Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Durham City Hall.
It's good to have you all here tonight. Colleagues, it's great
to see you. If you will join me for a moment of silence. I'll
now pass it over to Council Member Rist for the Pledge of
Allegiance. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If it is
your practice, I invite you to rise with me and recite the
Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America, and to the Republic for which it
stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. All right. All right. Madam clerk, if you
will. All right. I am going to call the roll on. I'm Mayor
Williams, and I'm here. Mayor Pro Tem.
Here. Council Member Rist here. Councilmember Cooke.
Here. Council Member Kopac here.
Council member Baker here. Council Member Burris here.
Thank you all so much. Madam clerk, everyone is here
tonight. If you couldn't see. All right, we will start with.
Our ceremonial items. And the first one will be National
Poetry Month, read by Council Member Burris. She is not going
to say. I'm just giving her this for the first time. She's
going to say that she was well prepared and asked earlier this
month if she would read the proclamation for tonight. And
she'll be joined by our poet laureate, Chris Vitello. All
right. See you. Thank you. Good afternoon. And
I had a whole week to read this. Thank you so much. Mayor
Williamstown. Okay. All right. So we're as National Poetry
Month was established in 1996 by the Academy of American
Poets to celebrate poetry's vital place in our culture and
its enduring power to inspire, healed and unite communities.
And whereas poetry enriches civic life by giving voice to
diverse experiences, preserving history, advancing dialogue,
and nurturing empathy. Our local poets, educators,
librarians, and arts organizations cultivate
creativity in classrooms, libraries, bookstores, and
community spaces, ensuring that poetry remains accessible to
all residents, to residents of all ages. And whereas the City
of Durham Poet Laureate program was established in 2021 with
the inaugural Poet Laureate appointment of D.J. Rogers from
2022 to 2023 and our current current laureate Chris Vitello.
Hello. You got it. Thank you. Appointed in 2024 through 2027.
And Whereas the City of Durham is committed to supporting the
arts as an essential public service that enriches civic
life, nurtures imagination and strengthens community
connection through the city's Durham Poet Laureate program,
supporting 910 students in 2025 through learning opportunities.
And Whereas, the city. Whereas the arts in Durham are vital to
our quality of life, our economy and reflect the beauty
and vibrancy of our community. Poetry through reading,
writing, performance and public art strengthens literacy,
supports lifelong learning and contributes to our local
economy and cultural landscape. Now, therefore, I. Leonardo
Williams mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina, do
hereby proclaim April 2026 as National Poetry Month in the
City of Durham and encourage residents to celebrate by
reading a poem, writing a poem, attending a poetry event, and
sharing the power of words with others. Witness my hand the
corporate seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina. This
20th day of April, 2026. Thank you so much. Thank you
madam. I have a few words. Thank you
for reading that and thank you for the proclamation. We
probably have a ton of poets in this room. Durham is full of
poets. So is the whole area. When I proposed a theme of
poetry everywhere, when I applied to be the Poet
laureate, that was that was something that I was really
committed to. Last week I was at the Hill Learning Center
working with kids. I wrote at the Duke Children's Hospital
prom on Friday night, the Scrap Exchange or Earth Day shebang.
On Saturday, I was teaching a workshop on Memory Poems this
morning at the East Regional Library. I'll be doing other
Library Fest things. Something tomorrow night at the main
branch just across the street. And and this month we're doing
another cool thing to demonstrate this theme as you
walk around downtown. Hopefully this coming weekend, there will
be maybe some poems on the sidewalk that you can discover
and stop and read, maybe even interact with physically. So
keep your eyes on the ground as well as the sky, and look for
some poems. And then on April 30th, if I can plug an event,
over 20 poets will be reading. It's a reading that we're doing
for the second year in a row called The Reading for the end
of the world. Since the world seems perpetually to be ending.
And then tomorrow we figure that out all over again. It'll
be at the auditorium of the main branch of the library 6 to
9 p.m., 22 poets from Durham and the area all reading about
6 or 7 minutes each. Sounds like a long night. Three hours
of poetry, but it will go fast. And it's a testament to how
many poets we have in the area. And I wrote a quirky little
Durham poem, if I may read it to you all. I understand hope,
for Durham is a theme that will be used this week. So I wrote
this poem. Hope. Hope is a dangerous thing. What if you
had a hope and then had to follow through with it? What if
others shared your hope and we all had to make it happen
together? Hope for Durham in these fraught times, for both
people and birds, means taking the risk that the future we
hope for requires. We could huddle alone, hopeless at home,
anywhere. But not in Durham, not here. Thank you all so
much. Thank you sir. Thank you.
Good evening. I would like to invite up Ashley Eason from the
Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Alliance. Proclamation. Whereas
tuberous sclerosis complex, TSC is a rare genetic disorder that
leads to the growth of non-cancerous benign tumors in
vital organs, including the brain, heart, kidneys, skin,
liver and lungs. And whereas approximately 50,000 Americans
and 1 million people worldwide are living with tuberous
sclerosis complex, a disease that currently has no cure. And
whereas TSC is a leading genetic cause of both epilepsy
and autism, with varying degrees of severity in those
affected. And whereas TSC affects individuals
differently, with some experiencing severe
complications and others remaining undiagnosed due to
mild symptoms. And whereas TSC can result from a random
genetic mutation or be inherited through family lines,
the impact of TSC can lead to life threatening complications,
including brain fluid build up, heart issues, kidney damage,
lung failure, increased risk of cancerous growths, and vision
impairment. And whereas the prevalence of TSC is comparable
to other well-known conditions such as Lou Gehrig's disease,
ALS and cystic fibrosis, underscoring the need for
greater awareness and understanding. And whereas the
City of Durham is committed to raising awareness about
tuberous sclerosis complex, supporting individuals with TSC
and advocating for continued research and access to medical
care. Now, therefore, I. Leonardo Williams, mayor of the
City of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim. May 15th,
2026 as Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Awareness Day in the
City of Durham. Encourage all citizens to join this
observance to promote awareness, understanding and
support for individuals affected by TSC. Witness my
hand in corporate seal, city of Durham on this day Leonardo
Williams mayor, City of Durham. Thank you so much. Yes.
Thank you. We want to thank the City of
Durham for recognizing tuberous sclerosis through this
meaningful proclamation for our family. This recognition is
deeply personal. Our daughter, Nora, she's right here, has
been living with TSC since birth. This rare genetic
condition again causes benign tumors to grow in vital organs
such as your brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, eyes and skin.
For Nora and many others, these growths in the brain often lead
to debilitating seizures. She has seizures on a daily basis.
There's not a day that goes by that she doesn't have a seizure.
And it also causes developmental delays. From her
earliest days in the NICU to the many medical challenges she
has faced, Nora has shown incredible strength. With the
help of physical therapy, she began walking just four months
shy of her third birthday, a milestone that meant everything
to our family through speech therapy. She is learning
American Sign Language to communicate and with
occupational therapy, she is gaining the skills to navigate
a world that isn't always built for her. Nora's journey is a
powerful reminder of why awareness, research, and
support matters so much. This proclamation helped shine a
light on children like Nora and the thousands of others living
with the complexities of TSC. It reminds us that their
stories matter, their voices matter, and they are never
alone. So thank you, City of Durham, for standing with
families like ours and helping bring in hope, understanding
and visibility to the TSC community. With gratitude from
the East and family and the TSC of the Carolinas. Also on May
2nd in Charlotte, North Carolina, will be having to
step forward to TSC, where we're raising funds for
research. So if you guys can come out, that would be nice.
Thank you guys so much. Good evening to Randy McKay and
Rebecca Lee from the Carolina Theatre. And actually all of
the staff board members who are here. Come on and join us. Come
on. There's a big crowd. This is a big event today. It's not
often that we celebrate our 100th anniversary in Durham. So
this is quite exciting. I am I have the great pleasure of
being the City Council liaison to the Carolina Theatre, which
has an amazing board and staff. And as you all know, it's a
great institution in Durham. So glad that all these folks can
be here. It's awesome. Thanks for coming everyone. Hey.
Yay! All right. Okay. Whereas the
Carolina Theatre of Durham first opened its doors in 1926
as a centerpiece for entertainment, film, live
performance and community gathering in downtown Durham.
And whereas for 100 years, the Carolina Theatre has served as
a cultural anchor, hosting films, concerts, theatrical
productions, community events, educational programs, and film
festivals that have enriched the lives of Durham residents
and visitors, including the world premiere of the movies
Bull Durham in 1988, The Best of Enemies in 2019, as well as
live appearances by stars such as Katharine Hepburn, Ronald
Reagan, Tallulah Bankhead, Jane Wyman, Montgomery Clift and
Whereas. The theatre's historic architecture, marquee and
interior spaces are emblematic of Durham's cultural heritage
and contribute to the unique character and vitality of the
downtown district. And whereas historic civil rights protests
in the early 60s challenged the Carolina Theatre's own policy
of racial segregation and ultimately led not only to full
integration at the theatre, but also the recognition of youth
led organizing tactics as a strategy that influenced the
entire civil rights movement. Generations of Durham citizens,
civic organizations, volunteers, donors, artists,
and theater staff have contributed time, resources,
and passion to preserve, restore, and sustain the
Carolina Theatre as a welcoming public venue. And Whereas, the
Carolina Theatre has supported local artists and non-profit
organizations, promoted arts education, and help stimulate
$10 million in direct economic impact, the City of Durham
recognizes the role of the Carolina Theatre in advancing
community engagement, cultural diversity, and the arts as
essential elements of a vibrant and inclusive city. Now,
therefore, I. Leonardo Williams, mayor of the City of
Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim, I'm sorry,
commemorate that 100th anniversary of the Carolina
Theatre in the City of Durham and encourage residents to join
in expressing deep appreciation for the 100 years of cultural,
educational and civic contributions of the Carolina
Theatre by participating in their centennial events and
celebrating their rich history in Durham. Witness my hand in
the corporate seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina, the
16th day of March, 2026, Leonardo Williams mayor.
100 there aren't that many institutions in any city that
survive 100 years. So I want to thank mayor, council members
and staff and our team and all the generations of leaders that
have gone before us to keep this jewel in the heart of the
city for 100 years. And thank you to our community members
who have consistently rallied to support the theatre from
saving it from demolition to demonstrating to ensure that it
was open to all our community members, to supporting its
programming, community initiatives and school
education programs. The theater is important to everyone in
this room and everyone in our community. Even if you've never
entered our doors, because every year we add $10 million
to Durham's economy, we support more than 400 full time jobs in
this community and see 15,000 school students through our
education programs. And we return a significant amount of
tax base to city and county coffers, which funds all the
other priorities. This council and our county may have. In
fact, every dollar that the city gives to the Carolina
Theatre returns this $12.50 to the city's economy. We're a
good investment, so thank you. Thank you all again for the
recognition and for your continuing support. And as Carl
said and read in the proclamation, we are
celebrating our centennial for all of 2026 down to the very
last seconds of it, with a gala New Year's Eve event that will
be announcing soon. So please come celebrate our centennial
with us. Join us at the theatre or in the many events that we
are throwing out in the community. But most of all,
thank you for your support all these years and we look forward
to what the next 100 will bring.
And as the Army for Carolina Theater is leaving, I'll invite
the Army for tenants to join me. If we have representatives
from the Durham, Orange County Community Tennis Association,
you know, Community Tennis Association, the US Tennis
Association of North Carolina. Central Tennis Association.
Future Eagles. All right. Thank you.
All right. Thank you all for coming up. I. I don't know who
sends more emails. Pickleball. Zoning cases or tennis.
Might be. I think it might be. Yes. Thank
you all so much. Council Member Burris wanted this one. I also
wanted it. So we're both up here. I always tell the story
of when. When I was in high school, we started a tennis
team because we didn't see any black kids playing on TV. And
so in Halifax County we started the tennis team. We got beat by
everybody, but we didn't really care to win or lose. We wanted
to be represented. And so it feels good to have started that
and continue our passion for it. Also, it gives me great joy
to be a graduate of nCCU with Council Member Burris and they
are winning championships out here. So congratulations again.
All right, so the proclamation reads today, whereas tennis is
a sport that can be played throughout an individual's
lifetime and is accessible to people of all ages, skill
levels, physical abilities, and levels of fitness, regardless
of environment. And whereas tennis provides significant
benefits across multiple dimensions of health, and
research has shown that individuals who actively play
tennis as a form of cardiovascular exercise may add
an average of 9.7 years to their expected lifespan,
compared to second, sedentary individuals. Please get out and
play tennis if you want to live a long life. And whereas the
City of Durham offers numerous opportunities for individuals
both new to the sport and experienced players to
participate in tennis through its public parks, schools and
clubs located throughout the city. And Whereas, the Durham
community provides opportunities for social play,
tennis instruction, competitive leagues for residents and
non-residents, as well as school matches and tournaments
that foster community engagement and athletic
development. And whereas local organizations, including Doctor,
CTA and US to North Carolina provide valuable resources,
programs, events and leagues that enhance the tennis
experience and promote participation in the sport
throughout our community. The City of Durham is committed to
expanding access to tennis and ensuring opportunities for
individuals of all ages and abilities to participate in the
sport. In order to promote health, wellness and community
connection. And we got your emails. We want to work on it
now. Therefore, I Leonardo Williams mayor of the City of
Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim April 26th,
2026. May 2026 National Tennis Month in Durham and encourage
all residents to ensure to enjoy the sport and support its
local national organizations. So witness my Hand and the
Corporate seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina. This
20th day of May 2026. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Hey y'all. My name is Adrian Charleston and this is my eight
year old son. His name is lightning and I am here with my
son, my tennis community doctor. Durham, Orange County
Tennis Community Association, you know, community and
association. Of course, the illustrious North Carolina
Central Tennis and just some other great tennis advocates in
the city. I just really like to say, on behalf of our entire
tennis community, thank you all for this acknowledgement and
acknowledging the powerful sport of tennis in the
community and just how it's a vehicle for community success
in the community connection and health. Tennis is, of course,
like you said, one of the few sports that really does that a
person can play for a lifetime. And it brings a lot of people
together of all skill levels, all ages, all backgrounds. We
want to continue to grow that in the city of Durham. Whether
you're picking up a racquet for the first time or returning
from years of being off, we want to make sure that y'all
have a safe place to continue to grow. And National Tennis
Month is about more than just playing the sport of tennis.
It's really about building community, which I've been able
to grow since living in Durham and create spaces where people
feel welcome. Kids can grow in confidence, and families and
friends can come and enjoy time together in a healthy way.
Right here in our community. We're seeing that impact every
day. We're seeing it through local parks, schools, other
community organizations like the organizations I named
Doctor Eno, North Carolina Central Tennis Program, and
Duke tennis programs. And we're all working to make tennis more
accessible. And excuse me and inclusive in the city of
Durham. And so I really do appreciate this proclamation
today. And I would just like to invite you all to get out and
play tennis, get on the tennis court. Even if you've never
picked up a racquet before, come out, enjoy the nice
weather we're having, and just remember that it's a place
where you can continue to build community. And this is not just
a game for us. It's not just a sport for us. It's actually a
place where we have made family friends, and it's a passion for
many of us in the community. So thanks again for this honor and
we look forward to continuing to grow the game in the city of
Durham. And my son wants to say one thing. I lift him up.
Oh, oh, go ahead. , please come to the North
Carolina Central Tennis mIAC championship and carry tennis
Park. And that's this.
Week. Yes. Like so you guys. Yeah. Come
on. Yeah, yeah. Hey hold that. One more person.
Oh. Oh!
Yay! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Somebody.
Oh, yes. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
All right. Thank you all so much for your
patience with that. All right.
At this time, I'll start to my left. And Council Member Kopac.
Do you have any announcements? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
First of all, obviously Tax Day just passed and seemed like a
good time to remind folks about the city's longtime homeowner
grant program, which works alongside the county's low
income homeowner relief program for the first time this year.
We've used up all the funds for the program after extending
eligibility to anybody who qualifies and also has been a
homeowner for at least five years. You have until the fall
to apply, but it's worth researching eligibility. Now,
this is an important anti displacement tool that the city
and county have put forward. And we know that one of the
best ways to promote affordability is to keep people
in their homes. Also happy Earth Day and Earth Month. One
of my favorite authors Paul Hawken, wrote, if you look at
the science about what's happening to the earth and
aren't pessimistic, you don't understand data. But if you
meet the people who are working to restore this earth and you
aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse. I was sorry to
miss the Earth Day celebration yesterday in Durham, but I was
in Washington, D.C. leading a panel with Environmental
Defense Fund on navigating these tumultuous times from the
federal government on down. And the mood was somber, but there
was clear energy for both resistance and for
collaboration around pragmatic solutions. And we have to do
both. I'm excited about what I'm seeing in Durham from our
renewable energy plan to protecting the 30% of the
county outside the urban growth boundary. Other plans to
protect and expand protected areas across the city, and the
advocacy I see by groups on a number of issues in our great
city. I'm excited about Earth Day, but I'm looking forward to
one day celebrating Regeneration Day. The day when
we can say we have reversed the impacts of climate change and
met our local, national and global goals for climate and
nature. Because at the end of the day, we are not separate
from nature. We are a part of it.
Council Member Baker good evening everyone. I'll
associate myself with the wonderful comments of my my
colleague Council Member Kopac. May 1st is coming.
International Workers Day it actually began in the United
States. Although it's not federally recognized. We
celebrate Labor Day in September, but there's a
growing movement to to support. May day. And we will actually
be having May day celebrations in Durham. People can show up
at 5 p.m. at CCP Plaza a few blocks away. Friday, May 1st, 5
p.m., CCP Plaza. For those of you who are interested and
actually just saw that Durham Public Schools looks like is
not going to have school that day. In in celebration of May
day. So I want to encourage folks to to come out to that.
And other than that, I look forward to a productive meeting.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and
welcome to those who are joining us in council chambers.
We're also virtually as well. I'm excited to have you here
tonight, and I look forward to what I know. It'll be a great
meeting. I'll be brief with my announcements. Mostly, I want
to extend gratitude to the various members, our community,
who for inviting me to fellowship and join them over
the past two weeks. So first, I want to extend gratitude to
members of the Town Community Association. I had an
opportunity to attend their monthly meeting where I learned
a lot about the issues impacting our neighbors in that
part of the area, but also really forward thinking about
how we can collectively address some of the issues around
affordable housing, but also some predatory towing
practices. I look forward to unpacking that more. Next, I
want to send my gratitude to students from Doctor Stanton
Berries. An instance to use municipal politics class and
also extend gratitude to my colleagues who answer their
emails and engage with those. So thank you to Council Member
Kopac and Council Member Rist, who I believe are also engaged.
Those students as well, had a chance to be on a panel
discussion with some other esteemed panelists, such as
Doctor Henry McCoy, Commissioner Steven Valentine,
doctor drivers in CCU and we really had a great time
engaging students about just what they the role of local
government. And I was really excited about participating
because it shows that our students are actually watching
and they have critical thinking and they understand that some
there's some issues in government in Durham. They're
not working for them, particularly around the topic
of affordable housing, but also community safety. So I'm glad
to know that our young folks are paying attention to the
policies and the outcomes, and want to make sure that
everything lines up. Also wanted to shout out to Grace,
Inc. Tiffany, who's led by Tiffany Swoopes, for inviting
me to participate in a panel discussion also led by,
organized and led by youth leaders on the topic of gun
violence. So I had a chance to share the stage with
Representative Zach Hawkins and other esteemed panelists to
share more insight about the toll that gun violence has on
mental health. As someone who's experienced that in my
childhood as well, so definitely wanting to hear from
our kids and the theme that we heard and I'll never stop
beating this drum, is that we are normalizing gun violence in
our community. And just because some folks don't see it or hear
the gunshots every night, doesn't mean that we all should
not care about the lasting trauma that we are enduring.
Our children in this community. And then finally had the
opportunity to attend opening night of window taps. Third day
was a very powerful play, attended on Friday night, and I
know it was hope. If you got a chance to participate. It was
really, really motivating and thought provoking. So thank you
all for joining us tonight and look forward again to a great
meeting. Thank you.
Councilmember Wrist. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good
evening colleagues. City manager staff, folks in
attendance. Good to see you again. A couple things. Happy,
happy poetry month. Thanks to the poetry box for being here
for that proclamation. Also, happy early tennis month. Since
it is May, but also I want to say Happy Earth Day. And thanks
to the staff of the Durham Parks and Rec department who
came out on Sunday and organize a great Earth Day festival at
Central Park. Really amazing event. Happy to participate in
that with Council Member Baker and and Mayor Pro Tem Caballero
also had a great visit last week to the Durham Emergency
Communications Center. That's where the 911 call center is
for the City of Durham. For Emergency Communicators Week, I
want to thank director Randy Beeman and his assistant,
Tangelo Walker, for leading us there. I also want to thank
Sarah Allen, who's one of the call takers. I was able to sit
in on a call with Sarah and was just amazed by the amount of
knowledge she brings to that, the quickness she brings to
these calls that come in at a rapid fire pace on all kinds of
things you can imagine. Also was amazed that you know you
know how it is when you're talking to someone on a cell
phone. It can be hard to hear sometimes, but you heard every
word these people were saying is often hard to hear. So Sarah
was an amazing, amazing, amazing talent of the call
center. And I appreciate all the folks who work there and
spend a lot of time and intense hours in the call center. Also
last week I attended the Step Up Durham Impact Lunch 2026. I
want to thank the director interim director of their
Cashmere Bentley, who was also a participant, and step up
earlier. If you don't know, step up. They spent about a
decade in Durham empowering job seekers in the Durham community
who faced significant barriers to finding employment. They're
doing an amazing job at Step Up and hope you appreciate their
work, and I want to congratulate them on their
impact here in Durham. Finally, the last thing is last Thursday
also participated in the 30th anniversary celebration or gala
for the Durham Partnership for children, which really
spearheads our work on early childhood education here in
Durham, thanks to their director, Kate Irish, who leads
that great organization. And also we had a great speaker
there, Lieutenant Governor Rachel Hunt, whose dad, as you
probably know, Jim Hunt is one that founded the whole Smart
Start movement around Durham. So it was a great event there.
