he UDO has very stringent standards on light pollution and obviously this project will abide by them and then in terms of noise I'm sorry in terms of odor other things I I can tell you I live I can smell Q shag off of my my wife and I smell it every day when we go outside and it's part of living in a in a in Durham I love it other people might not but there they're but getting to that to address that point that's something where obviously we're going to locate all the the service areas are going to be located quite far away from the existing homes they would be placed between behind the commercial area and that way we can plan accordingly for the new houses that are built so we have looked at that I mean this is getting into a site plan issue but obviously to address that concerns since it came up we had we did think about it we've been as proactive as we can to design a project that has as little impact as possible on the surrounding houses thank you thank you and then also I know it was Sherry the freeze or Megan that talked about the mixed use or the property that came up in 2003 and then what were the differences between this before and now I'm not sure which one of you it was I know but if you could just speak to that again I I couldn't catch there was something about suitability that I missed and I just wanted to catch on catch up on that sorry yeah so in 2003 Ken Spaulding and AAC developers out of Charlotte proposed half half the size so 15 acres but it was the 15 acres of commercial that you basically see in the plan now so if you take away the residential portion you only get the commercial portion that's what they proposed with the grocery store with other stores and out parcels pretty much exactly the same thank you and just just to touch on I think the first staff a question for staff I'm because I'm recognizing that this area is a is not urban is in downtown Durham as Mr. Gibbs Commissioner Gibbs mentioned for a rural transition into suburban what does mixed use mean or in your in your analysis of it what exactly does that mean sure Jacob Lincoln's apartment so this this property is located within the suburban tier so the the copyrights a plan does permit the mixed-use district within the suburban tier the and by extension therefore when we look at the ordinance for technical compliance it is a permitted district within the suburban tier in terms of what that means staff follows the copyrights of plan policies and the language in the ordinance when we're viewing it so specifically I know I heard someone else mention horizontal versus vertical mixed use is that factored in at all sure so that's in the yeah so there's two options for the mixed-use district there's horizontal integration or there's vertical integration and they they are what they sound like vertical integration you typically see non-commercial uses on lower floors and residential above horizontal is something that allows for a horizontal approach the applicant in this case has taken that approach and is there a preference in this suburban tier around planning for the future sure so the ordinance does not specify it's an option that the the applicant it's at their discretion in terms of their design thank you and so I just want to step back in again and say that I think that this is the type of issue that could be addressed in a more neighborhood level planning session and it doesn't feel right like Commissioner Gibbs said for me to make the decision on whether or not this project should move forward knowing that it doesn't fit with the existing neighborhood and it would create a huge shift and I guess where the commercial mixed use projects would go going forward so I just want to be mindful of that and saying that I just don't feel comfortable with it and I think it would be a great to have a public in northern Durham I'm not sure that this is the right property I'm not I can't say that for certain in this case based on Mr. Commissioner Brian and Commissioner Altaric's comments those were also my concerns as well I just didn't feel comfortable that's all thank you. Thank you Commissioner Freeman. Do I have other commissioners who would like to speak. Oh I'm sorry your last Commissioner Johnson. Of course Commissioner Miller will drive us home just to be sure I just wanted to make sure that I think everyone for one reaching out over what seems like the past month with your correspondence for in support are in opposition to this is a hard case application. I share the sentiment of Commissioner Freeman and that I don't necessarily feel comfortable making decisions with with something that I feel is more of a neighborhood level conversation decision to be made. So nearly all of the concerns that have been raised are were notes that I made so there's positive to this this project and their negative. So if the issue is traffic probably not going to get traffic from a public investment standpoint. So this would be an opportunity to do it. This this notion of bringing economic development to north north Durham is you know this is not one can make an argument. This is an opportunity to do that. The one point that I do I would like to to speak to tonight is that when we've had prior applications and just like tonight you know we we commonly hear that Durham is growing and we got to do something with the growth. But the reality is that we have a choice of what we're going to do in regards to Durham and growth and we don't just have to accept it as an inevitable thing. So that's why we're addressing issues like affordable house and where we're going to invest transportation dollars. And so the question becomes what do we want Durham to look like. We have a comprehensive plan. We have the UDOs etc etc. And the question is is it going to be a vision that we just change when we want to make something when we want to rationalize why something makes sense or do we stay with the vision of Durham does not have to be a city where we pack people into downtown Durham and South Durham like we've chosen to. Those are the the populist areas that we've chosen to drive economic development in an intense way. North Durham doesn't necessarily have to be that way even though we're growing and that's something that we just have to be you know adults and humans about and do the hard work of figuring out what is Durham going to look like 10 20 30 years from now. So I'll conclude with saying that my concerns are to the point that I don't feel comfortable just saying that I support this project in the sense that I'm looking at this more from a public servant standpoint and that you can look at the project on its own and see the positives. But then what does it look like from a community standpoint from that. What's the net benefit. So it is very likely I'm an economic development gamma analyst. I look at data to help drive my decisions in that it's very likely that one of I drove the area. This is this is taking up a lot of my mental space and energy over the past two and a half weeks. So I drove the area and I've noticed you know there are multiple grocery stores in a close proximity. Not all not all of them are going to likely stay there because the market is just not going to support four or five grocery stores. So what happens when. So what's the net job impact. That's the question. So you may create a hundred jobs with a grocery store that you're going to bring with the public. But what happens when one or two of them go away. What's the net impact of that. And the reality is from an economic economic development financing standpoint is that it's very costly to do in field with big open store fronts like grocery stores that close down. So who's got. How are you feeling as a as a community a local level community and the ability of someone who's going to be willing to come in North Durham and actually put in the capital necessary to turn a huge grocery store front or whatever it is into something 21st century. Do you take that risk or do you do a project like this that's much easier. I'll just be honest with you. This project is much easier than going and trying to do it in field with something that's been developed. And so I put those comments to my commissioners in the sense that this is the reality. Like we know we want to do things for Durham and we know North Durham has challenge has challenges and issues and concerns just like East Durham and other parts of the city. But what's best when we look at it from a Western net benefit for not just the neighborhood and community level but what we're trying to do for Durham and making it a magnet for people who want to come because we'll get to a point where you just can't come to Durham because they're we ain't got no more room. You know. So we can't just use that we're growing. So we have to make these decisions to accommodate growth. I think that we should see this as an opportunity for us to have a Congress a larger conversation of what do we want our Durham to look like going forward. And so I'll close with those remarks. Thank you Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner Hornbuckle. Yes ma'am. Mr. Biker I'd like to thank you. I think you've presented a quality development. I'm a lifelong resident of Northern Durham County and I really think it is something that is needed in Northern Durham County and you have my support for it. I think that the only way people complain. I'm a retired deputy sheriff. I know the traffic problems that guests and latter very very well investigating many accidents in that intersection. Your development is going to be probably the only way there is going to be any help or alleviate the problem there or or at least something to attempt to help the problem. So I'm going on record and as is I'm in full support of this project. Thank you. Commissioner Miller. Thank you Madam Chairman. The first thing I want to address in this is what appears to be misunderstanding about the traffic impact of the project and the effect of the traffic improvements that the developer proposes to make and I'm relying almost entirely on Appendix 10 and the staff report and I'm looking at page five here. This project is expected to add 10,270 some some trips per day. That's 103% of the current traffic generation. Now that's not as the traffic today. That's the traffic calculated against the way the land is zoned and if it were developed. So right now this if this are 20 piece of property was developed it would generate 500 trip and 80 trips per day. So if we subtract that out of the 10,270 or whatever it is it comes up to something under 10,000 and so they have added traffic improvement substantial ones. Mainly the Latin guess intersection. Today it's working that intersection as if this property was developed a single family homes at a level of service C with all