Good afternoon. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council and the County Board of Commissioners as an advisory board to the city, to the elected officials. You should know that the elected officials have the final say on any issues before us tonight. If you wish to speak on an agenda item tonight, please go to the table tomorrow left and sign up to speak. But those wishing to speak, please state your name and your address clearly when you come to the podium. Please speak clearly into the microphone. On each side, those wishing to speak in favor of an item and those wishing to speak in opposition to an item will have 10 minutes to present each side. The time will be divided amongst all persons wishing to speak. If you are here opposing a rezoning tonight, you should be aware of what's called a protest petition. A protest petition can be very helpful to those residents who live in a rezoning area. Please consult the Planning Department staff for any details on a protest petition and they will be happy to help you. You should also keep in constant touch with the Planning Department as to when your case will go before the elected officials for a final vote. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative, so if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is for denial. Thank you. Can we have a roll call? Commissioner Bealon, Commissioner Board, Commissioner Davis, Commissioner Gibbs, Commissioner Davis, Vice Chair Harris, Chair Jones, Commissioner Huff, Commissioner Lamb, Commissioner Miller, Commissioner Padgett, Commissioner Smusky, Commissioner Walters, Commissioner Whitley, Commissioner Winderz. I did receive an email today from Fred Davis asking for an excuse options, which I granted. Good evening, Mr. Chair, Pat Young with the Planning Department. There are no adjustments to tonight's agenda, but I can certify for the record that all public hearing items before you were advertised in accordance with the provisions of law and affidavits are on file with the Planning Department to that effect. Thank you. Thank you. Approval of the minutes. Before we get that far, I did want to make one correction. On last month, I failed to recognize Commissioner Lamb excused absence. So we want to make that note within the minutes. Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of corrections to in the segment of the minutes where it records my comments in the first sentence. It says convenient store. It should be convenience store. Let me know if you catch up with me and then in the last sentence of the second paragraph of my remarks, it says made under, and it should say made wider. The next time I will type them and send them to you. So you won't have to read my handwriting. I apologize for that. Any other corrections to the minutes? Mr. Chair, I move approval of the minutes with the necessary corrections. Second. So moved and probably second all those all those in favor of approval of minutes. Let me know my raising your right hand. Minutes has passed 11 to zero. All right. Thank you. And before I forget, I will be leaving early tonight. I need to be in two places at one time. So it's gonna be a little difficult. So Vice Chair Harrison will take over after I leave just as a matter of a note. We'll move down to item five a open the public hearing for the 2013 annual evaluation and assessment report. Good evening. Some here to present tonight on the 2013 annual evaluation and assessment report or the EAR of the Durham comprehensive plan. So the EAR allows us to evaluate our progress over the past year and implementing the comprehensive plan and meeting our objectives. Included in the AR is the opportunity to propose policy changes and to rectify or resolve any differences between the city and the county versions of the future land use map. We have several additional sections as well. One to update the policy text of the comprehensive plan and to list progress toward goals and another to update the recreation open space and agricultural layers of the future land use map. And finally to end, we'll have a planning trends and issues report. So we'll start with the rectification. In 2013 14 amendments to the future land use map were approved. This number has increased steadily since the recent recession. In your packets you'll find case maps for each of the approved plan amendments. Please let staff know if you have any questions about any of these amendments. Despite the high number of cases, the changes have resulted in relatively minor impacts to net acreage allotments on the future land use map. The largest changes showed 60 acres of office space lost and nearly 50 of low medium residential density gained. There appears to be more than enough of each land use available on the future land use map to accommodate anticipated growth. The EAR provides an opportunity for the planning department to connect with other city and county departments to learn their accomplishments with respect to policy implementation and any proposed changes to the policy language. The results of these surveys are found in attachments for and five of your report. Most policy changes were technical in nature, some eliminated redundancies, and some were altered to follow available funding sources. We are proposing one update to the recreation and open space layer of the future land use map and two to the agricultural layer. These are largely technical and reflect permanent conservation and agricultural easements held by Durham County. These changes will add 139 acres of agricultural land and 260 acres of open space to the map. We are recommending these changes to improve our land demand projections. So I'll pause here to take any questions about the first four sections of the EAR and before I share the last section on issues and trends. Any questions? Actually I do have a number of questions concerning policy changes just so that I understand. In the proposed policy change to 2.5.3 rural village plans if we take this out of the text of the comprehensive plan will we still will the notion that we need to have this kind of village center still be reposed in the plan somewhere? Sorry please state that Aaron Kane with the plan farm please state that question again. So the rural village plans section we're going to take this out of the text in 2.5.3 C because we have gone ahead and completed the village of Rougemont plan. Correct. And I was wondering if we take it out of the comprehensive this language out of the comprehensive plan is there still a place in the comprehensive plan somewhere else where we recognize that that village center is supposed to be there? Yes we recognize that through the future land use map as well as through language and unified development ordinance that defines rural villages and refers to them as they're located as they're shown on the future land use map. Excellent thank you and I have another question Mr. Chairman. There are a couple of changes that relate to neighborhood improvement services that relate to either resources or kind of shifting the policy statements over to the mayor's plan on poverty and quite frankly I'm a little uncomfortable with them. They seem to be pretty good policies and even though we may not have the resources to immediately address them I hate to have them disappear from the comprehensive plan. And so I'm looking at 3.6.3 A and 3.6.3 B. Yeah there's an explanation of that in the in the explanation of changes that was provided I believe but other than that yet I don't really I can't really answer the questions about those those came from neighborhood improvement services directly. We can facilitate a communication between you and them if you'd like. All right before we move forward on that but I can't really answer anything directly on there on their reasoning other than what they provided us. All right thank you. And then one last question. I guess this is another neighborhood improvement services question so I'm a little concerned. Well maybe it's not. So we have a statement in the comprehensive plan about using resources to do testing in housing discrimination cases and it says we don't have resources so we're going to take the policy out I'm a little worried about taking the policy out I would be more comfortable if we said we have a policy that we will implement that would employ testing to enforce fair housing in in Durham's housing policy if resources become available or when resources become available. That was a grant funded program the grant would away I'm assuming that's at any time perhaps we could get another grant and I don't want to constantly be switching the comprehensive plan back and forth every time we get a grant and spend it and apply for another grant seems to me it's a fairly important statement of policy that should reside in the comprehensive plan I'd like to see it stay. Okay we can certainly communicate that to neighborhood improvement services and get their response on that. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Any other questions on this section? Okay so this next part of the presentation will address trends and issues that we can expect to shape our decisions in the coming years as we plan for the future. At the end of each slide shown in red are guiding questions for specific answers aren't requested tonight but that we hope will be taken into consideration during future decision making. So first of all we're expecting continued population growth in Durham County. We can see that as of two thousand thirteen the county population was two hundred eighty eight thousand one hundred thirty three by two thousand thirty three state projections show that we can expect to see over four hundred thousand inhabitants in our county. Most of this growth has taken place recently in the southern half of the county as represented by the darker squares on the county map. So what accounts for this population growth? First of all we are seeing a growth in our aging population. In fact baby boomers are the fastest growing segment of our population. Much of the growth is a function of time but also North Carolina has become a popular place to retire which has led to a lot of out of state immigration. This trend has led to the development of a growing trend in senior living facilities. These facilities differ from the traditional in the growing demand for co-housing and clustered units within walkable communities with access to basic necessities and community activities. How well does our future land use map support these types of housing? Another population trend is that there is no racial or ethnic majority in Durham. The 2010 census showed that 42% of the city's population was Caucasian and 41% African American. Minorities are high level users of multi-generational housing and public transit. Population diversity demands a wide range of housing options including different sizes, types and price points. In planning for the future decision makers should consider does the comprehensive plan accommodate diverse housing types and access to public transit? Finally the population in Durham County continues to be very young with millennials or 16 to 33 year olds representing the largest population segment. A number of industries