delineated a boundary for the local district that included the greatest concentration of historic resources associated with golden belt that retains sufficient architectural and historic integrity to demonstrate the district's significance and we conducted public meetings to inform residents and citizens of the preservation plan and of the program the process all together and to get feedback from them on all aspects of the document golden belt qualifies as a district because of its history as a mill village which jennifer talked about it remains today the city's most intact historic mill village and it qualifies as well because of its architecture which includes romanesque revival factory buildings and simple but nicely detailed mill housing in both early 20th century vernacular and in craftsman styles the commercial district includes buildings in the vernacular commercial style which was common to business districts in Durham and across the state these maps that you see on the screen are pages from the 1913 sandborn fire insurance map showing all the buildings in the area that were built at that at that time up to that date and you can see that while the village wasn't even fully built out you can you can tell the extent of the historic mill village and villages were a type of development that characterized Durham in the early 20th century now an important component of the plan given the requirements of local historic district status are to come up with an appropriate boundary for the local historic district and that this boundary does not have to correspond with the national register historic district boundary that was established back in the 1980s so we drew the boundary seen here through research and survey of the area this boundary closely follows the full extent of the neighborhood once it was fully built out in the historic period and that historic period is defined as the period when the company the golden belt company was still driving development of the village and the plant the company built all the houses and because the houses were there and the factory was there that sort of drove development of the commercial area so we define the historic period as as the one when when the company was still adding to the mill village and maintaining control over all the ownership control over all the houses so of course there have been changes in this district over time some buildings have been demolished and others have been abandoned and then rehabilitated landscaping and roadways have changed all the roads have been paved and retaining walls have been built and allston avenue of course will soon be widened but despite these alterations both those that have been made and those that are anticipated one still feels strongly the sense of place and the historic integrity of the milling village this is the Durham typical Durham development story of the early 20th century and and this is the very best representative of this type of industrial residential and commercial development left in Durham the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office concurred stating in a letter dated April 1 2016 that even areas that had suffered some loss of resources still retained historic and architectural integrity and concluded that all together the mill housing and surviving commercial buildings are Durham's most intact mill village and as such represents a highly significant aspect of the city's development the latter part being a quote from their letter so despite these changes there are many many constants in this district the richard sony and romanesque buildings of the factory plant remain and many have been rehabilitated and thanks to this excellently excellently executed rehabilitation several buildings really look great now and they're fully occupied the village comprises modest single family dwellings with architectural detail ranging from simplified derivations of the queen and style to rather stylish versions of craftsmen bungalows some of these have likewise been rehabilitated as seen in the slide here and there is also some new construction by Habitat for Humanity which replicates the look of the original houses the commercial district still borders the south end of the village as it always did and it overlooks east main street with the classic vernacular commercial storefronts that we saw a few slides back views and vistas through the village to the plant remain and that's a reminder that this was a company village historically where all the residents once had a strong economic tie to the large factory at its west end which you can see if you follow the view up the road you can see the factory buildings at the end of that street so the combination and retention and preservation retains the strong sense of place throughout the proposed boundary and as we've mentioned already the project offered opportunities for public input throughout the process and one comment that we got was from a property owner that requested that the far eastern block of morning glory and worth streets not be included in the district details and a map showing all of this were included in the staff report and we considered this request but ultimately we found that the historic and the architectural integrity was intact throughout the whole area as it was throughout the district throughout this area as it was throughout the whole district and therefore preservation of the golden belt neighborhood was best served by including the area in the boundary similarly the work on alston avenue will introduce a wider street and will shut off some of the circulation patterns throughout the area but it will not present a significant visual impact within the district the strength of the village's integrity overrides the proposed changes to the street some small areas that were historically part of the district have been drawn out of this local district boundary because no buildings remain on the block face as in the case on the north side of the east end of taylor street you can see taylor street is the northern most boundary right at the east end and so there were originally houses on the other side of that block they've all been demolished and now it's part of the school property and then there was also another isolated property south of elm street and that building has also since been demolished so those two areas we drew out of the local historic district boundary throughout the project in conversation with neighborhood property owners residents and stakeholders we developed a goal for the local historic district which drove development of the preservation plan and also the the boundary the establishment of the boundary and the goal of the golden belt historic district is to achieve and maintain an inclusive affordable mixed-use neighborhood with an understanding of and appreciation for its historic and architectural heritage which is preserved and displayed in its buildings landscape and layout using this goal as a touchstone we developed the historic preservation strategies in the plan specific to golden belt and its particular character our policies and recommendations center on the following five elements educating the residents and property owners about the history of the neighborhood and about preservation and rehabilitation of historic properties providing technical assistance with regard to preservation and appropriate rehab publicizing the availability of financial incentives including the historic preservation rehab tax credits do that are available due to the nr national register listing regulating exterior alterations and new construction according to the design criteria recently adopted and recommendations specific to golden belt to augment those design criteria and relating to ways to promote affordability through established and perhaps new city programs including developing new public private partnerships we feel that the focus on education and technical assistance in maintaining an inclusive nature to the neighborhood will help in maintaining the inclusive nature because sometimes preservation can be intimidating to residents or property owners who may not be acquainted with good preservation practices