staff are we ready? Am I ready? Good afternoon. I seem to have misplaced my opening statement but the Planning Commission and welcome to the Planning Commission meeting March the 8th 2016 the Planning Commission is appointed by the City Council and Board of County Commissioners and we serve as an advisory board to the elected bodies in a decision that we make tonight would be forward on to the elected bodies and they will be making the final decision on any item that we have before us tonight. If you have if you wish to speak to an item on my left it's a sign-up sheet for each of the items that's coming for us tonight just sign up whether you and indicate your name address and whether you wish to speak in favor of an opposition to an item and if you if if you have an opinion about an item please be in constant contact with the Planning Department as to when it will go before they elected the bodies before the final decision. So with that if we can have the roll call please. Mr. Brine President. Mr. Busby. Mr. Gosh. Mr. Gibbs. Ms. Hyman. Ms. Huff. Ms. Freeman. Mr. Harris. Mr. Kenshin. Mr. Miller. Here. Mr. Riley. Mr. Van. Here. Mr. Whitley. Ms. Winder's. Here in a quorum. Do we have an adjustment to the agenda? No. No adjustments to the agenda tonight however staff would like to remind the commission members of section 4.4 of the rules procedure regarding conflicts of interest. There is a statement in there that requires any any commissioner that owns property within close proximity of the subject property interpreted as being within the required notification area shall not take part in any hearing consideration determination or vote concerning that property. So I believe Ms. Freeman might be the only commissioner that has that particular conflict of interest this evening on the Austin Avenue case. Okay. Thank you. You want to mention yours now. You want to mention yours. Just to make everyone aware my firm is representing or here representing for the South Square MLK compact neighborhood so I'll have to recuse myself for that. That's item five C. That's require that type of excuse excuse would require motion from the commission. At that time. Yes. Well we can do it now for both of you. Mr. Chairman under based upon the rules as I understand them I move that the planning commission excuse Mr. Gouch from consideration of the South Square case which is five C on our agenda and that we excuse miss Freeman which is from the Austin Avenue which is five E on our agenda. Second. It's been motion by Commissioner Miller second by Commissioner Brian that we excuse Commissioner Freeman and Commissioner Gouch from the respective other any questions. All those in favor letter by no missing. I I oppose this. I was having so on. Also one of the adjustment under new business I'd like to make an announcement when we get to that time. Okay. All right. With those changes to the agenda can I get a motion to adopt the agenda sprint so moved move by Commissioner Brian second second by Commissioner Hyman that we adopt the agenda with the I guess three changes. All those in favor let me know by saying aye. Opposed as nay. I was having so order. The minutes from the February 9th meeting were distributed. Hopefully you had an opportunity to look over them and at such time I will entertain a motion to dispense with not dispense but to Mr. Chair move approval of the minutes. Okay. Have a motion to approve by Commissioner Bucks being second by Commissioner Miller that we approve the minutes as for the February 9th. All those in favor let it be known by saying aye. Opposed as nay. I was having so on. We on item five of the agenda. We have public hearing for the comprehensive plan in French future land use map. The first one is item a league and village compact neighborhood tier a one five zero zero zero one four and the the public hearing is now open. Good evening. I'm Scott Whiteman from the Durham City County Planning Department here tonight playing the role of Hannah Jacobson very poorly on so many levels. So before I begin the presentation for the Lee Village case just to a little backing up for a little bit of background. When the comprehensive plan was adopted in 2005 it included a system of development tiers five development tiers a rural tier suburban tier urban tier compact neighborhood tier and downtown tier. There were basically four compact neighborhoods around five stations that were adopted that time the Alston Avenue the Duke Medical Center slash Ninth Street and then off the map there were two down near RTP in the RTP North area and the Triangle Metro Center. Those were based on what was the phase one regional rail plan at that time.  So that means that we have new stations in the Lee Village area the Patterson Place area the South Square Martin Luther King Junior Parkway area and then there are some adjustments in the what we're calling urban road area and the Alston Avenue area. So with that I'll begin the first of the six cases tonight the Lee Village compact neighborhood. So just for a little bit of context this is the area near the intersection of Interstate 40 and NC 54. Right now of the proposed compact neighborhoods is definitely the most sparsely developed. It's generally rural development or vacant property except for the properties clustered around Highway 54. There are some Highway 54 is a fairly congested corridor as is I 40 and there are some significant environmental features in the area particularly the Little Creek bottom lands which are in this area to the West. So the proposed change for this area is to change the existing suburban transit area to a compact neighborhood to change the designated future land use within the compact neighborhood to design district. And as part of that the what was the suburban transit area would include new land that is to the West along the Chapel Hilltown limit to the north adjacent to the villas at Culbarber development. In addition to the change the compact neighborhood there are two associated plan amendments with this request. One would remove Eastwood Park and Celeste Circle from the suburban transit area and also from not include them in the compact neighborhood and change the currently adopted future land use map from commercial to low density residential. In addition there's an area within the compact neighborhood that is owned by the North Carolina Botanical Garden which has a conservation easement on it and just so did change the future land use map for that property to recreation and open space. So here's an area of the context which I can come back to if there are any questions. Just as we discussed two months ago this is just the first step in many steps into implementing the compact neighborhoods in these five areas. In the future when it moves to the stage where the where zoning is implemented we know that there are some issues that will need to be worked through beforehand. Those are extending public utilities because the majority of this area is outside the city limits and has no water and sewer service. There are many plan transportation infrastructure improvements that will need to be in place before significant development occurs which plays into number three here coordinating and phasing development and there will need to be some sensitive transition to the community. So with that staff recommends approval and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you Scott. Now do we have any members in the audience that would like to speak to this item that did not sign up to speak or the members in the audience that would like to speak to this issue that did not sign up to speak. If not I have four people wishing to speak in favor of this item and five people wishing to speak and against each will be given each side will be given 10 minutes. So those that those for it will have two point two five seconds two minutes little over two minutes to speak and and those who wish to speak against it will have two minutes to speak. Mr. Chairman I move that we let everybody who wants to speak on this item for or against at three minutes. You hear a motion to allow everyone second. Okay motion and second motion by commissioner Miller second by commissioner Freeman that everyone be allowed three minutes to speak. Any discussion. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. All those opposed. So each person will have three minutes to speak. The first is Pam Cook. Good evening. And please state your name and your address when you come to them podium to speak. My name is Pam Cook. My husband Joel and I have lived at 5511 Crescent Drive since June 1991 when we moved to North Carolina. As you're probably aware people in our neighborhood tend to stay there. We have great neighbors and we really do depend on each other. In December 2001 we started working together with Dan Joule during Mary designers Ed Harris and Becky Herron Ellen rec how and so many others to do as much as we could not only to protect our personal property investments but hopefully to protect the area from bad design decisions. I'm proud to say that most of the people in our neighborhood still are actively involved and can plan to continue to do so as much as we possibly can. I'm sure most of us would love to turn back the clock to 1991 when we were when we were a quiet corner of Durham County. Everyone wants to be the last person to move into our neighborhood but we know that's not realistic. New developments pop up around us seemingly every month. I don't believe I have anything to say that you haven't already heard about this issue but I do appreciate the time to be able to state my opinion. We ask that you vote in favor of the compact neighborhood design plan for our area. We believe this is necessary not only to protect our investments but also to protect the investments of those in the surrounding communities as well as support the light rail project. We ask again that you vote in favor. Thank you. Stephen. No. No. My name is Steve. No. I live at 211 Celeste Circle. My wife and I moved to the Durham area about three years ago and we've really appreciated the quality of life that we've enjoyed in Eastwood Park. My father is or was before he passed Professor City Planning at the University of Cincinnati so I came up with a lot of city planning sort of at the dinner table every night and I've come to learn that that planning is a verb rather than a noun and we'd like to make sure that this plan for Lee Village is something that it really is well thought through. While I'm for it I really am for making sure that there's a true comprehensive plan for what gets done here and I have heard recently that there are concerns of some of the commissioners that the plan maybe needs to be fleshed out more. That being said it's not for me to say. I think that having a comprehensive plan for this area will be critical to the appropriate development and I support that. I support the light rail. I think it's something that will bring a lot of benefit to our neighborhood. That being said should this plan not move forward. We would like to ask that the change to Eastwood Park be considered and written into the the minutes of this meeting so that it might be voted on in any case. Our park or our neighborhood was zoned about ten years ago to become commercial and that's certainly against the wishes of the people that live there then and the and the majority of the people at least at this end of the street that I live in there. And so we ask for your support in trying to get us back to low density residential. In any case I'll yield up the rest of my time. Thank you. John Eddie. Thank you commissioners. My name is John Eddie. I live at five seven zero eight Crescent Drive and I'm also the president of the Woodland Acres Homeowners Association which is comprised of many of the residents of the area that are in the Lee Village proposed Lee Village Transit District. My neighborhood association has long been involved with the potential development of this area. We have participated in the last fifteen years or so in numerous public meetings and workshops including the fifty four I forty quarter study collector street plan. The Durham Orange light rail transit workshops and the compact neighborhood meetings. Our main goal has been to protect our area from piecemeal development into a crazy quilt of different zoning and uses as is now occurring. We have long wanted an overall comprehensive plan to get some unity and guidance for potential developers. Integrated with the strategy for transportation and traffic control and providing for the necessary overall infrastructure that would be required for this mostly rural and wooded area. We believe that our area has the potential to become a real jewel in the crown for Durham. And a national example of an aesthetically pleasing mixed use walkable livable. Transit oriented neighborhood. We are dismayed at what has been happening in recent years. First was the Colt Arbor development which is currently undergoing expansion along Farrington Road. Next was the Chapel Creek development which is now being built. And now the wood partners development is before the city council for their rezoning. Each of these development is taking a band-aid approach to traffic control and infrastructure construction. Each has subtracted from the necessary population density required from mass transit. We believe the approval of the compact neighborhood amendment to the future land use map will help protect us from this fragmentation of our area and to a hodgepodge of developments. We urge you to approve the amendment for the Lee Village compact neighborhood as a first step in imposing some control on the development of our area. And we urge you to do so now before the opportunity to do something really special for Durham is lost. Thank you for your attention. Thank you. Is there anyone in the audience wishing to speak in favor of this item. In addition a person wishing to speak in favor of this item. Chris Selby I signed up. Maybe I didn't check for Chris. Yeah but yeah you next. I live at one thirty eight Celeste Circle in the Eastwood Park neighborhood. I've lived there for nineteen years. And I thank you for this opportunity to speak. I'm here to express express my strong support for recommendation number three to change the flume designation of Eastwood Park from commercial to residential. I enjoy living in my neighborhood. As to the future there are changes anticipated all around Eastwood Park. Including light rail Lee Village and widening of NC fifty four. I believe that these changes offer opportunities to improve our quality of life. I ask members of the planning commission to help preserve and protect the future of Eastwood Park as a residential neighborhood and recommend a residential flume map designation for us. And as as far as the Lee Village area overall I'm also in in favor of comprehensive development of the largest area of land possible as I think this would be the best way to most successfully develop that area. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Jonathan Langston. My name is Jonathan Langston and I own property at fifty five zero eight George King Road. And again thank you for the planning department for allowing us to talk. I'm actually against the current proposal for the Lee Village compact neighborhood expansion in that it has changed from what it was supposed to be in the first place to now include property excuse me property west of George King Road which of course includes my piece of property. But I can't speak to everybody else's property that's on that side of the road.  