the improvements. If this project is developed out it'll be working at a level of service C. That's a zero sum game. It's gonna be right where we are. But that's not the whole story. We have other roads and other intersections that we have to measure. One is autumn drive. Currently it's functioning at levels of service C. If we build this project with the proposed improvements it drops to level of service D in the morning and level of service E in the afternoon. That's much worse with the improvements. Later on in green oak drive today level of service B in the morning level of service B in the afternoon with the improvements drops to level of service C in the morning level of service D in the afternoon. So the traffic improvements are necessary just to tread water and keep it the way it is with double the traffic volume. So the project really doesn't it doesn't make you substantially worse but it does not make it better. And I think we have to be honest with ourselves about that. If you're in favor of this project because it makes traffic better you're mistaken. Look at your staff report appendix 10 page 5. Mr. Gibbs talked about mixed use development each site of downtown and Night Street. There's actually no mixed use zoning in Night Street or downtown. Those are design districts and different completely different standards apply. I am persuaded actually by something Mr. Plored said and that is this is a litmus test on the comprehensive plan. And the question is are we as a community serious about comprehensive planning. Do we have the discipline as a community to follow the comprehensive plan. I have been on the planning commission for about three and a half four years and I have been involved in zoning matters here in Durham and across the state for over 30 years. And this is one of the few instances where I've seen the staff come out and say look at the intent statements. Let's really look at our policies and it says basically this project doesn't measure up. One it's not mixed use. In other words if this rezoning was submitted as a I mean we could get the same project essentially if we had rezoning for a CG on the front half and didn't do anything on the back half and we would say no it doesn't conform with the comprehensive plan because the comprehensive plan says this is supposed to be low density residential but somehow we cast it as mixed use and it's exactly the same project and somehow we say it is but it's not mixed use. The staff says in the staff report that the development plan is so sparse they can't tell whether or not what's being proposed to be built here on the commercial side is consistent with nodal development or with strip development. And I think that we can't vote in favor of this unless we can answer that question. We can't vote in favor of this because we violate our own policy on commercial nodes and I have been pounding the table here ever since I've been on the planning commission about what commercial nodes means. If we're not careful we will wind up with the guest road north of the Eno River looking like guest road south of the Eno River and Roxborough Road from I-85 all the way up to to Infinity Road. Mishmash of piece meal, commercial zoning, the new things are great when they're new and then they begin to decay and instead of going back and fixing those we take another green field and we put it in a new strip shopping center. It's kind of slash and burn development. That's what this is and we shouldn't do it. Guest road. We got to have discipline. We've got to make sure that guest road going north doesn't become an endless succession of disconnected commercial development and we have a policy about it. It's called the commercial node policy and that says no closer than half mile but this is much less than half a mile from the next commercial node of the street. So under that policy even if you decided this was mixed use we have to vote no. We have to vote no. That's what we're here for. We're here to apply the policies. That's what our city council and our board of county commissioners wants us to do. We hear from the community and we apply the policies. I was invited along with a commission member Brian to Mr. Biker's office to look at a possible development plan for this and what they showed was a strip shopping center with a parking lot out in front and a couple of sites reserved for potential restaurant sites, a buffer and then a single family home development. That's ordinary. It's a 1960s approach to land use development. That's not mixed use and I heard the staff say well they will have a footpath. Well, there's something wrong with our ordinance if projects become mixed use because you've added a sidewalk between them. That's not what mixed use is and while it may be possible under the code we don't have to approve it and we certainly don't have to approve it and say it's appropriate in a place where our comprehensive plan says this should be low density residential and it's zoned low density residential. So for these reasons I've got to vote against this and I know this is going to disappoint some of you folks who live further out. My observation is is about 50-50, four and against. The people who were against tended to live closer. The people who were four tended to live further out.  Yes and we can say well that was a choice you made. I don't think that's really an adequate answer but I will point out to you that the comprehensive plan isn't a map that's a mile around this site. It's the whole county and I encourage you to look at it because we have reserved commercial shopping center sites. They're zoned and ready to go. Here and there. Now we're dependent upon the development community to decide today is the day to do it but there are at least three shopping center sites in Trayburn right now and I don't know what the developers plans are for developing those sites but one day that's going to happen. I'm sure it has to do with market analysis and so some of it has to do with water and sewer. There are a lot of things that have to come together but discipline. We have to have community discipline and in this situation we've got to follow our plan. The plan makes sense. It's a good one. If we're going to have a shopping center here then let's have it at an appropriate commercial node further up. Yes and if somebody comes along and wants to propose that I want to seriously look at it but I do not want a current crowd nodes and I do not want to have a commercial node every time a street intersects with a thoroughfare like guess road. So to my colleagues on the commission I'm going to vote against this. I urge you to vote against it for the same reasons. This isn't the end and the beginning and the end of of the development question in North Durham but we're going to have better development and development that makes more sense if we follow our policies and we follow our plans. Thank you commissioner Miller.  I am so appreciative to all of you for participating in the process. It is important that you take the time whether you for or against the project to come out and be heard. So many of you took the opportunity to do this and I could not go this evening without saying how important it is to have input into these processes. So thank you all for coming and now I'm going to call for a motion. Madam chair if I may I'd like to make a motion as was mentioned by commissioner Gibbs raised the question it's worth pointing out we are an advisory body we will we will make a favorable motion to send this forward to the city council it will then move forward to the city council regardless but with our notes and our votes. So having said that I move that we send case number z one five zero zero zero four zero to the city council with a favorable recommendation. Can you hear me now. Yes I would like to request 30 days of review I would like to know if Mr. biker might be opposed to that before I say it. This is a substitute motion so do I have a subject. I have a isn't this the 90 days didn't we know this is the first okay this is the first. So I just want to make sure they're all let me be sure I have a motion by commissioner Freeman and a second by commissioner with nothing oh I did okay a second by commissioner Miller Whitley okay I'm sorry that we continue this item for an additional 30 days I'm going to call for a roll call vote on the substitute motion first yeah I voted on the substitute motion first so roll call for the substitute motion no no yes no yes no yes no yes got a call for the question again well the original question I believe is on the table but just to repeat it we move case number z one five zero zero zero four zero to the city council with a favorable recommendation. Second I didn't hear a second okay okay mr. Al turk a motion by must be second by commissioner Al turk that we move north river village item number seven one five zero zero zero four zero forward with a favorable wrecking recommendation all in favor of this motion roll call vote please no no yes no no no no no thank you I'm going to ask for a five minute recess ordinance saying a number of bunch of yeah it's a bunch of crap it is it's ridiculous let's continue with our agenda the next item on the agenda is fendall farms fallow assemblage staff report please thank you jacob wiggins with the planning department so this case is for fendall farms and fallow assemblage the applicant is bob zemmalt with macadams this is within the city's jurisdiction this is a request to change the zoning designation of approximately 423 acres from plan development residential 3.0 zero zero do plan development residential 2.903 the applicant is proposing as part of this residential development a range of 1200 residential units the subject site is highlighted in red in front of you this is located the primary street frontage is along leesville road along the southern border of the site along the western border of the site you'll find dock nickels road this is in the southeastern part of durham county directly to the south of the subject site is portions of the delweb arbor's development as i noted the applicant is requesting a pdr district for approximately 423 acres with a range of 1200 residential units at the subject site the maximum of previous coverage as noted on the development plan is broken down by each property the fallow tract is proposed at 60 percent impervious surface and the fennel farm tract is noted at 24 percent impervious surfaces and the maximum height of any of the residential structures would be 35 feet the existing conditions as shown on the development plan this is for the portion of the property which is located to the north as you can see the site is traversed by a number of riparian features this is similar on the existing conditions to the south you can also see