The city is not directly involved in a lot of early
childhood stuff. It's more the county, but so much of what we
do in terms of parks and housing and other supports are
supporting our kids in the earliest years as they prepare
for for lives of meaning and and impact. So thanks to the
Durham partnership, it's great to have strong partners like
them in the world of early childhood. The last thing, Mr.
Mayor, I do want to ask. I don't know if I should do it
now or later, but I do need to ask for an excused absence from
our May 7th work session. I'll be in a conference that day,
and we'll do that now. Or do we do that later?
Yeah, I'll. Entertain a motion to grant you
an excuse. Absence for May 7th work session.
Spent more than probably. A. second. Madam clerk, please
open. The vote.
Thank you so much. Please close the vote.
Motion passes seven zero. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Cook.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and thank you to my
colleagues for those excellent announcements. I'm sitting
pretty heavy tonight and I'm holding space for this week of
men harming their intimate partners and children. We've
been seeing everything from well-known political figures in
Virginia to a man and his entire family of, I think,
seven children in Shreveport, Louisiana. And then the
tentatively identity hidden folks, 60 to 80 million per
month visitors on online chat rooms to survivors. This is a
this is a difficult week to those is still experiencing
violence. And those who have experienced violence. We see
you I believe you just want to hold some space for that today.
It's it's been really hard news. Not that anything is
surprising in that, but also always difficult to hear. I did
have some really awesome opportunities this past week as
well. One of the things that I got to do was with Council
Member Rist and Mayor Pro Tem Caballero. Visit the 911 call
center. Also want to send my thanks to Randy and Angela, and
then my person that I got to sit with was Adriana and she
was also incredible. Everyone there is amazing. She also made
guacamole for the whole office and I get to have some. And it
was really spicy and delicious. I also want to recognize that
that day they were having a memorial for someone that they
lost, Nakia Ferrer. And so I just want to recognize her
memory as a city employee that was really, really special and
beloved by so many. That's a really hard job to answer.
Crises after crises. So yeah, but really meaningful work. And
I'm so grateful for the folks to do that. I also got to go
visit the Hillandale Golf course and talk to folks about
Swing Pals. This is such a cool. It's a program for middle
school students, public school students across the city. It's
expanding. It's right now in six, I think out of nine cities
are public schools, and they are hoping to expand to all
nine of the public middle schools. And one of the one of
the many incredible programs that are going on at Hillandale
Golf Course. If you are a golfer, you've probably been
over there. If you are not like me, you might not know that
that is a place where you can go golf for $40, and if you
can't pay that $40, they will work with you. So it's
someplace that's open for everybody and with a real
commitment to holding up community, which I really
appreciated. So shout out to Carl and Doug for taking me on
that tour. Also got to go to the Equity Before Birth dance
party, which was super fun and people were like really
breaking it down. So I was really happy to be there and to
celebrate that awesome organization as well. And then
finally got to go to the screening of Celebrating the
Story of Grant Street with several of my colleagues, as
well to the not old as they like to say to the young ladies
of Grant Street who have ensured that their community
survived urban renewal and will be something that can be passed
down to future generations. Brenda Bradshaw, Vivian Gunn,
Pam Blake, Diane Merritt, Joanne Brown, these women, if
you haven't met them, are incredible. They're just
amazing pillars of the hashtag community and of all of Durham.
I also want to shout out to Council Member Burris, who had
a a recognition was recognized in the film for the work that
she's done in that community. And to Justin Reed, who was the
filmmaker, and Jarvis McInnis, who hosted and forced us to
talk to our neighbors and my audience neighbor was Mildred,
who had lived here. She was for her entire life in Durham and
specifically in Haiti, and shared her story with me. And
that was really special. So thanks to all of those folks
who made that happen this week. And those are my announcements.
Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. Good evening
everyone. Thanks. First up, it has been it's spring in Durham,
which means that it's event season for us. So I have had
the pleasure of seeing, I think every single one of us at one
event or another that many of you all have named. So I'm not
going to go through the list. I do just want to shout out
Durham Parks and Rec for an excellent Earth Day Festival
celebration yesterday, and look forward to a meeting and I will
be brief. Thank you. Not with this sign up sheet. A
lot of voices are going to be heard tonight. Looking forward
to the engagement. Colleagues. Thank you all for traversing
the city. There were lots of things happening. I
unfortunately did not get a chance to get to the full frame
festival, but I heard it was amazing and and just really,
really, really good. Hope that I can go back and capture some
of those with the Earth Day festivities and everything else
that was going on. Reminds me of why there were seven of us.
I was away at Harvard at a fellowship that Durham has won,
and we will be bringing some of those resources to Durham. We
will utilize the resources of the Graduate School of Design
from Harvard, where they will be putting fellows into the
mayor's office to work with our community engagement
department, as well as our planning department. And we
will be focusing on some very specialized projects throughout
the city. So I'm really excited about those resources that we
don't have to pay for. And they come with the resources and
weight of Harvard University. I really want to thank my my
special assistant, Emmanuel, a, and our Director of Community
Engagement, Director, Starla Tanner, for joining me and of
in Cambridge over the last week. Thanks to the Black
Policy Summit by the Black Student Union at Harvard, also
for inviting me there to represent the city of Durham
and shout out to the African American Mayors Association and
the American Beverage Association. I'll be talking
about this more tomorrow. But the City of Durham won the
largest award in the country for food insecurity. So
tomorrow I'll be talking about the not only $25,000 award that
Mayor Shaw helped us get, but also the $175,000 award that
I'm I'm just really proud of my office staff who applied and
got this grant for Durham. And I will be talking about that
more in detail tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, tomorrow
is while later in the year, tomorrow will be the state of
the city. In past time, the state of the city has been just
a part of a normal agenda item. And we would just have it in
here. When I got elected, I thought it should be a city
celebration to celebrate all the things that we have going
on, and so we will do that tomorrow at Deepak. Doors will
open at 5 p.m. and we will not only celebrate all of the
grants and awards that we've gotten, the City Future Fund
will be giving out an additional $30,000 tomorrow to
youth serving organizations right here in Durham. Really
excited about that. And I'll be bringing a close friend of mine
to the town to be a guest speaker in a fireside chat.
That's Mayor Brandon Scott from Baltimore, Maryland, so I hope
you can make it tomorrow. Doors open at five and we'll be at
Deepak tomorrow at and program starts at six and we will have
the city on display. I thank you, Councilmember Cook, for
mentioning this, something I've been paying close attention to
as well. And I am looking at this though, as there are some
serious mental health issues going on in our community. And,
you know, people hurt people no matter whether they're black or
white or whatever. We've seen some tragedies happen, and I
really hope that we can really, really check on our neighbors.
People are not okay. And and that's I'm really worried about
that. So hopefully folks are taking care of one another the
best we can. And we'll continue to strive together. All right.
Okay. Thank you. We are going to get on with the agenda here.
And before we get on to that, I'm going to before I get to
the consent agenda, I'll go ahead and pass it to Mr.
Manager for your priority items.
Thank you. Mayor. Mayor Pro tem, members of council. The
city manager's office does have one priority item this evening.
That is for agenda item number 19. The American Rescue Plan
Act update. There was additional information
requested at the April 9th work session. And that's been
attached under agenda item number 19, which is in the no
action agenda items for informational purposes only
section of the agenda this evening. Those are our priority
items. Thank you so much, Madam
Attorney. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Madam
Mayor Pro Tem, members of the council, it's good to see you.
The City Attorney's office has no priority items tonight.
Thank you, Madam Clerk. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and
city council members. The city clerk's office has no items
this evening. Thank you. At this time, I'll
go ahead and read the media. And I read the consent agenda.
Item number two. Approval of City Council minutes. This item
has been pulled. Item number three.
Is my. You see, my son. Okay. Thank
you. Okay. Oh, it's 1303. Hey, item number three. Item number
two is approval of the City Council minutes, which has been
pulled. Item number three, Durham Workers Rights
Commission. Appointment number four. Item number four. Grant
budget ordinance accepting a share. Our strength. No kid
hungry grant, which is what I just referenced. Really excited
to receive that. Item number five, approval of Wake County
Emergency Operations Plan. Madam clerk, I will sign this
after we pass on, and I'll get it back to you. Item number six
interlocal agreement between the City of Durham and the
County of Durham to fund community solutions consulting.
Work on the homeless strategy, homeless Strategic framework.
This item has been pulled. Item number seven, Street Dash 332.
See pavement condition study presentation. Item number
eight. Proposed ten year lease with Liberty Arts Incorporated
for Arts Pavilion at 505 Rigsby Avenue. Item number nine Durham
Rail Trail construction manager at risk CMR with Balfour Beatty
Construction, holds Brothers Construction and a joint
venture item number ten Interlocal agreement for Fire
and Emergency Medical Services station 19, item number 11
utility extension agreement with Jason Jones to serve 102
North Maple Street. Item number 12. Utility extension agreement
with The Light Is Red, LLC. The light is red. The light is Red
okay, LLC to serve 2502 is your Avenue build. Since HQ. Item
number 13, third amendment to the contract with Duke
University for city Fiber at item has been pulled. Item
number 14. Fiscal year 2023. State and Local cybersecurity
Grant program grant project ordinance and authorization to
execute memorandum of under Memorandum of Agreement. That
item has been pulled. Item number 15. Federal Transit
Administration Bus and Bus Facility Grant project
ordinance, item number 16 purchase contract with Gillig,
LLC for ten diesel buses for Go Durham. Number 17 service
contract with Palmetto Underground Solutions, LLC for
the 2026 Late Lead Service Line inventory. Field verifications
project, item number 18 Award construction contract to PC
Construction Company for the Williams Water Treatment Plant.
Basin Improvements Project. Item number 25. Legislative
priorities for the 2026 Short Session of the North Carolina
General Assembly. Item number 21, its consolidated
annexation. Beverage number 22 Consolidated annexation.
Patterson Hall I don't remember 23 consolidated annexation,
Morgan Farm, item number 24. Consolidated annexation 9415
and 751 highway. Colleagues, I will probably change that order
just a little bit. And we have the information section here.
All right. Thank you all so much. That is our agenda. Thank
you. Mine is somewhere around here. Oh it's right here. Yeah.
There's a lot of papers. All right. I will entertain a
motion to approve the consent agenda with the exceptions of
items two, six, 13, 14, 21, 22. I'm sorry. Six, two, six, 13
and 14. So moved by.
Move the properly seconded. Madam clerk, please open the
vote. Please close the vote. Motion passes seven zero.
Thank you so much. We'll get right into it. Item number two.
I have an online speaker. Two speakers, Abby Barcelo and
Randy Stanley. Randy Sandy is a resource person. Abby Barcelo,
can you hear me? Mr. mayor, I don't see Miss
Barcelo on the queue. Okay.
There's a phone number. There could be.
Okay. All right. Thank you. I will. I'll come back. All
right. Next up is. Well, I guess I should go ahead and
call on it. Yeah, I'll go ahead and call on the vote. Okay,
colleagues. Number two. I'll entertain a motion to. I'll
entertain a motion to approve for the approval of City
Council. Minutes. So moved second. It's been moved to
properly. Seconded. Madam clerk, please open the vote.
Please close the vote. Motion passes seven zero.
All right. Thank you. Next, I have item number six. That is a
interlocal agreement between the city and County of Durham
to find community solutions. Consulting, work on the
homeless strategic framework. This item was pulled by Reina
Zenko. Can you hear me? You see her online? Okay. Reina, can
you hear me? Yes, yes.
All right. There you go. Welcome. You have three
minutes. Great.
Thank you. Good evening. My name is Reina Cinco. I'm a
Durham resident and a sociologist specializing in
homelessness in public policy. I'm commenting tonight because
I have concerns regarding the direction of policies relating
to homelessness here in Durham. For one, this year there has
been a growing number of clearances impacting our
unhoused neighbors, most recently in Oakwood Park. In my
work, I detail how public policies from welfare to parks
management, tend to systematically render
homelessness and unprotected status. That is, many public
sector regulations and practices often strip unhoused
people of their democratic and human rights, even if they do
not explicitly criminalize them. Clearances are one
obvious example of this. My work also stresses that failing
to protect unhoused persons, wherever they may be, is
unacceptable. By refusing to protect the rights and dignity
of unhoused persons unconditionally, the public
sector compounds the insecurities they face in
normalizes violence against them. To be clear, I'm saying
that clearances normalize violence against unhoused
persons. Last week, the indie publicist story on abuses at
the Durham Rescue Mission. I name this to stress that while
sleeping rough carries many risks, it is still preferable
for many people who find no refuge in our present system
through no fault of their own. We should be protecting people
wherever they may be, even if it's on the street at all
costs. I do also have concerns about built for Zero, which
aims to achieve functional zero in homelessness. Built for zero
has many problems, but I'll highlight just one here.
Functional zero is a pivot from prior decades of earnest
efforts to achieve an absolute zero in homelessness. Instead,
this new approach is limited to managing data, treating
homelessness itself as an inevitable stream of quote
inflows and outflows, calculated using numbers that
can be easily manipulated. For example, logic would imply that
an outflow category would consist of people who have
exited homelessness, but in fact it can typically include
people whose service providers have lost contact with. Built
for zero is not a system for developing solutions to
homelessness, but a system for technocrats managing the status
quo and quantitatively redefining progress, often to
the qualitative detriment of users. By embracing a
functional but not actual zero. Durham is signaling that
homelessness is an acceptable status quo, and if, as a matter
of policy, Durham is therefore allowing for in there be a
built for zero calculations, hundreds or thousands of people
to remain homeless, we should not be denying any unhoused
neighbors maximal levels of protection or care. And that
includes when they are in encampments and on the streets.
It is imperative that Durham not conduct any more
clearances. The city should do better and work harder to
ensure all Durham sites have the social and economic
security that they need. Lastly, I'd also like to
encourage more Durham ites to extend their care to unhoused
neighbors and not let the tide turn against them. Thank you.
Thank you. All right. Colleagues at this time. Had a
follow up. That was number six right? I'll entertain a motion.
To resolve that, the city manager is authorized to
execute interlocal agreement with Durham County to fund the
community solutions consulting, work on the Homeless strategic
Framework. So moved.
Second. It's been moved and properly
seconded. Please open the vote. Thank you. Please close the
vote. Motion passes seven zero.
Thank you. Next up, item number 13. Third
amendment to the contract with Duke University. City fiber.
Peterson. Welcome. You have three minutes.
Thank you. Is Mr. Smith here? That's representing the city on
this project. What? I would like to sort of find out. Close
to $7 million. We're talking about this project for to bring
fiber, to bring fiber to the community. I support fiber to
every home, to every business, to every park. But here's my
concern. And I like to sort of just round this off to 7
million. What is the dollar amount that Duke has put in for
this project? Because that's not here. In my understanding.
This was a project for the city and Duke, and I don't know if
Duke is in the house, but I'm hoping that they're here
because I would like to know the dollar amount that they
have put in so far with this project. Also, I heard the
young lady speak about homeless. We've got to make
sure that our local residents will get this job to lay the
fiber. Now, my understanding a little bit about fiber, you
have to put it, lay it in the ground. So that's one group of
persons that need to have that skill to lay the fiber. Then
you have to have persons to have the skill to bring the
fiber to the building. Then you have to have another group of
persons that know how to take the fiber from the building
outside to bring the fiber inside of the building for your
various hookups. If you're going to put the fiber out in
the park, you've got to have some folks that know how to do
all that. So we're really speaking about 3 or 4 different
layers of fiber optic. Mr. mayor, I don't know if you know
this or not, but I have a little background. Years ago,
with fiber optic and matter of fact, I was so glad when Durham
started to bring fiber into the community. But my two concerns
are how much money? Because this is supposed to be a joint
project with Duke and the city. How much money has already Duke
thrown into this project? Also, once we put the fiber around
into the community in the parks, we need to make sure
that we're not going to have to pay for this. If the city is
already putting out close to $7 million. Please don't send us a
bill. If Duke is going to be involved with this, let's make
sure that they put their dollars amount in this. We want
to make sure that we're going to hire our local folks. When
my husband and I, when we train, we had over 400 and some
students in this community that were trained in copper cable
and fiber optic, we need to try to reach back out to them, Mr.
Mayor, and try to help them to get some employment. Thank you.
Project. And as Mr. Smith here to answer some questions.
I'm sure that staff could speak with you. I'm sure we can get
some information for you if I'm sure we can get some
information for you, but you gotta have to communicate with
staff and they can they can answer your questions, whatever
questions you may have, you may be better off sending an email
so that that person can get in touch.
So no one is here to tell us how much.
I won't do the back and forth dialogue right now because
we're in the middle of the meeting, but I can get staff
hear you and they can. Okay. They just they'll speak with
you once you finish your item number 14, because I have you
pull for that as well. Okay.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. One moment. Colleagues, I'll
entertain a motion to authorize the city manager to execute the
Third Amendment. Since item number 13, third amendment to
the scope of services between Duke University and the City of
Durham in the amount of $426,899 for revised total
contract amount not to exceed 6,797,776.
So moved. Second. So moved and properly seconded.
Madam clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote.
Motion passes seven zero. Thank you. Item number 14. Mr.
Peterson, this is on you. I'm sorry. There was another
person that also signed up to speak on number 13.
But you didn't. Put our number.
It's pretty soon. Okay.
Mr. Peterson, you're Mr. Peterson, you're on number 14.
You have three minutes. I'm waiting for the also for
the timer to come up. There you go.
Thank you. Well, I think I sort of have the same concern, too,
about the cybersecurity, and I'm. I'm hoping that we have
some young folks that are listening. Fiber optic
cybersecurity, A1 awesome. Three three, three industries
that we really need to make sure that our young people are
going to be involved in these in these three areas, booming
businesses, not just across this country, but across the
world. So I would also like to know, I see it's only 138,000.
Mr. Mayor, but can you tell us are they going to be reaching
out into the community to make sure that our local young folks
are going to be getting employment for this project?
And I don't know if that person is here to speak, but once upon
a time, Mr. Mayor, when we had the city council meetings,
these persons names on these on these very projects, we're
supposed to be here, sitting over there. And when we
citizens have questions, they're supposed to come up and
answer the questions. Now, here's going to be another
project that we need to find out how many of our local
citizens will be able to get employment on this project.
Also, is that person here tonight?
So, Mr. Peterson, you've been doing this longer than I have?
Yes. We have work sessions and I'm
going to pause your time because I don't want this to be
misleading. We have work sessions, and that's where we
go into detail about these things. And we also invite
people to come to the meeting or we actually have, you know,
some time where we can engage. That's why we do those things.
Two weeks before tonight. Tonight, we're just we're
getting to the voting of it. So staff is available to answer
any questions. But tonight you're providing public
comment. So you're letting us know how you feel about it
before we actually take the vote, because the work on it
has been done. And so we have time to go through that. And if
there is other questions, you know, we want you to make sure
you reach out ahead of time. But what I won't do is go back
and forth at the podium with the staff member, myself and
the speaker. That's just not how I facilitate the meeting,
and that's just not how it works.
Well, let me just share this with you, Mr. Mayor.
Tom, go ahead. And I've been involved with
this city since 1978. You're the first mayor that is not
allowing your staff. That's being paid to come here and
address us. Not everybody can get to the work session. And
first thing, the room is too small. Okay? It's too small. I
know in the past, persons can come to staff that's being paid,
should be able to be here and answer the questions. We only
have a few minutes and it should be very easy for
somebody to tell us exactly what these dollars are going to
be used for. Exactly. Had they gone out into the community,
how many jobs are going to be set aside for the minority
community? And the city has done that in the past. How many
women, how many African-Americans? So here
we've had one project over close to $7 million. We have
another project here, 138,000, and we can't even get one
answer to make sure that the community, particularly the
African-American community, particularly women, that that
that are going to be getting employment on a lot of these
projects. And when I'm going to just say this last thing, this
is our money, this is the people's monies, and we have a
right to know who you're hiring, who you're hiring, and
who is getting these dollars. And stop trying to act like
when we ask questions, they're not important. They are
important. You're speaking about tax dollars here. Thank
you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. And I don't want you
to feel misled. And I don't want anyone else to be misled.
We provide ample amount of time so that we can engage on these
things. Ample amount of time. And there's not a single time
that anyone leaves this room without having a question
answer. It won't happen while you're speaking at the podium.
But if you have a question, that's why all of these very
capable staff are here to be able to answer any questions.
So I will not I will not let it be the narrative that people
cannot be informed on how things on this agenda works.
And that has always been the case. Okay, that I just want
you said it and I want to make sure it's very clear. All right,
all. Right. Answer the question. But
you are not allowed to do that. And we're going to and I will
and I and I also will love to speak with you afterward, but I
don't I don't want to have narratives that are going to be
misleading. All right, colleagues, I'll entertain a
motion to adopt the fiscal year 2023 state and local
cybersecurity grant program, SLC Grant Project Ordinance and
authorizes the execution of the grant agreement and the amount
of $138,059. So moved.
It's been moved and properly seconded. Madam clerk, please
open the vote. Please go to vote.
Motion passes seven zero. Thank you so much.
All right. First up, item number 21. This
is consolidated Annexation Beverage. Ready for the staff
report. Mayor Williams Mayor Pro Tem
Caballero and honorable council members. Good evening. I am
Peyton Burgess with the Planning and Development
Department, and I am happy to be here with you tonight.
Before I begin, staff would like to state for the record
that all planning department hearing items have been
advertised and noticed in accordance with state and local
law, and affidavits of all notices are on file in the
Planning Department. A request for a utility extension
agreement, voluntary annexation and initial zoning map change
has been received from Kate Murdoch, with McAdams for one
parcel of land totaling 78.34 acres and located at 3013
Burton Road. This annexation petition is for a contiguous
expansion of the primary corporate limits. As a part of
this application, the applicant is seeking a change to the
zoning district from residential, rural, commercial,
neighborhood and residential suburban ten to plan
development. Residential 3.975 to allow up to 300 dwelling
units and a maximum of 5000ft of non-residential uses. The
property is currently designated Mixed Residential,
neighborhood and Recreation and open space on the place type
map. The proposed PDR 3.975 zoning is generally consistent
with the designated place type. Thank you. Staff and the
applicant are available for any questions.