I have discussed with the health department about the well and the subject that's there. There is as we all know in Durham County there is lots and lots and lots of clay and my piece of property probably has 90% more than anybody else's does in that it's highly expansive. And from what I've discussed and learned from the health department is that my piece of property cannot accept a new septic field or a new septic tank because of its mineralogy which basically means that my house basically would always be a house. There's no way for it to be a multi family place that has more than than three rooms. And so basically what's going on right now if it was in the compact development it would since like the gentleman that just spoke about the combat neighborhood. The water in sewer only comes I think it's like 2000 feet to the north of us near the elementary school that's up there. And then in the folks that were down here in Celeste basically they've got water and sewer down there which is about to 2500 feet to the south of me. My piece of property is right smack dab in the middle. And if this was to become a compact neighborhood for my piece of property basically I would not be able to have water and sewer for at least 10 15 years until another developer brings in water and sewer being a single family person. I would not be able to pull water and sewer to my piece of property 2000 feet from either the north or the south. So in summary I would basically say I would hope that you would vote against the current adoption of Lee Village station that it currently stands and hope that you would maybe have an open dialogue and communication to make small changes so that in support of these guys I think that the compact development is overall a good thing. I just think it needs a little bit of tweaking. Basically that's all. Thank you. Thank you. Karen Sanders. Good evening. My name is Karen Sanders and I thank you all for the opportunity to be able to speak with you this evening. I wanted to share with you that we've lived at 121 Celeste Circle. My husband myself and our daughter since September of 1998. We've seen a lot of the changes that have been approved by both the Commission and the city that have occurred in our neighborhood. I'm requesting that you consider reconsider the proposed change in zoning in Eastwood Park. If you do not you've removed all options we have for selling and have essentially made an island or as someone else mentioned a crazy crazy quilt out of our particular neighborhood. Question number one that I have for you. What is a design district and what exactly can or cannot be built within such a designation. I know within different states and cities design district can mean different things. Question number two why was part of Eastwood Park included in the design district designation but the rest excluded and listed to be changed to low density residential. Question number three why change the zoning now. Now that several offices have already been built and leased to UNC directly up the street from where the east end of Eastwood Park is. Approval has been given with the sale of Farrington Road Baptist Church to build two to three six story buildings and a multi level parking garage. As soon as the destruction of the church is complete this will be be gone. All of which are included in the so called design district. This leaves the remaining parts of Eastwood Park as an island connected to a high density development that has been started. Let's review what's happened within Eastwood Park as a result of the approval of that development. We were told no trucks would run through the east end part of the neighborhood. They would come down the service road go down the west end and go into whatever they had to do there. That's not the case. There's no respect to the time of day or night when that traffic goes through there. People have been out walking their dogs in the dusk and have nearly been run over by some of those vehicles. It was not until we complained about all the trips that some reduced reduced reduction of the trips and rerouting of the trucks happened. But it has not been 100%. The speed of the workers going into weekly site was anything but below or at the speed of the stated speed limit within our development. The road has major damage and potholes at the west end covered by steel plates. And it has been that way since fall. There was a resident whose shed was destroyed and she had to fight. She had to fight with the developer. I'll finish later. Thank you. Thank you. Barbara post Barbara post feel post. Mr. Chairman my name is Phil post a little bit 104 St. Andrews place. I don't know if this cursor works. And right in Durham County. I've lived in Durham County almost 40 years. My wife and I built our house. Just off Nottingham in 1995. I also speak on behalf of my Oaks three neighborhood which comprises about 90 some houses in Durham County. I can't get this cursor to work. Anyway. I show you the the collector rose plan that my neighborhood worked on very hard along with some other people in our neighborhood. George King Road was the main north south collector. The other one was Farrington Road. My neighbor was very concerned as the gentleman had just spoke a few minutes ago about the expansion of the compact neighborhood across George King Road. We object to that the other dots that are on this plan now one shows the romp facility and the other kind of dot is the is the transit station which are kind of feeding to my remarks later. So this is the existing suburban transit area and as you can see there on the west side that the existing subjection suburban transit area does not encroach across George King Road and that's the essential and most important objection for the proposed plan that my neighborhood has. This is what my neighborhood proposes and that is to delete the western portion which encroaches across George King Road. So I've colored it in in the red slash which corresponds to the other areas that have been removed from the compact neighborhood. I've also outlined the Villa Penae open space that belongs to the botanical garden the North Carolina Botanical Garden. I think it's really important. I think we would all agree it's it's very important to preserve that open space and I think the best way to do it to protect our neighborhood and also protect this this valuable open space is not to have it surrounded by a compact densely populated neighborhood. So I asked you to remove the hatched area on the west side of George King Road. This is our second request and that is the romp which is up near our elementary school and is really completely problematic to access to that school and our access out of our neighborhood and it's too close to our existing neighborhoods. We would like the cover has a plan to show the romp to be located near the transit station. So you would eliminate the compact neighborhood on the west side of George King and and allocate the romp to the transit station which I think could be incorporated well into the compact neighborhood. And the reason I mentioned that is because you have in your handout today the various uses in the compact neighborhood. If you're to do that you need to add that industrial use to your list of uses in the compact neighborhood. So I've I've estimated or I've understood that the romp is about five to seven acres and I think you need to add that potential use to your potential uses in in this compact neighborhood would ask you to for the second change to be that. And lastly I show you and this is also in your report the extensive requirements for transportation improvements along the N.C. 54 quarter. So you're looking at the slide that requires a new bridge across I 40 and requires a new overpass for Farrington Road a new tremendously expensive interchange just just west of Farrington and lane widening is all up and down N.C. 54 there's millions of dollars of trans transportation improvements that are required to implement your plan and what my neighborhood wants is a lock box so that even though we have this in the comprehensive plan that until these expensive transportation improvements are funded or the the and and scheduled to be built that this kind of intense development not be allowed to precede ahead of these really expensive my neighbors are afraid that we'll get the density and the congestion and the problems without the solution of our our roadway needs. Thank you. Thank you. Ann Atkins. Karen. Karen Sanders again. Thank you again for letting me use Ann's time. Blasting was done in the weekly development and that was not revealed to us at one of the meetings that they had. They did do some work and they talked to neighbors and they gave them an opportunity to have their property inspected but nonetheless it wasn't revealed ahead of time. Another neighbor had to put pressure on the contractor as their her shed was destroyed and it had to be repaired and replaced phone calls weren't returned and it was approximately two weeks before she got a response from the developer. The original plan had an access area off of George off onto George King Road into the site. And that has seemed to have disappeared. There's now a big berm on George King Road. Question number four have you come into our neighborhood during peak traffic times. I'm a teacher in the Chapel Hill area and I have to leave and return to the neighborhood during peak traffic times. A red light camera at Route 54 and Hunting Ridge would do much for the income of the city and the county. Buses run the red light many times. About three cars are able to exit out of our neighborhood onto 54 at any given time. I invite you to come and live in that part of our world for a while. Facts our road continues to be a mess from the weekly project. We have an increased crime rate 108 Celeste Circle was placed on the market by its previous owner due to numerous break-ins and there was little support from law enforcement. She was made to feel like she was the criminal. A review of the proposed future land use map shows Eastwood Park as an island or a crazy quill to somebody else had mentioned. Homes sold in the last few years within the development consistently sell below the appraised value and are on the market for several months. UNC recently purchased 108 Celeste Circle for $209,000 in September 2014. They proposed a parking lot nearly defeated by you all and by the city and county council of commissioners five to four and immediately they put the home up for sale. That home has been for sale for a while and it was just closed on for $199,000 so UNC took a loss. Presently there is a commercial business operating on the service road known as Nelson Highway number 2400. Another question, what happens to them? Are they grandfathered in? So I ask you to consider taking your map that you have and taking if not the whole part of Eastwood Park taking the park and making it less of a crazy quilt and include that as part of your design district if in fact it will allow commercial buildings to be built there. There is no recourse for the rest of us. Our house sits right on your lovely black line that you have there where the design district begins or ends excuse me and where the residential piece begins. That needs to be looked at and readdressed. We do not have a homeowners association. There is not one person that speaks for all of the residents there. Thank you. Thank you. Debbie McCarthy. Good evening and thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm Debbie McCarthy. I live at 4517 Trenton Road and for 30 years I've been the head of the Farrington Harp Homeowners Association. My first point is simply that the Lee Village Compact neighborhood is not compact. 423 acres is a massive amount of land. Secondly, I believe the zoning is too nebulous at this point just what is allowed in a design district known as the Compact neighborhood tier. None of us quite know what that means. Thirdly, Lee Village, the densities being talked about are simply too intense. If the impervious surface will be too great, the traffic and environmental impacts too severe on New Hope Creek and Little Creek, we're talking about densities akin to Manhattan, not North Carolina. I know there are changes coming and in light of that, I want to focus on one key factor that's really life and death for our neighborhood on Trenton Road. And that is the location of the light rail romp that Phil Post already mentioned. Now is the time for the Planning Department to define and specify what are the allowable uses in the Compact neighborhood. Allowing the updating the UDO to allow for the romp in this site could solve a lot of problems. The landowners in that area already intend to sell out and leave so they would not object to a romp properly cited within the Compact neighborhood's vast 400 acre acreage. It could be well buffered. Also, by focusing this development, the romp within the Compact neighborhood, there'd only be one location to remediate with respect to stormwater runoff, not an additional location farther north on Farrington Road where it's cited now. That would just double the amount of environmental controls needed. There would be no residential relocations, no eminent domain lawsuits, no incompatible land use, no underground diabetes dyke, which exists further north on Farrington, no Trenton Road to raise and rebuild because now it floods regularly with no development. You add 26 acres of impervious surface and Trenton Road is going to have to be rebuilt. There would be no Creekside Elementary School to worry about in Safeguard, no major transportation corridor, overlay zone, or EPCON sewer easement to worry about, and no angry homeowners to contest the rezoning of the land. Most importantly of all, Lee Farm Park, which is an 86-acre oasis of wetlands and woodlands, and it would be spared if the romp happens further north on Farrington, the stormwater runoff will devastate that park, the wildlife will be gone, the 24-7 noise and light from the romp facility will totally change the character of Lee Farm Park, which is a real treasure in that part of Southwest Durham, created by a public private partnership that took about 10 years to bring to life. And I was very involved in that through the Junior League and Parks and Rec and Durham Historic Preservation and NC Preservation. It was a wonderful coalition of people who worked long and hard to save that park. It's used tremendously by hikers, bikers, and children who come to nature camps there through Piedmont Wildlife. So let's try to save that wonderful amenity and put the romp within this compact neighborhood tier. Thank you. Thank you. Margaret Miller. Margaret Miller. Margaret Miller, 4311 Trenton Road. These are some personal reflections on the Lee Village compact neighborhood. At the October 20th public informational meeting for Lee Village, a gentleman asked about creating a green belt at the edges of the proposed compact neighborhood where it would border existing residential areas. The government representative said something like, oh, we couldn't do that. I wondered why not? It seemed like a good bandaid to the wound of destroying our low-density residential neighborhood. I learned that the city would not own any of the land. All the development would occur piecemeal through private development, not a comprehensive plan. But why couldn't the city just require developers to make this green belt? I read in lawyer James Bartow's newspaper article that municipalities have no independent power other than what the state grants. And in North Carolina, that is very little. So what about the city's stated goal of having at least 15% of housing stock within 1 half mile of each future light rail station be affordable to households earning 60% or less of the area median income? At a recent meeting where wood partners developers were asking the city council for a positive vote on re-zoning, we learned that the group intended to offer 10 units to those making 60% of the AMI. That's 10 out of 600 units that wood partners is potentially proposing. If this is an indication of the future of Lee Village compact neighborhood in the hands of private developers, I don't see how the city can possibly achieve its affordable housing goals with their available policy tool of zoning for compact neighborhoods. By the way, buried in the October Lee Village document is a statement that currently, as of January 2015, only 14.8% of occupied housing within 1 half mile of the Lee Village light rail station is affordable to those earning 60% or less of the area median income. Ironic, isn't it? Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other members of the audience wishing to speak to this item? Yes, ma'am. Please state your name and address and whether you're speaking in favor or against. My name is Annette Cronmiller. My address is 4614 Trenton Road. I'm speaking against this development. I know an earlier gentleman talked about the extra road infrastructure that would have to be put up to accommodate some things. I want to talk about even just the traffic, even if you build the extra road structure. I go by the intersection of Farrington and 54 pretty regularly and I have seen during peak hours the traffic back up Farrington in the direction where the romp is currently expected to be cited. I've seen it back up more than half a mile at that traffic light right now. If we add rail crossings, if we add a huge, huge development right off of that part of the road, the romp which may create extra traffic, it's hard to imagine that we could have structure that would really accommodate any kind of decent flow of the traffic through there. That's the main point I wanted to make. I wanted to see the rest of my time to Debbie McCarthy. Thank you. Excuse me. Would you sign this registration for our records, please? Just one final thing I wanted to mention. I drive down 54 regularly toward Chapel Hill and you all know Metamont development. I'm no big fan of Metamont because they pushed the rail line out of their lovely neighborhood in Intoderm. And I don't appreciate that. If I were a Downing Creek resident, I'd be mighty upset and a lot of them are. But what I do have to acknowledge about Metamont is that it's one huge comprehensive development. There are apartments. There are condos. There are single family houses. There are restaurants. And there's shopping. And there's retail. And there are beautiful office buildings. There's a senior center. There's an elementary school. It's like a city. And it's all cohesive. And it was all done, I presume, by one mastermind developer. I would like to think that Durham could come up with something comparable with a strong contingent of reasonably priced housing, not necessarily as elite as I perceive Metamont to be, but something attractive and cohesive and coherent in this Lee Village area. Let's not do a piecemeal chopped up unattractive mess, which we could very well end up with by attacking it bit by bit. Let's look for something like the Metamont concept and come up with one cohesive design that happens to include a romp. Thank you. Thank you. I will now. Yes, sir. Hi, how are y'all? I'm Jay Goldstein, 304 Consale Drive, Chapel Hill, Durham County. So thank y'all for bringing this back up. And I'll be pretty quick. I just wanna reinforce a lot of what Mr. Post said. I really feel like he captured it. To me, I feel like the development is coming to really sort of drive a rationale as much as anything else for the light rail. So we need demand for the light rail so that we can justify why we need light rail. So I feel like that's a little backwards personally. The second thing I would say is just the concern that we need to get the infrastructure or make sure that the infrastructure is funded as I think about living surrounded 360 by construction for 10 to 15 years. That's very problematic. You've heard other people talk about the traffic as it is today. It's only gonna get worse. And the third would be, and really probably, I don't know that the other things are gonna be changed. It feels like there's quite a bit of momentum. But as far as the location of the romp, I think it's important that you change the language to allow for the romp to go into the Lee Village area. One for the environmental concerns too, because it seems like it's kind of fresh territory that we can sort of define it. It's our space, it's the county space, and we should define it the way we want it to be. And I think that there are lots of positives around bringing it in there, but it's important that you change the language now or else it's going to be too late and you don't have that option later on. And then it's just sort of, we get to a situation of, oh well, too late, we can't do anything about it. And I don't think that's right. So I think you should give yourself that option now and write that in. That's it. Thank you. Would you please sign the registration form and certify our records? Okay, I will now close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners. Do I have commissioners wishing to speak to this item? Okay, I got Miller somewhere. And who else? Okay, George. Who else? Okay, how many? Okay, Commissioner Winder's. I'd like to ask some questions of the speakers because I've learned some things tonight that I hadn't heard before, even though I've read this thing quite a bit and looked at the maps and driven around as much as I could. But first, to the lady who was talking, was it Mrs. Sanders that was talking about a piece of Eastwood Park being cut off by a piece that was going to still be in the compact neighborhood rather than being separated from it? Yeah, and I'd like to know exactly what piece you're talking about and maybe staff could help too. And then somebody showed a map, the map of the 54-carder plan. And I think that probably relates to this piece that's cut off and could you kind of pull that together for us? So, and maybe Scott can probably notice us and he can put it up so everybody can see it, maybe. What she showed me, but nobody else can see. Yeah, so the Proposely Village Compact Neighborhood does include the parcels just along the, because it's the eastern side of Celeste Circle, shows those remaining in the compact neighborhood because on the collector street plan, the NC 54-40 Corridor Study, the Metropolitan Transportation Plan all have a realigned connection of Farrington Road going through and connecting to that area. And that would be approximately where the, is that Celeste Circle, the little piece of the road that's perpendicular to 54? That's right. It will keep on going, but then the road, that road will be extended farther north. Yeah, so that, the rest of Celeste Circle would still have primarily residential roads, but that would become a much busier road than it is now. But each side of that road, the properties on each side of that proposed road are put, you have proposed to be in the compact That's correct. district. Now, what would be the plans for the property owners in that, what would happen to them? Well, do they have any good options? Is this, is this, will there, will it be eminent domain, or will their property need to be taken for the road? Probably not all of them. I know the ones on the, where the, where it bends, either, I think the light rail environmental impact statement shows that GoTriangle would have to build that road at the time the parking ride and station is built, or if the state or local government has to build it as part of the Metropolitan Transportation Plan, it would have to be taken for eminent domain, or it doesn't necessarily have to be eminent. It wouldn't really be eminent domain. They would give them a attractive offer and they would be able to move away with a good price for their property and they wouldn't have to be bothered by the construction trucks driving by like the people who stayed there. That's correct. I should correct myself, say, it wouldn't necessarily have to be eminent domain. It would have to be purchased by someone and if, No, negotiation. Yeah. Yeah. The public hearing is over where it's been for the commissioners unless someone specifically asked a question that you can answer. Thank you, Ms. Sanders. Could we just put the map back up and show the audience what, make sure everybody understands what we're talking about? Yeah. So I'm hoping this is the best map that's zoomed in on Eastwood Park. So this is currently the entire neighborhood which is zoned RS20 and would remain zoned RS20. So the majority of the neighborhood would be changed to low density residential which would correspond with the existing zoning. The Celeste Circle, it intersects with the, can't believe if, I can't remember if there's a right in right out here or if it's only intersects with the front edge road here. But Celeste Circle goes like this. So the, in every transportation plan that affects this area, there's shown a parallel road to Farrington Road which would cut through here and then create an intersection at 54 across from Falcon Bridge. And then I think in Mr. Post's presentation he showed the, in the Metropolitan Transportation Plan and the 5440 corridor study, it also shows that in the long term there would be an interchange at this location which is not funded. And then another question about the romp and the location of the romp. What, how, who decides where that's gonna be and where is it in the process as the triangle, Go Triangle has already sent a plan to the federal government I think and, but there will be the engineering phase so it could be changed. But they had some reason for choosing, well they didn't even consider a site in the middle of the compact district, did they? Yeah, I will, since I don't work for Go Triangle I'm not an engineer, can't even pretend to be one. I'll get some generalities to hopefully somewhat answer your question. I know Go Triangle went up and down the corridor trying to find appropriate sites that for just land use purposes and engineering purposes would work for the romp. They narrowed it down to four and a half and this was kind of the one that, was the only one that ended up working so that was the one that was in the environmental impact statement which has been approved by the federal transit administration. It does, would still require, if it is a place in the location where it is it would still require a rezoning plan amendment, annexation, major special use permit, probably a few other things I'm not thinking of. So still the city council would still have the ultimate authority about whether or not it could actually be built there. Where is that of the park, the Lee Farm Park? The Lee Farm Park? It's across I-40? It is across I-40. Excuse me ma'am, we're on television and we can't, the audience cannot hear that from there. She was saying something interesting. Yeah. The public hearing is closed unless someone up here asked a specific question that you can answer, then the public hearing is the public comment portion of the meeting, it's all staff. Commissioner Wenger, this green spot here is Lee Farm Park. It's a, this here is the core, part of the Army Corps lands, but kind of where my cursor is to the west. Oops, this is a Lee Farm Park. It's hard for me to understand how something on the left, on the west side of I-40 would greatly impact that park over there. Okay, if you can ask the question, please come to the podium. This to the audience, this is a live feed, so it's being televised. So you have to be in the area of the camera and you have to use a mic so that people at home can hear and see you. All right, well thank you, I didn't know that, but I prepared a flash drive with photographs of all this that I'm gonna take to the MPO meeting tomorrow, but I didn't bring it tonight, I wish I had. There are giant culverts under the interstate through which all the water drains off the six lanes of traffic, just the six lanes of highway, there's nothing else there now, but that water drains under the interstates and then back across Trenton Road and into Lee Farm Park. And it's a tremendous amount of water in a heavy rainstorm right now with no development in the romp site at all, except five widely scattered houses. But we live on Trenton Road and we often have to stop because we can't cross the road because the water has pooled over flowed Trenton and then it inundates the park and that's with no development within that romp site at all. So when I talked with the Army Corps about this and said, how can this happen? How can this romp be cited here when there are more stream impacts, more riparian buffer impacts, more wetland impacts than any other site studied? And they said, well, we don't look at the collateral damage. All we look at is the footprint of the track. And I said, well, you know, it's a law of physics that water flows downhill and that water is gonna run off of that impervious surface and I know exactly where it's going because that's where I live. It's going under the interstate and directly into Lee Farm Park which becomes Lee Lake in a heavy rain and the romp will be the end of that park. And it really is a treasure where hundreds of children enjoy nature camps and people hike and play frisbee golf and it's just a wonderful amenity. It's got National Historic Register buildings. It's a place where people can learn about 19th century farm life as well as enjoy the environmental beauty of it and the New Hope Creek corridor. It's the anchor for that trail system that's supposed to go from Eno to Jordan Lake. So that's a little bit about Lee Farm Park. Thank you. Commissioner Wynders, okay. Commissioner Hyman. Thank you. One of the questions that I have, I think I need to address this to staff because as I listened to all of the different comments about a lot of unreadiness, it means that I would have a difficult time supporting this as it is. Lots of work has gone into this and I really hate to be a barrier as far as moving forward. But as I listened to all of the different discussions, one person asked a question, we've moved away from a design, what is the design district? So for me, for just briefly, if I could have staff just read, just address that for just a second about the intention of the design district because we appear to, in our efforts to develop around and to pull different areas in. So let's just go back to the actual design district intent defined. Design district is a general term for any district that focuses more on the form of the buildings that are developed rather than the uses inside them. It's the model that we've used in the version of it in the downtown tier as well as in the Ninth Street compact neighborhood. So it's the regulations focus more on how the building reacts with the street, how we're focusing on making building more pedestrian oriented rather than putting limits on density and uses. Although there are still density limits and use limitations. So it's not completely form based but it moves much more towards the regulating form over function than the standard zoning districts like a CG zone or a RS-10 zone. Right, okay. So then the second part of that is, so you pull areas in as they fit within the design district. So some properties because of their location, parts are in and parts are out. So they cut across some properties. So one piece is in and one piece is, could be out once the district has been defined. Yeah, probably the most important aspect of this project is defining where the boundary of that is. Unless we want to designate all of Durham County as a design district, which I don't think we do. We need to determine where those areas are and even probably as important where they're not. Okay. And then the last part of that is because I hear the need for some additional tweaking that it would be difficult for me to support it as it is. And those are my comments. Thank you. Commissioner Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a lot of concerns about this and the main thing is is I think it's premature to set the boundaries for this compact neighborhood tier. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what we're doing and how it relates to the business of creating a design district. So this is the way I see it and the staff will correct me if I say anything that's wrong, I invite them to because I want to make sure that we try to clarify what's going on. You can create a compact neighborhood tier. We divide the county into tiers and the compact tier is one of them. It's a tier we have created for intense development around transit sites. A compact neighborhood tier is not a design district. You can have a compact neighborhood tier without a design district but you can turn a compact neighborhood tier into a design district. The design district is taking land in the compact neighborhood tier and rezoning it under design district zones. In Durham, we right now have identified a series of design district zones that we use. We call it core support one and support two if you consider concentric circles of intensity of development core being the most and support two being the fringe of a design district. You can use those same zoning categories in any design district or we can create special zones for a particular design district. What we are doing tonight though is only identifying the compact neighborhood tier. I think it's an important part of the process of moving to a design district but I'm against creating and identifying the tier boundaries and adopting them before we have finished the design district planning process. I would like to say great. We've got some preliminary boundaries here. Let's keep moving ahead with the design district planning process. As we go through the steps of deciding where we're going to have the core zone and the support one zone and the support two zone, let's always be looking at the boundaries and ultimately bring back to the planning commission and to the city council a design district plan which will involve rezoning the whole thing. I believe you folks who have misgivings about this process will feel better about it once you know what's going to be in it. When I jump into a swimming pool, I like to know there's water there. Right now we're talking about jumping into a swimming pool without checking the depth of the water. So let's go ahead and plan to go swimming but let's fill the pool with water. Finish the design district planning process. Those of you who live in the Celeste Circle area, I support you completely. I believe that your neighborhood should not be part of this compact neighborhood tier when we created or the design district when we created. I also believe that you should not be designated anything other than low density residential in the future land use map and so I will support that change even though I oppose acting today on the boundaries of this compact neighborhood tier. My time is up. I have other things that I wanted to say and once everybody's spoken, if the chairman will let me finish, I will ask to speak again. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Bryan. Thank you. I have a question for staff. I was looking at the NC 54 I-40 Carter study and I noticed that there were at least 13 projects that underdarms jurisdiction that were supposedly to be done in the 2012, 2020 time period and I wondered if anybody could tell me how we're doing on that. I can, Mr. Judge from the transportation department is here to let me know if I'm wrong but I feel pretty confident that none of them have been completed yet. Have any of them been started? I don't believe any of them have been started. The state did. That's all I needed to know. Thank you. One was started and stopped. I cannot support this particular compact neighborhood as it is presently outlined and one of the reasons I can't support it is that it crosses NC 54 to pick up the Falcon Bridge shopping center. Most of that is outside of the one half mile radius of what we want for a walkable pedestrian area. I've looked at the study plan, I've looked at some of the designs for some of the bridges that would supposedly give you better pedestrian access. They remind me of some bridges over I-40 near where I live. Pedestrians can cross them if they want to but the traffic is so bad that very few people attend it and I think that even with elevated bridges over NC 54 pedestrian access is not going to be that much more improved. I'm also found myself very sensitive to these speakers who were talking about including the land on the other side of George King Road. I think that does need to be brought back and looked at again. And the final thing I noted that this is the recommended corridor land use concept plan. I know nobody can see it with me but the way they've got it designed, they stop without crossing 54. And I think when we talk about boundaries for the compact neighborhood tier, we ought to keep this plan in mind and try to focus our compact neighborhood so that we can support the NC 54 corridor plan as well. Thank you. Thank you. Any other commissioners wishing to speak? Commissioner Gouche. Thank you, Ms. Harris. I have a question for staff. Basically, well my question is I'm hearing a lot of concerns about maybe an incomplete application or incomplete some tweaking that needs to be done.  So my question is, if you were to tweak this, how long is that going to take? Well, the cold reality is that because the public hearing was open on this in January, you'll have to act on it by next month. So definitely nothing will be tweaked by then. My suggestion was if the commissioners have specific recommendations about boundary changes to make that very clear, and then we can show those to planning to city council and the county commissioners as an alternative. But this is, it's an active case that has been, public hearing's been open, so you'll have to act on it before the end of, at least by April. Right, and that's kind of what I was getting at because I don't know what, I'm not making a motion here, I'm just, I don't know what the Planning Commission is considering, but if there are reservations about approving this plan, then I think that just given how much work has already gone into this, I think it might be best for us to take a strong stance and just take a vote on this, whether that's for approval or not, rather than kick this can down the road. Another 30 days in this case, or 90 days in the other cases, I do not know how much more will be done in that amount of time, given that a lot of these have been being worked on for years. That's really all I wanted to say. Commissioner Freeman. I have a question for staff. I just wanted to know how close we might be on developing the district that would address the, no, specifically to the, well, the design district that would address the 15% affordability target that we're trying to reach with. Speaking to the mic. With housing around those transit stops. So for those of you who don't know, Ms. Leto's report has been, is going to be presented to the City Council about their work session on Thursday, but the draft is out. And it does have some specific recommendations about including exploring different types of density bonuses and some other strategies in the design districts in order to at least take one piece of the affordable housing puzzle. So we are currently working on some changes to the design district regulations to address some of the things that have happened in the existing, the two existing ones. So we'll, since we have some specific recommendations now, we'll take that on as part of that project. So how long would that take? Probably be end of 2016, early 2017. And so I'd like to say that I would like to see that before I see this happen, where you define the boundaries and change any zoning. And so I can't, I mean, I can't support giving up the zoning in the compact neighborhood or the boundaries. Yeah, no zoning is changing at this time. You know what else? You had, yes. So I have a number of concerns that I didn't get a chance to express before. I do think that this is a site for a design district where we can allow greater density, but it has to be very carefully planned. I voted against the Woods Partners project simply because it was going to happen outside the design district planning process, which is now underway. If the council approves that project, then I want to reconsider whether we should have a design district here because it's going to use up a lot of the resources and capacity that we were hoping to reserve control and comprehensively plan for in a design district at this location. If we build that Woods Partners project, it's going to essentially use up the available traffic capacity out there, even with the improvements that they're proposing. We're going to wind up with roadways that teeter on the edge between level of service D and level of service F. There won't be any more trips that could be generated by the rest of the property. As long as that's hangfire, I don't see any point considering the rest of it. If the council turns that down and says, wait, let's look and create a design district here, then let's do the whole thing at once. We can create the compact neighborhood tier and the design district within it all at one time. I think that's the right way to make a plan for this area. I really do, and I think that's what we need to do. I believe those of you who live near this will feel better about it. If you know that on the part of it nearest to you, it's going to be designated support one or support two and we know what we're going to allow in those support districts. Today we do not. I believe if we create a compact neighborhood tier here without a design district, the development community is going to say, oh, look, as a matter of policy, the city of Durham has said we want intense development in here, and so they will come and they will ask for rezoning just as the Woods partners people did and say that our justification for this rezoning is because you've created a compact neighborhood tier, but I think that's not the place to stop. Let's get all the way through the design district so we won't have rezonings. We'll say, okay, in this area is core, in this area is support one. We'll build to the core because we have core property. We'll build to support one regulations because we're in the support one area and we can do this together as a community just like we did for the Ninth Street area. What's beautiful about Lee Village, completely different from all the other compact neighborhood tiers and design districts that we have on the table. It is the closest thing we have to a clean slate of any of them. There's not a whole lot of dense, a pre-existing development. So let's keep the slate clean till we finish the planning process, bring it all back to us. I'm not against this, I am for this, but I want a design district that everyone has participated in and everybody is happy with and we know what the end looks like before we actually start the beginning. Thank you. Commissioner Bryant. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to add one thing very quickly. Among the documents that I looked at in preparing for this meeting was the final environmental impact statement slash record of decision for the light rail system. They did say about the maintenance facility that it would be on this Farrington Road in the location that it's shown on some maps. They also said without giving any details that they considered a location that would have been close to the Lee Farm station. I don't know what went into their considerations, but for the environmental impact statement, the present location is the preferred one and how easily that might, you might be able to change that. I quite frankly, don't know. Thank you. Commissioner Gibbs. Just some comments. I don't know how the boundaries were arrived at, but I am sure it had input from many different sources. We don't know the details of how the compact district is going to evolve and it will be an evolutionary process. But it has to be, there has to be some guidelines, but it's not for us to prolong the process in my opinion. I think this should move forward to city council and county commissioners and the same issues that have been brought up should be addressed to them. There has been a lot of work done and I agree with the 54 plant, the traffic. There are so many things I agree with some of the things that commissioner Freeman said and Neil, there is an awful lot that needs to be considered and I think it does need to be a clean slate rather than trying to move forward piecemeal and even though the woods development, they had a good plan. Right now there are no guidelines. We have no guidelines for affordable housing and we can mess around with this at this level for the next year. We need to let those with authority tackle these decisions and I am for sending this forward to them for action. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Whitley. I have a question for staff. You said this is coming before the city council on Thursday. The draft affordable housing strategies that the city hired a consultant to look into that's going before city council on Thursday, not this. So they won't receive our comments about the compact districts? No, they won't.  Okay, I have another question. The Metropolitan Governing Board, will they be taking what we send to them and improving it, putting their own, twist on what do these neighborhood compact districts would look like? Is it possible? Am I thinking that, I'm thinking that this design district may be developed at another level? Yeah, so the decisions about the light rail line, the alignment, the location of romp and other facilities is through the GoTriangle Board and the association with the Metropolitan Transportation and Metropolitan Planning Organization Board. But the land use planning and zoning at all the stations is purely under the authority of the city and county. So voting against this will send a message to slow down. Is that right? So that local boys can have time to make that happen. Is that right? I'd like to... Did you finish your question? Yeah, my thinking, fellow commissioners, voting against this will send a message to slow down and rethink some of these issues. You know, I agree, I really believe this is a snowball rolling down here, but if you want them to pay attention to the local community needs, vote no. Okay, Commissioner Wyannis, did you have a comment? I'd like to say that I plan to vote no for on this design compact neighborhood plan amendments. This one for Lee Village and also all the rest of them because I believe like Commissioner Miller that if we make the amendments to the plan and define these design districts and then it's gonna take us a year or so to make the changes to the zoning districts, we're gonna be stuck applying the standards that were developed for downtown and Knight Street to Lee Village, which is a very different environment. And I think we need to... It's not that I don't think... I think I have recently understood tonight maybe there are some tweaks needed in these boundaries, but a whole lot of work and a whole lot of meetings and have gone on to get to the point where we are now and I would certainly not want to throw that work out. And in fact, we won't because to start making the changes to the UDO, the Unified Development Ordinance, the zoning, we have to have the boundaries, but we just need before we make the plan amendments, we need to have the UDO amendments ready too. So I'm gonna vote no and recommend that the council separate the Eastwood Park change from commercial to residential and pass that one by itself. And maybe we need to take another look at whether this part to the west of George King Road and also the romp, I think that I had a conversation with a go-triangle staff person who was not an engineer or not anybody official, but aware of what's going on, who indicated that he thought that in the engineering change it might well be possible to change this. So now if they know that, and of course it has to go through the rezoning process of the city of Durham