similarly letting folks know about the financial incentives that are already available due to the national register listing can help with regard to updating or improving existing buildings use of the design criteria and the additional recommendations for alterations and new construction of course are meant to maintain and possibly recover the historic appearance of the district the latter can also help keep modest single family dwellings in this area perhaps protecting some of the stock of modestly sized housing this is a trend we're starting to see throughout Durham neighborhoods i'm sure you're all aware where a lot of modestly sized sort of workforce quality housing is being demolished and replaced with much much larger houses so if you've seen here most of the dwellings were historically very small many were a single story with just a few rooms originally bathrooms were even added after original construction these were all built with privies in the backyard and other other buildings especially the ones built later were story and a half or two stories but they were still modestly sized so with this combination of recommendations policies and the design criteria for local districts we believe that this plan can further the preservation goal of the district and help protect the architectural and historic legacy of the golden belt mill village as Durham continues its evolution from an industrial to a post-industrial city so we do ask that you send this forward to the city council with a recommendation for its approval thank you very much do i have any individuals who sign up to speak okay here it is thank you thank you okay i have mr john martin yes schedule to speak yes i'm ready for you good evening my name is john martin i live at 401 east trinity avenue in old north durham i'm a former resident of golden belt at 1005 morning glory avenue and when i was a resident of golden belt i was one of the people who helped initiate and submit petitions to create a local historic district um let me just say a little bit about golden belt it is still a fragile neighborhood that needs your protection when i say it's a fragile neighborhood what i mean by that is very simple when i bought my house at morning glory avenue it had been vacant for several years there had been a fire it was boarded up nobody was living in it i restored the house i moved in and when i moved in i was the only person living on my block next to me was a boarded up house owned by the durham housing authority which was trying to get rid of it across the street was a boarded up house owned by lee ray bergman rentals up on the corner was a house owned by a guy who thought he was restoring it there were a couple of empty lots on that block as well where there had once been houses that had been torn down by the city of durham right fortunately things have improved i mean miracles have happened um lee ray bergman even his family i should say even fixed up that rental house and basically at least on the exterior did it to historic standards and people are living in the house the house next door was bought by an owner occupant and is fixed up um and people are living in it the house on the corner is now fixed up um but these are modest houses um and they are therefore affordable housing that is close to downtown um and the temptation is going to be very simple if it doesn't get this local district protection people will tear them down right and build um magnanians i say i live in old north durham within a couple of blocks of me in the last six months three houses small houses have been torn down and new houses are going up we talk about gentrification what we're doing here is preservation but preservation on a scale that is historically um appropriate and is also affordable right i hope that you will give this your vote of support to protect this neighborhood thank you thank you mr merton um the next individual is eileen morgan good evening it's a long been a long evening i'm eileen morgan i live at 725 quiet woods place and i've been a resident of durham for about 16 years and in this day and age of um cookie cutter development and with our desire in our in our city to have more mixed used areas this is like a gem so i do support it i do have some concerns that i'd like to place on the table and i know i've heard some of these from some of you so i'm kind of preaching to the choir but this is an area that from my understanding has suffered economic dis in disinvestment over the decades and so the incentives for folks with this you know designation are really going to be helpful i believe but with you know mirroring the comments from the prior gentleman gentrification sometimes is not good for the neighbors so to speak and so you know i guess i would like to have you keep on the table um concerns for not taxing people out of their homes you know that there needs to be more incentives to help people as their property values rise that they not be taxed out of their homes and i really support the efforts of the education that's planned for this community i think it's a good thing for Durham but i really hate to see people being moved out of their neighborhoods because things get too expensive for them so thank you very much thank you the next individual on any task to question about this because i'm going to move from the fours to those who are against there is a strikeover for mary jone mandel so was this name taken off the list okay so let's move on to the next one jared eden thank you jared eden's here with eden's landcourt but i'm not here as a i'm here to speak on the Durham rescue mission's property that's owned at the corner of a morning glory and holman and along austin avenue i'm not here and they're a client of mine i'm not here as a paid consultant tonight i'm here as someone who has seen what the rescue mission has done over the past seven years that we've been doing work with them you know we watched the main block just south of um main street you know we we got to we got to see that the center for hope being built we designed that permitted that it's a 20 000 square foot structure that provides housing for homeless people in Durham i've just seen a lot of the things that the rescue mission is doing so i'm all about flexibility for the rescue mission because currently the mission is probably housing about 50 percent of Durham's homeless they accept zero public dollars for doing that so they're providing a huge public benefit and even though they've been offered public money over the years by Durham county to say hey let us help you they don't accept public money it's privately funded privately raised and they've built are building a campus there that's housing so many homeless people and people that have drug and alcohol addictions there so i'm not in favor i'm not against the district at all i'm not trying to affect mr martin's property or any of the property owners who want to be in the historic district but i am against imposing a district on an organization that is doing so much good in the community that inevitably is going to impose more restrictions on what they want to do in the future and it's going to incur added cost due to those restrictions in the future there's just no way around it it's hard enough in Durham to get plans approved and zonings and things like that but if you've got a nonprofit that's doing such good for the community that's also going to have to go get a certificate of appropriateness and do extra architectural commitments and things that just add cost to a nonprofit that's housing half of our homeless people i just don't agree with that so i would ask i'm here as a citizen who's seen the good works that they do and i would just ask that that block and a half in the staff report be removed from the district which has no impact on anyone other than the Durham rescue mission thank you and the next individual i have is some rob i'm tart okay good evening my name is rob tart i'm the chief operating officer of the Durham rescue mission um the Durham rescue mission has been there since 1974 long before any of this stuff was on the table and as it's already been expressed by jared we uh we just want to expr