Thank you. You've heard the staff report. Are there any
questions, technical questions or comments? All right. At this
time, I'll declare the public hearing open. So an applicant.
Welcome. How much time do you think you need?
Six minutes. All right. Please put eight
minutes on the clock. Thank you, Mr. Burgess, for
your presentation. And good evening, Mayor Williams. Mayor
Pro Tem Caballero and members of the City council. I'm Neil
Ghosh, an attorney at the Morningstar Law Group at 700
West Main Street. We have some folks from McAdams here with us
tonight. And I know Laura is here. Maybe Ben is in the
audience from McAdams, as well as our traffic consultant,
Tyler Blaine with exalt. And our client on this project is
Ashton Woods Homes. This property is located at the
corner of Burton and East Geer Street, south of I-85, which is
actually less than a 15 minute drive from right here. It's
past the Walmart on Glenn School Road, past Glenn School
Elementary, Eric Glenn Elementary School. And a few
other businesses too. And I just wanted to point out that
this is not like a rural area by any means. And in fact,
between us and I-85 to the north, it's somewhat industrial
in character, and that's actually reflected on the place
side map. Currently, the properties in the county, it
has a house on it and some old farm structures, and it also
has an active cell tower. Historically, on the south side
of this property, there was a railroad, and it was long ago
abandoned. And now it's planned for the Panther Creek Rail
Trail. And I'll touch more on that later. On the other side
of that rail trail, there's an active residential development
called Carpenter Falls. This assemblage is adjacent to the
primary corporate limits of the city of Durham. At full build
out, the project will include up to 300 homes, a minimum of
200 of which will be townhomes. And you can see on the graphic
development plan that there is a stream pretty much down the
entire west side of the property. You can also see that
we are not crossing that stream, so there's a lot of
undisturbed area. We also have a commitment that limits
development within the floodplain to basically only
infrastructure. There's also a wildlife corridor on this
property, which mostly follows that old railroad area. At the
Planning Commission hearing, our development plan showed our
building and parking envelope within a small portion of the
wildlife corridor, which was a mistake. And since then, we
have revised our development plan so that the building and
parking envelope are outside of the wildlife corridor. And
that's reflected in your agenda materials. I mentioned before
that the old rail trail area is planned for the Panther Creek
Rail Trail, and at Planning Commission, we added a
commitment to dedicate an easement for that trail, which
is what we felt comfortable with on the spot. Since then,
we've had the opportunity to study this some more, and I
think we can improve upon that commitment rather than dedicate
an easement for the Greenway. We want to commit to building
the Greenway, at least a portion of the greenway that's
on our property. And I think that's a great improvement from
where we were and hopefully will help spur further
development of that greenway by the city and by others. I also
want to touch on traffic. The staff report indicates the most
recent AA for both Cheek and Burton are well below the
design capacity for each of those roads. Nevertheless, this
project was required to do a Tia because of the projected
number of trips, and that study was very conservative. In
addition to the site driveways, it included studying eight
intersections. The project site traffic triggered mitigation,
and one of those intersections, which is east gear at Burton. A
traffic signal will be required there, in addition to a
westbound left turn lane. The project also will require left
and right turn lanes on both site driveways. One of the more
interesting things from the study is that the intersection
there is expected to need these improvements, regardless of
whether this development occurs just based off of the
background growth alone. So this project will provide that
infrastructure to the benefit of the public to the tune of
about $2 million. As you all know, this is a growing area,
but the growth right here has not been as rapid as it has
been in other parts of the city. Many of the existing
homes near this property were were built under the code that
was active prior to the current UDL. So, you know, before 2005,
a lot of the homes were built there. But there is, of course,
the Carpenter Falls community, which starts to get developed
in 2024 and still is under development. Nevertheless, the
Comp plan recognizes the potential for growth here. The
place type map designation for the property is mixed
residential neighborhood, and the project includes a mix of
housing types including affordable housing. We also
have a monetary contribution to DPS that is $5,000, but we want
to increase that amount to $12,750. We have open space and
tree cover in excess of UDL requirements. We limit our
impervious to no more than 50% and limit all impacts to the
floodplain and wildlife corridor areas and limit them
to essentially just infrastructure in the Greenway.
I think this is an ideal development in this location.
We added with the added commitment regarding, you know,
now the construction of the trail and the roughly $2
million worth of transportation infrastructure improvements and
the affordable housing the project provides clear public
benefits. And I will also say that I did not expect when we
worked on this project, the amount of support that we had
for this project. I know we have opposition as well, but a
lot of property owners in this area have long desired to gain
access to city water and sewer. There is already a water line
in east gear which we will be extending down Burton. The real
issue in this area has been access to sewer. The existing
sewer force main that will be tapping into is south of us. So
it's like in that railroad area and we will be extending sewer
from there through our site up to both Burton and Geer, which
will bring that utility a lot closer to many property owners.
As you know, this project was strongly recommended for
approval by the Planning Commission on an eight two
vote. So we're very proud of that. We hope to have your
support tonight as well, and our team is available to answer
any questions you may have. Thank you for your time tonight.
Thank you for your presentation. Good one. All right. I have
just a few speakers here starting online. Penny mace.
Penny Mayes, can you hear me? Mr. mayor, miss May's unmuted,
but we can't hear her. Miss Mayes, can you hear us?
All right. I'll go ahead and start in person. Donna, stand
back. Thomas. Leighton. Tammy. Tammy. Not sure which one. Is
that? Timisoara. All right. Pam Williams, Tina mottley.
Pearson. Pam. Andrews, Wanda. Allen, Vicki King. I'm assuming
you all know why I called you all up. Welcome. You have three
minutes. Good evening. My name is Tina
motley Pearson, and my address is on file. This area has
already been overwhelmed by development over the past three
years. The map clearly shows multiple approved projects
totaling 890 new dwelling units, bringing an estimated
77,200 additional vehicle trips per day. That's not a small
impact. That's a significant and growing strain on our roads
and community. And yet, the biggest issue remains
unresolved. The infrastructure simply does not exist to
support this level of growth. We are already seeing the
consequences. They are well documented concerns about sewer
capacity. And just as critically, there are gaps in
fire service, police and EMS coverage policy. 122 is not
vague. It clearly designates these as future growth areas
where infrastructure and service upgrades are required.
Required, not optional. The data in front of you shows
clear deficiencies. Fire service gaps across Fletcher's
Chapel, Hamlin Road, Stallings Road and others, along with
areas already struggling with sewer capacity. Approving more
development under these conditions is not planning.
It's ignoring reality. You're being asked to move forward
without basic services needed to protect public safety and
support existing residents. This is not responsible growth.
This is growth. Without a foundation. Thank you very much.
Welcome. You have three minutes.
Thank you so much. Good evening. My name is Pamela
Andrews. Fire infrastructure is not adequate in southeast
Durham, as Tina just showed you. Policy 122 clearly shows
the need for fire service expansion before more homes are
built. Four times within this policy, fire service needs are
mentioned. It just as Tina shows you. That's correct
there. The City of Durham fire stations, which would primarily
serve Belle Reach, is station nine. Redwood Volunteer Fire
Station, funded by the county, would likely respond as well.
These units will respond to calls in over 68 new
subdivisions in southeast Durham, along with current
residents, as well, straining the current resources. Next
slide. In October of 2022, the fire department audit was done.
Recognizing that higher response times than the
national standard dictated national Fire Code 1710 for
fire response time is six minutes and 30s, the two
nearest city fire stations are station nine and three, and
will not likely meet the response time standards
referenced in the audit. Even in ideal conditions. Station
three A city station would be 5.6 miles away, or a 12 minute
drive. During non-peak traffic hours. Station nine will be 7.4
miles away or a 13 minute drive during non-peak hours as well.
The County volunteer fire station, Redwood, is 2.3 miles
away, or four minutes during non-peak hours. However, it
does not have a ladder truck to service the 200 townhomes
planned. Of the 300 dwellings. The city fire stations would
not meet the NFPA 1710 standard of six minutes, and 30s
referenced in the audit, because there is not a fire
station in close proximity. The city might contact contract
with Redwood Volunteer Fire Station. Again, City Station
nine is the primary station for this parcel. However, mutual
aid will come, of course, but how long will that take for
this isolated corner of Durham County? The success of
Abundance Agenda should be measured by outcomes. Housing
supply, stronger infrastructure, reliable access
to EMS, fire and police services, and fiscal
resilience, not approvals alone. Do not approve density
for the purpose of density or adding short term revenue
without clarity on the downstream planning needed for
resulting expenditures. To ensure public health and
safety. This sets out in the county. There is nothing near
it. Yes, 85 has a few industrials along the edges.
The old Kenworth Park that's been there forever. The truck
in store. But there's not other things around. Now you're going
to extend fire services out whether it can't get there in
the required National standard Time. That's just not
acceptable. Guys, we're putting lives in jeopardy. Please say
no. Thank you. Welcome. You have
three minutes. Tammy. Sawyer, my address is on
file. This is going to be like a broken record, but we need to
be talking about this police shortage. We know we have a
police shortage. It's 11 miles to this address. Policy 119
says ensure new development within the IRB or within
established levels of service for emergency services. That
includes fire, medical, police and public safety EMS. This is
the biggest concern right now. EMS is a county run function,
not EMS has not been addressed or analyzed. With all these
developments, and it's still not being analyzed before these
annexations come here. We have a community member that
monitors all the EMS. I'm going to state something of last
Thursday that he talked about a pregnant woman. Cause EMS can't
feel her legs. Durham has no first responders, no
ambulances, no EMS. Durham X Roxboro and Person County. If
they can respond, they could not. So what if it was you or
your family member? The growth in this area. We have grown in
southeast Durham to a population of Wilson. They will
say we still need buildings. We still need development. No, we
have meet our quota. We have to have our infrastructure and you
have to put people's safety in front of more development.
Please think about this before you move forward. Thank you.
Thank you. Welcome. You have three minutes.
Good evening, Mayor Williams and city council members. My
name is Donna. Stand. My address is on file as they
mentioned earlier, this density is significantly higher than
the surrounding areas. If you look at the red star there,
that is the location of the site. And you see all the
surrounding volunteer agriculture districts. And
there's more on the other side of 85 that are nearby. This the
blue sites represent the volunteer ag districts. We have
more present value, present use value sites that are for
farming and for forests that are nearby. For planning
Commissioner on sage Brook, density as proposed would be
two great a burden and detract from the character and
aesthetics of the rural area, and it is indeed rural. I it's
proximity is not just the site, but is within a half mile of
other. Volunteer ag districts.
Considering per planning commission awoke considering
the high rate of development in southeast Durham and neighbors
struggling to cope with increased traffic and no
increase of necessary infrastructure. This project
does not seem to meet the needs of the community. Next slide.
And so what we have here is that there are major concerns
about the increase in the vehicles per day from the 2600
vehicles on the existing burden and with an increase of the
5180 vehicles per day. And then with year Street, we have an
increase of 2092 to the existing 5918 vehicles per day,
per the NCDOT. Average annual daily traffic. As you can see,
we have farm equipment pictured because in these areas you have
to share the roads, the farms where there first. But a lot of
people do not get that and understand that. And in the
state there are quite a few accidents because of trying to
mix areas as much as we're trying to these days. And there
have even been fatalities. So I would I know that they
mentioned Carpenter Falls is adjacent, but Carpenter Falls
is also a conservation subdivision. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. You have
three minutes. Hello. My name is Wanda Allen.
I'd like for you to look at this slide. This project
directly impacts five streams that flow into Panther Creek
and ultimately into Raleigh Falls. Lake Raleigh's drinking
water. And this is not a protected system. It's already
impaired by settlement and pollution. We're not starting
here from a clean baseline. You guys. Follows Lake and Panther
Creek are already struggling, and this proposal on a minimum
stormwater standard that is not working today, especially on
steep slopes and on unstable Triassic basin soil, which is
on the site. Okay, I'm going to put it simple. You can't
protect drinking water if you continue to add pollution. A
system that is already failing. We're asking for practical
safeguards, strong stormwater controls designed for 100
years, stormwater real environmental monitoring.
During and after construction, such as treating the excuse me,
such as testing for turbidity before releasing it into the
streams and no variances. This is becoming a common problem.
They come back and ask for variances or shortcuts. These
are not extreme as they are what the site needs. The photos
that you're going to see tonight and on this slide shows
best management practices are not working. Approving this
project adds to that burden of the taxpayers having to clean
it up. Please require stronger protections and or vote no.
Thank you. Welcome. You have three minutes.
Good afternoon. My name is Pam Williams. My address is on
file. Panther Creek was is directly south downhill from
Gear Street for this project. So of course, you know the
water runs down here. And we also have the perennial strain
of the major stream on the west side. We are asking since this
is traffic, soil and the new stormwater policies that was
put in are requirements that was put in in 2023 are not
working. We've seen them not work, and we've got pictures
showing that they're not working. We're asking for
undisturbed stream buffers where no sediment ponds,
grading, clear cut and retaining walls, sewer
easement, drainage ditches except for those absolutely
necessary, be put in the stream buffers. This is crucial to
maintaining Panther Creek in this area. Panther Creek, as
Wanda said, it's on the impair. It's impaired. It's on the 303
D list. And we need these mature trees and no disturbance
in the buffers to help with the sedimentation and the
filtration. It it is very important. And as you can see,
here's some examples of construction being 30ft from
100. In the 100 foot buffer. This is allowed. They could
take out all the trees on this one. This property line. Right.
This is on the property line. They're going to provide a 30
foot buffer, but only after they take 15 20ft down 1 or 2ft
from the property line. Sewer easement going through this
one. And also here they got a variance for the wetlands to
the stream. Also this area is per the City of Durham's
environmental justice map. It is right smack in the middle of
the environmental justice. There's a lot of people that
live out here in the residential homes on on the
side. Well, next to this property up on Geer Street, my
grandmother used to live right there at the corner of Gary
Street and Burt Road. I know this area very well, and these
people are not wealthy people, and we need to make sure we
provide for them the infrastructure, what is needed.
And looking at this heat island map where the store is, as you
can see, since it's mainly farm and trees and everything, it
doesn't show the heat island, but where things have been
built, where development has been built, you can see what
the effects of are high density or higher density and high
impervious does to the heat island effect. In these areas.
We asked you to not approve this, and thank you very much.
Thank you. Welcome. You have three minutes.
Okay. I'm just I'm.
Let me close this down. If I can.
Okay. We also had two people that had
signed up to speak. And you didn't call their name out.
Becky and Tom Freeman. So I don't know if they were on the
the list or not. But anyway. I'm 21 penny. Back in Tom
Freeman, I have done for 22, not 21. I'm sorry. Welcome. You
have three minutes. Okay.
My name is Vicki King. My address.
Is on file. I was raised in eastern Durham County and.
Still live right around the corner.
From the intersection of Burton and Cheek Road. I come here
tonight to ask the city Council to put in a temporary
moratorium of one year to stop all construction. I'm sorry.
Development in this county until the infrastructure can
catch up. Gridlock happens every day on I-85 northbound.
Let a wreck happen in Gear Street, becomes a freeway. I'm
not talking about a 35 mile an hour freeway, either. Just last
week, stop traffic was beyond from beyond Redwood Road on
I-85, all the way into town at Avondale Drive, 98. Highway 98
is a traffic jam both morning and evening. Burton Road is
becoming a traffic nightmare. What's Durham's answer? When
the reservoirs run out of water, what's Durham's answer to all
the shootings? What's Durham's answer to? No answer at all. At
911, communications, these are all infrastructure problems.
The public wants to know. We have asked the city council to
consider no deforestation, larger riparian buffers,
monitoring creeks and waterways that run through these
construction sites. But somehow those requests seem to get
overlooked. I asked again, please slow down the approval
of developments. With over 22,000 units constructed or
approved for construction, cut down on the density O and
there's currently 1547 units for sale in Durham County and
over 4400 units for rent. Thank you for your time.
Welcome. Your three minutes. Mr. mayor, I'm Talmage Layton.
I was signed up for this. I'm going to pass most of my time
here and wait until we get to Patterson Road to express how
much I'm interested in agriculture. And you promised.
The last time I was here, you would take into consideration
the value of agriculture to the community that you're
developing. I hope you all have continued to do that. And
you're welcome to add all my time from this one to the next
one, and I'll talk to you later.
I can't bank time, but thanks for your comments, Tom. Good
try. It's 20. Penny maze come up. Hello. Hi Miss Maze. Yes, I
can loud and clear. Welcome. You have three minutes.
Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm Kenny
Mays and my address is on file. And as you've already heard,
this area, southeast Durham is already taxed beyond capacity
for emergency services. With increasing traffic problems.
As, again, you've heard, when Carpenter Falls, sage Brook and
Panther Creek. Other developments that have been
approved are come our way. The traffic is going to be
tremendously increased, and God forbid that any of my family or
our neighbors have a heart attack or some other emergency.
Once all of this happens, and with all due respect to this
council, your decisions tonight very well may determine
someone's medical fate. And are they going to receive emergency
services, or were those services be so overtaxed that
lives are going to be lost in our area? Please make a
decision tonight that puts water quality, quality at the
forefront, because our water quality is in danger. Consider
our wildlife in this rural area and it is a rural area. And
please consider people's lives. These are very serious issues.
And before any other development is approved in this
area, we have to have more emergency services in place and
infrastructure to support the people who are going to
purchase housing in good faith that their basic needs are
going to be met. And as it stands, those basic needs of
safety and clean water are being put at risk. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Those are all of the speakers that I have
with the applicant. Like to respond.
Hello. Once again this is Neil from the Morningstar Law Group.
You know, I've been seeing the folks from rural Durham up here
for years, and generally they they get really good
information. And this is my only item on the agenda
tonight. So I don't know if maybe they had the wrong
presentation up, but if they didn't, that presentation was
very misleading. This project is not in any future growth
area. I would be real clear about that. This project, there
is no noted deficiencies from our utility statement analysis
that was done for this project. There's no noted deficiencies
in the comp plan as far as fire service, sewer service,
anything like that. I recognize that some of those concerns
exist, but one of the slides they had up there suggested
that this project is in a future growth area, and it
absolutely is not. There's also some mention, as we've heard
many times, about the need for infrastructure to keep up with
development. And I first of all, I agree with that
statement just generally. But I think that suggesting this
project doesn't provide its fair share of infrastructure or
do something about the infrastructure is incorrect. As
I mentioned in my initial presentation. The intersection,
the road improvements that this project is committing to and
would be required to do are needed for the network,
regardless of whether this project gets built based off
background traffic alone. There are there are potential traffic
issues on on the horizon. Maybe even greater than what has
already been described. But this project is providing
upwards of about $2 million worth of. And that's just
transportation infrastructure. That's to say nothing of the
public utilities that also are going going to be improved as
part of this project. I just want to make sure that we're
real clear on what this project is versus maybe, I don't know
if there's something else on the agenda, but this is not in
a future growth area at all. I mean, it's one of the this is
this project is been carefully planned by my client. Because
of the information in the comprehensive plan. And that's
why it received a strong recommendation of approval from
the Planning Commission. That's why it has a strong staff
report. This is a very good project in this location, and
it does a lot for it offers a lot in the way of public
benefits through infrastructure, affordable
housing, and now also building a portion of the Panther Creek
Trail. Thank you.
Thank you. I made a pretty significant mistake up here as
well. I as I'm getting used to our new way of organizing this,
I overlooked speakers under the applicant name. I'm used to
seeing them all above. So we do have more speakers. So to those
speakers, my apologies. Astrid Cooke, Mike Rowe, Cocoa Road
and Talmage Lake. If you all will come up. Okay, that's what
you were talking about. Okay. Sorry about that. Thank you,
Madam clerk. Hello. Hi.
Very rare that I would get to speak after the applicant
response. My name is Astrid Cooke. My address is on file
and I'm representing the Durham City County Environmental
Affairs Board, land use and planning committee. You all
should have received our letter on this case. And I just want
to read what I can tonight. The Durham Environmental Affairs
Board, land use and Planning subcommittee has reviewed the
Ridge case and offers the following comments solely
regarding environmental impacts. This site presents a
highly sensitive environmental context. It lies within the
falls of the noose. Jordan Lake Protected Area is underlain by
Triassic basin soils prone to erosion and persistent
turbidity, and is bordered along multiple edges by Panther
Creek and its associated floodway. The stream corridor
and adjacent floodplain are not peripheral peripheral to the
site, but define its environmental function and
connectivity to downstream waters. We acknowledge several
positive elements within the proposal. As the applicant has
elucidated in their in their presentation. However, we have
concerns that the proposal as currently structured, does not
adequately address the primary environmental risks associated
with the site. Most notably, the proposal does not include
any defined stormwater control measures at the rezoning stage.
Stormwater services has confirmed that no SEMs are
proposed within the development plan, with the expectation that
stormwater design will be addressed later during site
plan review. Given the site's location within a protected
watershed, its proximity to Panther Creek and the known
behavior of Triassic basin soils, deferring stormwater
strategy to a later stage represents a substantial gap
without clear commitments at rezoning. There is insufficient
assurance that runoff volume, peak flow and sediment
transport will be appropriately managed. While the development
plan limits direct building within the floodplain, it
allows for grading, utility installation and other
disturbances. These activities, particularly in proximity to
Panther Creek, can result in indirect impacts to floodplain
function, including increased sedimentation, altered flow
patterns, and downstream flooding. Stormwater staff has
also identified the need to evaluate future 1% flood
conditions, reinforcing that flood risk on and downstream of
the site is irrelevant and unresolved. Issue. Taken
together, these factors raised concerns that the project, as
currently proposed, may contribute to increased
sedimentation, degraded water quality and altered hydrology
in Panther Creek and downstream receiving waters. For these
reasons, we do not support the proposal in its current form.
At a minimum, support would require the applicant to
provide the following textual commitments a defined
stormwater management strategy at the rezoning stage.
Expansion of stream buffer buffer widths where steep
slopes or direct drainage to Panther Creek are present, with
buffers measured from the top of slope rather than the stream
bank. To reduce erosion risk and improve long term
protection of the stream corridor.
Thank you. Thank you, Miss Cook. Are you
speaking in your formal capacity on behalf of the EIB?