on this existing conditions there are a number of lots which have already been platted at the subject site as part of previous approvals the proposed conditions again this is looking at the northern portion of the property you can see the plans note potential stream crossings access points as well as an internal roadway network and the southern portion notes very similarly the potential stream crossings exterior access points as well as an interior road connection so to summarize some of the commitments i noted the the residential density the applicant is also proposing this to be age restricted those living 55 or older they're proposing for what they're calling pocket parks as a property commitment access points to the subject site as well as a building and parking envelope as part of the tiae with this request there are roadway improvements required on leisville road dock nickels road highway 98 and olive branch road i mean as you saw in the development plan there are riparian buffers and the associated requirements for those are shown in terms of design commitments no architectural style has been chosen all units will have covered porches and or stoops and front or side facing entrance stores that will be pitched roofs one or more exterior building surface materials as noted in the staff report and the applicant has not committed to any distinct architectural features for this project the future land use map designates the entire site as a flow density residential and that is comparable to the parcel's directly adjacent which are also noted as low density residential comprehensive plan policies reviewed by staff when looking at this proposal are in front of you and at this time staff determines that the request is consistent with comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances i'm happy to answer any questions that the commission may have at this time thank you i have two individuals who have signed up to speak patrick biker and mr is bob zoewald good evening again chairwoman hyman vice chair bosby members of the planning commission i'm patrick biker i still live at two six one four steward drive i think i'm still an attorney when more and still longer than durham off to check on that i'm here tonight representing realto capital for this zoning map change with me tonight or i'm a carlson who is a director with realto our traffic engineer orle wellan with cunley horn and our landscape landscape architect bob zoomwalt with me the best way to think about this rezoning request is that we are taking the existing zoning and adding conditions to it to make the overall development less intense the primary way we are doing that is by committing to an 80 age restricted community this is expected to create far less traffic and far fewer students when compared to the existing zoning the result is that the impact on the public infrastructure is far less it is important to understand that we are not asking for more houses than the existing zoning allows we are not asking for a change in the type of use it's still completely residential we've retained the condition relating to phased grading we've retained the condition relating to signage and we've retained the condition related to pocket parks however we have changed one thing that being that the commitment to an 80 age restricted community in conjunction with that with that we've had to submit a new tia and we have adjusted the road improvements based on new developments in the area and the traffic expected from the proposed development traffic patterns have changed in this area with the buildout of the carolina arbor's community and so some of the previously suggested road improvements no longer make sense the new road improvements which have been reviewed and approved by ncdot and the city of durham respect the new traffic patterns and accommodate the new traffic that is expected ultimately this rezoning will result in a less intense use than what is currently permitted as of right for this 400 plus acre assemblage in addition to that this rezoning addresses an important market trend it is no secret that our population is getting older in fact the fastest growing segment of durham's population is age 55 to 74 i'm almost in that accordingly the need for age targeted housing has grown as we have seen risk age restricted communities are doing very well here in durham we believe this development will be no different in that regard accordingly we hope you will support this request so we can provide a fine neighborhood where our aging population can enjoy a great sense of community mr bob zoomall would briefly like to address one technical issue for the record and then our team will be happy to answer any questions we hope this is the easy project that one of you just mentioned a few minutes ago that you want to get an easy project we think this is it good evening again bob zoomall with macadams 2905 meridian parkway in durham just a quick clarification um i just wanted to have it on the record text commitment number eight prior to the issuance of a building permit comma dedicate an additional 10 feet of right away through the rest a phrase was left out of that to make it clear it should have said prior to issuance of a building permit on the fowler track there's a little piece of frontage up on the fowler track and we just wanted to make sure that that was clear we've talked to bill judge about it and the staff and we just wanted to make that clarification and we'll add that to the text we just don't want it to get misinterpreted a year from now so that was i just want to mention that i do not have individuals who have signed up to speak against so i'm going to close the public hearing and give our commissioners an opportunity to ask questions i'll start to my commissioner miller no one on this commissioner miller commissioner harry so i want to remark out loud at the hearing today uh some of the remarks i made when i visited your office patrick and spoke with your clients about uh this proposed change um i think we're all becoming a lot more sensitive to uh pdr rezonings uh and and mixed-use rezonings uh when they come along and how they compare to our uh policies that are stated not only in the conferencing plan but also in the intense statements in the udo and one of the things that i would like to see in this project because it is so big are some design commitments that uh about the way these units would look something that would reassure us and show that we're serving the policies in the conferencing plan concerning monotony and development and also repetitious placement of garages i would love uh if you could add those things to this other developers in projects in recent months had uh began to introduce those commitments to the development plans that we've been seeing uh now having said that i intend to vote for this whether you include that or not i know that this is a little bit different in that it is an already approved project uh that has an approved site plan it's already part of it's already been through subdivision review that's a long way down the street to start asking for a lot of changes uh but i i did want to take this opportunity to throw that out and say i think the project would be better with those commitments um and i also want to make sure that when developers come with big pdr's that i am treating them all the same way and feeding them from the same spoon so thank you very much i understand the changes that you're going to make i will vote in favor of this project mission or harris i have a question and it's for staff uh i'm looking under the tax commitments yes sir under age restrictions and my concern is my concern is occupied only unit must be occupied by one applicant who is at least 55 or older is that language from the applicant is that language within my concern is as long as someone's staying there this whole 55 then anybody they can have as many as they want as long as one person is over 55 whether they're the owner or not i'm jacob liggins with the planning apartment so this language that you see in the staff report is directly from the development plan my understanding is that is correct um but i would likely deferred to the applicant to clarify that if that is the intent of this commitment the um it's dramatically cut down to two lines versus the four paragraphs on the development plan so if you look at the development plan that condition is give or take a thousand words versus the 10 that are in the staff report so i would look at the what's on the development plan it's much more restrictive and it just follows the it follows the the federal housing and for older persons act of 1995 so we took it straight i wouldn't i wouldn't expect the staff to put all that in their staff report and so jacob liggins just for a point of clarification it is actually all in the staff report and attachment seven yeah but yeah i mean which uh you really can't i can't read yeah i'm over 55 i can't okay are the other commissioners who would like to speak to this issue not i'll enter it madam chairman i move that the planning commission send case z16 00019 forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation and this is a city jurisdiction case thank you second motion by commissioner miller that we send item z16 00019 second by commissioner van forward with a favorable wrecking recommendation all in favor of this motion roll call yes yes yes yes thank you um the next item that we have andrew andrew chapel item number z16 00024 staff report please good evening jamey sonyak with the planning department i will be presenting case number z16 00024 andrew's chapel before i start my presentation i just wanted to point out to the planning commission a couple minor typos from the staff report page two top paragraph should read a hundred two 350 single family units page two under d consistency second paragraph at the end should be attachment nine not appendix eight and under attachment nine the reference should be policy number eight point one point two h not eight point one two j the applicant is jeremy midland mi homes of raleigh the application is located within the city's jurisdiction the applicant request to rezone the 114.17 acre site from plan development residential 4.793 zoning with plan development residential 4.437 the applicant proposes 500 residential units consisting of townhomes and single family development this site had an existing zoning case which was approved by the cd council on june 1st 2015 through a legacy case which was z 14 0006 also known as briar creek assemblage there was an approved annexation and utility extension agreement in march of 2015 essentially the applicant is seeking a modification of the original rezoning case to allow more flexibility in the number of townhome units and