are attracting new young professionals including healthcare, logistics, technology and finance. This growing creative class demands a fast-paced environment with a quality of life or quality of place such as walkable, hip, urban enclaves with access to activities and amenities, arts and leisure. Durham need to continue asking itself are we prepared to retain talented entrepreneurs with a range of affordable, appealing and high-quality housing and commercial options? Also are we able to avoid displacing long-term residents as a side effect of economic development? In addition to population trends we are seeing trends across other areas as well. Energy use reportedly increases in the United States by 2% per acre per year. The built environment including buildings, networked infrastructure and urban areas more generally constitute the largest category of energy use and 30 to 40% of primary energy worldwide is used in buildings. Increased energy usage makes alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and methane appear more attractive. These alternative sources can help us to minimize waste products that are detrimental to the environment, provide more economical energy sources and reduce the environmental costs of harvesting raw materials. A question for the future will then be how will innovations and energy change the built environment? Information and communication technologies in other fields seeing major changes. With faster and more accessible internet connections the workforce is increasingly able to work from home and become more mobile. Online retail has begun to sub-plant brick and mortar stores in some sectors. Both of these phenomena can help to reduce congestion on roadways particularly during peak hour traffic. In addition increased capacity for data gathering enables decision makers to become better informed about any potential issues leading to smarter decisions and smarter city. Finally another area showing notable trends is real estate. Banks are regaining comfort in real estate, investment prospects are improving and interest rates are poised to rise. We can expect to see increased development activity in the near future. As the number of single person households continues to increase in North Carolina and nationally a greater demand will occur for smaller families homes on small lots and for multifamily housing. Despite our downsizing we're seeing rising rents particularly around transit oriented areas highlighting a need to preserve some affordable housing in these areas and in general across the country. Lastly we are seeing growth in a number of historic structures valued for preservation as the definition of these structures expands to include post-war war two projects. In the last three slides they share some questions directly relating to commercial office residential and industrial development highlighting some of those changes we can expect to see across different land uses. For commercial development we can expect regional mall closings, strip center redevelopments and fewer brick and mortar patrons as a result of online shopping. For office development we can expect to see a shift in interest toward more urban office environments. Square footage for employee is to decrease with more people working outside of the office. The use of hoteling to provide flexible office space eliminates the need for stationary desks which preserves square footage and may cause companies to downsize. Some businesses may elect to forego offices altogether causing office rents and vacancy rates to rise. So for residential development again we see the small houses on small lots multi-family and urban centered and we're looking at continued growth in suburban development but also an increased demand for downtown living. And finally with industrial development we're seeing the ongoing effects of changes in communication technology and the hoteling and a shift towards lighter industries. So this concludes my presentation on forecasting trends and issues. If there are any questions I'll take them but just to leave you with a few recommendations we would hope that you would be able to recommend to the governing bodies to approve the specified changes to the recreation open space and agricultural layers of the future land use map and second to approve the proposed changes to the policy text within the Durham Comprehensive Plan. Thank you. Any questions? I have a question about complete streets. It says here that the city essentially is adopting the state's complete streets design standards is that correct? But the city is adopting I'm sorry the what? The NCDOT's complete streets planning and design? From what I understand. Is that correct? Bill Judge Transportation yes we've basically been utilizing the complete street standards since they they were released two three years ago now. What's happening in the county? Yeah that we have very little new growth I guess in the county so that's rather limited but it would be up to basically DOT and the developer to to agree to some of those concepts. Thanks Commissioner Harris uh well the Comprehensive Plan implementation highlights attachment for that was sent out I don't know if Scott Senator wanted just but anyway that has reference to the findings from 2003 and I guess my question is in example it talks about EMS and how EMS haven't received any improvements since 2008 and they are virally making their targets with reference to responding to calls particularly in the county. Are these findings being sent to the various elected bodies in order to for budgetary assignments with CIP and things like that? These are comments that came directly from those departments and these will be forwarded as part of the Evaluation Assessment Report the EAR to the governing bodies they will see the same packet that you that you have seen here so they'll get these comments. Okay thank you. Commissioner Whitley. I have two that I wanted to talk about one beginning with mass transit and I'm trying to figure out how to really phrase my question um right now we live with mass trains busing but busing is not worker friendly you know um there are people that work after 12 o'clock they have to get to work and get back home they work at night and we have people that work on weekends you know it's not friendly we have large corporations with lots of people driving cars you know now how do you put something in the comprehensive plan that will get but entice mass transit to look at policies to make it on worker friendly? Yeah that's a good question and I know there's a lot of you know development going towards different modes of transit that should help in the future and maybe could be more around the clock but Erin if you have some. Sure I think a lot of your question has to do with financial resources in order to run the buses longer hours that that is a that is resource dependent that does take additional funding and so that becomes a decision at the governing board level especially with city council with the with the bus system as to whether or not to fund that additional service we do have the half-cent sales tax for transit that was approved recently that will going into increasing service but that's going more into increasing the amount of buses during the regular service hours so that you have shorter headways less time between when buses are going to be providing service I'm not aware that they're going to be expanding the hours of service beyond what they currently do but that's certainly something we can bring to data and TTA to their attention right now we use the spoke system you know we we start off at a central point and go out like a wheel spoke and there's no inner circle you know so in order to get from one part of town to other part of town you have to come downtown and then go out someplace else how do we make the comprehensive plan address that problem where it would be be more convenient to ride a bus if it didn't take me two hours to get in the same part of town someplace else well I don't know that the conference of plan would be the best venue for that the conference of plan mainly has more high-level policies that would have policies to say address longer operating hours for transit or more circular routes as you said we could we could certainly bring the elected officials your concerns about that and but the conference of plan would have more general policies about those issues and would not be the venue to actually implement some of those changes that you're talking about that would be done through triangle transit authority and and data they would be the ones to talk to you now they just recently improved they had designing a better bus service I believe was called just when in implementation about six months ago where they looked at redesigning their bus routes to provide better service within the same amount of resources so I can contact them and find out when they might be going through that process again to reevaluate their route system and look at ways to it that would be improved okay I have one more okay energy for I just cannot figure out how we already know that energy conservation is the way we need to go we talk about it all the time but we don't put it into our housing code if we would only to implement putting housing weatherization into minimal housing code we would improve a lot of housing stock right here in in Durham it just common sense and when you improve housing stock what else happened you get a better house but you also your property your property values in those communities goes up so it's a win-win you know again I understand that this is not the policy form but every chance I get to chant every time I get a chance to mention these things maybe some maybe a seed will grow thank you Mr. Miller I just had three little things I wanted to talk about in comprehensive planning one is relates to design standards for multi-story multi-family buildings right now where we have design standards like in the compact neighborhood tier we find that the multi-family buildings that are being built in are kind of being crammed into the existing design standards or the frontage types and the results are as a matter of design in my opinion not very satisfactory and I would like to see memorialized in the comprehensive plan or perhaps somewhere if the comprehensive plan isn't the best place for it some sort of program to address that because we can see that in terms of the big projects that are being built all over town both in those tiers and outside those tiers we're getting a lot of these four and five-story wood frame construction multi-family on concrete podiums and I think that we could guide design of those buildings more effectively than the UDO does now and I'd like to see that mentioned so what triggered this was the policy statement in 4-2-3-B where we talk about developing architectural standards for non- residential building types and I realize the General Assembly has limited our ability to go down the scale very far in residential but in multi-family especially multi-story multi-family I'd like to see us address that as we address some of these other design standard wishes too and then another thing that I'm interested