says no, we're not gonna rezone that the property. Then it's back to the drawing board, which I would hate to see them delay the light rail plan, but I think we do have another chance to keep working on the romp, but I think probably we need to accept that it's gonna be in this area somewhere, but we need, and thank you. Thank you. Any other, if not the chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, an email message to Scott suggested a motion or a course of action which might allow us to vote against establishing these compact tier boundaries for Lee Village, while at the same time sending a unified recommendation to the city council that they change the future land use map with regard to the Celeste Circle neighborhood. Could you go over that for us, Mr. Whiteman, because that would be the motion I would like to make. So, I think in the email what I suggested is because it's all one case, you have to vote yes or no. I'm gonna make a separate one maybe. So I think the cleanest thing you can do is to state publicly for the record, as most, a lot of you have, that you support the supplemental land use change for Eastwood Park and then make that very clear in your comments, because the elected officials will read those and we'll certainly pass that along to them. So you would suggest a motion then would be, well, I think I understand what you're saying. Mr. Chairman, may I make a motion? Yes. Mr. Chairman, then, consonant with the rules of the Planning Commission, I move that we approve the boundaries question, the establishment of the compact tier boundaries for Lee Village as proposed in this item. And I would recite the case number, but I don't have it in front of me. A1. Thank you. Okay, this is A15, triple zero, 14. I move that we approve that. However, in making that motion, I intend to vote against it. And then when I, if we vote against it, Mr. Chairman. Can't do all that. Second. Okay. Second. Okay. It's been motion and second that we approve case A150014. And it was second by Commissioner Freeman. Can we have a roll call vote? Mr. Brine? No. Mr. Busby? No. Ms. Freeman? No. Mr. Gosh? Mr. Gibbs? Mr. Harris? No. Ms. Huff? No. Ms. Hyman? She said no. Mr. Kenshin? No. Mr. Miller? No. Mr. Riley? No. Mr. Van? No. Whitley? Whitley? No. Ms. Winderz? No. Motion fails, zero to 14. Thank you. Okay. The next is 5B, Patterson Place Compact Neighborhood, A1500015. Let's take a little five minute recess while the... Mr. Chairman? Yes. That's Nell. Over here. Over here. Oh, okay. I mean, normally you explain this at the beginning of session, but I saw some confused looks. Just state that all of the motions are state in the affirmative. So I think some people were upset with Mr. Miller's motion, but just wanted to know that's in line with the rules. That's how we always do it. Could I get your attention just a moment? The recommendation for this Lee Village failed in our government policy that we have to follow all motions have to be made in the affirmative. So we have to move to move it forward, but we can fail it by voting no. So in this case, it's gonna move forward, but with a negative recommendation from the Planning Commission, zero to 14 voting in against. Are you taking five minutes recess, Mr. Chairman? Yeah, yeah. We're gonna take about five minutes in order to, could you please take your conversations out to the foyer so we can continue on with business? If you would, please. Commissioner Whitley, Commissioner Whitley, could you please take your conversation out into the foyer? I will now recall back to order, have staff present the case for Paterson Place, 1815 triple zero, 15. Good evening, Scott Waven again from the Plain Department. This case is for the proposed Patterson Place Compact Neighborhood. Sure, most of you are aware, but Patterson Place is the area generally near the intersection of Interstate 40 and US 15501 includes the fairly substantial Patterson Place development plus a collection of some commercial uses of various vintage. There are some typical kind of suburban style development particularly on the north side of 15501. Patterson Place was developed in a quasi grid with the intention of converting into something else in the future. So Patterson Place is one of the designated suburban transit areas in the current comprehensive plan. The proposed compact neighborhood includes for the most part all of the areas in the present suburban transit area but extends the compact neighborhood down to the, what's it? Durham Chapel Hill Road, Old Chapel Hill Road. Which is an area that's well within a half mile of the station, proposed station. Just a couple things, one thing because I know it'll come up, this area does include the compact neighborhood does include the area in the northeast quadrant of Mount Mariah and 15501. We do understand that there's significant environmental issues there. And as we work to craft the regulations for this area we understand that it's an issue and we'll work to make sure that the natural heritage areas and the areas identified in the New Hope Creek Plan are protected. So some of the issues we know when the future detailed planning occurs, there is currently in the Metropolitan Transportation Plan the transition of US 15501 from a generally pedestrian, unfriendly road to a really pedestrian, unfriendly freeway. The environmental issues that I mentioned before and there are too much a lesser extent than our Lee Village area but there are some low density residential areas particularly to the south. So that staff recommends approval and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. John Kent, are you speaking in favor or against? No, no, just for or against? Okay, so we have two speakers signed up to speak and they are both against. So you have five minutes each? You first. My name is John Kent and I've been involved in this area. Oh, 394 Cub Creek Road Chapel Hill and I've been involved in the New Hope Creek corridor since November of 90. We do water quality monitoring 100% volunteer monthly and so I know from Stagecoach Road all up into Orange County and I've been, I'm a technical advisor to the New Hope Creek corridor advisory committee which passed the resolution which I think is in your packet tonight and we're concerned about the any further encroachment into what is the adopted plan for the New Hope Creek open space master plan and the state natural heritage area recognized exceptional natural heritage areas. The 15501 Bottomlands, south of 15501 and the Dry Creek Mountain Mariah Bottomlands to the north. These are a critical link for wildlife between just on a smaller scale than statewide between Jordan Lake, Gainlands and the Duke Forest which are two huge agglomerations of open space. This is a significant feature of our local natural environment and we have an adopted plan and we have numerous reports that show the significance of this. We recommend that the suburban transit area that was designated in 2005 be continued to be the boundary for the Patterson Place neighborhood and I did have a good meeting with staff with Scott and he said if I need the 2005 floodplain map which those boundaries are based on I'm not sure where I can find it, I have it. So if he needs it, FEMA is a big operation and we can get it from them. The other thing and I think Commissioner Miller spoke to this and others as well, we don't know what's gonna happen next. We're talking about a boundary but a boundary for what and so I think some of that needs to be worked out and one thing that has been referenced by staff is that there would be a gentle transition to neighboring environmental areas or single family residential and we think that's a good concept. We just hope that the boundaries are put for that sub-district in an intelligent way and that the teeth involved in that ring if you will around the core area make sense and really do the job. Thank you very much. We're ready for the next speaker. Mr. Well, he said I had five more minutes so I would. Okay, thank you. Sure, no problem. Since I do have five more minutes I'll just in a nutshell reference the October staff report so you can sort of see in simple form what we're talking about. On page three is a map that shows the proposed boundaries in black. It's figure number two and you can see the, we're not interested in the area to the south that does not involve the New Hope Creek Corridor. So going down to Chapel Hill Road is not an issue with us but on the east and on the north is where the open space plan is impacted and the cross hatched blue shows what would is the inside of that blue hatched area is what the existing, they call it a suburban transit area from the 2005 designation. That would expand out to the black. Then on page 11 which is map number six shows what was in black, the proposed boundary in red and then up slope is this black and white dashed line if you will that shows the natural heritage area. So you can see how much along the area is involved that is really important stuff. And so in saying please hold it to the 2005 comprehensive boundary. We're still giving away down slope from that dashed black and white line but we hope that stuff up slope of that will be protected in maybe a support area three or something in the design district compact neighborhood zoning round of this process. So thank you. Thank you. Now we have, there was one speaker in favor of this and there's one speaking opposition. So he had 10 minutes and now Michael has 10 minutes. Michael is speaking in favor of this. My name is Mike Waldrop. I'm at 5324 McFarland Road in Durham. I would like to keep my remarks very simple. It seems to me that the issue is one of boundaries and I have been participating. I've been tracking this issue for quite some time. I've had my own conversations with staff and one of the things that they asserted early and have repeated is that the best thing that they can have is a boundary for this property that is not going to move. On the north side of the property, on the north side of the zone and on the eastern edge the areas that Mr. Kent indicated some concern about. We have sewer easements that are not going anywhere. They're legally defined. You can get a meets and bounds description of them. They're undoubtedly plots down at the registered deeds. So they serve as permanent boundaries for the compact neighborhood in those areas. This compact neighborhood, unlike the Lee Village compact neighborhood doesn't abut neighborhoods that might be in opposition. Some property owners may wanna be in. Some property owners definitely, as you've seen, do not wanna be in. In this particular case, we've got geographic boundaries as more carefully and closely defined by the meets and bounds of the existing sewer easements.  And I don't think there is a legal description for a FEMA map line. So I would urge you to move this one forward with the existing boundaries, knowing that all of the areas that are of concern to New Hope Creek, on which I was a member for many years, and any other factor is protected to the same degree as a like zone anywhere else in the city. And I strongly suspect that as we get deeper into the process, all of that will be respected. So again, I would urge you to move this one forward with the boundaries that staff has established because they are based on sewer lines, and ultimately, I mean, and therefore sewer easements, that will probably be serving the city of Durham in perpetuity. So I think the boundaries are good. I think the concept is excellent. In other words, it's a tremendous opportunity to create a vibrant, well-integrated mixed-use environment built around a station area. This could and should be a classic transit-oriented development, protecting everything that deserves protection within its boundaries. So I'm happy to answer questions, but I'd like to make your evening a little bit shorter. Thank you. Thank you. Is anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this item? If not, we will close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners, commissioners wishing to speak. Commissioner Bryan. Thank you. I'll be brief. One of the guidelines that staff used in creating boundaries was these major corridors, highway, rail, or whatever, that would limit pedestrian crossings. And I think 15501 is such a corridor. And I am aware that several years ago, two pedestrians died trying to cross 15501 on foot. I am very hesitant about having the New Hope Commons area and the environmentally sensitive area north of 15501 included in this. Most of the New Hope Commons areas is outside of the one-half mile radius from the station. I don't believe it's going to be walkable. Future roadway improvements, if they occur, may or may not make it less walkable. So when I think about that and I couple it with what we've already been saying several times about what comes next, what's going to go in here, I personally, at this point in time, cannot support this particular compact neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Bestie. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had a question for staff, I assume, it's Mr. Whiteman. And we spoke on the phone about this as well, the issues that Mr. Kent raised. I know the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission also sent a resolution that we all received with the same concerns. Just to spend a little more time on talking about the issue. So Mr. Kent's concern, obviously, is about the natural areas we heard from Mr. Waldrop, explained the sewer easement issue. But I want to explore that a little more, especially the Lee Village Compact Neighborhood had a lot of challenges, in my opinion. We're hearing about one very narrow, specific issue. So I guess my first question is, can you explain in a little more detail why we might not be able to draw the lines differently that would address the issues that have been raised by Mr. Kent and the Open Space and Trails Commission and the New Hope folks? Yeah, so I think Mr. Kent alluded to this. So the suburban transit area boundary, especially the one on the north, it follows what was the FEMA 100-year floodplain in 2005. And as you can tell now that the green areas are in a different place, it's changed since then. We've had new floodplain maps, and it's actually shrunk a little bit. And there's even newer floodplain maps proposed to come out sometime in the next year or so. So it's a general rule, using floodplain lines to follow, doing something that's for a zoning boundary or something that's kind of like a zoning boundary, which a tier boundary is, is not really good practice. What we did, as Mr. Walder alluded to, is we tried, especially when the properties extended far into the floodplains, is find a legally recorded easement of some sort that we could follow that wouldn't move, but would keep most of the floodplain areas out of the compact neighborhood. And the last point I'd like to make is I think if the goal is really to protect these areas, it's something I think could be better accomplished using regulations through the zoning process rather than drawing the line. Because the property on the other side of the line will still be done something and could still be used for something. So I think I hope that answers your question. Yeah, it does. Thank you. And the second question, and I didn't want to bring this up with the Lee Village compact neighborhood proposal. But this is true of all five of the proposals. We're in a little bit of an interesting situation where normally we have a developer who is a proponent. And in this case, the proponent is the planning department. In my opinion, I still have a level of discomfort voting this forward given the concerns that were raised. I understand why it's a challenging situation. But I would also like to explore some language amendment that might deal effectively with this issue. And I'm not sure if that's even possible here tonight. Or if it is the same