Yes. Director young, is it is it not appropriate to have
their report as part of the packet for consideration?
Good evening. I think staff has been working with EIB to bring
them into the review process so that they can act. You will see
their comments in the future like you do. The back comments,
but to date they have not been involved to that capacity. So I
think that will be a new change coming forward.
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Welcome. You have three
minutes. Hi. I'm Michael Rowe, myself
and Cocoa Road actually signed. Up to speak to agenda item
number 22. So I'd like to hold my time for that item.
Mr. Coco Rowe. Right. Yes. And Mike Rowe.
Yes, sir. Okay.
Thank you. All right. City sign up for 22.
I have them for. All right. Do you care to respond? That was
the. Neil Ghosh, again, on behalf of
the applicant. Assuming that's all the speakers. I will just
mention, I hadn't seen the the information from Oeb about
this, so I don't really have I haven't had the benefit to
review that ahead of time. Listening to the comments
though. I just wanted to point out that we do have commitments
in the development plan that limit any impacts in the
floodplain. And limit any impacts in the wildlife
corridor, but they are limited. That doesn't mean there won't
be any. And specifically, I believe the the Greenway trail,
which which has been well, we've committed to building the
portion of the Greenway Trail that's on the property that is
already planned in the open space trail plan, in part of
the property that has environmental, you know,
aspects to it, floodplain and the wildlife corridor are, I
believe, are exactly where that trail is located in the open
space trails plan. So there will you know, I'm gonna say
there's not going to be any impacts in that area. We have
specifically accepted those impacts with respect to
stormwater control. I appreciate that bringing being
brought up. I will say that the information presented, I think
I feel was accurate, accurate from Oeb, which is to say that
we didn't have any commitment specifically related in the
development plan to stormwater controls. And generally
speaking, that is the type of thing that will get brought up
and considered. Site plan. That having been said, I think we're
prepared tonight to add a commitment to handle the 100
year storm as part of this project. So we will add that
which I think is responsive to some of the comments we heard
from EAB just now. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Those are
all of the speakers that I have signed up for this case. So
therefore at this time, I have declared a public hearing
closed and back before the Council. All right. Colleagues.
Council Member Cook. Go ahead. Thank you. Mr. Gross. Will you
come back up? I'm going to actually read you the *** from
the Environmental Affairs Board letter. Since you hadn't heard
them. And I think you've addressed one of them. But a
defined stormwater management strategy at the rezoning stage.
So that one you have just talked about expansion of
stream buffer widths where steep slopes are directing
drainage to Panther Creek are present, with buffers measured
from the top slope rather than the stream bank to reduce
erosion risk and improve long term protection of the stream
corridor. I'm sorry, do you want me to
respond to that? I just want you to note them
because these are there are only six on here. And the
Environmental Affairs Board has identified all six of these as
being needed. Otherwise, they say that the they're concerned
that the development may result in long term degradation of
Panther Creek and downstream water sources. So you said you
hadn't seen it. I'm just reading them to you. So.
Sure, if you. Just make a comment.
Yes. For whatever reason, you're
standing right there. Yes, we're sitting right here. And I
cannot I don't know, there's something funny about this.
Because I thought it was just me. I can't really hear it
either. It's some type. Is it better?
I think so, yeah. Can you hear me now?
Yep. Okay, great. Okay. User error.
Okay. So I'm going to read you these because these are the
ones that they've identified all as needing. You said you
hadn't seen them. Is that true? Correct. Okay. So the first one
we just talked about which is the defined water stormwater
management strategy at the rezoning stage, then there's an
expansion of stream buffer widths where steep slopes or
direct drainage to Panther Creek are present, with buffer
measured from the top of the slope rather than the stream
bank. To ensure to reduce erosion risk and improve long
term protection of the stream corridor. The next one is
removal of the wildlife corridor area from the building
and parking envelope, which you've already done. The fourth
one is no grading or clearing in the floodplain, except where
strictly necessary for essential infrastructure with
clear limits on such activities. Five implementation
of enhanced erosion and sediment control measures
tailored to the Triassic basin soils, including phased
grading, rapid stabilization, and redundant controls. And
finally demonstration that the stormwater discharge will not
adversely impact downstream floodplain areas, including
analysis of future 1% flood conditions. And you're welcome
to respond to any of those. I do have a list of questions,
but I just wanted to make sure that those were on your radar
as ones that I don't know why I moved this way, as ones that
we've been provided by our volunteer. Our volunteer
Commission on Environmental Affairs. So I am curious about
the undisturbed stream buffers. Is that something y'all are
able to proffer? No, I mean, I think on the
development plan you can see that there is one stream that
is being crossed. Now there's a stream that goes down the
entire west side of the property, which we're that
we're not touching that. Right. But then there's a, there's
kind of another finger of a stream on the development plan
that comes up on the I'm going to say southeast side. That
does have a stream crossing that's kind of roughly south of
the existing cell tower of that area. So, you know, I would
just say, no, we couldn't make a commitment to having
undisturbed stream buffers because I know that there's
already planned disturbance in some of that area for the
stream crossing. Okay.
The open space commitment, I'm assuming, already includes both
the wildlife corridor and the stream buffer. Is that correct?
You're talking about the amount. I believe those would
be calculated in that figure. Yeah, I'm getting some nods.
Because it's a 20% commitment, but that's going to include
already those those protected areas that are.
I believe that is correct. Yes.
Are y'all able to increase to do 10% in addition to the
wildlife and stream buffers? I don't I wouldn't actually
know. I don't I don't really think that we like we're in a
position to answer that question, okay. Right now
Now because I don't know how much is in what.
Okay. The affordability we've been
seeing upwards of 10%. Are you all able to commit to 10%
affordability? We I don't think we'd be able
to commit to 10%, but we did we did talk internally about that.
And I think we can improve our commitment, which I believe is
at 5% to to 8% of the overall unit count. For this project.
Okay. Thank you. Those are my questions for now. Thanks.
Thank you. Any other colleagues questions? Council Member
Burris. Hello. Mr. Ghosh.
Hello. Just a couple of quick
questions, just to try to provide clarity for myself
about this. And so I apologize as I'm learning, if the, you
know, it seems kind of redundant for you, but, you
know, you're the expert, not me. Particularly around some of
the policies and looking at some of your increased profits.
I just had some questions, particularly around policy 39.
It looks like you committed to an additional 1% of tree
preservation, an additional 4% of open space. And I think for
the tree preservation was set at like, what, 20? So you'll be
doing 21%. And I believe what we're doing
is preservation. We'll make sure that. Yeah. Which is just
to be clear, it's also in excess of what the Udo
requires. So there's tree coverage. It doesn't always
have to be preservation. But we've committed to
preservation. Well I just was curious about
like the 1% like what's the impact of that. Like what's
going to be the benefit of 1%? Well, I think I think what I'm
saying is the really the excess is that it's preservation as
opposed to just simple tree coverage. It is also
numerically more tree coverage than is required, but it's also
being provided through tree preservation, which I think is
more valuable than than tree coverage. That is just, you
know, where you take the existing plants out and then
you replant 20%. This is 21% tree preservation.
So let me just rephrase this. I understand. So you think at
this increase, this metric, it would have a significant impact
then like the 1% like environmental.
Preservation is, is I think, more impactful than the 1%. The
fact that it's preservation rather than replanting for tree
coverage. Okay. And then can you just
I'll just have a question. I do appreciate you all for
increasing your proffer for affordable housing from 5% to
8%, just so we can all have a common understanding of this.
Tell us what this is. So does that mean that like for 80% of
am I that those units would be a reduced rate or like how does
that work out for the affordable housing piece? Like
are they subsidized or like what does it look like.
Well it's not subsidized like by any kind of like gap
financing or government funding or anything likikike that. Thes
are being provided by the developer, in this case at a
discounted price over what the unit next door, which would be
exactly the same unit, would cost. Right? So this is
essentially them discounting the price and the way that
works in this zoning case, but also just in the Durham studio
and and through. Whatever the department is now called that
that implements those things. They would record a covenant
against property that would that it's an affordability
covenant that says that these houses, 8% of them are have an
affordability covenant on them, and so that they have to be
sold in over the next 30 years, they can only be sold to
families qualifying at the 80% Ami level, which, you know,
over the course of 30 years. That number is obviously going
to change. But every year it's still going for 30 years. It'll
be still at the 80% Ami level regardless of who's selling it.
Right. So like the developer is going to do it the first time,
but because there would be a recorded covenant against the
the property, it would it would still carry through to the next
conveyance of that land. That's that's just how it would work.
So the I guess I would say the initial I'm going to call it a
haircut comes at the developer's expense. Right
after that, though, it's the it's the property owner who
bought the house at a discounted rate, would also
have to sell the house at a discounted rate over the next
30 years. Okay, that's helpful to
understand. And then I had another question about the
policy regards to accessibility. So it looks like
there that one wasn't consistent. So does that mean
you won't be in. It doesn't really necessarily give us
light to the you know, like making sure that we have a
mixed use of ages. So does that mean that these units will not
have and they will not have like access at grade, or will
they offer any first floor bedroom options?
Yeah. So we we're that's why we hadn't made that commitment
because we don't know specifically that we will be we
will be able to do that. And I think part of the issue here is
some of the topography challenges, which makes it
difficult to say for certain that there will be at grade
entrances, you know, when you have a flat piece of property,
you can kind of build right on top of that and have an at
grade entrance. But when you have to make up for grade and
stuff like that, that's when you start to get steps to the
front door or steps from the garage into the unit, whatever
the case may be, that's because of the great challenges with
with any given floor plan. And then with respect to whether
there will be any certain number of units that will have.
First floor living. The majority of these units. So I
believe it's 300 units total. Right. And the minimum of those
would be a minimum of 200 of those would be townhomes.
Townhome units are generally I mean they're going to be
multi-story units. Right. And but the way those generally are
going to lay out or, or they're probably not going to have all
of the items necessary for first floor living. There may
be a bedroom, right? But there probably won't be. Also be
kitchen and laundry and bathroom, you know, on that
first floor. That's why we haven't made that commitment.
But I think so. To answer your question, I think you're right.
We I don't know that we're in a place where we can make a
commitment, where we will meet that policy. But I can't say
for certain that there won't be units with first floor
bedrooms. It's just that we, you know, we're not comfortable
enough to make a commitment to describe what that might look
like on this project today. Okay. Because I just had, like,
just thinking about consistency. I see that there's
a commitment to making sure that the sidewalks are Ada
accessible. And so I'm like, okay, if you're going to make
sure the sidewalks have those accommodations, it would kind
of make sense to ensure the units are also accessible as
well. So but thank you so much for your time.
Thank you. Any other colleagues out here?
Council Member Baker. Thank you. Thanks for being
here, Mr. Ghosh. First of all, our our folks cold. I'm
literally looking at people shivering. There's a young lady
on the front row with a blanket. Not cold. Okay. Very
comfortable. All right. There's a mix of opinions out there.
I'm not gonna make this controversial. So I don't have
any questions. Actually, I, on this Earth Day. Borrowing,
barring any exceptional master plan, communities, I in good
conscience can't continue to support auto centric sprawl,
car dependent development on the outskirts of our city in in
this kind of this kind of scale and the rapid development and
growth that we're seeing on the outskirts, particularly in, in
Far East Durham, driven out there many times. I don't know
how you get out there any other way, and I'm not sure that
we'll leave an East Durham that will be reachable any other
way, the way that it is being approved for growth piece by
piece and little by little, you know, we're watching around the
world. It's impossible to miss the turmoil, the global
turmoil, and it feels like our entire society is a smash and
grab by the rich. And we're we're seeing global turmoil
around competition over fossil fuels and oil. And in a
progressive community, we need to do everything that we
possibly can to push back against that and fight against
that, not to just kind of openly continue to approve very
large cases. 80 acres is a very large case. Again, little by
little with, I think, legitimate questions and
increasingly legitimate questions around service and
infrastructure. I don't know if many of you follow a towns a
Chuck Chuck Marone who started strong towns does does a lot of
talks, a lot about sprawl and the way that many cities are
growing. He calls it a Ponzi scheme. He was actually in
Durham not not too long ago. Speaking, speaking here to the
community. He's got an article, he says, and I want to quote
this sprawl is a quote style of development. It works extremely
well for a specific type of large scale private developer.
They're masters of the assembly line approach, secure, cheap
land on the fringe, install infrastructure and build tract
housing as quickly as possible. At this scale, the profits are
enormous and the risks are low. He goes on to say. But while
private sector gets the cash, local governments get the bill.
Sprawling developments create long term infrastructure
liabilities. Roads, water lines, sewer systems, schools,
fire, EMS, et cetera that far exceed the revenue they
generate. Local governments, which are really just
collections of us acting together, are left trying to
maintain and operate systems that are fundamentally
unaffordable. And I think every time over the past many years
that these large scale cases have have come before council,
not only is that approval approving land for this kind of
development, it's also sending a message that this is okay,
that we can continue growing this way and that you should,
as a large scale landowner or a large scale developer, some
largest home builders in the country who are working in
Durham should continue doing this and doing what you're
doing. I've sat down with Mongo Holmes a couple years ago and I
asked, why don't you do great master plan communities that
are preserving more open space, maybe a little more dense in
certain areas, providing mix of uses and civic spaces. And they
said, because we know how to make money the way that that we
build now, and because you don't make us and that will
continue, that will continue as long as as we we allow it to
continue. So I appreciate the Planning Commission's
recommendation. I sat on the Planning Commission and was
very frustrated whenever City Council didn't didn't go along
with the Planning Commission. Now here I am, but I agree with
the comments of Commissioner Wolk from the Planning
Commission. I think that Commissioner Wolk hit the nail
on the head with some of these comments. You know, we had
another committee of a board weigh in and also I just I
think that this is sending a message. I think that it's
continuing to do something that we know is part of a broken
system. We shouldn't we shouldn't blame individuals for
being dependent upon cars for for our auto dependency. It's a
systemic failure. And and we are part of the system. And so
I won't be supporting this one. And I'll just say now I won't
be supporting the other cases this evening.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First is
a question for staff. And this relates to a couple of cases
that we're seeing this evening in regards to applicant
commitments around infrastructure, addressing
traffic, issues of concern. And I guess my question is just
helping me understand this. So in this particular case, the
applicant has talked about a $2 million commitment to
infrastructure to to address traffic issues in this area. So
how much does this address the current concerns versus just
the incremental need from the additional units that would go
in? And if this investment wasn't made through this
development, when might the city have this in the plan to
make the sort of investment? Earlene Thomas So the plan and
the traffic study does address both existing and future
impacts from this development. So some of the improvements
that they are making are going to address existing issues that
that are happening today. If these improvements aren't made
by this developer, they will likely not be funded anytime in
the foreseeable future as projects are prioritized and
funded, you know, through NCDOT prioritization process. And
there are limited dollars to go around and address all of the
future needs. All right. Thank you. Next, a
couple of questions for the applicant. Mr. Ghosh. So I want
to come back to a couple of the other requests from the
Environmental Affairs Board, as well as from residents to
preserve rail, Durham and others. I would like to ask if
this is a project where you could commit to no variances
and no disturbances in the buffer, and what that would
look like for this project. Well, I think I mentioned
already, I, I know for a fact we can't make a commitment to
no disturbances in the buffer. We've already got a plan stream
crossing. So that is. Because of the one disturbance
you have. Okay. Yeah. And so we're going
to have to let me look over here. That requires one of
those permits. No no practical alternative. Yeah. So like I
know that we have to get one of those. That's not a variance
per se. I don't really even know if from a zoning
standpoint, someone can make a commitment to no variance. I
mean, a variance is something specified in the UDL. And I'm
looking in that direction because I don't I just don't
know. But, you know, I guess I would say the specific
commitment that was asked for I'm I we could not make that
commitment because I know that we're going to have impacts to
stream to riparian buffers, and we're going to need one of
those in PA to do it. So it is possible that an
applicant can proffer to not seek variances or to not seek
an MPA for any type of intrusion. You know, that is a
proffer can be anything going above and beyond a normal
process. Well, yeah.
All right. So the the no disturbances is impossible.
What about the no variances. I mean I don't know I'll have
to I'll have to get with my client on whether they are
comfortable doing that. I mean no one seeks the development
for the purpose of getting a variance. Later a variance
comes up. I mean, it's a high bar at the Board of Adjustment
to get a variance. Yeah. And I want to acknowledge
and thank in this process, the feedback we're getting from the
EAB and other volunteer boards, planning Commission B Pac, I
look forward to actually having these requests be part of our
application packet, which gives us time to further evaluate and
have these discussions as well. But I do think they're really
important points to to raise. So I just want to say I
appreciate, you know, aspects of this proposal that exceed
the comp plan. You know, around open space, you know, and that
tree preservation, which is what, you know, I think the
kind of thing that we we look for when evaluating these sorts
of cases, as well as additional commitments around affordable
housing, the the stormwater control measures, the increased
DPS contribution and the commitment to protect the most
environmentally sensitive areas and build Panther Creek. I
think some of these reflected the strong Planning Commission
recommendation, and also some have addressed the
Environmental Affairs Board recommendations. At the same
time, I'm cognizant of the remaining concerns that have
been raised by fire by residents and advocates and
volunteer boards. I would like to discuss a JCC, PC, how we
can better account for EMS along with the county, because
I feel like that keeps coming up and it's something we
haven't quite been able to wrap our heads around. I think some
of the other infrastructure questions are have been easier
because they fall more within the city's control and and but
this this EMS one still seems to be a sticking point for for
us in a really critically important one. You know, I
think the last thing is that, you know, on the affordable
housing piece, I do appreciate that that proffers I sort of
way the opportunities here. I mean, you know, for the city to
provide all of the housing that we need would be an expensive
proposition that would fall heavily on our taxpayers. And
so I think that including the improvements for traffic, which
otherwise would not happen, you know, are something that I also
don't take lightly in weighing these cases when considering
all the trade offs that are in place and ultimately where we
see any housing go has an impact on the neighbors and
residents who live nearby, you know, we have to consider, you
know, the, the ultimately the the pressures, the displacement,
pressures that it puts in other parts of our city when we
choose to not welcome those homes near where we live. And
so there's a push and pull where we're connected across
the city in these decisions that we make. And everyone has
a right to, you know, to advocate for what they feel is
best for what they live. And we have to think about, you know,
what is going to work for residents across the city and
particularly, you know, concern for residents who face that
pressure. In some of our more gentrifying neighborhoods,
which is something the weigh against concerns about, you
know, conversion of some of our more rural areas. And those are
real concerns and trade offs. We have to weigh, you know,
including a desire for all development to be along transit
in the future. And, you know, every development to be next to
a park. And that is the the dream that I would like to see
us fulfill. I also think about the investment required in
order to make that a reality. And the opportunity we have in
these limited cases to look for benefits for the community. So
thank you. Council Member Rist thank you,
Mr. Mayor. I do have one question. Yeah, I appreciate
the comments from my colleagues. Also for the
testimony from residents. I had one question I am I'm actually,
I think Council Member Kopac is now the official back member,
but I'm an alternate still. So I want to ask you about the
back comments, because there were a couple there that I
think there wasn't a response to, at least in our packet. So
there was a request from back about building a sidewalk
network within the development. And again, I think my notes
show that there was no response. I wonder if you
consider that. So. I don't know if I didn't
respond. My understanding is that the road design
requirements do require sidewalk anyway, so you can't
make the commitment because it's already required.
So it's required that would and.
That would. That's my understanding that that
interior residue require sidewalks.
Or staff. Just if you all could confirm that on the staff side.
Correct. That would be required by ordinance.
Okay. Thank you for that. Yeah. Okay. The second comment from
back was about around the proposed signal locations,
uplift intersections with curbing and wheelchair ramps to
accommodate potential future multi the potential future of
multi-use path. I'm. I'm sorry I'm not. Hold
on. I have those back comments. Again that's at the proposed
signal locations. Raise the intersection with curbing and
wheelchair ramps. Sorry one second I know they're
in. This.
Okay. Which one are you referring to?
I think it's the. Oh, at the intersections to
better serve wheelchair users and ensure the shortest
crossing distance by crosswalks.
And that's kind of the potential future multi-use
path, right? Yes. So the. Yeah, that's not
one that I think we'd be comfortable making a commitment
to. That's a there's a signalized intersection. That
is I guess it's technically off site. I mean it's at the corner
of Gearan Burton. So we don't I mean, the right of way. I don't
know that there's sufficient right of way to accommodate
this if there is. And I believe that's, generally speaking, how
the design would be required to go is, is that you would have
the sidewalk there with the with the curb. Yeah. With the
ramp. That's how those intersections I believe they're
designed. But whether it's going to be an MUP, I don't
know that we can make that type of commitment just because if I
remember correctly, the corner of the property, I'm sorry that
that intersection is actually not part like we don't have the
ability to expand right of way there by dedicating it
ourselves, because we don't have the frontage.
Right there. But if you if the right of way is available, if
you can actually get access, that would something you would
intend to do. I don't even know that intent
is part of it, that that is what's required by design is to
have those wheelchair ramps and the, you know, the little
yellow, with the dots in them. Okay. Thank you. Then the last
one was about the inclusion. Oh right. Of the of the multi-use
path along the proposed length of the roadway. Improvements.
Want to make sure that's I think there was some confusion
about that. Whether those again the multi-use path would
continue along the the roadway improvements and again.
Well again that that so along our frontage we would do the
the multi-use path. Right. That includes where the
improvements are. Well yeah. But beyond that's
what I'm saying. Like that's where the right of way is
limited. We can't just we wouldn't be comfortable making
a commitment to have offsite larger right of way than would
be required to fit that ten foot wide multi-use path,
because we just don't have control of that right of way.
Like we can't dedicate the right of way for it, but where
we can dedicate right of way. Yeah, we're doing it in the ten
foot wide multi-use path. That is what we're doing.
And then where you can't get where you can't commit to the
right of way. What's the what's the plan there?
Like where the road improvements are going? Yeah, I
mean, it's I think it's going to be limited by whatever right
of way. Is there. And that and what, generally speaking, with
Ddot is going to allow it within that right of way. Which
isn't to say they wouldn't allow it, but I don't know that
we that it fits or it doesn't. We haven't designed.