in and you can tell me whether you think it's practical or not is I would like to see our code allow in the appropriate places pocket neighborhoods and I realize that that's kind of a trendy subject right now but it's one I'm interested in because I do think it's a way of of having adding to the diversity of housing types I'm concerned that we're adding at least right now so many of these multi-family buildings all at the same time all built according to the same construction standards all built to the same design and which means that they will all their useful lives will all end at the same time and we'll have across the city at very important points especially in our compact neighborhood tiers a big concentration of people living in these buildings and it seems to me that the health of our overall housing stock would be better if they didn't if they weren't born all at the same time and they didn't die all at the same time that we we could have different kinds of things it would be on different schedules and so I'd love to see us look at that the idea of single family houses on very tiny lots that and divorced from some of the things that our code expects is normal like certain types of street frontage certain types of types of access so I would love to see that somewhere but perhaps this isn't the time in the place but that's a thing I'm interested in thank you mr chairman all right thank you Pat thank you mr chair very briefly I think mr Miller mr Whitley and others have brought up some really great and important areas for further policy examination whether that's through the comp plan or other venues I do think the EAR serves as a vehicle for you all to express those concerns I would highly recommend that you incorporate those into your comments on this case I think all of you know that something I've advocated strongly is that you all get more involved than you have in the policy area rather than just looking at case by case basis so we really appreciate the comments that have been made today and certainly encourage you to communicate those to elected officials all right thank you all right thank you all very much okay mr chair we do need to vote a recommendation with modifications or as is okay so I'm gonna get a what's your pleasure on item 5a can we get a motion move to approve second all right something probably move to second can you call out the time I'm missing them oh I'm sorry so mr chairman I'm going to move approval of of this item help me out here it's a 14 00002 and second all right it's been moved and probably second all those in favor let it be known by raising your right hand in the opposition mr mr chair does that also include the recommendation that you were asking for for the possible right was that a part of that yes it's the policy language plus the future land use map amendments okay chair a 14 00002 has passed 12 to 0 okay thank you before we move down to item 6a I'm going to read the statement from the production crew concerning dtv 8 and it reads dtv 8 is now Durham television network the name changes because Durham television network is available on time warning cable and AT&T Uverse it is on channel 97.5 or channel 8 on time warning cable unless you have a cable but depending on if you have a cable box dtn Durham television network is on AT&T Uverse on channel 99 this meeting is being televised the monitors to your left my right will show the broadcast signal the monitors behind the planning commission will show what's being seen this meeting will replay Tuesday and Thursday nights at 9 p.m and Wednesdays at 2 p.m so just govern yourselves and from what they tell me this is an upgrade so that's good stuff for Durham thank you okay now so we're going to move down to item 6a 2919 Fayetteville z140003 all right thank you Amy Wolf for the planning department I'll present the staff report for zoning case z140003 2919 Fayetteville this request is a zoning map change from the existing zoning district of office institutional to commercial general the applicant is AMAC properties LLC it is within the city's jurisdiction actually the urban tier of the city and the site is approximately one and a half acres and the proposed use is to allow commercial and retail uses on the property again the site's in the urban tier at 2919 Fayetteville street it is just north of the American tobacco trail and south of Fayetteville street elementary school in the greater vicinity is NC central to the north and farther south is east pilot street and another shopping node it's actually adjacent to the shopping node commercial node the site is already developed with an existing building and is presently occupied with various tenants the request does meet the standards for the commercial general zoning district as identified here the request is also consistent with the future land use map of our comprehensive plan which identifies the future land use as a commercial use and the request is also consistent with the adopted comprehensive plan policies that are applicable to this site and staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances and that concludes the staff report and I'll be available for any questions all right thank you I have one person signed up to speak that's for it's uh this is Mark Marcona Marcona street yes all right you come up you have 10 minutes and if you can state your name of your address my name is Mary Coma still my address is 29 19 Beville street I'm for the rezoning we have had a business there in my family for over 30 years plus serving the community and only thing we would like to do we realize line board fuller a historical person the body is well especially bearing the area we would like to also be able to provide a laundry mat in the area and with a little eatery and maybe a gift shop and things so we can sell things in reference to line board fuller on the bike trail and we just continue to do to want to service that community and provide jobs and opportunities for people in that community that's it I'm for well thank you do we have anyone wishing to speak on this item if not we'll close the public hearing and bring it back for the commissioners do we have anyone any of the commissioners wishing to speak all right Dr. Wonders I'm wondering why this request was for commercial general instead of commercial neighborhood I really I looked at I think it's office institutional now is that right Amy and which does not allow retail things so I'm all for I think the business you know I'm familiar with the with the site and I agree that it's a benefit to the community and I want your businesses to succeed and contribute to the community and I think it's a great idea to have a restaurant there or a shop you know to sell the blind boy fuller things but that could be done under the commercial neighborhood couldn't it and a commercial general would allow automobile oriented business and bars and things that night clubs and things that might not be appropriate right beside an elementary school and next to a commercial neighborhood district Amy you I lost the question in there but in general yes the proposal to do some level of retail in a commercial neighborhood district is certainly permitted we did discuss when we met with our required pre-submiddle meeting what district would be appropriate and we did talk about the commercial neighborhood district as well as the commercial general district and there's a nuance with the commercial neighborhood district and that if you have any new project in commercial neighborhood greater than 5,000 square feet if you increase that and it's adjacent to residential district on two sides that it would require a minor special use permit and although miss still mentioned she would not didn't have intention of expanding the building that that the better use for her in the long run would be commercial general and of course she can speak to that but that's regarding that her proposed use which again are not committed that was the difference between the two districts was if there were was expansion it would require additional approvals ma'am you can come back up and for the fact that we're a small company we don't have the resources to keep coming back for rezoning so commercial neighborhood would be fine but we have no intentions of ever letting a nightclub or bar or something to that effect ever be in that location it is a family-owned business and pretty much we anticipate to remain and but that was the only reason for going for commercial general and our intentions are not to do any type of business that would deplete the neighborhood and plus also there is an elementary school there plus we have a school within our facility so that would not be a great thing to do to have that type of business within that building for the area so that was our reason for going for commercial general but neighborhood would still be just as sufficient it's just our revenues are not we don't have money we keep coming back I'm afraid you know I really hate to vote against it but I'm afraid I can't support it as commercial general because the regulation or the the zoning goes with the land and while your current intention is to keep the property in its current use you know you don't know what's going to happen in the future something unforeseen might happen to you and your family which would require you to sell the business or something you know and then the community would not have any protection about against something undesirable or that didn't fit going there and I understand that the the getting an additional approval is is a cost but I think it's necessary for the protection of the neighborhood okay so let me ask you a question is it okay that if we are willing to set commercial neighborhood that would be sufficient it would certainly be fine with me but I don't know you know the process as you probably have put in another application or something and we don't know whether other people would have the same opinion that I do and it's the city council that makes the decision okay Mr. Chair members of the council if I might address that I think Amy and Scott have discussed with Ms. Steele the possibility she can't amend her application to go from CG to CN or to C ND or CGD but we would have to assess based on the scope of the change there would be a modest reapplication fee and we have to reevaluate it and bring it back to you so we could do that but we couldn't do it tonight okay Commissioner Miller so I agree with commission member Wenders I'm uncomfortable with this going to CG2 we're here and the law requires us when we look at a rezoning to consider the zoning not the particular use and we are supposed to approve a rezoning or vote for it only if we think that the property maxed out that the new zone would it be appropriate if the property if we have any hesitation or reserve reservation about how how the the property might function under the new zone then we are obligated actually by law to vote against it and it's really not a question of whether or not a laundromat would be good there or whether or not this particular applicant offers assurances as to whether or not certain uses wouldn't be applied if we think those uses are inappropriate for