enlarge the townhome building envelope it should also be noted that subsequent to the prior application state statute has been amended and the stream buffer areas can now be included in calculating calculating the density of a site as shown on the context map there are four parcels highlighted in red the address is 409 507 511 and 735 andrew's chapel road it is located on the south side of andrew's chapel road east of dalweb arbors drive one of the parcels is located beyond the date the durham wake county line and the property is located in the suburban tier the site satisfies the criteria of the pdr district as highlighted in this slide and in the staff report under the existing conditions map you'll see that the property is vacant with a combination of farm meadows and hardwood forests water features are on the site include three farm ponds and two intermittent streams the property is adjacent to andrew's place which includes large-scale commercial and residential developments to the south and to the west is a plan development residential application to the northwest is also another plan development residential application and the planning commission recently approved 149 lot single family subdivision pdr 3.172 off of leesville road to the northwest the proposed commitments i'm sorry the proposed conditions map shows the access points to the site the location of the buildings and parking envelope the general location of tree protection areas and the project meets the requirements of the planned development for pdr zoning district the applicant proposes 500 residential units with a mix of single family in townhomes the single family range is 100 to 350 units with townhomes being 150 to 400 units they have committed to a minimum lot size of 3500 for 3500 square feet for single family lots the development plans show the construction of the Breyer creek parkway extension with bicycle lanes sidewalks additional asphalt for future bicycle lanes on andrew's travel road as well as another a number of other roadway improvements prior to the site plan application a street closing application for a portion of andrew's travel road will be submitted prior to the final plot approval a one-time payment of 60 500 will be made to the Durham public schools for additional students just going to summarize some of the design commitments that the applicant has included on the development plan no architectural style has been chosen but each building will contain sloped or flat roofs with a combination of fiberglass shingles asphalt shingles or standing seam metal each building will can will utilize one or more of the building materials stone brick stucco cement board siding or vinyl siding and front facing gables entry porches or window shutters are the architect architectural features proposed the request is consistent with the future land use map which identifies this area as low medium density residential and recreation open space staff staff has determined that the proposal is consistent with the comprehensive plan and the policies outlined in this slide staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plans and the applicable policies and ordinances i'll be happy to answer any questions that you have okay i do have two individuals i have chris meal who has signed up to speak for the project did i pronounce that correctly it's mail just like a mailman all right very good thank you yes my name is chris mail i'm a civil engineer professional engineer with eden's land offices at 2314 south miami boulevard here in durham also with me this evening mr john blackley registered landscape architect also with our office and mr jeremy medlin with mi homes as the staff stated a simple building envelope moved to allow mi homes to place townhomes on a larger portion of the site that's that's currently zoned we have site plan approval the first phase of the project which is all townhomes we have construction document approval and utility permits under construction phase two single family also cd approval utility permits obtained and that will start construction very shortly um here to answer any questions you might have thanks thank you are the other people who would like to speak for you have two other individuals with you if not i will move to i have two individuals who would like to speak against um jeff ammons and ken ray hey good evening thank you sure no problem my name is jeff ammons i live at 4821 boulder creek lane in raleigh and i'm here today as a member of the board of trustees of the Montessori school of raleigh and we have a 40-acre campus that is directly across the street from this project um if you see on the map our campus has been totally engulfed by the del web the previous project and everything else were sort of an aisle in there um our issue today is not so much with what they can do with the rezoning on their lot size but they own a hundred and some odd acres across the street from us and if you look at their existing conditions map they did not include the main entrance into our school campus and i'm not sure if that was done intentionally or not but what has happened is one of their proposed access points does not line up with our driveway and the city and the do t require that driveways be a minimum of 400 feet apart and their driveway currently is shown only about 150 feet away from our driveway they have to widen it they have to do tapers in the turn lane and as you if you've ever been in this condition before and you have a driveways that do not quite meet up it's a total disaster we have a whole bunch of kids moms school buses we have an athletic field we have 40 acres we have plans to grow our school we've been there for almost 20 years so on this little andrew's chapel road we were pretty much the only thing there and so i'm not sure why our driveway could not have been worked around it's the only access it's the only driveway we currently have to use our school and so i come today asking that that we get these roads to meet the standards that Durham puts out and the do t puts out such that we do not create this terrible situation with playing chicken in the suicide lane turning into the campus so that's all i have to say about that i'm glad to answer any further questions or talk about any more but i just wanted to highlight that that is not shown on there thank you i have no other individual signed up to speak so i'm going to give commissioners well he's not here i'll ask again ken ray i think he signed on the wrong sheet because he was here earlier so we'll close the public hearing now and give the commissioners an opportunity to ask questions are the commissioners who would like to speak i'll start mission or brian i have a question for uh transportation uh you you've heard what was just stated about the driveway to the Montessori school and how it doesn't seem to line up what can be done to address that um yeah bill judge for transportation the um really unfortunately there's not much that can be done at this point the um as they they stated the the driveways are offset this project was previously rezoned and has site plan approval where they've established that that access point at the time it was rezoned well still is currently i think the school has probably less than 50 students so there wasn't probably as much thought or detail put into that offset the school has since contacted us and ncdot about looking at opportunities to expand the school and as part of that expansion that's where we we identified this potential problem with the offset but um the school's pretty well hemmed in on by delweb so that they they don't really have an opportunity to to relocate the driveway to line up and um the this access point location has already been previously approved by ncdot so we'll just have to manage it the best we can um well thank you for that i don't know that it helps anybody um i also have one more question for staff this doesn't seem to be a very big change but i noticed that a piece of this property goes over into wake county does this proposal have to also go through a rezoning in wake county now this this uh has already gone through the annexation process okay thank you commissioner miller so my question is for the developer if you guys could come to the mic i mean i was out there at your property uh and it's it looks like you're clearing and grading there's nothing built uh is there some way that you can adjust your access points to address the problem that uh that your neighbors at the Montessori school just uh raised uh unfortunately i think you know we're just so far down the line that you know trying trying to make an adjustment in the in the layout of where that access point is you know that would take us all back through the site plan process you know they're ready pretty much within the next week or so to start going vertical with with homes so we will we will cooperate as as as much as we can with but what does that mean help me understand what cooperating as much as you can means if you got if you don't mind my name is jeer me medlin i'm the applicant i did not sign in to speak no that's fine if you've got an answer to the question we want to hear and shine some more light on this what chris was stating is that our first 63 town homes are already under development those lots are already planted those homes have already been permitted so we are far far down the road on that portion of the project the project that jeff is referencing or the portion of the project that jeff is referencing is our phase two portion of the project that we also have site plan approval on we also have cd approval on we also have utility permits we're well down the road with dot the roads are rough graded at this point the blasting has already occurred when we went through the initial zoning this issue was not brawled up and i and to my knowledge everyone was notified and nobody had a concern at that point jeff has reached out to me last week he did we spoke by phone we spoke by phone again today and i told him i would meet him on site and i would see if i could work with him i can't promise you that i can do anything because durham has their own agenda dot has their own agenda in my homes is you know i've got i've got my duty to fulfill but i did tell him that i would meet him next week and see if we could work out some kind of some kind of uh mutual help that we could that we could assist him with with his road widening that he's got to undertake at some point when he in the monastery school chooses to expand or do whatever they're doing um as was pointed out it is a small school it is a drab gravel path is their driveway that he is referencing it's not like it's a paved collector road or something of that magnitude is a gravel path um we're here to we're here to be a good neighbor