You can't. commit to that. But yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah.
So I you know this is we say that all the time. These cases
are all complicated right. There's no perfect case here. I
think for me, given the I think we've we've had a lot of
discussion here. You've been been generous with the
aggressive proffer or the additional proffer on
affordable housing. Additional funds for DPS, the roadway
improvements, the profit for the hundred year storm building
the the building, the greenway on site, as well as the
restricted development in the wildlife corridor. So to me
this is a you know, this is a a site that's largely mixed use
residential by the plan we've developed and approved as a
community. So this is within the urban growth boundary. I
think you've done a lot to really sort of, sort of flexes
to the the request of the council, I think by and large,
and I think with the, with the Planning Commission
recommendation 8 to 2 to approve this, I think this is a
pretty good case. So on balance, I think this crosses
my threshold and I will be supportive of this case. Thank
you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Cook.
Oh no. You went first right? Yeah. Mayor. President. All
right. I. I've been on council for a few years now, and I
still sort of still sort of get caught up in this, this 30 year
affordable housing thing, you know, just if you buy it at an
affordable rate and you have to sell it at an affordable rate,
and I'm still, after all these years, years, still trying to
find a balance of not keeping someone in from being able to
grow their wealth, but also not allowing predatory purchasing
where someone buys at it and flips it. Because obviously we
have corporations that are buying housing and outbidding
individuals. Have you all explored other more creative
options where we can have for sale affordable options, but
not, you know, chop them in for 30 years?
Well. I will just say this from my
client. They sell it one time, right? And so when they commit
to affordable housing, they are essentially, like I said
earlier, taking a haircut on that, on that unit, on that
affordable unit, there's no governmental subsidy or
anything like that. They're just discounting the price on
the unit. What I mean, for them, my client, what it sells
for by the person they sold it to, has no bearing on, you
know, their business model. Right? They've already sold it
one time. The 30 year commitment is what is standard
and defined in the Udo, which is why we had that commitment
there. So I can say like we did not explore other options
because we were kind of taking the term affordable housing to
mean exactly what it says in the Udo and seeing how much of
that we could provide in this development. But, I mean, I
understand what your point is, but, you know, I don't I don't
know exactly what you have in mind, but if you were saying,
could the restriction be five years instead of 30 years, I'm
sure my client would be open to that, because actually it
doesn't make a difference to them. Right? Because they're
selling it the one time. Got it, got it. And I'm not
prepared to make make let that be some determining factor
tonight. It's just something I always battle with and. I hope
that we can get creative, more creative. That's not
necessarily specific to you all in this one case, but just in
general. And that's more so than my colleagues. I hope that
we can explore other options for folks to take advantage of.
And and, you know, find a middle ground there. Also, I, I
know I've been talking about this a bit lately. You know,
when it comes to supporting our schools, I think about, you
know, let's say it's $500, $500 per child and it's ten
children. If it goes to the schools, it goes to a capital
project, and it doesn't really have any impact. If it was to
go to the public school foundation that has a much
larger impact, and I will be meeting with them to see if
that's something that the school system and the
foundation could potentially explore. Just how we can have
a. For the record, I'm a fan, but,
you know, I'm just sticking to the.
To the I'm trying to say how we can have a greater impact for
our for our, our students. I agree and have more of a
defined relationship between the city and the schools,
considering they're not in our jurisdictional or fiscal
portfolio, but okay. Thank you. Thank you. Comments. Yes.
Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on a
couple of those, Eby ones, specifically, the expansion of
stream buffer widths where steep slopes or direct drainage
to Panther Creek are present, with buffers measured from the
top of the slopes rather than the stream bank.
So the issue we can't even begin to say today what those
areas are. We wouldn't be able to make the commitment. It
requires some, some, some further engineering. And we
don't have that level of engineering to be comfortable
to make that kind of commitment.
Okay. And then for the no grading or clearing in the
floodplain, except for strictly necessary.
I kind of think that's what our commitment already says. So the
only thing that's allowed in the wildlife and floodplain
corridors would be infrastructure. And that
includes a greenway, specifically, the greenway is
going to require grading in in those areas. And we've already
I mean, we've adjusted our commitment to build the
greenway, but it is infrastructure. I mean, I think
they're kind of saying the same thing. Yes, they are worded
differently, but I think they are practically getting at the
same thing. We are not making impacts in the floodplain that
are not infrastructure. Okay. Thank you. Those are my
questions. I just want to make a quick comment, which is that
I was really I'm really was really undecided on this case.
I still feel pretty undecided, but I'm actually interesting. I
think that Council Member Kopac asked a asked a question about
how our infrastructure would be developed if it's not done by a
private developer, and we hear a lot on this diamond from the
applicant tonight about how improvements follow
development, and we don't see the improvements until we see
the people moving there, but we really don't see that. And the
reason that we don't see that is because those improvements
are really, really expensive. And we have a huge backlog
citywide, but mostly statewide of infrastructure developments.
And so if we're going to talk about, oh, this will follow
when there's people that will follow and then simultaneously
we're hearing, oh, we're not going to be able to make the
improvements that are already needed without developer,
without developer money, we're not going to be able to make
the ones that are subsequently needed. And like the
improvements that are coming, they are coming because they
are beneficial to the project. And that is that is what it is.
It's not solving all of the traffic issues and in fact is
going to create more traffic issues. And we already know
that we don't have capacity in the state budget or the city
budget in this moment to infill that need. And that has kind of
taken me over the line on this, because it's we've seen so much
development in this area. We've seen so much cutting of trees
and and we saw the heat map earlier. And I think that's
something that I've talked about quite a lot and think is
really important. This is a justice issue. It's it is a
longevity issue. If we want to think about Durham surviving
long term with increased environmental storms and
impact, we have to think about what will happen after these
developments come through. And it might look nice because
there's something shiny being dangled in front of us right
now, but if we can't sustain it moving forward, then what are
we passing down? So it's going to be a no. Come to me tonight,
but I appreciate the proffers and I think that we're getting
closer, and I hope to see projects that are more
sustainable moving forward. Mayor Pro Tem.
Thank you. I wasn't going to say anything changed my mind.
So I think that and I and I appreciate what council member
just shared. I think part of it is actually about the
infrastructure. What we often talk about is around transit
and commercial, because we often hear from residents
around, well, this is too much residential. We want
commercial. No one's going to put commercial if there's not
enough doors. That is actually an economic decision. And then
transit. If you don't have ridership, you don't get
transit. You're not. No one's going to run a bus down your
street or anywhere close to you. If there's not enough
people around you to get on a bus. So I think those are the
two places on the infrastructure with traffic. I
think it was a few weeks ago where there was supposed to be
a traffic circle at latter, and Roxboro, and it was in the
Stip, and it wasn't in the Stip. And I still have to
follow up with staff to figure out what happened there,
because I been on the TPO long enough, where I remember it was
a funded project and then it wasn't. I will be voting for
this project. I think that there are some deep and
important commitments. I think that saving $2 million in
traffic improvements, that we don't know when we'll get
improved, especially in the state funding. And let's just
be clear, the state of North Carolina has a scarcity
mindset. But it's not because we don't have money. We don't
have money because we don't tax our corporations at the level
that we want. And that decision is not made on this dais. So
for, for for folks who really want to see infrastructure
being done well in North Carolina, your General Assembly
is the place that you need to go. So I love that y'all are
here. I hope you also go put some pressure. None on your
delegation in Durham because they're trying to do the right
thing. Pressure across the state. We have a ton of money
in the state. We are an affluent state. At this point.
It's just dislocated and underfunded and they're passing
the buck on to you at the local level. And by default, US and
county commissioners. So I actually appreciate and I had a
question for staff in a second, but I think the the commitment
around building the trail and that commitment, I understand
what you're saying about infrastructure in that the
reason you can't make the commitment, I'm clear on that.
That is also saving us a lot of money as a city. It is. These
are decisions around no cases, perfect. I appreciate
colleagues asking for more. Every case does offer a little
bit more. We got, you know, 5% to 8%. Is it ideal? No. None of
these cases are often very ideal. You're always going to
make trade offs. And that's why it's a case by case basis for
the the master planning and all of that I, I get it. I think
that we also have to be careful. Paris is master
planned. There were still thousands of people who got
their homes and businesses taken away from them, because
the King decided that they wanted to make a what was a
medieval city, a beautiful city now. But I bet you those people
who had lived through that had an opinion when things got
eminent domain and taken from them, essentially, and I'm sure
they didn't get compensated in the same way you get
compensated today when things get taken from you from your
buyer by the government. But that's not how these cases
work. We look. Or at least I look at the comp plan, which
was widely done. Maybe folks in this room didn't participate.
Maybe you did, but it was a multi year process. And at
least how I make my decisions is around how close did this
project get to our goals? Sometimes they hit all of them,
sometimes they don't. Sometimes it's a mix and you just kind of
have to make your decision based on that. And each one of
us make a calculus in a different way, and that doesn't
make somebody a better or less an environmentalist or not. I
think every single person on this council has made deep
commitments to environmental justice, to housing
affordability, not just here. When we do rezoning, I will be
supporting the case. I did have a question for staff about the
steep slopes, because we got a presentation around that. I
don't remember if it was at a work session or JCC, but we
were going to do some adjustments to that, to to how
we were doing that. And I just wanted to know. I thought we
talked about it in the for the Udo. Maybe I'm totally wrong.
I'm going to look to Director Yan for that answer.
I thought it was at JCC where we were talking about how we
were going to be approaching the steep slopes.
Director young is going to look at you with a confused look on
her face. Okay, I'm going to go.
Yeah, let's follow up. Okay. I thought.
We. Were talking about how we were
going to approach it in a in a different way, moving forward.
It may have been so in the LDC, we did slightly change the
requirements for steep slopes. That may have been what you.
Were thinking. Yeah. And it was in a way that was better
environmentally to what we're doing right now. Yes. Okay. So
for those folks who do show up, residents who show up because
this is an issue that that gets brought up in cases, often that
is coming, that has been addressed with the new LDC. And
I just want to name that as another place that we're trying
to to improve our our environmental policies with the
adoption of the new land use code. Thank you.
Thank you. We are well, thank you, Councilmember, our mayor
pro tem, for for stating this chicken egg situation. I
usually just, you know, I sometimes I state those
realities and and I stake my vote and sometimes I don't I
just vote, but for the sake of the really nice messages that
I've got in my email, I have, I am for voting for development,
refer to those comments and and please take the energy to the
state and I will join you because they are putting us in
an impossible situation. If you think it's bad right now, wait
until they come for our property tax and we won't have
anything to do any services. So your city Council members are
not your enemies. I promise. All right, colleagues, my goal
is to take a break at nine. That was 29 minutes ago. And we
have two other cases that are probably going to be about an
hour and a half to two each. So. I am going to. It's too late to
call out sick. All right. So those are the comments I have.
I'll go ahead and call for the question.
Yeah okay. I did close. Oh no I didn't
actually I declare the public hearing closed and back before
the council, I thought I did that though.
I don't. Think so because. Yeah, I don't
think it's okay. All right. Well, it's closed
now. And all of the comments and questions were in the
public hearing. So I'll entertain a motion to conduct a
public hearing to receive comments and consider the
following motions. Motion one to adopt an ordinance annexing
Bella Ridge into the city of Durham and to authorize the
city manager to enter, to enter into a utility extension
agreement with Starlight Homes North Carolina, LLC.
So moved. Second.
It's been moved and properly seconded. Madam clerk, please
open the vote. Please close to vote.
The motion passes 4 to 3 with council members Baker, Burris
and Cook voting no. Thank you. I'll also entertain
a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the Unified
Development Ordinance by taking property out of residents,
residential. Rural, commercial, neighborhood, and residential
suburban falls Jordan District B Watershed Protection overlay
major transportation corridor I-85 overlay county
jurisdiction and establishing the same as planned
development. Residential 3.975 Falls Jordan District B
watershed Protection Overlay. Major transportation corridor
I-85 overlay city jurisdiction. So moved.
Second removed and properly second. Madam clerk, please
open to vote. Please close to vote.
The motion passes 4 to 3 with Council Member Baker, Burris
and Cook voting no. Thank you. And I'll finally
entertain a motion to adopt a consistency statement as
required by North Carolina General Statutes section 160
D-605. So moved.
Second by moving properly. Seconded. Madam clerk, please
open the vote. Please close the vote.
Motion passes unanimously. Thank you so much, colleagues.
We will recess for ten minutes and we'll get back to it.
It's. I haven't seen it. Sorry. That
was. Yeah, I will. I. Did so. I was gonna say hi that he's
he's. Banging the.
He's banging the. Gavel.
Alright, let's get started. Colleagues. Excuse me.
Colleagues, at this time I will be moving item number 24 to net
to be next on the agenda. And we are ready for the staff
report. Item number 24. Switching up the order on us.
I had to figure out which 124 was. Mayor Williams, mayor Pro
Tem Caballero and honorable council members. I'm Aaron King
with the Planning and Development Department. Item 24
is the 25 000 30 a slash BDG 25 000 1994 15 NC 751 highway a
request for a utility extension agreement, voluntary annexation
and initial zoning map change has been received from Jared
Rossi of Thomas and Hutton for one parcel of land totaling
3.885 acres and located at 94, 15 and C7 51 highway. This
annexation petition is for a contiguous expansion of the
primary corporate limits to connect to city water and sewer.
As part of this annexation petition, the applicant. The
applicant is not seeking a change in the underlying zoning
district of residential, rural. The properties are currently
designated mixed use neighborhood on the place type
map. The proposed residential rural zoning is generally
consistent with the designated place type. Staff and the
applicant are available to answer questions.
Thank you. You've heard the staff report. There are any
questions. All right. At this time, I'll declare the public
hearing open. And are we are ready for the applicant. How
much time do you think you need?
45 minutes. I'm sorry.
No, we'll take we'll take two minutes. Okay. I got two
minutes. Hopefully I can. Order.
Jeremy Anderson, Thomas Hutton, mayor Williams, pro Tem
Caballero and councilman. Thank you this evening for taking the
time. I'll keep this short to try to save some time. As Aaron
Cook mentioned, this is a transitional zoning to rural
residential. Just requesting a annexation into the city to
access water and sewer for this 2.3 acre parcel at the corner
of Fayetteville. And 751 if you're familiar with the map in
the report there, it's really kind of filling in the one last
piece on the west side of 751 there. There is city zoning,
city annexation, zoning to the north. And on the opposite side
of 751. So with that hope, you'll honor the recommendation
of the Planning Commission, who voted ten zero for this. And
I'm here to answer any questions. Thank you.
Thank you. For.
All right. I don't have any sign ups for this one.
Therefore, I declare the public hearing closed and back before
the council. Colleagues, any questions? Comments? All right.
So I'll entertain a motion to adopt an ordinance annexing
9415 North Carolina, 751 highway. 751 into the city of
Durham, and to authorize the city manager to enter into a
utility extension agreement with 751 investments, LLC.
So moved. Second. Been moved to properly
seconded. Madam clerk, please open the vote. Please post a
vote. Motion passes seven zero.
Thank you. And I'll also entertain a motion to adopt an
ordinance amending the Unified Development Ordinance by taking
property out of residential rural falls. Jordan Watershed
Overlay District. Be county jurisdiction and establishing
the same as residential rural falls Jordan Watershed Overlay
district B overlay city jurisdiction. Second and moving
properly. Seconded. Madam clerk, please open the vote.
Please close the vote. Motion passes seven zero.
And lastly, I'll entertain a motion to adopt a consistency
statement as required by North Carolina General Statutes
section 162. Moved.
Dash second oh five. It's been moved and properly seconded.
Please open the vote and please close the vote.
Motion passes seven zero. Awesome. Back up to item number
22, which I know will be just as quick. All right, ready for
the staff report? I will say I will reduce comments to two
minutes on this one and 23 as well. It's not because I don't
love you as much, it's just that it's a lot of sign up. All
right. Mayor. Williams, Mayor Pro Tem
Caballero, Council members, this case is the 25 00011 BDG,
25 00007 Patterson Hall a request for a utility extension
agreement, voluntary annexation and initial zoning map change
has been received from Tim Sivers of Community for four
parcels of land totaling 39.849 acres and so right of way
located at 309 353, 401, 402 and 505 Patterson Road. This
annexation petition is not contiguous to the primary
corporate limits. However, it is contiguous to a satellite
portion of the city. The current zoning is residential,
rural and residential suburban ten. The applicant proposes to
change the designation of one parcel read 166353, and the
portions of three parcels with reads 166352166250 and 166349.
Located west of Patterson Road to plan development residential
44.703 to allow up to 180. Townhouse attached single
family and detached single family units with up to 3000ft
of non-residential uses, excluding gasoline sales and
drive through facilities. The remaining portions of these
parcels on the east side of Patterson Road, will be
translated into the city of Durham as a residential, rural
and residential suburban ten as direct translations. The
properties are currently designated misuse. Mixed use
neighborhood on the place type map. The proposed PDR 4.703
zoning is generally consistent with the designated place type.
Thank you. Staff and the applicant are available for any
questions. Thank you. Are there any
questions or comments with staff?
Mr.. I've got one question. Yep. Mr.. Cain on the this is
in the zoning map change report under the commitments in excess
of the Udo in the. This is page three of the very bottom of
page three. It says I just want to clarify that the the
document, it says at least 2%. But then in parentheses it's
got 20% of the required open space shall contain
environmentally sensitive areas, including all or a
portion of the stream buffer. So is that is that 2 or 20?
I believe that's supposed to be a 20. Yes. Yes, that's supposed
to. Be 20.
Okay. My apologies to the air. Thank you. That's it.
All right. We'll let the let the record reflect that. All
right. Declare the public hearing open. And how much time
do you think you need? If we could have 12 minutes,
please. 15 minutes. Please.
Good evening, Mayor Williams. Mayor Pro Tem Caballero.
Members of council. My name is Marie Farmer with Parker Poe,
301 Fayetteville Street, Raleigh. Here, on behalf of the
applicant and my homes, I am joined tonight by the project's
landscape architect, Tim Sivers with community. The projects,
transportation planner, John Schick with the RMP and
representatives of MI homes, including Juan Montez, director
of Land Entitlements. The team is proud to present this
moderately sized mixed use project tonight, with numerous
commitments to address the project's impact, including a
first of its kind voluntary transportation improvement
that, in addition to the affordable proffer and donation
to Durham Public Schools, will provide a total community
investment of $1 million. MI has been developing in this
area for 25 years, with communities throughout the
triangle. We wanted to illustrate a few examples of
homes and amenities that MI has delivered locally to show the
type of quality to expect from this developer. Am. I also has
experience building communities here in Durham with several
subdivisions currently under construction, including one
that is providing a five acre public park with multiple play
structures and a pavilion with public restrooms. The project
we are discussing tonight, and the request is to rezone four
parcels adjacent to city limits within the urban growth
boundary along Patterson Road, just north of the Patterson and
Wake Forest Highway intersection. The total a
little under 40 acres. The property is surrounded by city
limits, and the proposal is consistent with policy 165 of
the Comprehensive Plan because it will expand those limits and
reduce the existing donut hole. Despite the site being located
at the bottom of the Patterson Road future growth area, the
proposal does further the Comprehensive Plan policy
objective 122 because it will upgrade sewer capacity with a
public lift station that will connect to the existing gravity
sewer in Stallings Road, and there will be stubs provided to
the adjacent parcels. The current zoning on the site is
residential, rural and residential suburban ten, and
we are requesting PDR with the development plan to allow for a
mixed residential development with a neighborhood scale
commercial use consistent with the play site. The property is
designated mixed use neighborhood by the Place Type
map, and our proposal meets this designation because we are
proposing a mix of uses and housing types at a moderate
density with integrated open space that will capture the
environmentally sensitive features on site. Again, this
request is offering a number of key tax commitments. We have
committed to a minimum of two housing types. 10% of the units
featuring a first floor primary bedroom and full bath. We for
the non-residential use tonight we are adding a minimum size
for the non-residential building of 1000ft . We have
committed to income restricted units or donation to the
dedicated housing fund. And tonight we would also like to
increase that amount to $285,000. We have committed to
EV charging stations, a green building program, maximum 50%
impervious surface, a maximum of two stream crossings, native
trees, 20% of required open space containing
environmentally sensitive features, and 22% tree coverage.
At Planning Commission, we also increased our contribution to
Durham Public Schools to $15,000, which comes out to
more than $1,500 per student. That would be generated by this
new zoning. We have added a commitment for the 100 year
storm, and we added a commitment for a third row of
cell fence adjacent to the stream. After Planning
commission. In response to feedback we received, including
feedback that we heard from Preserve Rural Durham, we added
a commitment to address the 100 year storm for the erosion
control sediment basins, so that we are addressing the 100
year storm for both pre and post construction. While we
submitted this application as a textural development plan at
Planning Commission, we did provide this visual that you
see her on screen to preview the concept plan. And while
this does not represent graphic commitments of the zoning, our
goal was to provide clarity as to where the project's access
points, boundary stream buffers, and integrated open
space would be located. So you can see here the two access
points off of Patterson Road, a minimum 30 foot undisturbed
project boundary buffer. In dark green, you can see the 100
foot stream buffer in dark blue. The integrated
recreational open space and orange, the existing sewer
easement in light green, and then the plan location for the
commercial out parcel is highlighted by the white Star
Sense Planning Commission to provide an extra layer of
certainty. Am I decided to take the financial risk and submit
the site plan for this project in advance of tonight's
hearing, so that there is no doubt as to what the plan is
for this site. As you can see, the site plan matches the
concept that was previewed at Planning Commission, providing
a mix of housing types. Only one stream crossing, integrated
open space and the commercial out parcel at the second access
point. And this plan shows 150 homes. To address our
consistency with policy, 50 of the Comprehensive Plan. Because
the site is not located within half a mile of a public park,
we did want to also illustrate that this project is less than
700ft from the Oak Grove Associates athletic fields.