the site then we should vote against the zone that would allow them and urge a different zone I also think the commercial neighborhood zone is the way to go that's an imperfect zone in my opinion but it certainly would be better than commercial general I'm just looking at the application here I was actually surprised to discover Mr. Chairman if I may yeah that's not your time okay I was surprised to discover that the NCDOT is actually talking about taking this Fayetteville street at this point from four lanes to three lanes and if we did that then the the traffic the maximum traffic impact of this rezoning would run this particular section of Fayetteville street up to 137 percent of capacity I'm a little troubled the staff as I actually said has found this to be consistent with the adopted plans of the city when one of those is is that a rezoning isn't supposed to to is supposed to promote traffic flow and I don't think that that rezoning this to CG would do that this property is sandwiched between two important community resources we have an elementary school on one side and a trail on the other and if this property were to change hands properties change hands all the time and it were to be used for the full extent of uses that are allowed in the CG zone then I think that we could put at risk both the elementary school and the trail the other thing I note about this property is it has an extremely small street frontage with very limited access it's pretty much one driveway in one driveway out it's 1.4 acres you can get a lot of land use on 1.4 acres it would be easy to get into this property but like a mousetrap it could be very difficult to get out especially when parents are coming and going to the school next door I went and spoke with the officials at the school and they are very concerned about the traffic impacts or the traffic not they didn't know anything about this rezoning but they were very concerned about traffic on fable street in front of their school especially at their peak periods in the morning and then in the afternoon when parents come to collect their children so for these reasons I'm going to vote against this rezoning not because I don't think that more retail use on this site would be appropriate I do think that it would be appropriate I think I would be much more comfortable voting for it in the cn zone what I like about the cn zone and the fact that a minor use permit would be required if the building were to be expanded beyond the 5000 square feet is then we could go in front of the board of adjustment and use conditions to the minor special use permit to craft special considerations and conditions which would protect the school perhaps impose limitations that would reduce the traffic impact of the zone to the street and also protect the trail so in my opinion cn for this property is the perfect zone and cg is not the right zone so I'm going to join commission member winders in my opposition and I would encourage this applicant to change your application okay however I also recognize that the amount of money that we charge for these applications is shocking all right it's true commissioner Whitley you know I thought it was a wonderful idea to put a laundromat there and we don't have enough retail in that area and a daycare center wonderful you know I'm wondering if we've already I've made a decision that I can't vote for this because it's not in the best interest of the city why are we going to charge them to do something that's in the best interest I mean something that the neighborhood needs to put the right zoning there you know I mean they have already paid for one application probably did not know what they know now so how do we work this out so that it's cost efficient because their plan to do was good for the city and it probably should have been explained I wish there was explained I'm sure it was explained to them but it probably wasn't explained to them the same way they heard it tonight sure so Commissioner Whitley and as I mentioned earlier Pat Young again with the planning department we certainly can look at allowing the applicant to amend her application to include a development plan as you all are I think well aware there over a dozen review factors that are associated with development plans that require staff review not just by planning but by a number of other departments that involve staff time and cost I'll certainly work with planning director to see if there's a way we can modify or reduce the fee associated with that I can't say that today until I know what the proposal is no proposal has been made so I would appreciate your point and we'll certainly work with the applicant anyway we can we did advise her of the various options certainly at the Preced Mental Conference so so would it be better for the applicant to delay this decision then to to move forward and that's strictly at the applicants yes I would like to if we if I could please our budget is very limited and we would like to create jobs all right so hold that thought while they confer we haven't had this happen so just hang tight all right so I just would need a way to vote for it okay I hold that thought so we can't Mr. Pepe did you want to did you have a comment while they confer yeah I do what how long has this family business been for 30 31 years we've been there and we don't plan on going anywhere and yeah my concern is just listening to comments we're facing a place in the burden of responsibility of potential issues of we're talking about you never know what may happen to a family you may have to sell you may have to a problem you know if you sell that that's unfortunate but we sit here we try to predict predict the future about what may happen in the family well we can do that we do have an IBM we do that with everybody but I would tell you you know this is not this is my comment I clearly you know being here you know many times we're just a recommending body we have no bearing this goes to the next level that's where the decision is made you know and I you know I would not want to spend all my money my time and energy to get to a level and have the opportunity to get the win lose or draw if you're going to have to spend again to come back I'm a person I roll the dice and take it all the way through whether you win lose or draw you have several levels within government to go to and many many times it goes to that next level where we're not even looked at or listened to you know again it comes back to I think so many people fear growth and when you when you start fear and growth then it comes back with other reasons of why we can't make things better in certain areas whether it's a daycare whether it's a you know whether it's a laundromat we're creating jobs but let's hold on we can talk about creating jobs we really don't want to do it because we're scared there's going to be too many cars on the highway unfortunately the school's there the school is responsible most of the traffic in the first place and if it wasn't for the school the traffic wouldn't be a problem so to sit back and say everybody else is a problem the problem is the school and the location it's in so to come back and say that that's an issue you look at all these different things the burden that it places to have to come back again falls back on the the owner taxpayer and I do think it's unfair for the taxpayer to have to fight up against the city or go back through channels when we have people that that sit here and listen to things and it goes to you have the opportunity to the next level but the bottom line is you should not bear the dollars in a sense every time you have to come to government because somebody or somewhere or board does not like that and I think that's a major problem for me and any of that I think it just you know yeah I'm a vegas kind of guy I roll the dice and let's go with it if the money's already out there and you've already paid it you've done everything you gotta do I don't see delay in school and say take it to the next level if you have to pay it again anyway you don't have to pay it anyway but get your money's worth okay so is that a Mr. Chair let me let me see if I can assist here Pat Young with Planning Department I think the applicant has three options in my opinion one is to request a vote yes or no tonight you all obviously can choose to accept that or you can defer the item the applicant can request to change which I believe I heard her say but I don't ask her to repeat this to change the designation request a designation from CG to CN without a development plan based on recent precedent we would accept that we would ask for a continuous 60-day continuance or two cycle to the June cycle and we would only charge the renotification fee because the change in the zoning district would have to renotify the neighbors it'd be $277.50 if she wants to do a development plan we would ask her to withdraw this application and we would have to based on when the development plan was submitted and reviewed we would bring it back to you when it was ready after review and those are the options do you understand those three options yes okay so before we get any further what would you like to do any more days well okay confer and I'll go to miss huff then does do they understand what the difference is submitting something with a development plan what the advantages to that would be or disadvantages has that been explained it has miss huff there was a priest of middle meeting and we discussed this at length of misdue okay the decision what we'll do is resubmit for the 60 days and the $200 for neighborhood commercial the action we request of the board is that they continue this item till the June meeting with the understanding that the district will be changed notification new notification will occur and you'll you'll hear the case again okay so Mr. Chair I move that we continue zoning case one four zero zero zero three for a 60-day continuance 60-day I mean excuse me 60 days yes two cycles two cycles and will that be enough time yes then I second the motion all right so it's been moved and probably second all those in favor let it be known by raising your right hand case z one four zero zero zero zero three has been continued past 12 to zero thank you all right thank you all right okay so like I mentioned early I have to go to a another meeting so I'm going to let Vice Chair Harris take over from this point all right thank you Mr. Chair the next item on the agenda is public hearing plan downtown open space plane hi my name is Tom Dawson I'm with the planning department last month we presented the downtown open space plan which you should have received and now we're seeking the planning's recommendation we've engaged in a robust public process and then many voices have contributed attributed to the plan and we've had about five public input sessions and received support from the downtown from the Durham open space and trails commission the Durham Appearance Commission the Durham Environmental Affairs Board as well as other stakeholder groups like DDI and the universities and now we'd like to take any questions you might have are there questions okay I get Ms. Huff and then Mr. Miller this plan