scenario where we would have to send this forward, but I would then vote against the proposal. So I guess more of a process question is what I'm trying to get at. Yeah, there's really no, this is basically a map amendment on steroids. So there's really no text to be attached to it. All I can say is, I mean, you and Mr. Brian and several more of you might talk about that this is an important issue. And we acknowledge this is an important issue. And we especially will work with the New Hope Advisory Committee when the planning and zoning stage of Patterson Place is ready to start. And just a final follow-up, Mr. Kahn, if I got this correctly, your request, and I believe this is the Open Space and Trails Commission request, was to just hold the 2005 comprehensive boundary. And that, to me, does seem like a pretty simple request. Is that a possibility this evening, or are we really in the scenario where that would be in my comments when I let the city council know why I voted against it? Yeah, I think that would be just really for all five of these. The issue that you have is not a general issue, but it's a boundary issue. Just make that clear in your comments, and then we can call those into showing councils and alternatives. Thank you. Mr. Kahn, the public hearing has been closed, unless there's a question specifically that's addressed to you, then we will leave it before the commissioners. Other commissioners wish to comment? Oh, I'm sorry. Commissioner Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I have the same concerns that I have with the one we just did is that we've got people who are concerned about the boundaries on the north and on the east side of this, because of environmentally sensitive property. We've heard from the staff that we're going to cope with those problems and how we develop the regulations for the design district when we develop the design district. Well, I want to hold the whole boundary question until we develop the design district, and we've got that process underway. We have good people working on it. I don't see why we have to set boundaries today. I don't see any imperative for it. I am all for creating a Patterson Place design district here, and I can't wait to see how we organize and create regulations inside it that promote design district zoning there, where the core will be, where support one and support two will be, what the regulations will be, that will make the Patterson Place design district a suitable neighbor for the sensitive New Hope Creek Corridor. But until I see those things, I don't see any reason to establish boundaries today, especially if after I see them, I will regret the decision I made to approve the boundaries today. So why don't we have the boundaries at the same time as we have everything else and vote on it all at once? So I'll be voting no. Commissioner Bexby? I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I do have one additional question. I do have a question for Mr. Ken, if you don't mind coming to the microphone one additional time. And while you come up, I just want to make sure I have adequately understood your concerns that you specifically, your exclusive concern specifically is the request to hold the boundary to the north and on the west to the 202. No, no, not on the west. I'm sorry, to the north, to the 2005. Thank you, that's why I'm asking. North and the east, 2005 comprehensive boundary. Right, right. We wanted it to the floodplain boundary as it was in 2005, which is the basis of the comprehensive plan, suburban transit district. If you have property and you have a floodplain 100-year flood, which is what 100-year floodplain boundary on it, you need to know where that is. That's very well-defined. So thank you. Thank you. All right, thank you. If there are no Commissioner Wynders. Well, I agree with Commissioner Miller. I think that we should not pass the boundaries until we've got the design district regulations that go around with them. Along with it, we should do it all at one time. I wonder if I think that Mr. Kent's interest is in protecting the floodplain in the environmentally sensitive areas. And that seems to me like something that could be addressed by the UDO, and we should use the legally stable boundaries. Because I imagine the 100-year floodplain is larger than it was in 2005, and it's a moving target. I think that argument about having a line that's going to stay there is appealing. And then we should make sure that the regulations prohibit development and would have buffers around the floodplain or less impervious surface or things to recognize that that particular area is more important environmentally than the area downtown and the Ninth Street are. Other comments, if not the Chair will entertain a motion? Commissioner Gibbs? Just another short comment. I think this track has a lot of potential. And we've already approved or I think we approved it. Well, yes, I think we did for a dealership there that offered an alternative to what the state has proposed. And that, to me, is indicative of good design and overall planning, which is what the compact districts are all about. I'm sure that any of these boundaries that are shown that go through floodplains or whatever are going to have to comply. And it doesn't. I don't think it's something that should avoid sending this forward to be looked at and acted upon by those with authority, the city council and the county commissioners. Well, that's my statement. Thank you. Thank you. The Chair will now entertain a motion for disposition of this item. Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve the item. And the item I'm referring to is the Patterson Place Compact Neighborhood Tier Boundaries, case A1500015. Second. Motion by Commissioner Miller, second by Commissioner Bryant that we move forward with a favorable recommendation, 5B Patterson Place Compact Neighborhood Tier A1500015. Please call the roll for vote. Mr. Bryant. No. Mr. Busby. No. Ms. Freeman. No. Mr. Ghosh. Yes. Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Harris. No. Ms. Huff. No. Ms. Hyman. No. Mr. Kenshin. No. Mr. Miller. No. Mr. Riley. Mr. Van. No. Mr. Whitley. No. Ms. Winderz. Motion from Vails, 2 to 12. OK. OK, we have C. And we have Mr. Ghosh who's going to recuse himself from 5C. We'll now open the public hearing for 5C, South Square, Martin Luther King, Junior Compact Neighborhood Tier A1500016. All right. Our third act this evening is the South Square MLK Junior Compact Neighborhood. Sure, most of you are familiar with the South Square area. It is pretty intensely developed already and pretty intensely zoned as for commercial, primarily with commercial multi-filming uses with some offices, including one of the most random skyscrapers in the Southeast. The existing suburban transit area is shown on the left of the map, was when it was proposed, the stations were actually going to be a little bit further north and west. So a lot of the areas that were, at least some of the areas that were in the existing suburban transit area are well outside the half-mile circle. So the existing, the new posed South Square Compact Neighborhood removes the areas on the west side of the 15501 bypass from the Compact Neighborhood, then adds some areas along the Business 15501 and University Drive into the Compact Neighborhood. Here's just in general the context of the area. Most people have probably seen this at least once or twice in their life. Just a few issues that we know will arise as we do more detailed planning. There's, as I mentioned before, this area is almost completely developed already. So it will require a significant change in the land use pattern. There's also a lot of really large blocks that make pedestrian access difficult, which will need to slowly change as the area is redeveloped. At some point, we'll need to re-envision the character of US 15501 Business, which is kind of an out-of-date express area with two-way frontage roads, which is definitely not in vogue anymore, not since 1971. And there are some low-density residential areas in this area, too. But there's a lot fewer than there were in the Lee Village area. So with that, staff recommends approval, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. I have two people from the audience signed up to speak, one in favor and one against. So each will have 10 minutes each. Patrick Beiker is speaking in favor of this project. About three minutes of your time, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, Chairman Harris, Vice Chair Hyman, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Patrick Beiker. I live at 2614 Stewart Drive. I'm an attorney with Morningstar Law Group in Durham. I'm here tonight representing Hawthorne, Uzzle, LLC, and GRC Regency, LLC, for this staff-initiated amendment to the comprehensive plan. I've had the privilege of representing several property owners within the South Square area over the past several years. And I have lived about a mile away from the proposed design district for over 20 years. Speaking both personally and professionally, I think this proposed plan amendment is well-crafted and fully justified. And I very much appreciate the support of the staff proposal that's before the Planning Commission tonight. We strongly agree with the boundaries set forth in the staff report. We want to commend the staff for doing very good work and convening and conducting meetings for this area of Durham. And now it is time to move forward with this well-thought-out proposal. Some members of the Planning Commission may recall that I served as chairman of the Durham area transit authority for several years back in the late 90s and early 2000s. I believe this area around South Square has solid potential for transit-oriented development. I think it is very positive that just a few months ago, our transit systems started providing 15-minute service from downtown to South Square, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week. We should facilitate planning and land use to take advantage of our community's investment in transit for this area of Durham. Furthermore, this plan amendment supports the light rail transit system that our voters strongly approved a few years ago. I think the South Square area has great potential to generate more ridership for the existing bus service, and then for light rail, should that be fully funded in the years ahead. Last, Durham needs to move forward rapidly with this design district for South Square while we have a strong real estate investment climate to create new jobs and new investment for Durham. There are excellent opportunities for redevelopment right now, and it would be a shame for another downturn in our national economy to delay those opportunities. For all these reasons, I respectfully ask for your recommendation of approval. Thank you for your time tonight. Thank you. Malcolm South. Hello. I appreciate your giving me an opportunity to speak. My name is Malcolm South, and my wife and I live at 2806 Lindenshire Drive, which exits on Lindenshire, exits on Pickett Road, and is about half a mile east of University Tower. Now, we love this area very much and all the people there, but I do certainly have a lot of reservations about what's being proposed. I believe that putting light rail tracks across Pickett Road in the University Tower area will have a devastating impact on that area. On Pickett Park, Cameron Woods, and the adjoining vicinity. There should be little doubt that routing tracks across Pickett Road will frequently create a traffic choke point at the junction of that road with Tower Boulevard. In particular, putting tracks through the very narrow corridor between the former Harold Sun Building and Pickett Park will place a large number of townhouses there within a stone's throat and a short one at that of the tracks. Pickett Park is a very nice development, and I pity the persons there who will have their everyday lives disrupted and affected in a direct and personal way. We should care about these people and make every possible effort to protect them. I want to take you on two imaginary journeys now. And this is imaginary, and I'm gonna have a companion with me. I'm gonna be going about three p.m. in the afternoon on a clear day. And this person who is imaginary, I'm gonna pretend has had some experience with this planning process. So, first journey, we leave my house and we start walking toward Pickett Road. There's no stoplight down there, by the way. And when we get there, I'm gonna go into all this detail, but you do see a great deal of development. On one side, there's a school, entrance, exits, a lot of children involved there. And there's also the Forest of Duke, and that's a little village in itself. A lot of traffic coming in and out and quite a large number of elderly people driving automobiles. Now, there is this really long winding curve at this point, if you were looking across toward the Forest of Duke. This winding curve on Pickett is very challenging, especially if you're a pedestrian and you think you want to be adventurous enough to try to get across there, because the speed limit there is about 35 miles an hour. But most of the people, well, I'll take that back now, many of the people who come around that curve are going 50 or maybe even 60 miles an hour. And I know for a fact that some years back a person did not make it, it went up on a burn and went over into the yard of a person, fortunately the person survived. So, that's going on, quite a bit of traffic at times. Now, if my imaginary companion and I turn left and walk along the sidewalk toward the lower, the Tau Boulevard area, we see a great deal of activity as we go along. In general, drivers are getting in and out of Cameron Woods, Pickett Park and other places without a great deal of difficulty. But there is often congestion at the junction of Pickett Road and Tau Boulevard. Indeed, I've seen quite a few accidents there. Some of them, apparently, were a serious. Despite this dangerous junction, the traffic flow along this stretch of Pickett that I've described is steady much of the time. Now, let's go on the second journey. You can call it the journey. I don't know what date to set. I set about a decade or so later after the transit rail project has been completed. So once again, we saw off around 3 a.m. on a very clear day. And when we near Pickett Road, we notice several automobiles lined up waiting to enter the road. And cars, I notice, and my companion, are creeping along Pickett inch by inch into Eastwood Lane going toward the Pickett Tau Boulevard junction. Now, a little humor here. Maybe it's not very good humor, but I imagine my companion, who supposedly was involved in the planning process, saying, what exactly is going on here? Is it because of the light rail? And I'm trying to be honest in my response. Probably, I say. This usually happens when the barrier is down. Now, be a barrier up there as I understand it.  