Overall, this request is consistent with 23 out of 26
applicable policies of the Comprehensive Plan. By meeting
Udo standards with 11 policies and exceeding those standards
of consistency with 12. In addition to the multiple
changes to the project that we made at and after Planning
Commission, we also voluntarily study the project's impact to
the Wake Forest Highway. And Sharon Patterson Road
intersection. Because traffic has been the biggest concern
that we have heard from the community for this case. Now,
despite the anticipated impact of this project being less than
5%, our team explored several options to improve traffic flow
at the intersection. We worked with city staff and Ddot, and
we are proud to have added a commitment for voluntary
improvement that city Transportation and D.O.T. agree
will be the most impactful to traffic flow. Out of the
options that we evaluated. So, before concluding our
presentation, I would like to invite Tim Sivers to come up
and briefly explain what this improvement is, and then Juan
Montez with MI homes would like to come up and say a few words
about this request. And the reason am I is grateful to have
the opportunity to make an investment here in Durham.
Thank you. Thank you. Tim Sivers with
community 16 Consultant Place here in Durham. You can see on
the screen are two options. We did. As mentioned, we did
spend. time reviewing. The multiple.
Ideas and narrowed this down to these two options. We met with
city Transportation and Ddot about both of these. Option one
what approximately double the length of the eastbound right
turn lane would allow would allow more vehicles through
this intersection. It didn't quite have the impact that we
were looking for. So tonight and in the and working with
staff, we have already committed to option two. And
after meeting with Transportation and City of,
they both agreed that this option provides, which would
provide second lane through this intersection is more
effective and impactful solution. So starting on the
left side of your screen, the eastbound right turn lane,
which is in front of Walgreens, will become a shared through
and right turn lane. The three lane will be extended from the
intersection approximately 100 1100 feet to the east. The
three lane will also be a right turn lane into the shopping
center of Raven Stone, as well as Arbor Edge Lane. This
improvement will increase the flow of traffic through this
intersection, headed east towards Wake Forest. By
doubling the number of through lanes at the intersection. So
we have heard the concerns of the neighbors and understand
the concerns with this specific intersection, and have provided
this voluntary improvement here this evening. And I would like
to hand it off to Juan Montes with MI homes.
Good evening. Mayor Williams and members of the Durham City
Council. My name is Juan Montes and I'm with MI homes, the
developer for both this case and the Morgan Farm case, which
you will hear momentarily. I want to take a moment and let
you hear directly from him. I our intentions with the
Patterson Project as a Durham resident myself that lives off
of Sharon Road, just a few seconds from the Sharon
Patterson Wake Forest Highway intersection, I deal with
congestion here every day and definitely share the public's
main concern. While it does bring me frustration to sit in
traffic, it also fuels me with motivation. As a land developer
and as a homebuilder. Do what I can do to improve the community
I live in, as well as the communities we in our homes
invest in. This is why we work closely with Durham and NCDOT
to voluntarily commit to improve the intersection at its
most congested point. We were not held to have a tire on this
project, meaning this this level of study is quite
unprecedented. Despite Patterson's proposed traffic
impacts being less than 5% and not required to perform a Tia
in my homes is willing to contribute a $700,000
improvement to this intersection. I'm also very
aware of Durham's urgency to supply affordable housing to
its fast growing population. I work every day. We work every
day to find solutions, innovative techniques and
strategies to help our younger generations purchase their
first homes and our older generations to purchase their
retirement homes. We're proposing a commitment of
$285,000 to the dedicated housing fund, or 5% of the
units, at 80% Ami, as is Durham Standard, a $285,000
contribution is approximately $1,900 per unit that can be
invested into affordable housing projects, down payment
assistance, and other mechanisms that the city has
available to face the housing crisis. We believe this
contribution will strengthen the city's ability to pivot
whenever market market conditions shift, which they
inevitably will. In addition to the transportation improvements
and affordable housing contributions, we are
contributing $15,000 to the Durham Public Schools, which is
about three times the standard to get us to a total of $1
million of voluntary investment to this great community in my
homes, is no stranger to Durham and will be around for the
foreseeable future, as we've already broken ground on large
projects that also invest heavily into the community. As
you've seen with our past and ongoing projects, the project,
The Patterson Project, and I hope you will see the Morgan
Farm Project. We've left no stone unturned in our mission
to be the best partner and investor of Durham and its
residents that we can be. I thank you for your time
tonight, and I hope you support the cases as presented in front
of you tonight. I just like to say thank you.
And the applicant team is available to answer any
questions. Thank you. We have quite a few
speakers here for this one. We'll start online. First
speaker I have is Mary Molina. Miss Molina, can you hear me?
I'm here. Can you hear me?
Oh, there you go. Welcome. You have two minutes.
Okay. Thank you. My name is Mary Molina. My
address is on file. This Paterson Hall proposal
represents exactly the kind of reckless leapfrog development
that our comprehensive plan was designed to stop Councilmember
Monroe, when you ran for your at large seat, you campaigned
on a platform of widely shared prosperity and a healthier
environment. This project contradicts those very
promises. It ignores our urban growth boundary. It
overburdened our failing fire services, and it threatens the
Falls Lake watershed. Ground zero of our city's drinking
water. As we look ahead to the 2027 election cycle, we're
watching to see if our representatives will prioritize
the safety of our rural corridors over the profits of
developers, Council Member Ben Reese we haven't forgotten the
principles you said you stood for to get here. We need you to
help. We need you to vote, to hold the line, to protect our
water and protect our safety. Don't let more sprawl dictate
Durham's future. Vote no on Paterson Hall. Thank you.
Next, I have George Geraldine Lawson.
I'm here. Welcome. You have two two
minutes. Thank you. And thank you all
for your thoughtful consideration. We've been
listening all evening to you as you go over these proposals. We
are a long time 50 year residents on Paterson Road, and
we are very concerned about progress. The desires of the
developers preceding the repairs that have been needed
for years to the intersection and to the infrastructure in
this section of Durham. I it sounds like there's a there's
an idea that we should rely on the developers, perhaps for
improvements, but we feel like this should be done in
coordination with city and county governments before we
allow a lot of explosive development. So much is
happening in our area. We're so close to highway 98. I
appreciate the proposal and thought that's gone into the
road improvements, but there are more intersections than
just 98 and Sharon Road and Paterson. There's also
Stallings Road coming right in. I'm not sure all the feeder
roads are considered in that plan. And it's it's it's very
worrisome to us for safety. And we're we're 30 year. My husband
and I are 30 year retired educators in the Durham public
schools. And we value quality. We value we value change, we
value improvements. But they need to be aligned. They need
to be aligned in the right order.
Thank you. Ray Larson stepping in. We've lived here for like
55 years and it's a wonderful community with tremendous
traditions of rural farming and and and nature and and this,
this, this intrusion is, is going to ruin a long tradition
of things that we've had there that mean a lot to us. And I
hope you consider that before you, you develop unnecessarily
when we have plenty of growth in other areas.
Thank you very much, and we appreciate your thoughtful
consideration of this. This part of Durham, which is not
only special to us. But.
So special. Thank you. Next, I have Rebecca
Freeman. Hello, I'm.
Rebecca Freeman. Welcome. You have two minutes.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mayor and council
members, I appreciate being able to speak on this tonight.
I wanted it just to focus on policy. 116 on 71 and 116. This
focuses around the 15 minute community and access to
shopping areas. I think that the upgrades that that the is
committed now to Parson Road is is really a step forward. But
however it does nothing to protect pedestrians and to move
traffic along like needs to be done to get through that
intersection. There are pedestrian crosswalk upgrade
with a pedestrian signal at the intersection would be vital to
making safety safer for pedestrians, as well as
improving the sidewalk on the opposite side of the on the
north side. I think towards highway 70. That we would be
required to have for people to safely navigate that whole
area. There probably is to cross into 98, and that's a
busy, busy thoroughfare carrying people from past on
the other side of Falls Lake and Wake Forest area all the
way into Durham. There are no other good ways to get on the
other side of Falls Lake. NC 98 is a major thoroughfare. Lots
of traffic there all day long and especially in the morning
in the evening. And it's just a very difficult intersection to
navigate safely. There are lots of accidents there, and
pedestrians would be extremely in putting their lives at
danger and walking through that, trying to access the
shopping area, the pedestrian area as well. So I appreciate
that there's a step forward, but it's not enough to make
sure that the people in this area can have navigate to the
15 minute community style that the city wants us to get
toward, and it has to be more than just the want to do it.
It's got to make sure that pedestrians and traffic traffic
is safe. Pedestrians are safe is as well. Thank you very
much. Thank you so much. Next. Thomas
Freeman. Pass the phone over. There we go. Yes. Do you have
two minutes? All right.
I hope you can hear me. I was signed up to speak with in a
previous hearing, but was not given the opportunity to speak.
I wish you got needed. You need to look into that, Mr. Mayor. I
hold you personally responsible for that.
Yes, sir. I had to to blasting or I'm
looking for a request for a commitment to no blasting,
blasting creeks, lots of problems. And I guarantee you,
if you ask the the proponent if there will be blasting, they
will not be able to answer you. I suggest they look around at
their dozens of projects that have been built. Look at the
USGS Topo Soils maps and they will know that yes, blasting is
a requirement to get to the to a mass graded high density site.
Blasting has caused well damages. We are currently in a
USGS, D3 Extreme Drought condition. There's 270,000
people in Durham County that's subject to this drought.
Because we're on well water, we don't have the luxury to turn
on the spigot and have the City of Water, City of Durham's
water, come through our pipes. They're actually I'm tired of
being held hostage to that. I'd also like to talk about the
commitment to undisturbed buffers, undisturbed buffers
are a requirement. Any otherwise. Clark. Other uses
may be may occur within that buffer. And let it is unless it
is designated as undisturbed. That's all I have this evening.
Good night. Good night. Thank you. Next I
have Chaz Clayton. Welcome. Yeah. You have two minutes.
Welcome. All right. Thank you sir. Yes,
again. My name is Chaz Clayton. My address should be on file. I
am a farmer in this location, and I have a lot of concerns
regarding this. We have a we have bad traffic issues. As it
is, the roads are not maintained as enough. You have
the intersection of 98 and it is always backed up past this
location where they're talking about the development. Friday
afternoon. Anybody's more than welcome to go get in that
traffic with me traveling with equipment every day. I have
people continuously try to run me off the road, flick me off
the settlement in this area for farmers is bad enough. It's
going to cause it to be worse. And we put thousands of dollars
in it every year just trying to make ends meet. I have kids, I
have a wife, I have a family. So when you lay your head down
at night or you pick up your Ford, eat some food, please
think of the farmer that helps put that on your plate and how
I'm having to try to make ends meet and survive. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Kate Ham. I'm. I'm sorry. That's item
number 23. All right. We're in person. At this point. All
right, management is what I call up a few names and five at
a time. If you can queue to my right, your left. Mike Rowe,
Cocoa row. Andy Lowe. Donna, stand back. And Gary McLean.
Welcome. You have two minutes. Thank you. I appreciate the
opportunity to speak here tonight. My name is Mike Rowe.
I live at 5602 Dude Ranch Road. I'm a. resident close to the
area of this development. I'm not going to take a lot of
time. I just want to primarily support, voice my support for
the comments that have already been made in this matter, and
also just wanted to emphasize again, that the Planning
Commission did review this project and did unanimously
vote not to approve. And I hope that the Council will take that
into consideration when making your decision tonight. Thank
you. Thank you. Welcome. You have
two minutes. Thank you. Hi. My name is Coco
Rowe and I'm 15 and I live on 5602 Dude Ranch Road, just up
the road from the project. And I have some concerns I'd like
to voice. Destroying this force will be detrimental. It will
take away habitat from the wildlife and pollute falls like
I've lived here my entire life. I grew up playing in these
woods. This isn't just land. It's a home. A home for the
animals, a home to me. I do not want to grow up in a place
where nature is scarce, where it has become an afterthought.
Please do not take this away from me and from everyone who
will come after me. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. You have
two minutes. Hello. Mayor Williams, mayor
Pro Tem Caballero, rest of the city council. Good evening. I'm
here tonight to actually speak in favor of this project. I've
been following City council for a few months now. And keep a
close eye on what comes through here. Gets approved, etc..
Thank you. And this is a pretty significant amount of
properties. I've actually been stuck at that intersection
before. I don't live in this part of Durham. I live near
downtown, but I've driven my way out there to go. There's
various things out there to go and see, and I've been stuck in
front of that Walgreens. So if this does get approved, I will
look forward to that intersection being a little
better. So I appreciate that from the developer. And
furthermore, this level of proffers is something that this
council and commentators, even tonight and other meetings,
have talked at length about wanting to see. I mean, this is
a significant infrastructure improvement being done by a
developer right now before the this is this should be the
state, right? We can all agree this should be the state doing
this, but it's not. It's going to be in my homes if we approve
this here tonight. And approving homes that are
basically suburban area. This is not that rule of an area
anymore. This area is grown. Durham is growing, Raleigh is
growing. They're growing together here at 98 and
southeast Durham. So I do hope you all approve this here
tonight. I would love to get past that Walgreens a little
quicker. As to just about everybody who lives over there
or drives through really commutes to that area, which is
a source of a lot of the traffic. So thank you.
Gary. Good evening. My name. Good
evening, Mayor Williams. And also city council. My name is
Gary McLean. My address is on file. I've been here numerous
times. I want to talk about the blasting and the. We're afraid
of the water. We know it'll be blasting in this, in this area
that where they're going to develop. And I have a well and
I know that it disrupts the underground aquifers and wells
are going dry, homes are getting destroyed and stuff
like that. The traffic is another thing. It's just
deadlocked out there at this intersection. I live about two
miles from it, and I go down Patterson Road every day.
Stallings road, people are coming from Creedmoor and
Oxford and everything over to RTP, and they're coming down
Patterson Road, and that's a two lane secondary road. But
it's like I-85. I mean, I don't God be with the farmers that
sit there on the roads with detritus, and it's just I don't
know what's what's up with y'all's minds because you just
keep approving these developments and everything.
And, I mean, we're in a drought right now and it's mid it's mid
April, early spring. And we're already I think we have 60 days
worth of water before we go into restrictions. And what are
we going to do. How are we going to sell 1547 homes right
now? That's ready to be rented and ready to be bought and
everything. How are we going to sell it if we don't have water
out there? You know, I mean, it's just it doesn't make sense
to me. We just keep building and building and building and
we don't have an unlimited amount of water. And y'all need
to think about it, you know, because that's something we've
got to have to survive. We can we can get by a few days
without food. But if you don't have water, you ain't going to
have it. You ain't gonna need sewage, and you ain't going to
need a whole lot of anything else. Thank you.
Thank you. Next, I have Donna stand back. Tammy, soya. Toya.
Pam Williams, Tina motley, Pearson, Pam Andrews. Wanda
Allen. I'll be. Right back. Oh.
Hi. My name is Tina motley Pearson, and my address is on
file. I would first like to highlight that multiple
required policies have not been met for the Patterson Hall
project. Notably, the Planning Commission voted 9 to 0 against
this development policy. 119 has not been satisfied as it
requires adequate levels of service for emergency response,
police and overall community safety. This site is bordered
by Stallings Road on one side and Patterson Road on the
other. You can see that in the map there. It has been
suggested that Patterson Road does not require fire service,
but this is misleading and cherry picking data. Only a
small area qualifies due to its location to the critical
watershed. Most of Patterson Road lies outside the urban
growth area. The selective use of data raises a fundamental
concern. How can one side of the development require fire
service while the other side does not? Both the east and
west sides clearly require adequate fire protection.
Additionally, policy 122 identifies future growth areas
where infrastructure and service upgrades are necessary.
Development in these areas require corresponding public
infrastructure, while the highlighted areas show a clear
need for fire service. There are also documented concerns
regarding sewer capacity. This is not a gray area. The
policies have not been met. The infrastructure is not in place.
The risks are real. Approval of this project would be premature
and irresponsible. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Miss Andrews.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, as I wait, maybe you're
not. Next.
Good evening, Pamela Andrews. All right. Gotta go fast with
this. There are two City of Durham fire stations in
southeast Durham. Station eight and station 17, along with the
county funded Redwood Volunteer Fire Station. These units will
respond to calls to over 68 new developments in our area next
January 2026. The fire equipment got relocated.
Station 17 lost its ladder truck along with the three
firefighters that manned that ladder truck. No replacement
vehicle was put there. We have an engine truck there, a tanker
truck there for firefighters instead of seven. We lost
three. Got it. Station eight had a vehicle swap but kept the
same number of firefighters three. So the net loss three
firefighters and a ladder truck. Next. Station eight is
the primary station for this parcel. It has a quint truck, a
multifunctional truck now with only three total firefighters,
two bays, no room for EMS. Next, the national response
time is six minutes and 30s for fire and EMS. Per the national
code. At 11:29 p.m., when most of the roads are void of
traffic, a structure fire took place on January 27th of 2026
at 629 Patterson Road, adjacent to this property. The chart
shows the actual response times how many of those were within
the six minutes, and 30s target time. Two Redwood Volunteer
Fire Station and Quint eight. All the others were not within
the federal or the national response Time. Numerous units
are needed to put out a structure fire, not just eight
and 17. Nine fire trucks were present to put out this fire.
Two tanker trucks never made it there. The tanker trucks were
needed because this is county and we don't have fire hydrants
in the county. Total time of the fire call two hours and 12
minutes in the 2022 audit, the Durham response time. It was
stated in a fire, there is one thing that matters more than
any other thing. Response times a few minutes could be the
difference between preserving life and property, and someone
dying. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Tammy Sawyer, my address is on file.
I want to go. And expand.
On what Pam. Was just talking about. Fire me
and Ms.. We don't have. infrastructure
here. Just tonight on social media. a former planning
commissioner personnel noted that he had a cardiac incident
in October. He is near Leesville Road and station 17
responded. Those EMTs that responded are now in station
eight. If he if EMS or nobody was available to respond, the
outcome could have been different. And that's one of
your fellow planning commissioners. EMS, we talked
about how it's in the county. The county runs it. It has
never been evaluated. It's still not being evaluated here.
So some of the recent posts that I want to make you aware
of, there was a carnival here in Durham. There was a person
having multiple seizures at a at a carnival at 950. No EMS
available asking person. Wake County and Grenville County to
respond. Also at the carnival, a ten year old was having a
heat stroke. The police was in was with this child. They were
asking for EMS to help. There was no EMS there. Police, as
you know, we are short on police and there's a 12 minute
drive to get there. And coming from that way, there's still no
infrastructure or transportation plans to widen
that so that the police could get to Patterson Road sewer
capacity. We know that the lift station, that little creek is
close to capacity. PRD has been tracking approval dwellings, so
there's almost 3500 approved dwellings, not permitted yet.
And you're going to be adding more. Y back to the development
of growth. Why do we need it? This is the future growth area.
We don't need it now. Thank you.
Good afternoon. My name is Pam Williams and I'm going to go
through these slides pretty fast because you've already
heard about all the congestion in the area here on Stallings
Road, which is this road right here, a 1200. Oops. Right
there. Right there, 1200 linear feet of cars was backed up on
this during the week. And it's like that almost every day.
Think about 1200 cars on the single lane road trying to get
through this congestion. Here again is 98. And the congestion
98, 98. Here's Stallings and Patterson Road and the
congestion and the big trucks coming through trying to make
those turns here. I want to bring to everyone's attention
at the City Council. Those especially who's on the TPI.
Board. And if you have any influence, this is a project
that has been proposed since 2018. In the corridor study
that was done by Campo and Durham MPO, also in 2022, a
traffic forecast was done on the same project, and I have
highlighted the project in yellow so you could see what
they proposed for the realignment. And this is
needed. It's just not us here in the community saying it's
needed. NCDOT is saying it's needed. Campo and the MPO or
the TPO now say here is Patterson Hall. As you can see,
this comes across on that. So traffic congestion, the this
project has regional impact and additional peak flow traffic
has impacts not measured here. So you just we just want the
city, the county to get in and understand that this is a
problem in this area. We need help from our city officials
and our county officials to get a project like this done to
improve this horrible intersection. Traffic
congestion and crashes. Thank you. Thank you.
Mayor Steinbeck. Good evening. I'm Donna
Steinbeck, addresses on file. The.
This proposed site is less. Than one mile from several
volunteer ag districts, and present use value farms and the
they're highlighted in red. There are many small farms that
are not shown the the planning staff consistency review did
not reflect the land use conflicts and the rural
impacts, or the non-contiguous status. The density is
significantly higher than surrounding areas all around
are up and down. Patterson road is single family homes and and
and farms. There are not any dense developments. The densest
development that's nearby is 1.53. Units per acre. While
this is proposed to be 4.7, so per the Planning Commissioner
Co-Chair. Cameron, this location
continues to face documented persistent changes, including
well water disruption to the existing company residents and
increase in unsafe traffic for agricultural operations.
General traffic congestion that impedes emergency response
times and environmental. The degradation. There are no
townhouses either on on Stalin's road, so this proposal
would not maintain its rural character. So the Comprehensive
Plan policy 120 is not met. Policy 47 is not met. Since
this policy does not satisfy through size and form respect,
the existing neighborhood character, it does not. Yes, I
the of course, major concern. This is non-contiguous and.
Thank you. The policy 165 is not met
because it's not needed. It's not a benefit to the residents.
Thank you. Thank. Thank you.
Before you start, just I want to go ahead and call the last
because I just have a couple minutes after Miss Allen. I
have Vicki King, Astrid Cook, Pablo Friedman and Talmage
Leighton. Those are the folks. And then that that rounds us
up. Thank you. Miss. No problem. Hi.
I'm Wanda Allen. And.
Address is on file. I'd like for you to look at this slide.
This site includes multiple stream crossings that drain
directly into Little Creek into falls. Like Raleigh's drinking
water. Both are already impaired. Water listed for
settlement and water pollution. Yet this proposal relies on
minimum stormwater standards that are already failing in the
areas like this, especially with steep slopes and highly
unstable Triassic soil. The results are predictable. More
settlement, more pollution, more stress on already impaired
water sources. Look at this slide. It's basically saying
over 60% of this site has steep slopes to build. Here. The land
must be heavily graded and cleared. Disturbing large areas
of fragile store. Get it? You guys disturbed Triassic soil.