goes into considerable amount of detail on the parks and so forth there is no bike parking in any of it and I feel it's a lapse and so did the development review committee for bike pad thank you actually we have downtown standards that cover most bike parking and we would recommend that on a detailed level it goes into a conceptual level detail in several spaces and that's in order to give a flavor of the environment and also to explore opportunities but within the final the next stage of design development we would be recommending any sort of bike and pedestrian improvements like bike bike excuse me parking bike parking and I had another another thing that struck me is this plan relies for connectivity on the ability to obtain that railroad line the belt and I am hoping that people will not be shy about pressuring the elected officials to try to buy that to find the money to buy it however they can do it or to condemn it I would like to see that agreed and part of having a plan a supporting document that puts that belt line into context enables us to apply that pressure and also seek funding for the through grant applications for the belt line Mr. Miller I too am very concerned about a plan first of all let me say I think this plan is great it is very ambitious but it's also beautifully put together not only physically but I appreciate all the work that went into it I think it's a great plan but I share Commission Member Huffs concerned that it is to a certain extent dependent upon acquisition of this railway right of way which quite frankly based upon my fairly close observation of that over the last couple of years I don't think it's going to happen the railroad really doesn't want to sell it to us and we can't force them and it can't be condemned so so I'm worried about that my suggestion is that we go ahead and then give this a favorable recommendation but I think that there that we need to have an alternative in order to bring that to have a north south trail connectivity we need to have another plan even if it means coming down another street like right through the right through Durham Central Park or someplace and have one of those enhanced sidewalk kind of trails as a plan B because even even if the railroad decides to sell this property it's going to be a lot of money and I don't know where it's going to come from so even if we had something temporary to tie that north south trail to me the the trail connectivity east west and north south is the heart of this plan the other things are less important so I would like to see just as we had for the property just right over here right over here an alternative I'd like to see an alternative there even if it's only a temporary one and then Mr. Chairman if I have concerning that other place where we have two alternatives with regard to this triangular surface parking lot that we have over there where I'm parked right now there's two alternatives one is to turn it into a pocket park and the other one is is to make it available for development I believe that alternative two is the better alternative I think we need our current essentially architectural fabric of downtown is still badly scarred by the way we implemented urban renewal in the end of the 60s in 1970s some of us in the room I won't point will remember a very different Durham downtown where architecturally we had more cohesion we didn't have these big empty spaces we still have big empty spaces and I realize that a lot of people people may be accustomed to them but my own the Durham of my mind has buildings in it and it has more people in it and so I'd like to see that site turned back as a site for future development big buildings with lots more human activity I would sacrifice that open space in that park for that so the alternative two in my opinion is the superior alternative other than that though those are my comments I think it's a great plan and at the appropriate time Mr. Chairman I'll make a motion okay time would you like to respond to either or both of those thank you for your comments I would like you to to make you aware there there is a we're continually doing trying to improve our streets scapes downtown and that that has a lot to do with pedestrian connectivity there's currently a trail where the east coast greenway connects through the downtown and we're trying to continuously improve that corridor the Durham arts council actually received a planning grant to look at ways to treat the Durham the Blackwell Corcoran and Foster Corridor which is the North South Corridor that can get us to the LRB Creek Creek Trail connections we are looking I think there's some planning interest I have a bit more hope about the the Beltline Trail the Department of the Transportation Department upstairs is re-looking at that and we could see some interesting things come out of that over the over the coming months are there additional questions comments with reference to the downtown open space plan yes sir well I'd like to ask again is the there isn't so there is in referring to previous comments there is some flexibility in the future for if if we get a really good project that downtown needs it could possibly take the place of for instance this triangular piece of land and I think it's across the street is where the reference to is there is some flexibility oh yes to give context to the two recommendations for that that site we we received a lot of feedback from the community that City Hall was very inaccessible that City Hall did not have a large public space in front of it like you might find in almost any other city so that surface level parking in that area had a lot of appeal to create a possible front door for the city of Durham building we're also proposing a very interesting park on the backside of the city of the city of Durham so it will be up to the council to decide which option is best we just wanted to present as many options given the feedback from the community we also received feedback on that space potentially being a development space and we wanted to this is an open space plan and we but we did wanted to show where one might be able to have either all open space or flexibility with the building expanding or a scenario where we retained a modest amount of open space and actually expanded under the second version so the goal is to expand open space where it's where it makes sense within the city so yeah thank you Tom and I this is not just to limit anything but I think these the plans here with all of the other things that have to be coordinated which I have commented on before this is more than just an amenity for downtown this is this is part of the face of our town and how it's going to blend in with whatever developments whether they're 26 stories five stories whatever but I think this is a good start and I again I commend the planning department for coming up with this plan thank you okay before I go into further the commissioners musky would you join us on the podium I apologize for not inviting you up earlier thank you we saw you Mr. Miller Mr. Chairman if it's appropriate at this time I'll make a motion that we send this downtown open space plan onto the city council will the favorable recommend no this I believe is a public hearing oh is it and so we oh I'm sorry need to close the public hearing yeah this oh I'm sorry okay so you would need to open I I thought it had been open but not closed you need to open the public hearing okay I'm sorry I apologize okay on the downtown open space plan I like to open the public hearing is there anyone we have to speak with reference to I'm sorry okay we have two we have one to speak in favor of it we have Dan okay you have three minutes all right thank you actually it's 10 minutes between you want to speak but you can okay you have five minutes I'll save a little bit of time so okay thank you for giving an opportunity to speak here tonight Chairman Harris fellow commissioners my name is Dan Jewel and I'm actually here at the request of the directors of Durham area designers of which somehow I unexplicably find myself president this year the Durham area designers over the past several years have closely followed and participated in the public conversation and workshops that have led to the creation of the plan that that Tom showed you your last meeting and in fact at our February meeting Tom was nice enough to come and actually present an overview of the of the final version we think that the proposals in this plan are good for all of Durham not just downtown and we understand that even though the some of the specific concepts put in this plan for specific sites are in fact concepts and do need at some point a more robust public discussion and design effort we think it is time to go ahead and adopt this plan and get those conversations started so for that reason Durham area designers ask that you recommend approval of the plan as presented and also that you go far as to suggest to the council that the city aggressively look at ways to implement the plan we think it's too important to be just another plan that gets put on a shelf collecting dust so thank you for the opportunity to speak thank you which you state your name and address and be so kind as to give it to the clerk before you leave hi I'm Joanne Andrews I live at 1715 Shawnee street I was a part of the early surets for this process I also serve on the public art committee and I just wanted to say it sounds like y'all are on board but as a citizen it's a vision it's not just a plan and it's so nice and I have a certain amount of relief that there finally is a vision because it seems like Durham is just really exploding and to have this kind of guidance and the importance of open space is huge having lived in some of the major northeastern cities open space is a balance to dense population is really huge so I'm glad y'all are supportive and just wanted to also throw in some citizen support behind the plane okay thank you ma'am would you would you just give us your information is there anyone else the public would like to speak on the Durham open space plan if not I will close the public hearing bring it back to the commissioners I think the commissioners have already spoken and now Mr. Chairman go ahead who's going he's going to give me a motion go on and make a comment I could I have I just a minute for one more comment yeah uh and this can be directed to to staff and whoever else is planning any and everything in Durham this has to do with lighting and I know this plan may or may not have a section in here on lighting but I didn't see it but I think that should be an integral part of the overall plan not only of this open space we can plan some nice lighting in these areas but just as I said for anybody within earshot downtown Durham needs a restudy of the lighting and I know this has nothing to do too much with what's happening now but it needs to be said since this is one of the the future planning aspects of what we're going to be doing you can go downtown and I think Durham is the most poorly lit downtown of any town that I've been in and when we look at new lighting I wish we could get rid of the yellow sodium lights something that has a light throw bigger