at the end of the day that's what i'm that's what i'm offering is to be a good neighbor to the monastery i appreciate that look do i have a question for for the gentleman who spoke for mr ammons mr ammons if you come to the mic just that helps the people who are watching from home um i when i went out there and looked and i looked around and i looked at their property quite frankly i did not notice this prop situation and i did not anticipate it so uh you're gonna have to help me picture it um i don't know what how your property is laid out but he characterized your driveway as a gravel road is it possible that the solution may lie on your property could could your driveway be moved to a better place well currently our our driveway is that like the southernmost end of our property line which is the closest to them so we can't and then and they're just down here so we can't go any further or we're into some of the del web area so uh it um but but it did appear they own across from where our driveway is i mean we have a big concrete monument sign we have a soccer field right there um it is a gravel road we hope to pave it at some point but you know and i appreciate this situation jeremy's in i'm not trying to throw him under the bus or anything and when the first rezoning came through there was no you know the road layout wasn't exactly on there and typically you know as part of the d o t and getting the roads planned they do an existing map and they show what all the roads are and if you see the map on there they show some of that they just never showed our driveway and i appreciate all of that my question is is it possible to move your driveway on your land to create a greater distance and consequently less likelihood of confusion as your parents come and go and their residents come and go um we could we have room to we have more we have more frontage on andrew's chapel road but we do have a soccer field as part of that so you know it would require a lot of internal work through our parking lot and to our school and that in those items it's not just a matter of swing it out another way without having to build the road but we have additional frontage on andrew's chapel and so if i may one more question madam chairman uh so i'm the question is to the folks from my homes uh is this you mentioned being a good neighbor are you in a situation where you might be able to look at that and help them move their driveway not not knowing their property and not knowing what would be involved i cannot make that commitment thank you very much thank you madam chairman the other commissioners who would like to speak uh commissioner gauche and commissioner whitley on this driveway situation i i have a question for i think mr ammons uh my my question is you know when did this become an issue because evidently wasn't previously um ncdot uh had some sort of sign up on the side plan and was you know at that time they didn't think that this was an issue so when did it become an issue uh well i mean we're not privy to their plans and so as we saw them developing and then this most recent rezoning request came in it showed where the driveway was and so that's when it first came to my attention that we got this in the mail and they said you know review this document that we have and i saw the driveways didn't line up so you know i don't think the earlier requests had the site plan all laid out and showed exactly where the driveway was we just knew hey the develop behind us they're developing across the street from us uh i happen to be a civil engineer traffic guy they always make you line driveways up wherever i go a line driveways up uh you either need to move it further away you need to move it closer you know um and so this one is just right in the worst spot i mean they they're triangle for the uh the turn lane in the middle will be stacked right through their intersection turning left into our school uh in the morning afternoons ballgames that kind of stuff so it just came up most recently when this request came yeah i appreciate your evaluation of of the site i mean at the same time i appreciate ncdot's evaluation i'm having trouble understanding why um you know why it occurred this way if it is an unsafe situation generally when driveways are not well dot was surprised by it when we didn't meet with them and they went back to the existing map and it just wasn't picked up on that map either so i mean it makes no sense do you have a driveway permit sure yeah and so i don't understand and and to me no matter what what the case was or why it happened that doesn't mean we just kicked down the road further a dangerous situation no i i i appreciate that but i mean at the same time there's there's a site plan that's been approved you obviously have a driveway permit your site plan whenever you built the school or whatever uh was approved there is there's maybe there's a mistake here i can't understand there's no one from ncdot here that can answer this question i don't know bill judge has any insight on this i'd be hoping to hearing that this is a kind of a confusing situation yeah bill judge with transportation again i i think primarily what happened on all the parties involved the the school has an existing driveway permit for i think it's less than 50 students the existing school the so when the new development site plan was coming in there was an understanding or an expectation there was no no knowledge i guess that the school was looking at an expansion now that water and sewer was was coming in and that was probably the amount overlooked with all the development between delweb this development has now brought water and sewer to the area the school now has an opportunity to expand to a much larger campus and that wasn't taken into consideration when when this driveway point was approved was the potential for the school to want to expand okay that that makes sense so is the school looking to expand certainly yes i mean we bought 40 acres a long time ago we was with the foresight of that would be a good area to grow one day so and we were limited by the water in the sewer so certainly now that that's come our intentions are to grow the school that has come and it hasn't come at no cost i mean developers have extended the utilities out that way and i appreciate your concern however i mean i don't see why we would make this developer change its driveway so that you can expand your school without you having to pay whether we expand or not they should be lined up i mean well i don't i don't know if that's true ncdot did not come to the same conclusion we're aware of your driveway and the driveway that was being do t claimed they weren't aware of our driveway because of i just have trouble believing that matter to you what bill judge said was that there wasn't enough capacity at the school for that driveway to be an issue even if they weren't aligned that's now if they expand there could be an issue there and i appreciate that issue needs to be addressed the question i'm trying to figure out is who should address it the do t missed it when they approved theirs because they didn't see they don't have all their driveway permits sitting and where they pull them up they go to the existing map that supplied to them the existing condition map and it wasn't drawn on there so in your opinion it was the developers fault i should i think it should have been included on that map yes okay i mean i think i've got all the answers i need i i i understand the issue and i'm not disagreeing that it is an issue i think that the question is really who needs to address this issue do i have other commissioners who would like to speak yes mr commissioner would leave my apology it's getting late it is getting late mr judge yeah leave it to do t to give us a problem but has it ever been the position of the city of Durham when there's a problem to say well it's okay because one party is small and only have 50 children that this big development can come in and do what it has to do and let them worry about it bill judge with transportation no i mean certainly there was no intention on anybody's part to basically have the developers responsibility or not passed along to a school or any other property owner it was just simply the the facts that were known at the time was that the school was a relatively low volume driveway i have not spoken directly with ncdot that the school met separately with them from from us but um so i can't speak directly as to whether they thought of the school or not but even had they thought of the school they would have had to basically make their decision based on it being a driveway for a school of less than 50 students which is significantly less than what now the school is proposing additionally i should point out the i believe the as part of the developers plans while they do line up or potentially could line up i think there's an existing house there that they're at least maintaining for a number of years so that's part of their phasing that the existing house would basically have to have to come down in order to line up with the school which they're not proposing at this point my thinking is that dot made a mistake am i wrong i mean i won't say you're wrong i would just say that they made a decision based on the information they had at the time and they made a decision that um that has allowed for an offset between the driveways so would i be wrong to think that dot needs to be proud of solving this problem they certainly will be and that's i guess what i was trying at earlier with my sort of first response is that we have a situation it's less than desirable but we'll just have to figure out the way to manage it as the school comes in with the expansion plan how to how to best provide for that so the city that i love will come to the aid of the little guy well it won't be a city effort alone it'll be a combination of the city the ncdot and the school um developing a developing a solution that's what i wanted to hear thank you thank you commissioner whittley are the other commissioners who would like to speak commissioner miller and commissioner miller commissioner freeman madam chair i've i've already spoken please let didriana go first and then i'll close with my brief remark thank you commissioner freeman thank you i i just want to um sitting here i just can't help but want to apologize to the school on behalf of all the bureaucrats and and deciding making these decisions for you and then questioning you about the way things have gone i just want to make sure i say that up front it doesn't feel right for the questions to be directed to the school that's been sitting there for 40 years and then second of all i just want to make sure that i say understanding that site plans have been set forward and being