You get runoff sediment pollution. Every time we've
seen it across southeast Durham. Look at this one false
lake impact. The settlement is already reducing false lake
water storage. That means weaker flood controls, less
reliable, less reliable water supply. Simply put, you cannot
manage water and increasing settlement at the same time. Or
if the lake is filled with sediment, you can't fill it
with water. As we have seen in many of these photos. Best
management practices are not working. You guys are not
working. Approving this project or proposed will increase
sediment and pollution into an already stressed water supply.
Thank you. Thank you.
Vicki King. Hi, my name is Vicki King. My
address is on file. I'm here once again to ask do not pass
this development. You must and I repeat, you must have the
appropriate number of fire apparatus to make sure that the
ISO ratings are covered. ISO ratings are very important when
you're having to pay for your homeowner's insurance. Keep all
that in mind. The traffic is a nightmare. It's already been
covered. The developer has made a thoughtful effort into
improving that intersection, but it's not. I'm not sure it's
going to do any good. It's my understanding the Oak Grove
Athletic Association was a private park. It's been a
private park all my life. It's not open to the general public.
I think you have to be a member to use that park. But my
questions and the questions of the citizens of Durham still
stand. What's Durham going to do when you run out of water?
What's Durham going to do when 911 doesn't answer? Where are
you going to put all that crap that you're letting the pumps
pump back in to the sewer system? Thank you.
My name is Astrid. Cooke and my address is on
record. And I'm speaking on behalf of the Durham City
County Environmental Affairs Board, Land Use and Planning
subcommittee. I'll lead with our proffers. In short, we do
not support this proposal as is boat would with the following
textual commitments. Preservation of tree coverage.
At a minimum of 35%. Canopy across the site. Commitment to
all preserve tree coverage to be contiguous to avoid
fragmentation and maintain ecological function. Stream
buffers and wetlands on site shall remain fully undisturbed
with no crossings except where necessary, and no sewer
crossings. Incorporation of distributed low impact
development strategies, including infiltration, bio
retention and dispersion to minimize concentrated discharge
into Little Lick Creek and its tributaries. These strategies
shall be supported by construction practices that
minimize subsurface disturbance and sediment mobilization,
including a prohibition on blasting across the site.
Implementation of turbidity monitoring during and after
construction to assess impacts to little at creek, with
results made available to the city. Commitment to stormwater
containment and control during construction, including
management of runoff from large storm events prior to final
enforcement. Infrastructure installation. Commitment to
limiting impervious surface and building envelope to additional
setback of 100ft from the stream. Buffers and a site
specific erosion and sedimentation control control
strategy prepared by a qualified professional that
explicitly addresses the behavior of Triassic basin
soils, including phased grading, rapid soil
stabilization, and redundant control measures. Oh, I have a
little bit more time. The proposed level of tree
preservation is an area of concern. While the inclusion of
tree preservation and replacement is noted and
appreciated, the overall canopy coverage remains lower than
Durham's stated goal of 55%. Thank you.
Thank you. Good evening. All right. Good evening, Mayor.
Williams Mayor Pro Tem Caballero. Members of the city
council, city manager, those in the audience and the millions
of viewers online who care about good governance. I'm here
tonight to speak against the proposal for. That's before you
tonight. And I want to go back to two meetings ago. Two
meetings ago. The expectation. I'm sorry. One moment. Madam
clerk, can you please. Thank you.
We're good. All right, all right. Two meetings ago. The
expectation from developers was a proffer of $500 per net
student to the school. And that was the expectation. Okay, the
lawyer representing the applicant at the last meeting
sort of said, okay, I'm going to bump it up $100 to 600.
That's good. I believe in public goods and all. I know
all of you do as well. By the end of that meeting, thanks to
the comments and advocacy of Council Member Kopac, it went
up to $1,000, which is great for the public good, right? And
now at the same meeting, same or sorry, tonight's meeting,
same lawyer, new app, new proposal. It's now ballooned
per per net pupil $1,666. According to my mouse, it's a
bit higher than what she said earlier, which is great for
public schools. But when talk about the expectation that
should now be the the floor, okay, the proposal after this
one, the per and I know they're going to talk about what
they're going to do. But if you divide the $50,000 proffer by
the net 14 students, you're looking at a net profit of
$3,000 per student. So in the span of a couple meetings here
in this governing body, we've gone from 500 to $3000 to
applicants. That needs to be the expectation for when we
talk about new developments, what we're going to approve.
Right. And I hope that becomes the floor that the applicant
tonight agrees to, because the one right after it is offering
$3,000 per net student. And all of you care about public
schools up on there. And so I would hope you do everything
that you can for our public schools. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Good. Finish it out. Okay. Thank you.
Good evening. But my name is Talmage Layton.
I farm in this area, and over the years I have had five farms
on Patterson Road and it is really hard to get equipment up
the road with the kind of traffic y'all are talking about
providing for us up there. Also, Sharon Road is across the
intersection of 98. Patterson had two farms over there that I
attended up until this year, and we were getting about 200
round bales a year off of them, off of one of them, and about a
thousand bales of square bales. Well, two, 200 round bales
would bring in $50 apiece. So we were getting about $6,000
out of those that farm. And we got about a thousand square
bales off of it. It sold for $7 a bale, which is $7,000 for
that one. But anyway, the what y'all are doing to the rural
area right here is, is tragic. Also, I have in my possession
at home two studies that were done, one in Durham and one in
Wake County, and those studies showed what was taken in by the
city for three different types of land in the city. One was
commercial, one was residential, and one was rural
farmland. The rural farmland. For every dollar in taxes we
paid, the county made about $0.40 a dollar for each dollar
we paid on taxes. The development land cost the
county in services about a dollar $0.40 a dollar for taxes,
and the commercial property made about $0.30 per dollar.
And I don't see how we can continue to do this without the
county going broke with the way we are. We're doing development
land. If it's costing you a half a dollar for every dollar
you're taking in. So I appreciate y'all's time. And I
saved a little bit of time for my passing and I appreciate it.
Thank you all. Thank you. What you do.
Mr. mayor, do you want to take back over? Do you want me to
keep going? All right. Thank you. So those
are all of the speakers that we have signed up for this, and
we'll just. The applicant, would you like to respond?
Yes. I just briefly, we would like to address some of the
comments made about the future growth area. The transportation
improvement and then the consistency with the
surrounding area and the city's plans, the future growth areas.
It sounds like there is some misunderstanding of what those
are and how they apply to this site. So to be clear, the
future growth areas are located within the urban growth
boundaries. And according to the comprehensive plan, are
areas that are appropriate for development. Once certain
identified infrastructure is upgraded to serve new
development. So the comprehensive plan says that
this could be provided by city planning funded by a CIP, or by
private investment. And this is why policy 166 of the
Comprehensive Plan calls for the future growth areas to be
evaluated for updates, either to be added or to be removed
every other year based on public investments, housing
supply and population growth. And so all of that is to say
that it is not a static designation. And based on
private investment, the designation can be removed and
should be removed according to the comprehensive plan. To be
clear, sewer, the only identified infrastructure
needed for growth for this future growth area is sewer,
not fire, and this project will again build a lift station and
connect to gravity sewer. Installing road and will
provide an opportunity for other projects to connect
consistent with policy. 122 there are five out of eight of
the future growth areas that were shown on screen earlier
that identify fire. And again, this is just not one of them.
So that is incorrect to say that that is an identified one
for this for this area, staff has also found this request is
consistent with policy 119 of the Comprehensive Plan, which
does call for new developments to be within established levels
of service for emergency services. Now, as it relates to
the transportation improvement, we would defer to staff, but it
is our understanding that there are no plan projects to address
issues at this intersection currently. And so without
private investment, improvements will not occur.
The realignment of Stallings Road that was mentioned is no
longer on the plans, because it is our understanding that it is
not funded. Again, this project is only anticipated to impact
the intersection less than 5%, and Ddot has confirmed that
this would improve the traffic flows at the intersection. We
recognize that this will not improve everything, but this
will improve the operation of the intersection as it exists
currently, and then finally, just to address consistency
with the surrounding area and the city's plans, this project
is within close proximity to existing food and retail that
exists right at that intersection that we are
discussing. It is again adjacent to city limits. The
city's place type map calls for the site to be a mixed use
neighborhood, and it was mentioned that there is no
density that is comparable. But If you look at attachment A of
the staff report, you can clearly see that there is PDR
10.602 just off of Wake Forest Highway. And that project is
currently under construction. So it is not true to say that
this is higher than any of the other density in the
surrounding area. Finally, I would just note that we are
again providing that 30 foot buffer around the entire
project, which will help keep the character of the
surrounding area. So thank you again for your time and our
team is available to answer questions.
Thank you. Those are all the speakers that I have for this
case. So therefore I will declare the public hearing
closed and back before the Council. All right. Council
Member Burris kicking us off. I have a question for the
applicant. Did I forget my question? Okay, so based on
what you discussed tonight, you have offered a proffers around
affordable housing as either 5%. At 80% Ami or the 285,000 for
the dedicated housing funds. So are you basically asking for
council to provide guidance on which of those offers? Or like,
how would we plan to move through that or work through
that? So the the reason that we put
the commitment as it is, is essentially to ensure that the
project is ultimately able to deliver the units that have
been committed to. So because we have committed to the
$700,000 transportation improvement, we have committed
to the increased amount to Durham Public Schools. The
total investment here is $1 million. When the density of
this project is only 150 units. And so we have put in that
flexibility of the donation or the 5% to make sure that this
project ultimately pencils. Well, I think that wasn't my
question. I was asking like, are you asking council to
provide directive on which option, like which way to go.?
If there is directive that council wants to provide, we
will certainly take that feedback. Yes.
Okay. And then do you have like what the price point for the
townhomes would be. So the price points for the
homes would be consistent with the surrounding area. I think
townhomes in this area right now are around high 300 to low
for hundreds. And then the single family homes are around
mid 400 to low 500. Okay. Thank you so much. I
won't be long. I don't have any additional questions for you so
that's fine for this. And I'll be brief in my remarks. No. At
this point, our neighbors in this portion of Durham had
experience in insane amount of growth, and at some point,
someone's be the adult in the room and acknowledged like
that. This corridor is terrible, especially when going
to the distillery off of stall. I'm going to say Stallings is
pronounce it more. So just thinking about the traffic
incidents and just I don't know, I'm just kind of curious
about where we're headed with this abundance. Thinking about
just yeah, I'm curious about that. I think that we have to
be good neighbors. And I know that a lot of times in Durham,
we try to encourage folks to like, you know, shop local or
go to farmer's market, but then we mistreat the actual farmers
that are actually delivering the food to our table. So I
just want to make sure that I know someone talked about
earlier, you know, I won't get through that light a little
faster, but it's like also, while that may be a benefit for
you and you don't live in that neighborhood, we do have a very
real issue with EMS services, with fire being able to get to
these places. So it's like, are we setting our new neighbors up
for failure by not having the infrastructure to move forward?
And also based on some of the issues I've observed, even when
I ran in 2023 with the blasting in the wells, and it's kind of
hard to get accountability for, I know I had someone who had
their septic tank blown up and they didn't get anything. So I
feel like if we want to be welcoming, we gotta take care
of the people who currently live here. And I have not been
convinced that we and it's not to the developer more so I
think as a city we could do a lot better with ensuring that
our residents have access to critical services. I would hate
for someone to lose their life because the EMS could get down.
I know this would be true because I was in Cornwallis the
other week and we called for an EMS. It took 30 minutes for the
EMS to get there. This person passed out sitting on the
ground. So these are very real stories and people are not
coming to council to fabricate stories about their experience.
And so at some point, we have to acknowledge the experiences
of others and put our own wants and desires aside to make sure
that we are being good stewards for all of our residents here
in Durham. And I have not been convinced that we have done
this thus far. I get it folks want to build more housing. You
think that it makes it easier for people to assess the house
as unsuccessful for housing is not? I mean, it's just the
world we end. So thank you so much for all tonight. And I'm
sorry to be brash, but I just don't see how this is going to
add any benefit to the public good for these neighbors who
are constantly going through the ebbs and flows of growth
and who constantly come and uplift these things. And it's
like they're not making this stuff up. So I want to make
sure we all hear this and think about it. It may not be your
neighborhood today, but it could be very soon. So thank
you. This next.
Thank you, Mister Mayor. Yeah. Another case in case. In many
ways, a lot of parallels to the case we just had before us. I
there's a lot to recommend this. I'm. I'm personally
unconcerned by the increased density in that area. We want
density around the city, so more density in that area to me
is not a bad thing. It's it's zoned for the police type map
is mixed use neighborhood. I think the roadway improvements
are significant in that part of 98. I appreciate the affordable
housing proffer. And I think what you've done on the
stormwater is actually given us a hundred year storm treatment,
which is very needed in that area. I mean, you meet 23 of
the 27 comprehensive plan policies. So that's also strong.
At the same time, I do hear the concerns of residents about
this being in a future growth area, and I think we ought to
make sure that we have all the infrastructure we need for
those areas. I'm a little bit concerned about this. In this
case, I do hear the Planning Commission. I took their
recommendations in the last vote. They voted against us
nine zero. That also weighs on me as well. I will also say, I
know the Durham folks in the last case mentioned that, or
suggested that Panther Creek was on the 303 impaired list.
It's not. But you're correct that Little Creek is on the 303
impaired list, and that concerns me as well. So I am
unconvinced in this case and still thinking about it. Thank
you. Are you willing to commit to no
blasting? I think that we're hopeful that
blasting will not be required, but we cannot guarantee that
blasting will not be required, especially when we have
committed to the 100 year storm for the pre and post
construction, which does require the erosion control
sediment basins to be much deeper and larger than they
would ordinarily.. Can. You commit to no blasting
except for the 100 year storm development?
No, I do not think that would be possible.
You heard the asked from the Environmental Affairs Board.
Did you note those? Well, I would note that those
requests there were I think six or so. None of those were
provided to us in advance. We're hearing them tonight. And
that was the first time we had heard them. So we would also, I
believe it was mentioned earlier, there was a request to
have that included in the case packet. We would also ask if
the applicant could be provided with those as well. So we could
appropriately evaluate those requests in advance. If the
goal is for us to be able to accommodate them or consider
them. From what it sounded like, the main issues were
about disturbance of the stream buffer, which we have already
committed to. Limited disturbance. And then it also
sounded like the main concerns were about the erosion control
measures as well, which again, we've committed above and
beyond, including for the 100 year storm, for the erosion and
sediment control basins. So the first one was the
preservation of tree coverage at a minimum of 35% canopy
across the site. And then the second one is contiguous in
that tree. Coverage. To avoid fragmentation and maintain
ecological function, we are able to do that.
So we cannot do 35%. We have committed to an increase of
22%, and I know it was asked for the prior case, what that
would amount to, and for our case, we we did look at it. And
that additional tree save accounts for about three
quarters of an acre. And can it be contiguous?
So looking at our site plan and concept as it stands currently,
all of the areas in dark green you can see that is where our
planned tree preservation and open space will be located. So
in many places it is contiguous. But we can't
guarantee that it is contiguous in all areas. As you can see,
there's roads, there's the access points, and then there
are other features, but a lot of it is contiguous. And this
is again consistent with the site plan that has been filed.
Are you willing to do implementation of turbidity
monitoring? We've seen this in other cases and the results
have come to the city. I know that there are multiple
changes that have been made to the code recently to the Udo,
specifically as it relates to the erosion control plan. I'm
not sure if what the plans are for turbidity, but we will
follow what is required by the Udo in terms of the erosion
control. And so if that is not one of them, then no, that's
not an additional commitment that we can make.
Your unwilling to measure the turbidity or allow anyone on to
measure during development. I'll have Tim with Kennedy
explain. Tim was with community. So the
additional additional measures that we're adding are in itself
measuring because we are holding more of that stormwater
back during the construction, measuring each drop of rainfall
that hits the site for a 2 to 3 year period during construction
is very difficult. But the improvements that we have
provided for the erosion control measures provide an
increased amount above and beyond what the storm, what the
requirements have in the ordinance now, which were
recently increased 2 to 3 years ago from the original
requirements. And will those be made
available to the city? They're already commitments.
But the whatever readings that y'all do as part of that.
I'm sorry. Can you move. The whatever, whatever readings
that you do as part of that? Will the results of that be
made available to the city. The county does those
inspections. So they are county held inspections so they are
available? Yes. Okay.
The county the city does not control erosion control. The
county does. So those are all county inspections. They are
not through us, through the developer.
Okay. I have a stream crossing
question. So y'all have a maximum of two stream crossing
roads. And then for for utilities, is there no way to
combine those. Why why do we have to have six? Oh Tim coming
back up. Yeah we can we can minimize
those. We can cut both of those in half based on our plan now.
So we could do a maximum of one stream crossing, which you're
seeing the road to the, if you will. Bottom left of the corner
is curved. Are you guys seeing what I'm seeing on the screen
now? We are. Okay. So you can see how we're designing around
around the edge of the stream buffers and wetlands there. So
that was during the initial design. That was our second
stream crossing. But the stream, it starts a little
further so we can eliminate one stream crossing. So we can
change that to one stream crossing. And three utilities.
So we'll cut what was the initial four. So we can go to
half one and two one stream crossing two utility.
And they do have to be separate the utilities and the and the
roadway crossing. Yes. Due to the storm water and
how it flows to the stream. Yes. Okay.
Those are my questions for now. Thank you.
Council Member Baker go back. I'm not sure you'll be very
surprised by my comments here. I appreciate you for coming in
and presenting and working through those those commitments
again, I'm not interested in kind of what I see as
rearranging the deck chairs on the on the Titanic. I think we
need a paradigm shift in the way that we plan and develop.
I'm a professional planner, not because I hate planning and
development, but because I actually love planning and
development. I get excited when I think about the design of of
where we live, in the places that we live and the cities
that we build and the way that we grow and the streets and the
sidewalks and the trees and the buildings when they rise out of
the ground. Those are all things that I think are
incredibly exciting. I love those things. And I think about
in places that have lots of natural features. They're not
encumbrances, they're features. They're assets to to a site.
And when you design and layout a development, those should be
lifted up as special places on the site. I just don't think
that that is a practice that that we lead here in this city.
And I don't think that because the evidence shows that we we
don't we don't use those practices when we're laying out
sites and we're we're thinking about the way that the city is
growing and those are having real world impacts on people
who live here today, people who are moving to Durham. And the
way that we grow. I don't think this hits the mark. I don't
think that I've seen anything that hits the mark recently or
very often, and I'm always looking for ways to get to.
Yes, I know that sounds surprising, but I'm always
looking for ways to get to yes on on cases. And a reminder
we're not actually approving development. We're approving,
you know, annexation and rezoning that can sit there for
a very long time or can be changed in the future. So I
would also just remind us that that there are there are tens
of thousands, if not more, but likely tens of thousands of
units of capacity within city limits today that we will we
won't see that. We don't need to see. But there is lots of
capacity to to grow within city limits. I, I just think that we
are in an era and a place in a time where it's important that
we we focus inward, where we, we, you know, I, I would be
open to an exceptionally planned and designed master
development, but we just aren't seeing those in front of us. We
need a paradigm shift. Happy Earth Day, let's support our
wild animals and the habitat that they live in. Let's
support our young people who come and speak up. Let's
support future generations so that they have the ability to
make choices on land and not just not just us. Let's support
our environmentalists. Let's support our farmers who come
and speak to us as well. Let's, let's, let's think about the
environment. Let's think about planet Earth, and let's think
about future generations. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a few questions for staff. I
think it will probably relate to planning, but may involve
other other staff teams. So first of all, I want to be
clear. Are there policies regarding the UB or future
growth areas that have not been met by this application? There
was reference to that, and I just want to make sure I fully
understand that that point. Staff has not determined that
there are any that have not been met interpretation by
others, or is certainly valid and and allowed, but staff is
not determined that no. Second, it's clear that we have
an impairment issue with Little Creek and other waterways in
Durham. And so that's part of the the balance that we try and
strike in meeting our various needs as a community. I'm
curious what you see as the most significant impacts on our
water in the rural parts of Durham.
I don't know that I would say that. I mean, there's lots
there's lots of issues, right? There are issues with erosion
control. There are issues with impaired streams in terms of
sediments. And then of course, you have pollutants from
non-point sources such as runoff from our roadways and so
forth. So there are a number of pollutants and sedimentation
that can get into our streams. I'm not enough of an expert on
water resources to be able to say, say, rank them or provide
a prioritization. But those are major issues that we deal with.
Because like a couple of other issues that I struggle with in
thinking about managing water resources are discharge from
septic. And so thinking about the benefits of bringing on,
you know, more homes into our our water system. I know that's
a major driver of environmental degradation as well as
agricultural lands and runoff. And so thinking about how we
can support our farmers as well, when we look at
degradation of our waterways like housing and development,
is one thing. But in our rural areas, septic systems and
agricultural lands are also big contributors. What are the
plans for water extension in this area? Are there any and
why is this not part of the comp plan or future growth
areas? Just why is just sewer included.?
So sewer was identified as the main need for this entire area.
I can't speak to why not water as well, but usually those two
go hand in hand. We get very few if any requests for sewer
and not also water. So I think the assumption would be that
the water would follow as well. We've heard a number of
requests, you know, great suggestions from the
Environmental Affairs Board. Do we have a sense of how much of
that is been incorporated into the LDC and will apply as the
base code for future developments?
I have not had a chance to look at the requests or
recommendations from EAB and compare them to the LDC. We
just got those this morning. All right.
So I'm pulling my notes back up. My computer went.
Out. My next question is do we know
the price of a current home or a townhome for sale in Durham?
At 80%? Am I. The price? I do not have that
at my fingertips. We could get that and get that to you. We
would work with housing and the housing department. They keep
those those numbers. I can give you an estimate, but how much
it's actually selling for? No, I do not know if it's not my
head. Yeah. I'd be curious because
I've heard that we're getting to the point where new market
rate townhome development, you know, is it about 80% Ami. And
so I'm curious to see how the, the you know, what was said by
the applicant compares with that.
So the in the staff report, I just need to scroll to that
section of the staff report. It does give a an estimated.
Housing cost for sale and rental. But we that would be
for Durham as a whole. There's nothing say so down to this
neighborhood level that we have access to.