than a 50 cent piece and I'm sorry for my for being that way with my comments but at any rate I do think we need to look at could lighting be part of this at some point if not this project the total overall planning of downtown and the side streets that are dimly lit that sort of thing that's just a general question I think a general answer would be yes part of good lining downtown is is a design requirement and should be a design requirement for both visibility but also to celebrate our architectural features in our public spaces so it can be as and I would also caution against over lighting but the right amount of lighting for the right space well thank you Tom and staff okay Tom Mr. Chairman I move that we send this forward to the city council with the recommendation of approval second it's been motioned second that the downtown open space plan be sent forward to the county to the city council with recommendation for approval and implementation all in favor let it by know my show of hands all opposed downtown open space plan has passed 12 to 0 thank you thank you under new business we have a presentation station area strategic infrastructure good evening Hannah Jacobson with the Durham Planning Department and tonight I will not be reporting on plan amendments as I typically have in the past but instead I'll get to share another project that we've been working on and it's called the station area strategic infrastructure study or the sassy for short and this is an effort where we are proactively and collaboratively identifying infrastructure projects around proposed regional rail stations to back up just a few steps there are two proposed rail corridors that are proposed right now in and Durham one is a commuter rail line that's shown in purple it would connect areas of West Durham to RTP and into Wake County and beyond this is for all intense and purposes on hold right now as Wake County reevaluates their rail transit investment plan the green line is a proposed Durham orange light rail line that would connect Chapel Hill to Durham and there have been some very exciting milestones that have happened recently back in February FTA did grant triangle transit some permissions to enter into the next phase of the project which is called project development and in that phase they will complete an environmental impact statement and do some preliminary engineering so this was just a step kind of in the right direction indicating that our project here in the triangle is competitive with others that it's that it's up against so during these next two phases triangle transit like I said we'll be doing some preliminary engineering of the alignment they'll dig down into station components that includes things like the platform bus bays park and ride lots things of that nature what we're interested in in this project is the station area or what's typically thought of as being kind of a half mile away from from the from the station itself and in Durham we call those station areas we call them compact neighborhoods this is a map of our development tier system and we already have several existing compact neighborhood tiers medical center on 9th street Alston Avenue North RTP the triangle metro center and we also have something that are called suburban transit areas which are essentially future compact neighborhood tiers and those exist at Lee village Patterson Place South Square and the MLK station and then of course there's the downtown tier itself and a lot of these compact neighborhoods are expected to absorb a large amount of the future growth these are numbers that come from the Metropolitan Planning Organization's long-range transportation plan for projections for households and employment and within these seven compact neighborhood tiers which represent only 1.6 percent of the total acreage we could expect to see somewhere around 34 percent of employment growth occur there and 20 percent of new households locate there if you factor in downtown that looks more or less like like half of new jobs and a quarter of new households locating within a walkable distance of transit so that's pretty exciting but the question is are we going to be prepared for that will people be able to safely and conveniently access the transit stations or will they walk along ditches or dodge across eight lanes of traffic will there be adequate infrastructure capacity both below both above and below ground to accommodate that future growth some of these transit stations are in formerly industrial areas where lines are 100 year sewer lines are 100 years old and are starting to corrode and importantly where will the money come from and so these are some of the questions that the station area strategic infrastructure study is trying to address some of the goals of the study are to improve access for all users to transit facilities to help catalyze the private development and to look for ways to finance these recommendations these are also in line with the city and the county strategic plan goals and it's very important to note that the planning department is not and should not and cannot do this by ourselves we've partnered with a lot of different agencies city and county departments that range from some of the usual suspects like the transportation department and the public works department all the way down to people like the budget and finance and office of economic and workforce development so we've gathered this group together and their role is to provide some expertise to us provide us feedback and act as departmental liaisons we've met with this group five different times to discuss some of the first stations we've begun to look at and these we're breaking we're breaking it down into two different phases we're dealing first with more urban stations those are the ones that are focused along the Durham freeway corridor and along the North Carolina railroad corridor those are shown in blue on the screen and then we'll look towards the more suburban stations at a second phase so this is the overall process that we're anticipating taking the first the first step in the process is to survey some of the existing conditions I'm going to flip through these slides probably relatively quickly just to give you a sense of the type of stuff that we've been looking at and these are of Ninth Street but again we have these maps of all of the urban stations that we've looked at so thus far so the first thing is we've been looking at existing land uses and we do this with a combination of GIS information and field work out there verifying that the information that we have is accurate so in addition we're looking at land ownership patterns we're looking at sidewalks and bike facilities and trails transit connections roadways we're looking at ownership patterns that their state roads local roads are maintained by some other entity we're looking at capacity and width of road keeping an eye out for historic resources local landmarks and districts as well as national register landmarks and districts environmental features such as impervious surface and tree coverage streams and flood plains natural heritage areas and finally we look at relevant plans and studies that have already been been adopted or are in draft format and as you can see there are a lot this is these are these are plans that are just relevant to the Ninth Street area so trying to get an idea of the work that has already been done and integrate it into this plan the second step is to identify barriers and potential solutions to access and to do that what we've what we've done is identify some of the major origins and destinations that transit users may have these are things like major employment centers hospital schools apartment complexes mixed use projects and then look at what the primary routes might be between those origins and destinations and the transit facilities and that's where we've been focusing a lot of the field work that we've done gone out and taken notes pictures and kind of footnoted each of those areas that we are considering to be barriers to access we bring all that information to that group that technical oversight group and we essentially have a workshop or a charrette type thing where we brainstorm potential ways to address some of those issues and those are recorded on a map they're not yet assessed for cost effectiveness or feasibility their their ideas at this point so that's where we've that's what we've done so far there's a lot of work to be done in the future one of the things that we recognize that we need to do is to partner with the department of water management to in their forthcoming water and sewer utility strategic plan update we can incorporate a lot of the information that we have about population projections and employment projections to get perhaps better a better idea of some of the deficiencies that might exist throughout the system if we are to grow in this compact way another thing we'll we'll need to look at is prioritization which of these projects kind of rises to the top and there are several that we'll definitely consult with the technical oversight group to do this but some of the initial things that we're looking at are looking at relative degree of difficulty of the project obviously the project's location in relation to the transit station whether or not it's represented already on an existing plan and and also whether or not it's a high priority for the community so we are planning probably late this summer to go out into the communities and discuss and educate the public on this project as well as the rail project and finally this gets to towards implementation we'll be looking at some financing and investment strategies researching value capture such as tax increment financing special assessment districts other types of mechanisms we'll look at ways that we can integrate some of this into the existing city and county capital improvements program we'll look for federal and state opportunities for grants like the tiger grant and some of these some of this work will inform that preliminary engineering that triangle transit and their consultants are currently doing so that kind of hints towards some of the the next steps that we are that we're planning on we are expecting to report back to you all in October that's six months from now of the progress that we've made so if you I know I kind of breeze through this really quickly and it's a lot of information so if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them for you I have a couple of questions first you you mentioned that you were you were land ownership patterns is one of the things you were mapping what does that mean you know what aspects of land ownership for you sure looking at well we we try to identify public entities first of all if there's if there's a large city presence some there's a lot of Durham Housing Authority properties and this gets really interesting when you start looking at how much property is tax exempt because sometime a lot of these value capture strategies that might go towards financing some of the infrastructure improvements depend on the tax revenues and if you're not generating those types of tax revenues from the property that that