a good neighbor as mi is trying to be i don't think it's i don't think it would be good for us as a a body of folks around the the on the planning commission to move forward with this without at least giving um mi a chance to revisit it and as i'm sorry i didn't catch your name as the gentleman mentioned he doesn't know the layout of their property so to at least investigate what's possible or what's not possible before we move forward i would like to request a 30 day at least um review because it just it just doesn't sit well with me that we're in inconveniencing a school for a site plan over or oversight of whatever whomever is at fault we should at least be able to take some time and slow this train down regardless okay we'll staff comment first yes jimmy sonyak planning department we're just conferring with my colleagues and it's our opinion that 30 days isn't going to be enough to review this and come back with a solution that makes sense for all the parties um what's 60 days because 60 60 days would be favorable 60 days adjusting the 60 60 days work thank you seven motion by commissioner uh freement for a 60 day continuance and a second by commissioner uh whittley um all in favor of this motion let it be known by i did own what the questions okay can question uh before we vote on that i would like to know what the applicant think about a continuance thank you i appreciate the opportunity um i would i would not like a continuance i would like to go ahead and have a vote and i'm saying this out of respect but i would also like to to to establish this that i don't know what the school's in game is what their growth what their growth patterns are going to be for five years 10 years 15 years i really don't have any idea um i can't tell you whether their uh the alignment of andrew's chapel road is going to dictate a right in a right out a left over a full movement uh there's just too many variables there's just too many variables um at this time we do have approval we do have we do have um our zoning in place and our site plan in place we're not proposing to change any of those details uh i i have made a commitment to work with the school and try to reach some kind of um neighbor league cooperation but at this point i can't i can't commit to you any more than that because there's just too many variables uh commissioner miller i'll recognize has another question again a question for the developer is it my understanding that the site plan that you currently have approved is for the existing zoning not for the uh the zoning uh that you are asking for tonight yes sir we we do have an existing zoning that was approved about i know you have an existing zone i'm asking is your site plan refer to your existing zoning or is it based upon the zoning as as as you're asking for us to change it i'm referring to the existing zoning that not the one that i'm asking for this evening so here's my question to you then if for some reason the zoning that change that you're asking for tonight was turned down would you just go ahead and develop the project the way you currently have it approved more than likely sir okay thank you i have a motion on the table and i do have a second that we offer a 60-day continuance all in favor of this motion let it be known by raising your right hand yes yes yes yes no yes let's move to the next item public hearing text amendment to the unified development ordinance mass grading buffers oh good evening good night i don't know maybe good morning michael stock with the planning department tc 16 0006 is a technical text amendment technical changes text amendment to modify the standard some of the standards to the mass grading buffers within within section 9.5.1 or section 9.5 mass grading buffers and revegetation on november 2nd 2016 the joint city county planning commission or jccpc received an informational item regarding mass grading the discussion at that meeting resulted in two requests from the jccpc the first request was to initiate a text amendment that revised mass grading buffers to match those allowed by state statute and that statute is in your in your agenda packet as a attachment b and the second request was to provide a report at a later date regarding costs and benefits of mass grading and that's still in progress and for future discussions at jccpc and in order for them to provide policy direction to staff this text amendment obviously addresses the first request the text amendment basically does three things it it increases the buffer widths along right of way and developed and undeveloped property for mass grading buffers to those allowed by state statute through the review of the state statute we came upon some issues uh well at least i came upon some issues that i ran by the city attorney's office um questioning whether the current current rules in the udo were exceeding the authority of the statute and the opinion of the city attorney's office was that it was so there are additional modifications found in your draft ordinance that does the following it it specifies that the mass grading buffers um per the state statute only applied within the city jurisdiction um and that it also focuses on just protecting existing vegetation so any uh any request or any requirements to uh further to add further vegetation or increase opacity uh is beyond the statute mass grading buffers are temporary buffers around the site around the preparation of a site for future development so the statute is pretty clear for protecting existing vegetation for future buffers future project boundary buffers which you see a lot of times in your development plans at least indicated in your development plans so the additional vegetation would be provided at that time for your future project boundary buffers that are more permanent buffers that's the extent of the changes i'll be happy to answer any questions that's correct yeah it's it's increased to to match the extent allowed by state statute so all the numbers are at the maximum allowed that's correct yes got to have there i have no one who is signed up to speak are you here to speak i don't have any are there commissioners who would like to speak to this issue commission of us b thank you madam chair miller well and i appreciate the staff's work on this the the only thing i would i would note is that while uh and i this is the intent of the joint city county planning committee was to say let's let's go and use what we have under authorizing legislation which the the intent i was at the meeting was to strengthen the mass grading buffer provisions and the good news is to some degree that's true in other cases we have the unintended consequences of actually taking some steps backwards on our mass grading buffers because we were out of conformity with our enabling legislation so i just want to point that out that uh while this is an appropriate approach it is unfortunate that it's not as strong as what the the joint city county planning committee had initially hoped with their aspirational recommendations and so just want to make that point because the second bite of the apple is obviously then very important which is what are some of the the longer term opportunities to actually review mass grading buffer provisions moving forward so there there are no changes i'm going to recommend here uh it is just one of those be careful what you wish for moments because we all wanted to see these provisions get uniformly stronger and we got a little stronger and we got a little weaker in my opinion and and and to to add on to what commissioner busney has said it is the intent for jccpc to take a heart take a harder look at mass grading in general and see what are the opportunities to yeah what can they do what are other other ways to do site preparation for development that aren't necessary mass grading um they're not anywhere close to giving policy direction yet they're going to be getting information at future meetings and then staff will get some direction at that point um and we've we've just been collecting information at this time there's no timeline at this point are the other commissioners who would like to speak if not can i have a motion madam chair i move that the commission move the tc one six zero zero zero zero six mass grading buffers forward uh to council with a favorable recommendation second uh motion to approve item tc one six zero zero zero zero six forward to the city council with the favorable recommendation second by commissioner um harris all in favor of this motion raise your right hand thank you thank you we have new business you still have old business you still have old business there's a second item under old business the unfinished business okay yes there it is thank you ready yes all right so you previously back in november and december had some opportunity for discussion and input on the work program and the item was continued and so i am here and all ears i have some comments commissioner harris with reference to your open space huh a wheel where i'm sorry i don't have anything yeah all right i take it you guys are ready for us to do more work next year right thank you so was that the whole work plan or was it a budget thing my notes indicated it was a work program never mind it's late commissioner miller commented extensively on it and he has uh apparently so we're ready to move on to the next item new business good evening i'm scott whiteman from the planning department um here tonight to present and for your review and hopeful recommendation of the urban open space plan this is a project that's been under development since 2010 it was recommended as one of the projects that should be put in a work program in the comprehensive plan when it was adopted in 2005 this would join four other adopted open space plans which include the downtown open space plan from 2012 as well as the new hope corridor the little river open space plan in the eastern Durham open space plan when the planning began for this it was done being done in conjunction with the downtown open space plan and then the two were divided into two separate projects this plan would cover the entirety of the urban tier plus the three compact neighborhood tiers that are encompassed within the urban tier it does exclude this the far southeastern portion of the urban tier which was already included in the the eastern Durham open space plan so there are three key components of the urban open space plan an inventory an analysis and recommendations the inventory includes an inventory of some already existing plans some adopted some just prepared these includes the parks and recreation master plan the Durham trails and greenways plan and the watershed management plans this map here is included in your document and it shows the properties that were shown in the