Someone told me about every 15 to 20 minutes. And can you imagine what's happening in that lane? Cars are going to have to slow down, stop. Hope no one will attempt to run through this barrier, as has happened in some cases here and there. Well, anyway, my companion looks at this and says, this is not good at all, is it? And I sort of agree. As we walk eastward, the backup of cars in the eastward lane continues. In a few minutes, we reach a point where we can see the barrier and indeed it is down. Then it does go up and traffic starts to move. During the entire time the barrier was down, traffic was completely clogged up on Pickett. Now on the opposite side, a similar backup is occurring with a traffic traveling westward when the barrier is down. And at such times, cars have trouble exiting from Cameron Woods, Pickett Park and other exit points in this area. And the process is repeated many times, day after day. Another unfortunate development is that the number of accidents at the Pickett-Towell Boulevard Junction has increased greatly. In addition, traffic congestion and the crowding of many people into a small area have had a bad impact on the viability of University Tower. Now you and I agree with that, but think about it. My companion says, this is just a little bit more, not much more folks, the journey is nearly complete. My companion says that light rail has had a terrible impact on Pickett Park. Now remember now, as I understand it, there's a small corridor there, wooded area. And as I understand it, much of that is going to be cut down. Can you imagine the impact, the noise level from 15501? Not much area there to put two tracks through. They are going to be right up against a large number within the stone store of those townhouses in Pickett Park. I would imagine that many people will complain that there's a greater noise level there. People say, well, you can hardly hear it as it goes by and all that. But I think that may not be the case. In fact, I think a lot of people will say, they noticed it quite a bit. And I think a lot of people have anxiety about it. I think some people will become frightened and angry, feeling that the value of their property has been compromised and that personal lives have been disrupted. With sad and uneasy thoughts, we set off from where we came from. After a while, my companion slows down and says, all of this was not thought through very well. It's such a pity. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other members from the audience wishing to speak to this item? If not, we will close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners. Do we have commissioners wishing to speak? Commissioner Freeman, Commissioner Bryant. Commissioner Freeman. Thank you, Mr. South. I appreciate the journey. And I have to say that being that I live near the Hojri Mill, which is right next to a train track, I can understand exactly what you're saying. But I agree with Mr. Biker. And this actually is one of the best areas for this proposed development here. And I think the boundaries might be perfect, but in addition, like as Mr. Biker mentioned, if we were talking about a design district, I'd be ready to approve. But we're not. We're not talking about an amendment, a text amendment or text change. I really would like to see this move forward. And I agree wholeheartedly that the development happening, this area is great. I think I'll see the most mixed use development happening in this space. And I welcome it. I'm excited, but we're not there yet. So I just wanted to share that, considering I can't speak on the next one. Commissioner Bryant. Thank you. I have a question for staff. I've been trying to understand some of the stuff I found in the draft environmental impact statement about this area. And it appears to me that the proposed light rail is elevated over 15501 business. Is that correct? That's my recollection, yes. And it also hints in here that the station above ground, but I wasn't sure what I had to say above ground is the station also elevated? The station, it will also be elevated at the South Square station. Okay. And will there be any sort of pedestrian bridge or crosswalk or something from the north side to 15501 over to the station? I know as a part of the environmental impact statement, it was identified that creating pedestrian access across there was an issue and that GoTrankel would have to address it. And they're working with our transportation staff to try to figure out what the best way is. Pedestrian bridge is probably a little too expensive. But something is likely. Something enhanced sidewalks, enhanced crosswalks that the Tower Boulevard intersection, something like that. Okay, thank you. Other members, Commissioner Whitney? Yes, this area, we've been very, very familiar with. It is surrounded by commercial businesses that is well integrated with residential housing. It's a walkable traffic that goes into it. The boundaries are the same boundaries that we have been seeing for over 20, 30 years. So this was kind of, it was easy. And remember, we are here tonight to approve the boundaries. Not what happens in it. At some point, we're gonna have some say so about what development takes place. But we've seen the same area have its ups and downs. And it's doing a comeback. And I think we could send a clear message to the city council to move forward. I would ask my commissioners to vote yes on this one. Commissioner Buksman? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have had a lot of concerns about the timing, but I would agree with Reverend Whitley. I think this is one of the examples where not having a design district, but having it coming down the road. We know that there will be zoning changes coming down the road. This is an area where there aren't, I don't have significant concerns that I see here. So I do plan to vote to approve this when it's time for a motion. Commissioner Huff, did you have a statement? Commissioner Wynders? My main major concern in this area is the affordable housing issue. And if we pass the boundaries without having the improved affordable housing incentives, then we might lose opportunities. In this area, we might not even have the rezoning situation. In other areas, and if you were going to put in housing, you would probably have to go and do rezoning, but we have these office institutional zones and stuff here. Of course, it's not much vacant land, but I have a friend that calls a big box shopping center or land bank. With the prospect of density increasing here, don't be surprised to see some redevelopment on what is now a parking lot is gonna be a 90 foot tall building with no affordable housing in it. So that's why I'm voting against this one. Although I do recognize that there is a risk that by delaying this, we will lose the opportunity to create some density and sort of delay the, or hold back the ridership of the light rail, possibly, but that's why we need to get going with the design district things and do it fast. Any other commissioners? Commissioner Gibbs? I agree with that. I think it was Commissioner Freeman. This area is almost a blank slate. It's something that there is great potential for some really good development, mixed use development, and it's gonna be served very well by the routing of the PRT if it comes about. Anyway, I just wanted to make that comment. Thank you. Anyone else? I just wanted to clarify that I do support the boundaries as Reverend Whitley mentioned. This has been this way for a long time. The development needs to be in this area. However, as Commissioner Winder's mentioned, giving up this option now or moving ahead of the design district is the issue, which is why I would be voting no right now. Chair will entertain a motion, Ms. Whitley. Yes. Let me remind you that if we do this, now this district already have, there are four complexes that have affordable housing in them already. Right now, right on the border of this border. In fact, it's set. All you can do now is just develop it out and bring the train through. Now the other thing I want to remind this board is once we start down this road of setting the criteria, we have to do it for every development that comes forth. Right? And I will ask you to be wise in your voting because you sent a message that you're discriminatory on a project that has good merit. You know, if there were no subsidized housing in that area, then you really have an argument, but you have it. You know, along with Martin Luther King, you have it. So let's move this forward. Let's do something good for Durham. Chair will entertain it. Yes. I don't have my documentation with me right now, but in one of the documents that the planning department produced back in February or so of 2015 had a listing of how many affordable, long-term affordable housing, which is what the policy is, are in each of the rail stations. And I don't think there were any in the South Square one, although I know that I think that Royal Village is a tax credit project, possibly. But do you have that data? So I don't have the data with me. I did look at it recently because you made me. And I think it was actually produced by the Triangle J. Council of Governments. And there was one, I can permanently affordable or protected affordable development in affordable housing complex in the South Square area that's managed by the Durham Housing Authority. Just one that I can recall. There are some, I think there are some that would qualify as affordable now, but they're not, there's no rent protection of any type. Did you have a comment or were you gonna make a motion? I'll make a motion. What's your comment? I just wanna caution all of the commissioners that I live in a section of town called Northeast Central Durham, in which there are a lot of housing that was affordable three years ago. There is nothing that prohibited it from becoming unaffordable or becoming unaffordable in the next three years. Therefore, there have been a lot of residents who are in affordable housing by rental, by ownership that are being displaced. So when you say that those four buildings are in place, just recognize that those buildings can be demolished and replaced with high rises. Thank you. Commissioner Hamer. I wanna make a comment before I make the motion. And one of the things that has become very clear, there is a housing, affordable housing crisis in Durham right now. And we're particularly sensitive to the fact that every action that we take, basically needs to take that into consideration. But we cannot afford not to move forward on actions that basically give us the basis to do that. This is a narrative and a conversation that's happening all over Durham. So the blanks are being filled in. And what I would like to do now is to make a motion. Hold on a second. Commissioner. Another comment. Yes, very briefly. I note that there is affordable housing in the area right now. The question is, how can we keep affordable housing there and to me and integrated with all the other stuff that needs to go into a compact neighborhood. And I think this is where the planning for the design district comes in. We want to make sure that we keep what we've got. And right now we don't even have the guidelines yet. So that's why I'm probably gonna vote against this one because I wanna see us have the plan in total. Okay. I'd like to make a motion that we move case number A1500016 South Square MLK Junior Compact Neighborhood Forward with a favorable recommendation. Motion by Vice Chair Hyman. Second by Commissioner Buxby that we move this forward. 5C South Square, Monluther King, Compact Neighborhood 150016 with a favorable recommendation. Please call row. Mr. Brian. No. Mr. Buxby, Ms. Freeman, Mr. Ghosh excused, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Harris. Yes. Ms. Huff, Ms. Hyman, Mr. Kenshin. No. Mr. Miller, Mr. Riley, Mr. Van. Yes. Mr. Whitley. Yes. Ms. Winders. No. It's 13 so it can't be. Motion fails, seven to six. Seven. Motion fails, six to seven. I'm waiting for the Commissioner Gush to come back and we will open the public hearing for 5D, ever in row, Compact Neighborhood Tier A1500017. And the public hearing is now open. Hello again. This is the case for the Irwin Road Compact Neighborhood. Unlike the first three, this is an already existing adopted Compact Neighborhood from the 2005 comprehensive plan. It was actually the Ninth Street Compact Neighborhood and what was then called the Duke Medical Center Compact Neighborhood were one blob, for lack of a better term, that we separated out during the Ninth Street planning process to have a smaller manageable area to work with our pilot. So the existing Irwin Road areas, the remainder of that Compact Neighborhood. In a lot of ways, this area is like South Square. It's pretty intensely zoned and developed. There's a lot of garden apartment complexes. There's a strong presence from a university that you probably know. There, as well as the VA hospital and other pretty sizable institution. It also includes the Historic Crest Street Neighborhood. So to the left is the existing Compact Neighborhood. The Ninth Street Compact Neighborhood is right here. This is an area that was added for a plan amendment a few years ago. Many of you were on the commission when that happened. So the proposed Compact Neighborhood removes the Crest Street Neighborhood. It also removes any university college properties that are owned by Duke, university college zone properties that are owned by Duke University. It extends the Compact Neighborhood to the west of LaSalle Street, which makes more sense now because the LaSalle Street Station has been added since the previous phase one proposal. It does now include, basically create two Compact Neighborhoods. The larger one here and then this one on the other side of 147, which is adjacent to the Ninth Street Compact Neighborhood. So to zoom in a little bit, it's a little bit hard to see but for the area that's in the kind of the West Durham Peter Rail Station area, the proposal is to remove the, sorry about that, to remove the residential area on Alabama Avenue, which is in the current Compact Neighborhood, but add there's one block of commercially designated property on the north side of Hillsborough Road, right near the intersection with Fulton and Hillendale. And as with all the others, designate all the land use within that area as a design district. A supplemental plan amendment that accompanies this is there's a small portion of the Duke Medical Center campus in kind of the triangle formed by Fulton and Elba and the Durham Freeway, which is designated as commercial currently. So we're proposing to change it to institutional to match the use and zoning. It is already zoned University College. There's a context, if we have any questions about that, I can come to that, come back to this slide. So there's a couple of things we know we'll need to keep in mind when there's more detailed planning is that even though Crest Street is no longer in the Compact Neighborhood, there will be impacts for what happens around them. And in the area near Duke University, there's even though it's a fairly urban area, there's really not a very good complete street network. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Staff recommends approval. Thank you. I have one person to speak, Dan Welch. You have 10 minutes. My name is Dan Welch, live at 923 Alabama. And I'm here to speak and support after talking with quite a few of my neighbors about this issue. We were unaware actually that Alabama Avenue was even in a Compact Neighborhood tier until we received the letters. So I appreciate being informed about that. And I'm here to speak about removing out the houses on Alabama Avenue from the Compact Neighborhood tier. That makes perfect sense to us. We appreciate the staff looking into that and doing that. These houses on Alabama Avenue, basically the Alabama Avenue is adjacent or right beside Hillsborough Street and our houses essentially back up to the commercial businesses on Hillsborough Street, national tire and battery and electrical shops and auto shops and all kinds of things. And certainly from the other side of the street is typical Old West Durham single family residential, leafy neighborhood kind of thing, which we consider ourselves to be to. There are no commercial businesses on Alabama Avenue. It's all single family homes, it's mattering to view plexus, but almost all single family homes. We certainly feel like we should be included with the rest of the single family section of Old West Durham as we move forward with things that could affect future zoning and land use planning and so forth. So I would strongly support and have the back end of a lot of my neighbors. I think almost universally people feel like we ought to be included with the neighborhood and not with the commercial district. And so there's that, a couple of things I did wanna ask and that is as starting to understand this a little bit more, confusing to a lot of us citizens, but as you move to the design phase of the design district and that may be years in the future, I understand that this section on the other side of the 147 freeway is not the high priority right now. You're trying to work with the light rail and so forth. But as that moves forward, we would certainly like to engage our neighbors, the Old West Durham neighborhood. We have a lot of people with expertise in this area who've worked with the Planning Commission and staff before. And so we'd certainly like to be informed and know when that's happening so that we can kind of get our oars in the water about what's gonna happen with that. That's very, it literally is right in our backyards, that one section of the compact neighborhood. So I just wanna be informed about that. I assume we would be, but wanna make that clear. But then also there is an old railroad overpass that crosses the freeway that years ago used to be open. My wife used to use it all the time to go from our neighborhood to cross over to the Duke hospital to go to work and a lot of other people did too. Some years ago it was closed. I'm not sure exactly when that happened and may have been for security reasons or whatever. I'm kind of assuming that that was what happened. But in any case, we would certainly like to see that open back up if there's adequate lighting that could be put in or whatever, but it makes a much better, much more straightforward connection for us. And as it turns out, it comes out almost right at the proposed location for the Irwin Road, Trent Street train station, light rail station that's being proposed. So it would be a great connector for our neighborhood to be able to get across the freeway, on foot and pedestrian. And I don't know if there's the right forum, but I wanted to put that out there and find out if we should be talking to other parts of the city or whatever about that. But that's something we would certainly like to have happen in the near future. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Do we have other members of the audience that wish to speak to this item? Are there other members of the audience? If not, we will close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners, but before the commissioners speak, I would like to ask the two questions the gentleman just asked. The design phase, the neighborhood, will be engaged, is that correct? It's absolutely. And I've already spoken with Eric Hyte, who I don't know if he's still your president or not, but we certainly, we would do it anyway, but I've committed to him that we would certainly work very closely with Old West Durham and maybe some of your associated neighborhoods when it comes time to plan this area. And are you familiar with the railroad overpass? I am familiar with the railroad overpass. I believe Duke University owns that. Whether or not the railroad overpass is open, I would encourage you and anyone else is interested. We have another related project that's in progress called the Station Area Strategic Infrastructure Plan, which is dealing more with the infrastructure in these areas. And we would certainly like some input about how pedestrian access across 147 this area could be better accomplished. Okay, do we have commissioners wishing to speak to item 5D? I have Commissioner Miller, Commissioner Freeman, Commissioner Gibbs, Commissioner Bryan, Commissioner Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to first of all address, if I may briefly, the question of the railroad overpass. I think Scott is right. Duke, if it doesn't own it, controls it. It is a spur that was created in order to bring coal to Duke University when its power plant was coal fired. It's now gas fired and so they've discontinued bringing coal shipments in over the railway. Through the Duke Durham partnership, the neighborhoods over there, Watts Hillendale and Old West Durham have asked Duke to consider making the railway overpass a pedestrian access across there because as you point out, it's ideal. But Duke has been reluctant to do that for a host of reasons, some of them having to do with safety and expense. So that's what I know about that. To my fellow commission members, I'm going to vote for this one and I'm going to try to explain the distinction. In all the others we've been asked to create compact neighborhood tier boundaries where there is no compact neighborhood tier. Here there is already a compact neighborhood tier on the ground and we are refining the boundaries after the planning staff has consulted with the stakeholder groups, the neighborhoods and what have you, like Crest Street, like Old West Durham, in order to create new boundaries for the pre-existing compact neighborhood tiers that are more satisfactory to them. I have looked at these boundaries and although I have never particularly liked this orphaned bit that's on the north side of the freeway here, the fact is it's already there and the boundaries that are proposed in my opinion are preferable to the ones that currently exist on the ground. I also agree with my neighbors in Crest Street is that there was no reason in the worldwide their neighborhood should have been included in a compact neighborhood tier going forward, though going to be very interested as we turn this area into a design district to make sure that the design district zoning that we put in place there creates a stable boundary between the intense development inside the design district and the single family residential neighborhood that is Crest Street. So I'm gonna vote in favor of this, but this is a project of the planning department that I have particular interest in and will be playing very close attention. I urge my colleagues on the planning commission to join me in a favorable vote. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Freeman. I just had a question for staff, but I also wanna mention that I, again, I agree with Tom on the boundary. I think the boundary is fine. My concern is for the design district not being in place. And I wanted to ask how long before that design district would be in place, noting that the 9th Street district is there. Well, this one, unlike many of the others, what was the districts that were approved in 9th Street probably sufficient, appropriate for this area? I mean, that's especially the, what Commissioner Miller called the orphan, is really pretty similar to what's in the rest of 9th Street. So I mean, there is a design district, a compact design district. We understand we may need to make some changes in the areas that are different from where it was originally proposed in the more urban area, but the main building block is there. So we don't have to reinvent the wheel. I just, just in addition, I'm sorry, I want them to ask if how much of that affordability will be built into that design district, noting that the 9th Street district does not have any. We'll have to work through that. Just a note to my fellow commissioners, that would be why I'm not supporting this design district as well, or this compact neighborhood boundary. It was, Mr. Busby was the, Mr. Bryan. Was it Mr. Bryan? Yes. That's fine. I just have a question for staff. The proposed change Duke University, you talk about the fact that Duke didn't want to be in the compact neighborhood, didn't want to be in a compact design, or in a design district. So you guys decided to go with the institutional. And my question is, does Duke agree with the institutional? They do, yes. Okay, now Mr. Bryan. Busby, yes. Okay. Actually, I did not have any questions, but if appropriate, I'd be ready to make a motion. Commissioner Gibbs. What Commissioner Gibbs? I just like to, I'm confused as to where the Crest Street community is. That is owned by Duke, and that was one of the first community meeting areas that I attended. And in the LaSalle Street development, I asked the question then why the Crest Street community could not be included with all of the other housing around to work as part of the affordable housing, to add to the affordable housing. And I guess my question is to staff, had why it looks like it's just sticking out there by itself. It's not part of, well, Duke is not, they don't take care of the residential area, and it would be a perfect place for it to go in with this, the Urban Road District. I'm trying to find as figure four, proposed future land use map. So from our community meetings, it became very evident very early that the Crest Street neighborhood was unaware they were in the compact neighborhood and were, for the most part, very uninterested remaining in the compact neighborhood. For those who don't know, it's still a very intact neighborhood, even though it's got all sorts of things going on around it, and it was actually relocated there because of the construction of the Durham Freeway. So we'll certainly, just like Old West Durham would be, involved in any planning in this area, Crest Street would be involved in any planning in this area. And because it's mostly single family uses right now, which under the current compact design district rules are not permitted, it would make all their houses non-conforming, and I think for a variety of reasons, it's wise to leave it out of the compact neighborhood. Yeah, well, if I remember correctly, they were told that they would not be bothered, let's say. But right now, my impression was that they feel like they're caught between a rock and a hard place. But whatever good things that are done in the Urban Road District, I hope would somehow include the Crest Street community. Of course, I don't know how they could redo the roads or anything because it's already an established neighborhood. But I was just curious as to why they didn't, what was finally decided. But I think you've answered my question. And Mr. Gibbs, Crest Street is not owned by Duke. Those are privately owned homes. It's not part of the Duke University system. Right, but they, the people that I talked to that lived there said that between Duke and the VA hospital, they have been boxed in by closing of roads and all of that. And that's, but yeah, you're right, they are an independent neighborhood, but they were just scared that somebody that this was gonna be another thing that was going to affect their neighborhood negatively. And they had a right to be afraid. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, anyone else, Commissioner Winders? I just, I'd like to ask the staff is as we do the design district, there will, that it will mean increasing density. Am I not correct? It could mean increasing density, but as you know, or if you don't know, there have been a lot of high density developments already along Irwin Road. So and the area is pretty densely developed already. So there could be some increased density, but a lot of it will be replacing other things that are already there. So I'm in the interest of consistency on the assumption that we should do the design districts at the same time we're doing the plan amendment, I'm voting not to approve this one too. Any other commissioners wishing to speak? The chair will now entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move, if I may, I move that the planning commission send case A15000174 to the city council with a favorable recommendation. Welcome. Motion by commissioner Miller, second by commissioner Brian, would you please call the roll for the vote? Mr. Brian, Mr. Busby. Aye. Ms. Freeman. No. Mr. Gosh. Yes. Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Harris. Yes. Ms. Huff. No. Ms. Hyman. Yes. Mr. Kenshin. No. Mr. Miller. Yes. Mr. Riley. Mr. Van. Yes. Mr. Whitley. Yes. Ms. Winder's. Motion passes nine to five. Okay. If commissioner Freeman would recuse herself. All right. So our last map changed this evening is. We will now open the public hearing on 5E, Austin Avenue, Compact Neighborhood Tier A1500018. Don't let me say that part again. So this is the Austin Avenue Compact Neighborhood. As with the last one, this is an already existing compact neighborhood that was approved with its current boundaries in the, well actually, it was approved with different boundaries than the 2005 comprehensive plan. And then a subsequent plan amendment shortly thereafter removed quite a bit of area that had been designated south of 147. In this area, there's kind of a quite a variety of land uses kind of all mixed together. We do have a few residential areas, some pretty stable single family residential areas. We have some actually pretty good examples of higher density affordable housing. There's also some active industrial uses closer to the south and east of the existing compact neighborhood. So to, on the left is the existing compact neighborhood. It's Western boundary is the downtown tier. It extends pretty far north and east to include a lot of relatively stable single family residential neighborhoods. The southern boundary is, as I mentioned, NC 147. The proposed compact neighborhood brings in the boundaries on the north and the east quite a bit to try to remove any existing single family neighborhoods, particularly those that are designated as national historic districts, in particular, Golden Belt and the Eastern Historic District. And it does extend slightly to the south of 147 to include the former Fayette Place. Otherwise, the boundaries are fairly similar to what was approved, what is currently in place. It would also change all the various future land uses to design district. So again, here's the area. We can come back to this if anyone has any specific questions. Some issues that we are aware of that we'll have to be, we'll address during more specific planning, equitable neighborhood change, meaning there is a high probability of rents and property values increasing as if this area becomes more popular. There are some active industrial sites and some former industrial sites which could have potential brownfield conditions which need to be taken into account if they're redeveloped for residential and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure to the station is somewhat challenged, ironically more because of the railroad track than 147. There's actually pretty easy pedestrian access from the Fayette Place site to the proposed station. So staff recommends approval. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Scott. I have one person signed up to speak and speaking in favor of it and that's Yolanda Clemens. You have 10 minutes to speak please state your name and your address. Hello, my name is Yolanda Clemens and actually after listening to everyone who came before me, I think I am not for this. I was kind of confused as to how I should sign in so the residents of which I am a property owner is 1111 Fayetteville Street and 1111 Fayette Street is the only building that sits on the northeast corner, I believe, of the intersection of Fayetteville Street and Umsted Street. It's across the street from the Stanford L. Warren Library and on the proposed map down in the going down towards the bottom left corner you see a little blank spot. Well they have kind of edged us out. The one little building that sits right on that corner and earlier when I came in there was a lady that showed me how to use this portion to show it to people on a map up there. Is that still available? So the property Ms. Clemens is talking about is right here so it's on the northeast corner of Fayetteville and Umsted. There is one property that was not part of the former Fayetteville site. So my husband and I have owned that building since 1993 and it was an existing structure when we purchased it, I wanna think and actually Mr. Van may know it was a mixed use building because it has a full kitchen, a full bathroom on the upper level and I believe someone resided there and maybe had their business on the street level but there's also a basement level or a low ground level tha