mechanism won't work so it that it understanding some of the land ownership patterns can help in that respect it can also help with trying to identify partners in this and all of this as well so that's one of the things that we've been looking at yeah have you got those maps done and available sure yeah yeah yeah this is the information is garnered from property tax records yeah and and then you were talking about and looking at your the the schedule you said something about community outreach meetings how does that fit in or you were going to go yeah we're yeah these okay but that's that just means that's just the key unit when are you going out in the community and what are you going to do when you when you go there we are we're currently trying to develop kind of our community engagement strategy and so a lot of the details haven't been completely fleshed out yet as to precisely when and what what the strategy will be when we go but but we recognize that a lot of education needs to be done not only about the rail project itself so we'll be working with triangle transit to do a lot of this and and so I don't know if I can I I expect it to be late this summer maybe this fall that we do some community engagement to try to get a sense from then what the what the priority projects are oh yeah that's that's uh it is but it is the same community outreach that tta is doing so you're not going to be having two different ones going on at a almost the same time you're we'll be we'll be collaborating with them closely okay that's all thank you will thanks hannah I just have one comment with respect to the partners involved in the technical analysis and my comment is that has to do with the some of the more creative finance mechanisms for affordable housing around transit areas and I didn't see any affordable housing development partners that were part of your technical assistance crew and to the extent that those people can be engaged early in the process and pat's standing up so maybe I'm treading into territory that he has a response to but probably the better financing public infrastructure with tiff and special assessment districts is one thing but something like creative value capture to subsidize affordable housing around these areas is an issue obviously that gets more complicated as property values go up over time and so we have done some creative things in north carolina and charlotte and and in some other parts of the state and so I would just encourage that we make sure that those efforts are captured in our analysis yeah thank you I just wanted to quickly respond so I didn't mean to jump the gun but I we have had internal conversations about using the sassy finance group and its process kind of for the facilitating the conversation about affordable housing that hasn't been completely decided on yet whether those are going to be separate together under the same umbrella separate sessions but kind of brand of the same in the same process but we certainly appreciate your comments in our we're going to be undertaking that process in some venue the direct relationship of sassy is still a little unclear are there any other comments questions Mel yes I think this part of the question is obvious but I want to make sure and looking at your your rail line those existing rails is that right no these are these are proposed new transit facilities right so so the the commuter rail line travels along the existing commuter the existing freight and Amtrak line so that probably looks familiar system rails right yeah okay now along that same line the same rail system you have some chemical companies a great big one the largest one and um you have some commercial businesses along that so your outreach would be to both yes thank you for bringing that up yes businesses neighborhoods anybody who is invested in in in the in these areas would be outreach to northeast central Durham is looking at enterprise zones in that same area where we can attract businesses into our business areas so I'm thinking that you probably need to talk to them before we make a decision about where these enterprise zones ought to be great yes I've been invited to come to the northeast central Durham leadership council this summer so I I plan to take them up on that that's the right place thank you all right thank you any other and I'm assuming this just for information only we don't need to take an action on it so thank you Hannah thank you any other new business other than announcements do we have Mr. Chair we have one text amendment case next month which is tech changes which tends to be kind of a long one and then also the presentation on the affordable housing at transit stations okay and I've been asked to announce one more time that Durham TV 8 is now Durham television network and the changes because of Durham TV network is now available on Time Warner Cable and AT&T U-verse it's on channel is 97.5 97-5 or cable channel 8 on Time Warner Cable and depending on if you have a digital cable box and uh from this point forward these meetings will be televised on those networks so thank you and I'll entertain a motion to adjourn unless we have something else are those going to be televised live or taped as they are now apparently they're going to be taped because they're going to be replayed on Tuesday and Thursday nights at 9 o'clock and at Wednesday at 2 p.m. thank you I'll entertain a motion for adjournment okay meeting this adjournment thank you


Well, it's a privilege to be with you again tonight. Lord, we're going to start a study in the book of Obadiah. So don't be ashamed to use your table of contents if you have to to find Obadiah. Turn to those minor prophets. Hosea, Joel, Amos, then Obadiah. The minor prophets are sort of like taking a trip out into the woods. There's a lot of beautiful things there that many people don't see that often. So the minor prophets, they have themes throughout them. Think of three themes that you see often in the minor prophets. One is that how the people are not keeping the covenant that God has given them in the book of Deuteronomy. Another is the covenant faithfulness of God. And then third, we have the final hope of Christ's return of God's rule and reign over all the nations. So we'll see these themes throughout the minor prophets. And Obadiah is very similar to many of these aspects, but it has something that makes it distinct among the minor prophets. And that is that it is addressing Edom. It is addressing a heathen people, a group of people that are not Israelites. And that's the only of the minor prophets that does that. Let's go ahead and we'll read the book of Obadiah together. And we're going to read the entire book in one sitting. It is the shortest book in the Old Testament. Let's begin in verse one. The vision of Obadiah fesses the Lord God concerning Edom. We have heard a report from the Lord. And a messenger has been sent among the nations saying arise and let us rise up against her for battle. Behold, I will make you small among the nations. You shall be greatly despised. The pride of your heart has deceived you. You who dwell in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high. You who say in your heart, who will bring me down to the ground. Though you ascend as high as the eagle, and though you set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, says the Lord.  Would they not have stolen till they had enough? If grave-gatherers had come to you, would they not have left some glanings? Oh, how Esau shall be searched out. How his hidden treasures shall be sought after. All the men in your Confederacy shall force you to the border. The men at peace with you shall deceive you and prevail against you.  No one is aware of it. Will I not in that day, says the Lord, even destroy the wise men from Edom and understanding from the mountains of Esau? Then your mighty men shall be dismayed to the end that everyone from the mountains of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.  In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried captive his forces. When foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were as one of them. But you should not have gazed on the day of your brother, in the day of his captivity. Nor should you have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Nor should you have spoken proudly in the day of distress. You should not have entered the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Indeed, you should not have gazed on their affliction in the day of their calamity. Nor laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity. You should not have stood in the crossroads to cut off those among them who escaped. Nor should you have delivered up those among them who remained in the day of distress. For the day of the Lord upon all the nations is near. As you have done, it shall be done to you.  For as you drank on my holy mountain, so shall all the nations drink continually. Yes, they shall drink and swallow, and they shall be as though they had never been. But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness. The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, but the house of Esau shall be stubble. They shall kindle them and devour them, and no survivor shall remain in the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken. The south shall possess the mountains of Esau. The lowlands shall possess Philistia. They shall possess the fields of Ephraim and the fields of Samaria. Benjamin shall possess Gilead, and the captains of the host of the children of Israel shall possess the land of the king knights, as far as Zarephath. The captives of Jerusalem, who are in Zepharad, shall possess the cities of the south. Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion to judge the mountains of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the lords. May God bless his holy word. Do you see that last verse in Obadiah? The kingdom shall be the lords. That's the heart and thrust of Obadiah. The kingdom shall be the lords. There's many themes in here. There's pride. There is destruction and attack of God's people. There is the coming of the day of the Lord, the final judgment and the return of the Lord. But what holds it all together is that the kingdom shall be the lords. Imagine with me that you are in the French resistance in 1940s France. If you remember, the Nazis have taken over France in the early 1940s, and there's a movement in Paris, in France, called the French resistance, where people are fighting in guerrilla warfare against the Nazis and their rule.  