LRB creek and third fork creek master plans as high value properties that should be considered for acquisition which this would be adopted as part of this plan neither the watershed master plans were actually adopted by council we also included an environmental inventory which included things like biodiversity tree canopy temperature change this map here is showing some of the biodiversity and wildlife assessment of lands within the urban tier as you might imagine the only areas that have any real value are in the stream buffers and they're actually quite challenged since this is a heavily urbanized area we also prepared an inventory of parks and other open spaces including informal open spaces such as cemeteries and historic sites so moving on to the analysis we prepared an open space suitability map in conjunction with the the open space committee of the Durham open space and trails commission this took a bunch some key factors into what makes a piece of land a high priority for preservation or acquisition these included things like riparian buffers tree cover and proximity to planned and existing parks and trails ran a model and ranked all the the properties within the urban tier based on the number of criteria they met so the the ones shown in this map in blue are the ones of high suitability one important thing that's a recommendation of this plan is that this not be a static but a dynamic model and so will staff and the DOS will continue to work on refining the criteria and updating it since certain things will will change over time we also prepared an analysis of access to parks using the city's benchmark of every citizen being within a half mile distance of a public park the analysis is actually using existing pedestrian street networks not as the crow flies distance generally it shows that the coverage is pretty good in the the urban tier there are some gaps you'll see like in the western near duke university kind of northwest part of the urban tier although a lot of those are filled with kind of informal open spaces like dukes east campus duke homestead that sort of thing there are also some areas which are not really residential and don't necessarily need to have the same level of service for for park access that residential areas do two notable exceptions for the access to parks are the colonial village area in the northeast part of this of the urban tier and the tuscaloosa lakewood neighborhood in the southwest portion we also performed an environmental justice analysis the definition for environmental justice borrowed from what are our transportation planning definition for for what we call a community of concern these were areas where populations with concentrations of minorities latinos elderly persons low-income persons and people with limited English proficiency any census block group with four of those five was considered a community of concern the good news is as like with the rest of the urban tier these most of these areas have they're the first seven most of them have pretty good access to public park land you see on the the top two on this slide are the far eastern portion of northeast central Durham near wellans village the area that's not covered is mostly commercial the other one is the area along id 5 kind of between walltown and brogdon middle school i'll note that with the development of the west lwc creek greenway this area will have better access to open space in the near future some areas that aren't as well served like i mentioned before on on the bottom shows the area near colonial village in the northeast part of this area also the the areas north of duke's campus which is now in the urban road compact neighborhood so there were a series of objectives and recommendations that would apply generally to all areas within the the planning area to generalize a bit they are a well-maintained and integrated open space system increased recreation in open space improve access to open space protect and improve environmental quality engage communities and stewardship of open spaces and increase tree canopy they were also the the study area was also divided into districts to make it just solely for a more manageable geography for for graphical purposes and there were specific recommendations and suggestions for each of those five areas which i do have on here but i won't go into detail detail at this point since it's 1015 but i'd be happy to to address any of those if any of the commissioners have any questions so with that i'd be happy to answer any questions and we would request that the commission recommend approval of the urban open space plan thanks commissioner harris uh first of all i found this to be very confusing because when i look at this i'm looking for open space and it's urban and so it don't go in the further north than 07 to 5 east of roxburgh road in carver street west of roxburgh road and by the same token it on the east side it doesn't go in the further than uh do more in drive and 70 which as i look at it i have to mind my make it mindful of myself you know that it is just the open area and not the suburban area that's right yeah just the earb here is adopted in a comprehensive plan the second thing and more important is you have district one through five it would be great if you call it another normal creature area one through five or you know zone one through five because if i think of district two i'm thinking northern derm but district one east derm but your district doesn't line up that way i don't think we hadn't considered that people might confuse those with the the packs yeah it does because most other districts you know it's associated with police districts and when i look at your district one which is uh which would be normally district two and your district five which would normally be downtown you got south derm here so if you could just change the normal equation yeah commissioner harris will try to consider a better term for this commissioner brye i want to thank you for bringing the plan forward all i want to do is call your attention to what i think are some very minor corrections uh page four uh under the unified development ordinance uh the first senate starts up all developments most comply standards i think you need to have the work with between compliance standards i wholeheartedly agree with your edit with commissioner bryne moving quickly along to page 38 your community of concern number three uh into the second sentence the representation of four environmental justice committees of concern uh this is the only one where you have not identified who those committees of concern were all the others you identify who the committees of concern are so i think you just need to be consistent let the record flick out of my head yeah and uh finally on page 58 uh under objective one items number seven and number eight for responsibility uh shouldn't historic preservation be included in that yeah that's i think that's a reasonable request that's all i had thank you madam chair commissioner freeman thank you i i just wanted to thank you for uh pushing this forward as well and including an environmental justice population but i want to make sure that we don't um confuse uh or muddy the water and saying like the minority race population i i just feel like this this needs to be narrowed down some the there's a difference between the cross section of race and low income than there is of just race and the same thing for ethnicity there's a difference in ethnicity and i know what you're where you're going with the area of concern but it's not quite clear or there yet and i'm not sure what to yeah and to be it's it's uh it would have to be at least four of those five things it would not just be a block group that has a popular high population minorities it would be one that has low english proficiency or low income and maybe i'm missing something because i didn't see that that noted that that had to be four yeah it's sorry i mean i'll be able to find it on the spot right now but i assure you that that that explanation is in there admission or gibbs oh however recent state legislative i'm sorry sarah young the planning department i'm sorry page 32 hard to see low light past 10 o'clock at night it says for the next phase of the analysis block groups within occurrence of four or five communities of concern are analyzed further so that's where it stipulates that that's the threshold well rather than saying just communities concerned like specifically like the environmental justice populations four or five of the specific environmental justice populations being caused for concern okay commissioner gibbs did you also have a question uh i don't know how descriptive these things are about the physical access uh i've heard you mentioned access and that that brings to mind does this record anything about the accessibility handicapped accessibility or would we find that somewhere else or could it be included this just as a general term if if not a detailed thing this does not include that it's kind of more general than that we're we're looking more at just access from say that someone's residents to a public park i believe the the parks and recreation master plan is much more detailed about what improvements each park needs and i think that's probably the most appropriate place to to deal with yeah accessibility okay yeah right thank you commissioner commissioner one additional comment to the staff i did not get an approval sheet for the uh open space urban open so i wrote it on the back of my last page so you know it's on the back of the last page right over i did okay uh commissioner whitley um thank you for giving your report can you tell me how this open space is going to benefit eastern well one of the things it's to provide general priorities about uh how to increase open space in the the urban part of Durham um and then one thing in particular we don't get to a whole lot of detail in this because there's already been a lot of analysis from other groups about the shortage of trees in east Durham but one of one of the records trees the tree canopy how east Durham the tree canopy in east Durham is much lower than it is in mostly other parts of urban Durham the tree canopy in east Durham is significantly less than it is in most of the other parts of urban Durham and that when we prioritize funding for tree planting programs we should prioritize the east Durham since that's lagging behind the other parts of the city so we need more trees and what else so in general uh like for example when we're when surplus properties are from the city or county arise we can use the the suitability analysis determine whether it's something that needs to be should be saved for open space purposes or if it's something for example if it's the middle of a neighborhood