After a year or two of bloodshed, you go back to the hideout one time, and the Nazis have discovered it. And in the end, you find that it's Jean who sold you out. The one who you ate bread with, the one who you fought with, the one who you said and vowed together, that you died together, that one who is near to you has betrayed you, and it's cost you the lives. At that point, when you see your dead friends, that your closest friend has betrayed you, what do you need to hear about? But you need to hear about how D-Day is coming. There's an invasion coming from the Allies, and the Allies will come and liberate your country. They will come and people will be free once again. And all of those who betrayed and turned back will be shamed. This is what happens in this context. The people of Israel have Edom that is their close allies, even considered a cousin or a brother, because they're descendants from Esau. They even are called Esau many times in the book. Israel and Esau. Jacob and Esau, brothers, descendants. And in this book, there's an attack on Jerusalem, and it comes because of a betrayal of Edom. So when the people of Israel see Jerusalem in ruins, they see that the betrayal has happened by, not just some foreigner, but it's happened by Edom, the close country. The friend. What do they need to hear about? But that the kingdom is the Lord's. Do you feel weary in the battle? Do you feel weary following the Lord? Another betrayal, another lost friend. Well, what you need to hear about is that the kingdom is the Lord's. You need to think about the return of the Lord. You need to think about how the king of kings is coming back, and he will set all things right. The people of Israel here needed to hear that. They needed to hear that the kingdom is the Lord's. And I think that today, we need to hear the same. We need to hear that the kingdom is the Lord's, and his rule and reign over this world is coming. And it gives us great hope and great perseverance, great joy. So let's consider, I'm going to give you some more of a teaching now, time to give you some background about Obadiah, Edom and the Lord, okay? Then, God willing, we'll get into some of the judgment, pride, and fall. If you have the outline that's in the bulletin that will help you follow along, so first, I'm going to cover some of the background of the book of Obadiah. Okay, so first, who's Obadiah? There's approximately 12 Obadiahs in the Bible, and nobody really knows anything about this Obadiah. I'm sorry, I guess you were expecting some more background, but really, nobody knows anything about this Obadiah. He's a mystery. He's a mystery figure. We know that he gives his prophecy to those who are in Judah, and we know that in the very first verse, it's called the vision of Obadiah, and what's also a mystery is the time in which he writes. The time in which he writes. We can make some estimated guesses, but the commentaries are all in agreement that no one knows for sure when this book is written. Let me run you through some of those different options very quickly. There's five different major attacks on Jerusalem. So we know from Obadiah that it's in the time of a major attack on Jerusalem. There is the time of 925 B.C., where Sheshach king of Egypt in the reign of Rehoboam comes in to attack Jerusalem. There's the time in 2 Chronicles 21, where the Philistines and the Arabians come in during the reign of Jehoram, and that's in 841 B.C. There's a time in 790 B.C. when Jehoash king of Israel comes in and attacks Jerusalem. There's the time in 735 B.C. when Edom and Philistia come in during the reign of Ahaz, and there's also the time of Nebuchadnezzar in 586. That's the one most people know, the time of the Babylonian captivity. Considering the context in Obadiah, where what happens with the people in Jerusalem, you can narrow it down to either two of those dates. It's either 841 or 586. To give you an idea of each of those times, let's turn and look at 2 Chronicles 21. We'll see the earlier date, the possibility that this is in the reign of Jehoram. 2 Chronicles 21 verse 8, In his days, Edom revolted against Judah's authority and made a king over themselves. So Jehoram went out with his officers and his chariots with him, and he rose by night and attacked the Edomites who had surrounded him and the captains of the chariots. Thus Edom has been revolted against Judah's authority to this day. If you look on in verse 17, it says in verse 16, Moreover the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines and the Arabians were near the Ethiopians and they came into Judah and invaded it and carried away all the possessions that were found in the king's house. And also his sons and his wives so that there was not a son left to him except Jehoaz, the youngest of his sons. Another option of the time, if you look in Psalm 137, 300 years later approximately, Psalm 137 is about after the Babylonian captivity. And it reads in verse 1, By the rivers of Babylon there we sat, yea we wept, When we remembered Zion we hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it. For there are those who carried away captive asked of us a song, And those who plundered us requested mirth, saying sing one of us the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land if we forget you, O Jerusalem? Let my right hand forget its skill.  If I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy. Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom, The day of Jerusalem who said, raise it, raise it to its very foundation. O daughter of Babylon, who are you to be destroyed? Happy the one who repays you as you have served us. Happy the one who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock. You can see from this Psalm the people of Israel crying out to the Lord for justice. And what does the Edom do? But they come in and they say, raise it, raise it to its very foundation. Destroy, destroy Jerusalem. So I'm hoping that you can see some of the history of Edom and verses Israel. It's a long family feud that has gone on. And it started back in Genesis 25 when two nations are in the womb of Rachel. I'm sorry, of Rebecca. And it goes on when the people of Israel try to get passage through Edom that they're denied passage. Edomites oppose the king of Saul. Edomites are subdued by David in 2 Samuel 8. The Edomites are subjected by Solomon in 1 Kings 11. They fight against Jehoshaphat in 1 Kings 22. They rebel against Jehoram in 2 Kings 8. They're conquered by Amaziah in 2 Kings 14. They rebel against Ahas. They're controlled by Assyria and Babylon. There's a long history of Edom versus Israel. In the 4th century, the Edomites are forced out by the people called the Nabateans. They're forced to move to Southern Palestine where they become known as the Idumeans. And there's one famous Idumean who you know and his name is Herod. So the battle of Edom versus Israel goes all the way down to Herod where he tries to destroy the Messiah. This is a long family feud. And here in the book of Obadiah, it is a declaration of God against the Edomites. It's a declaration of a death sentence. He doesn't plead for the Edomites. Instead he says you're going to be wiped out within time. And now in the time of 8070, since that time in that destruction of Jerusalem, we have not heard of any Edomites.  God's word has been fulfilled. So there's the background of Obadiah, Edom, and the Lord. Let's try and get into verse 1 before we close tonight. Verse 1 says the vision of Obadiah thus says the Lord God concerning Edom. We have heard a report from the Lord and a messenger has been sent among the nations saying arise and let us rise against her for battle. Do you see how verse 1 starts out with the vision of Obadiah? That should remind you of Hebrews. Hebrews 1-1 that where God has spoken in times past and now he's spoken to us by his son. Here's an example where God is speaking through the vision of Obadiah. And thus says the Lord God. You see how we have here the, it's by the prophet. It's from the Lord. The target is Edom and the significance is God is going to war. God is going to war. God is going to war against the proud. God is going to war against those who attack God's people. And you don't want to go to war against the God of the universe. Here he begins by saying we have heard a report from the Lord. And a messenger has been sent among the nations saying arise. Let us rise up against her for battle. Israel's judgments are only in temporal and nature when they are the true people of God. They're in a 70 year captivity. But Edoms are eternal. Hell. Death. They're going to be wiped out when God says let us rise up against her for battle. This is like a battle cry that God gives in the prophets many times. Turn over to the left to Joel and Joel chapter 3. Joel chapter 3 verse 9 to 13. Proclaim this among the nations. Prepare for war. Wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plowshears into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say I am strong. Assemble and come all you nations and gather together all around. Cause your mighty ones to go down there oh Lord. Let the nations be awakened and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat. For there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle for the harvest is ripe. Come go down for the wine press is full. The vats over flown for their wickedness is great. What a fearful thing it is to be opposed by God. Do you know who God opposes? God opposes the proud. God opposes the proud. Think with me tonight about how you have pride in you. You have pride in you and you have got to battle it every day. It rises up and leads to fruit in your life of evil fruit. Pride says to God that I deserve worship and not you. Pride says to God pushes God off his throne and says I'll sit on it. The judgment of God comes against Edom because of their pride. Their pride and their pride leads them to destroy and attack God's people. Does God have enemies? Yes, his enemies are the proud. So would you want to be one of God's enemies? Would you want to be a proud person? God opposes the proud. He declares war against the proud. He will humble all the proud. Either you must humble yourself now before the cross of Christ, before God Almighty, or you will be humbled on judgment day like Edom. There was someone who doesn't have to be humble, and he's the Lord Jesus Christ, but he humbled himself to save a proud people. Think about all of the pride that's been in your life where you think and consider yourself to be a good person, where you put yourself first ahead of others, where you expect people to say wonderful things about you. And when someone says something wonderful about you, I remember I heard this story about a guy who sent out these letters of congratulations and thank you letters to like 12 of his friends, and every one of his 12 of his friends replied back with, oh yes, you're welcome, and they wrote about something good they did. And all 12 of his friends were expecting praise and thanks. What kind of attitude do you have before God? Is it pride? There's one who humbled himself, and he didn't have to. You should humble yourself every day, but the Lord of Glory humbles himself. He becomes a man. What kindness and what goodness from the Lord Jesus Christ to come and save a proud people. We are a proud people, but we have a very humble savior who humbled himself to the point of death on the cross. So let's consider his humility and our pride. Let's pray. Dear Lord God Almighty, we don't want to be your enemies. We don't want you to declare war on us. We want to be a humble people. Thank you for Obadiah. Please help us to be able to understand the meat of this book and the heart of this book. Please help us to be able to get into the rest of this book and be humbled, worship you, exalt you, and see that the kingdom is the Lord's. Amen.