maybe it's more appropriate to be used for a development of affordable housing or something like that um we have plenty of housing what we don't have is banks we don't have pox that um are well kept like other pox we don't have the recreation that our children need and we have plenty open space since there's very little development thank you can i get a uh just commissioner miller would like to make some comments very quickly um so this document contemplates the comprehensive plan but i did not see and so and i have a question the comprehensive plan the future land use map has um large areas of land that are designated recreation and open space do those designations in the future land use map very closely correspond with the properties identified in the inventory in this document or is there a disconnect it probably is a little bit disconnect there is with all the all the open space plans which i think is something that really needs to be addressed in a new comprehensive plan it worries me because we you know the first word of comprehensive plan is comprehensive the um and so that worries me this document contemplates a comprehensive plan but it doesn't include or at least i i don't interpret it to include in the implementation measures uh any suggestions that we change the comprehensive plan to more specifically include the recommendations here in other words when when we're asked to rezone property or to evaluate development projects how will i use this document to that make that evaluation do you intend for us to use this document for that evaluation and what is the policy and regulatory path from this document back through the comprehensive plan that would allow me to do that so as i know it sounds like a bit of a circular reference we have plans that were adopted prior to the comprehensive plan that are adopted as reference in the comprehensive plan and that we have other adopted plans that come afterwards after the comprehensive plan which when we say it's uh the zoning cases um consistent with applicable plans and policies it's not just a comprehensive plan it's all adopted plans i realize that but it seems to me that uh you mean the state statute talks about the comprehensive plan uh and so one of the things that i would like to do is when we create a document like this that is so related to land i would like to have the uh an implementation measure here is to go back and make the comprehensive plan contemplate this document by with specific policy saying you know when we talk about a uh that you know uh a residential uh design in the urban tiers supposed to work with natural features and what have you it would be nice if it if it gave me permission to cite this and saying well this development plan doesn't recognize the the reservation of open space in the inventory or or some other policy i just want i'm looking for a policy path to connect this document to the work that we do here every month and well we do do that with the um so as uh a representative of of Dost uh we review all zoning cases that come in against existing open space plans um we don't actually have a lot of rezonings in the areas that are affected by the current open space plans probably have a lot more in the urban tier but we do flag any recommendations uh from any of the open space plans that would be affected by his own change yeah but Dost does that but we're the ones that that are charged with it we would we would provide through the case planner those comments to you that's for example like in the eastern germ open space plan there's wider stream buffers require uh recommended in certain areas so if there's a zoning case that would be affected by that we would say um in order to comply with the eastern germ open space plan you even need to provide a x width buffer i guess what i'm saying is is what i really want before i can vote to say that this is a good document is a clear policy path that connects this to the comprehensive plan it's a city council and the board of commissioners adopt this it will be an adopted plan just like the comprehensive plan which would be but it's not the but the comprehensive plan loses its comprehensive quality when when there are other plans that it doesn't contemplate well that's fair but we kind of puts us in a tough spot of where we can't adopt any like the night street plan or anything like that we couldn't adopt subsequent plans without amending the entire comprehensive plan uh commissioner whittling yeah i do have i do have something i would like for you to consider um open space um development um around our creeks um we have taken advantage of it on Taylor street but um where the elementary school is but there are other opportunities along those creeks that we could we could really um be more creative than than we have and there are lots of places where we could we could um eastern could benefit from it um and i just wanted to throw it out so you would have something okay i agree with that i think this does address that and we have preserving land near streams pretty well commissioner freeman thank you um just tagging along on that comment that reverend whittley just mentioned it's very important to also acknowledge the economic i'm sorry the environmental justice issue that can arise in building in flood plains especially that elementary school you just mentioned because they have sewage coming into the building but um i wanted to also ask i know you know you mentioned that this was going back to daas what's the diversity look like on daas and do people look like me on daas because i'm i'm unfamiliar with the makeup and i'm happy to answer that question as the planning commission's represent representative to the to daas to the Durham open space and trails commission it's a combination of city and county appointees and so i don't have the exact numbers i know that it's fair to say that like most committees that diversity is really important and is something we're continuing to strive towards we do have a mix of representatives from from the city and from the county um different backgrounds different parts of the city different ages so it's it's a fairly representative body i i also did want to say thank you to scott in particular as the staff person for daas scott stepped into that role this worked its way through multiple committees at daas and so is really we spent a lot of time on this trying to get this right and so i know the input that all of you've offered tonight is very helpful to make this as strong as possible i would urge this body to move this forward and and recommend that we we move this along this in my opinion is is a long overdue piece of the puzzle that daas has said we want to make sure we have an urban open space plan commissioner miller i hear your point i would love to over time make sure that we we do have a comprehensive plan um i but in in that absence i want to make sure we still have an urban open space plan that puts forward what we'd like to see and it gives us some tools to help make decisions as we move forward on proposals so at the appropriate time i'll be ready to to make a motion but i know you you may have additional comments with any of these motions that there is an inclusion around conditions for this community of concern to be spelled out and then also making sure that there's a cross-section because i'm recognizing that the areas i'm assuming you're saying across the abcd areas five not in the single area of environmental justice five and what i'm afraid of is that exactly what you're saying will happen and that folks will think we have something in place to address the issue and actually not address the issue specifically because you're spelling it out but you're not saying it and so you're not saying specifically that black and brown people are disproportionately at risk in this community in this urban area of not having access to the urban open space and if it was spelled out specifically like that it'd be different but if it's not i feel a little antsy about saying we have a tool or anything to move forward with so just because you're madam chair rich i got a personal for you let me recognize commissioner busby and commissioner witley and did you finish your okay your comments thank you well and thank you madam chair what i was going to say i'm ready and willing to make a motion but actually i may want to have you make a motion to make sure that we adequately capture your your point and i'll be ready to second that motion we're at commissioner freeman if you could uh after the meeting and either your comments or through an email just specifically tell me where your concerns are i feel confident we can address them you my question my question is um you're asking us to approve this without um we have creased them run through all our of eastern that needs dredging and needs cleaning environmental justice and creating open space that our kids can do science projects and we have elementary schools that are close to those these creeks we have residential homes are closed or we may have parks that these creeks run through um where they underutilize because we haven't did we haven't we haven't developed open space for them so you want us to approve this without um that being brought forward or is there a way to to get commitment to have this done that you will look seriously about and um and ask for our approval i would defer to scott as well to add any additional points i know the the goal here is to make sure we have a good strong plan in place that everyone feels comfortable with and and does make sure we're adequately addressing the issues i don't know if anything did want to add anything scott mr wittley i i can't say that it addresses all your concerns uh i think this is the the first step in trying to preserve open space and establishing priorities but uh there's always work to come fighting for funding those sorts of things um i i think malcolm said it um when everybody has something on their plate and there's nothing in mind that doesn't make me a diner i guess what they're suggesting is that like all other plans that the city has um we have to wait i'll go ahead and make that motion that we approve this um open i'm sorry urban open space plan with a condition to make sure that we address the inadequately addressed the or adequately address the disparity and low-income communities of color and the environmental justice section does that help start i'm just trying it does okay okay uh motion by commissioner freeman that we approve the urban open space plan with stated adjustments second by commissioner wittley um all in favor of this motion let it be known by raising your right hand all opposed thank you stated adjustment yes i'm sorry what was that oh you what


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