In terms of blasting, if there is damage, is there a
compensation? And I ask in part, there's blasting
happening 100ft from my house and there was a survey done,
and I thought we were told that if there was damage, that there
would be a support for, for any repairs. So I'm not asking just
from a personal standpoint, but I do share that, you know, this
is an issue that is happening across our city.
So blasting companies are required to be insured and be
able to handle to address claims against them. That is
not something that local government is involved in. That
is a private civil matter between the blasting company
and any affected property owners.
I mean, this is a difficult case. There's a lot of
impressive proffers that we look for in these sorts of
cases. I think that the bar has to be set even higher for our
future growth areas. Beyond just, you know, other
annexations and rezoning. So that's something I'm trying to
take into consideration in weighing, you know, both the
benefits and the the drawbacks, the harms from a development
like this. I definitely hear the concern about fire and
about EMS, and I think that's something we have to commit
ourselves as a council to, to better understanding and making
sure we have plans in place as we try and find the sequencing,
which is not always going to be as we like. Between providing
housing and providing services, but we have to do our best to
to balance those. If we're going to grow in a way that's
not just about a downtown, but, you know, a city with different
hubs, and we're going to have housing and commercial and
different parts of the city and county. So we have to decide
how we're going to do that. You know, in the housing piece is
important to me, and I'm going to have a question for the
applicant. You know, there's a great Pew Research study with a
meta analysis from cities across the US showing that the
number one benefit from building homes in high demand
areas and and other parts of the city is reduced rents in
low income neighborhoods. And, you know, as a city, we have to
be able to balance and do both. Fighting for strong tenant
protections, addressing landlords who charge excessive
fees, take actions that are not in the benefit of our
residents, you know, and also, housing is what helps address
folks from being pushed out. And that's part of the reason
why we've seen rents stabilize in Durham, where they have not
in other parts of the country that have not taken the steps.
Durham has taken around the provision of housing for for
our residents. And so that's something that I take seriously
to not wanting to displace our folks. And that means a shared
responsibility for the housing that we provide. It's something
that, once again, is happening in my neighborhood, like
happening in places all around the city. So but in thinking
about the balance, you know, I also, you know, want to keep in
mind the impacts of, of places like southeast Durham that have
seen dramatic impacts from growth and the higher standard
I want to see from future growth areas to try and help to
manage that. As we try and help make sure that we are providing
places for people to live, minimizing the cost of housing
and addressing critical needs of our water and safety as we
grow. And so I'll be taking that into consideration as I as
I weigh this one. I don't have any questions. If
you want to sit down, I'm going to be brief. I think y'all
heard my thoughts on this on the last one as well. I want to
add one thing to this conversation, which is that we
talk about. We've had several people come up here and talk
about farmland and what it means and the value that it
adds, and we we get these metrics in our packets. That's
like, what is the cost versus the benefit of annexing the
land? And I hear that we're talking about getting that
information from EMS. And I do think that that's important.
But also the metrics that we're using are not accurate. And so
that's something that we need to be really upfront about.
They're dated. They're not consistent across departments
and they're not taking into account all of the impacts. We
talk about the value of farmland. We're not talking
about the fact that now we're having to pay so much extra to.
Get rid of. the wonderful. Waste that we're composting. We
in Durham are doing a great job of composting the waste, but we
can't get rid of it now because we used to put it, give it to
farmers and now we're having to pay extra to cart it out
further and further because we don't have the farmland to take
the waste that we're now turning into compost. These are
costs that we're not talking about, and they're important,
and they are cascading. We also are talking here about like
rent stabilization and about affordability. And we're
destroying the environment and thinking that this is creating
affordability is just like mind boggling to me. If something is
not affordable, if you need two cars and an HOA to access it,
and in 20 years you're not going to be able to get
insurance, it's not affordable, that's not affordable. And we
need to stop talking about it like it is. So it's going to be
a no for me on this case. I do appreciate the extra proffers
and the interest on on the infrastructure development.
This is also a 0 to 9 recommendation from the
Planning Commission. These are volunteers that spend their
hours that are experts, that we have all appointed to sit on
this board to advise us. It's not binding, but they are
advisory council and they voted 0 to 9 on recommendation on
this. So I will be voting along with the with the commissioners
on this case. Thank you. Thank you.
I appreciate all my colleagues comments. I will also be voting
no on this. I think. I think at this point I've only voted yes
on anything that was either outside of that urban growth
boundary or future growth boundary, and it was just a
small portion of the site. There's a large site, just one
little piece of it was outside the future growth boundary.
Sorry, in the future growth boundary. And so I felt like
weighing the pros and cons that made sense to me, because it
wasn't the whole site. I will say that I, you know, we all
I'm the longest serving member on this council. I've been on
this seat since 2018. That's not a small amount of time. On
my ninth budget and different council members have approached
these kinds of decisions and cases along the way in very
different ways. Everyone has to make their own decision.
Everyone has to do a calculus. Some people listen to the
planning commission, others don't. Some people use planning
commission to bolster their opinion or don't. The previous
case had had been overwhelmingly approved by
planning Commission. So I just want to share that. That is
it's an important piece of the puzzle, but it is one piece of
the puzzle. And so I just don't want residents to think that
it's carte blanche that we just listen to our planning
commissioners. We definitely the better comments they
provide, the more the more I listen to them. When when folks
don't actually put in a lot of comments for us. I'm not going
to go watch the meeting. Their meetings last three hours, our
own meetings last, however long they last, and we have six to 8
to 9 committees that we all support. So we're in a lot of
meetings. So I won't be supporting this case tonight. I
do appreciate all of the proffers. They they're it's a,
you know, they're good proffers. But when I think
about that piece of it, it does give me pause and I do I would
like the timeline on the EMS question at some point. Not if
staff could reach out to us when we talk to our county
colleagues. I would like to understand when we're going to
start getting that piece of the equation, because we don't have
any control over that. We can do fire and police response,
but we can't get that piece, which I think is important as
we make our decisions up here. That's all.
Thank you. Thank you colleagues, thank you for your
comments. We're almost at the point of another break, but I
think this has been a discussion. First up, I sort of
look at this objectively, you know, and then I think about
all of the things that, you know, I take to what the
Planning Commission say very seriously. I also understand
that cases evolved after that, sometimes based on the
interaction with the Planning Commission. And I can
appreciate that. A few questions for staff and. So.
The and I'm just going to ask you very basic questions
because I there were some comments made that I sometimes
it gets really exhausting trying to clarify some
misleading comments and I don't I don't want folks to be misled.
So the comprehensive plan was put together and voted on by
members of the community. That community members played a part
in establishing that. Absolutely. We took so much
input from members of the community in the development of
the comprehensive Plan. Absolutely.
Okay. The how did we come about with the water, the erosion and
tree preservation policy? So that would have been based
on a significant amount of input that we received. And
staff has already looked to address some of the erosion
control issues that were brought up during the
comprehensive planning process. And we amended the Udo, I
believe, in 24, 2024 to try to get at some of those things
that came up in the conference plan.
Okay. How so? This is an area where I keep hearing that we
need more infrastructure. And I also hear we need, you know,
resources. But it seems like those things are being used.
Those terms are being used interchangeably. How do we and
how do we define infrastructure.
Infrastructure is basically whatever is the the physical
things that you need for development could be roads,
water, sewer, utilities, water and sewer trails and greenways,
power lines, a variety of different. Physical. I can't
think of the right word, but physical things that you need
for the basic things you need in life, things they basically
need development. And how would you define
resources such as? Such as? There's a I mean,
there's resources. Approaching. So when it comes
to what we're talking about tonight, building zoning,
annexations, what resources is it fair to say resources are
police, fire. Those could be it could also be
environmental resources. People have spoken quite a bit about
the need to preserve environmental resources. It
could be financial resources, the financial resources needed
to be able to provide the police, fire and other things
that are needed in a city. How are we paying for those
resources and infrastructure? Infrastructure.
So if it's the city, it's either through general
obligation bonds, whether or it could be simply from the
current tax revenues. You're now getting into financial
questions that I am certainly not an expert on. Or it could
be from the private development community addressing needs for
the development and for the city's home.
So it's either going to be through our tax base or through
the builder. Generally our tax base or
potentially from, say, state or federal resources as well.
And any indication you may or may not know, there's any
indication that the state or federal are going to step in
anytime soon. Not that I'm aware of.
So it comes back to either us here or the private developer.
On the topics that we're discussing this evening. Most
likely we're talking about city or county resources or from the
private sector. Any idea of a timeline? If it's
on us? No, I would need to direct that
question to the city manager's office or the finance
department. All right. I and I don't ask
those questions in the comments anyway. I just want to be very
clear about how we generate resources, how we generate, how
we pay for these things, you know, and that and again, it
goes back to me, a chicken and egg matter, you know, and I'm
not going to play to anyone's emotions. I'm not going to do
that. But I do want to be very clear on how government works
and how our constraints are. This isn't a lecture, but, you
know, I think it is dangerous to pretend that everyone, every
case that comes before us is supposed to go get together and
the perfect world, that would be great. But I'm not going to
pretend that every applicant is going to get together and just
do it all for us. I'm not going to pretend that that would be
nice, but as of right now, in this case, I actually do have
some concerns with. But as of right now, when I look at these
cases and then when they come before us, I'm thinking about
how do we get to what you're asking for? While as
uncomfortable as it may be, and I know that the voices that I
hear in the room are representative of many voices
around the community. You know? But I think about the
constraints that we have with the state government that's
just absent. And a federal government who truly doesn't
care. So it comes back on us here locally. And it's like,
all right, so we got to get the taxpayers to pay for this. But
at the same time, we're restricting the tax base from
paying for it. So if you do have a builder or a developer
to come in and say, all right, we're going to put this in
place, you know, I and I, I've seen cases come through where
they said, look, we're going to put a lift station here. We're
going to put transportation improvements here, we're going
to put infrastructure here, we're going to bring we're
going to build a tax base. We're going to bring more roofs
here, more units. We're going to expand the tax base so we
can pay for the resources, but we're going to put the
infrastructure in. And so I think about it that way. And
then I look at the comprehensive plan doesn't meet
it at least most of it does. It follow the Udo that we also, as
residents of this community, established. And, you know, I
think it would be disingenuous if I just play to your emotion
on it and just want another just just told you what you
wanted to hear. I'd rather just be honest with you and be able
to sleep at night rather than just say whatever. But at the
same time, that's just me. I also don't want to portray to
you all colleagues that you are doing these things, but I know
what emails I get, and I and I just want to make sure that I
clearly explain to everyone my way of thinking when it comes
to these things. So I look forward to us having a vote,
and I thank you all for your your comments. All right.
Ready? All right. I'll entertain a motion to adopt an
ordinance annexing Patterson Hall into the city of Durham
and to authorize the city manager to enter into a utility
extension agreement with MI homes Incorporated.
So moved. Second. It's been moved and properly
seconded. Madam clerk, please open to vote. Please close the
vote. Motion fails. Unanimously.
Thank you. I'll also entertain a motion to adopt an ordinance.
Oh, actually, I don't need to do that side. The consistency
statement. Right? No, I don't need to do that
one. Okay, good. All right. We're
done with that one. Colleagues, let's take a let's take a five
minute break and then we'll get to the to the next one.
Okay. All right. All right. Let's get
started guys. You.
All right. Welcome back everyone. This is 23 Morgan
Farm. All right. Ready for the staff report okay.
Mayor Williams, mayor pro Tem Caballero and honorable council
members, it's Aaron Kane again with the planning department. A
request for a utility extension agreement for voluntary
annexation and initial zoning map change has been received
from Laura Holloman of McAdams. For one portion of a parcel of
land totaling 218.517 acres, and it's adjacent right of way.
Located at 8422 Farrington Mill Road. This annexation petition
is for a contiguous expansion of the primary corporate limits
to connect to city water and sewer. As part of this
annexation petition, the applicant is not seeking a
change in the underlying zoning district of Rural residential.
The properties are currently designated mixed Use
neighborhood and recreation and open space on the place type
map. The proposed rural residential zoning is generally
consistent with the designated place type. If the proposed
zoning is approved, there will be no change to the place type
designation. Thank you. Staff and the applicant are available
for any questions. Thank you very much. You've
heard the staff report. Colleagues, are there any
questions or comments for staff? Great. So at this time I'll
declare the public hearing open. Welcome. How much time do you
think you need? I think given.
The interest. In this case, 14 minutes for
myself as well as our landscape architect total should be
plenty. All right, 15 minutes.
Good evening, Mayor Williams and members of council. I'm
Jamie Schrader with Parker Poe. I'm here on behalf of the
applicant, m I homes, and I'm joined by our full team of
representatives from McAdams and Kimberly Horn, who are here
to answer your questions. A different request on this land
was denied by the council a year ago. We listened to
council's concerns and that of the community and what you have
before you tonight is a different case, one that
strikes the best talents possible between the city's
need for housing as the city grows and its desire for land
preservation. At the same time, the case before you respond to
the concerns of the Council and the community expressed last,
last April and provides more certainty now than it has
before, because MI regrouped, they listened to the community
and they brought forth a case that hits each of the areas
that were brought. A major concern given its significant
investments in Durham and its desire to provide the shortfall
of housing and fill the gap that the city needs. Am I
regrouped and filed just an annexation and required
translational zoning. I'll go through the history of that
because we did start with a zoning case, and due to the
concerns of density that were brought by the neighbors, we
reduced our density to just the by right allowance. We can only
build what we can can with the translational zoning that we
could otherwise build in the county. That was a choice in
response to the neighbors who were concerned that our density
would exceed what they have, which is exactly the same as
the Montclair neighborhood, as well as the chapel hood within
the neighborhood, which is 2.0. So we actually have a density
that's less than some of the other Downing Creek and other
neighborhoods that are close by. At the same time, we
increased our open space to three times what the case was
originally filed in 2022. We removed the inconsistency that
the council struggled with last April due to the traffic
improvements. That only applies to traffic development plans
and a zoning case that does not apply here. Tonight, we
committed to traffic improvements, so despite
lowering our density, we committed to the same traffic
improvements that we were before you in April. Even
though we have the same by right trips as we would have in
the county. And we also took the unusual step of filing the
conservation subdivision with a commitment for 100 acres of
open space, in response to concerns that there was a lack
of certainty. And we've done that. It's pending with the
with the city planning review staff, and we'll go through
those normal channels in additional. In addition, we met
with neighborhood groups and conservation groups and
incorporated key environmental site strategies that will go
through tonight, with Shawn Vanderslice explaining in
detail an unprecedented level of environmental commitments
and wildlife corridors on this Earth Day that the
Commissioner, the Council Member Baker, has already
spoken to. And at the same time, we kept the prior
commitments of that zoning case. We are filing a UEA,
which has the sewer extension and completion that will
complete the needs in this future growth area. We are
preserving a historic home and have the support of
Preservation Durham. We're committing to $1 million in
affordable housing contribution. I'll talk about
how one precedent that is and why that's important to fill a
public need in the city, as well as a $50,000 contribution
to schools and to fire EMS services, based on concerns
that we've heard in the community. And so what you have
before you tonight is a simplified review based on what
we heard from council and the community over the past three
years. It's an annexation and translational zoning, as well
as a utility extension agreement. And that is what has
the binding tools. Even though we don't have the graphic
development plan, we've picked up on other tools to provide
that certainty. So I'll go through each of those. The
annexation is consistent with policy 165 of the Comprehensive
Plan. It's contiguous with the city limits. It does not create
a donut hole, and it's not a satellite issue. It's within
the urban growth boundary and within the future growth area.
Because sewer is the only infrastructure that's
identified by policy 122. And if any of you remember Miss
Quinn, she and her family have been waiting on sewer in this
area for years. She was before you last April. She was here
tonight. But because of this late hour and her health
conditions, she was not able to stay. My understanding is that
she emailed and sent letters earlier in the week, and she
regrets not being able to hear tonight. But that sewer is
something that she recognizes that she participated in, in
that community review of what was needed here. And with this
project and the UEA commitments, will be providing
that infrastructure not only for our site, but for sites
like Miss Quinn's and those neighbors, neighbors who've
been waiting on it for so long. Without this annexation, that
becomes a burden of the city and the taxpayers to fund that
sewer. And so that's that project that furthers the
objective of the FTA policy. And the EPA will address that
sewer infrastructure as far as the translational zoning,
because we have dropped the zoning down to what we can do
by right. There is no change in the zoning of what we could do
today in the county versus what we're asking to do in the city.
It's no change in the development tier, the place
type map, the zoning district or the overlay. We could do 317
single family homes with no open space in the county. We
can do that in the city. We can do 340. Excuse me, 437 single
family homes with 50% open space. If we opt to do the
conservation subdivision, which we have done and shown that
commitment by filing a very expensive application with the
city that's pending today. And so that's that's no change in
terms of what we can do from the county to the city
jurisdiction. As a result, the staff finds this consistent
with the Udo and generally consistent with the place type
map designations, because what we're doing is preserving as
much of that open space designation as possible. And
you'll see that in attachment C in your staff report and are
overlaying that with some mix of of residential neighborhood.
Now, the mixed use neighborhood would otherwise want more
density, more development here. But because your constituents
have asked us not to do that, they've asked us to match the
density out there. We've provided the right amount. The
blend of that residential neighborhood with the
recreation open space, and we've overlaid as much as a
place type map designation for open space as we could with the
Natural Heritage Area program that we'll be talking about in
just a minute. Third, the proffers that I spoke about are
listed on your screen. The developer is is offering a one
time contribution of $1 million to the city's dedicated housing
fund for the Durham Down Payment Assistance Program.
This is unprecedented in the city. You've not seen a
commitment like this. And the reason why it's here before you
is that we were serious about trying to provide relief to
citizens, citizens who need it in an innovative way. We
recognize this case is innovative and it requires
different tools, and this is an important part of them. In
addition, we're making that $50,000 contribution to Durham
Public Schools and $50,000 to respond to the concerns. We
heard about emergency services in the area. In addition to
those changes, I wanted to highlight what this team has
done differently from 2022 to respond to council and
community concerns. This shows how we've reduced the density.
At the same time, we've increased open space. So your
first application, which is called Sheffield Farms, filed
back in November of 2022, had 950 units and 35 acres of open
space that wound its way to council and reduced down to 702
units and increased some of the mix of of of product, but was
ultimately denied. In April of 2025. We then filed a further
reduced density, and based on those concerns, we heard with
that zoning application, we withdrew the application and
dropped straight down to only what we can do by right. That
maximum of 300 or 437 single family homes and over 100 acres
of open space with the conservation subdivision
option. Now we know we've heard from the community members that
doubt of whether that conservation subdivision would
be filed, whether we'd pursue that, whether it would be
protecting the most important hardwoods. And so we've taken
two really important steps. And I'll go through those in just a
minute to show how we've committed to those areas. The
tier is important because as I mentioned, even though we're
going forward with that by right density. So the same
amount of homes that we could put on the site today means the
same amount of cars that we can put on the roads today without
this annexation. But despite that, we've committed to the
improvements that you saw in the last case, which basically
means $1 million of improvements and turn lanes as
well as single signal timing that will help to alleviate
some of the concerns. You may here tonight from constituents
that will come with or without the annexation, because we're
allowed to put that same amount of cars on the road. What we
want to do tonight is be able to provide more certainty and
more public interest benefits by allowing the annexation that
allows us to carry forward not only these improvements, but
the improvements I spoke to about earlier. And here's where
it's really important, I think, to recognize the unusual and
unprecedented step that MI homes has taken. We've not only
talked about filing the conservation subdivision, we've
actually filed it. It's with the planning department. It
preserves 109 acres of open space, including 31 acres of
hardwood forest, 22 acres of wildlife corridors, and 14
acres of vegetated areas. We sent this around earlier last
week to to note that it had been filed to make sure that
all council knew it was on file and on record, and it's here on
your screen tonight. The open space overlaps with 60% of the
North Carolina Heritage Program areas otherwise eligible for
timbering. Now, the reason that's important is because the
director of the North Carolina Heritage Program, Misty
Copeland, has written you a letter that she sent over last
week in support of this approach in support of
conservation subdivision as the only protection that this North
Carolina Heritage Program has in order to protect these
trees. And it can sound tempting that this program is
in place and that it's part of the open space place type map.
But the reality is there is no protection for those hardwoods
today. Absent this annexation in this project going forward.
In fact, they're subject to a forestry plan, which we've
supplied a lot of information to you last week highlighting
how this property has been held for years and in conservation,
and will be subject to timbering, according to the
state program. Should this not be able to go forward. That's
just a reality of how this has been able to be preserved for
almost a century, and it will no longer be able to be
preserved should the annexation not be adopted. But what's
important about that is that although the annexation is
before you, and that's really the decision before you
tonight, these file documents show exactly how much of that
area is being preserved, and it overlaps substantially with
that program. In addition, that in addition to filing the
conservation subdivision was not just a filing. It's a it's
a very expensive fee that you have to pay. So it's showing
that good faith commitment to carry that forward. We heard
concerns about what if they don't pursue their conservation
subdivision? What if it's somebody else other than my
homes? And so we took the unprecedented step of recording
open space covenants against the property. Today they exist.
Today they will become effective that the annexation
is approved. And what it requires is not only the future
property owners being am I or the current owner. Any future
property owner has to respect the open space configuration
shown on the open space plan that was with our filed
conservation subdivision. Now, of course, your excellent staff
is going to have to have discretion on going through
their entire review of the conservation subdivision. But
what it says is essentially that exhibit that you see on
your screen with the recorded document on your screen is a
required element binding and legally binding on the land,
just like a a zoning condition would be. That requires us to
preserve at least 100 acres and complies with your Udo
maintenance requirements in 6.2 and four. So in addition to
addressing the density, the open space certainty, the
environmental protection, and the transportation commitments
here, this by right, zoning means that we are committing to
the same things that would have otherwise been in a higher
density case, and we've already worked with the various
decision makers to say that we're going through the
process. The Army Corps will review this when it's time.
They've confirmed that in writing, without the
infrastructure, without the annexation. I think it's
important to note that people like Miss Quinn will be relying
on capital improvement projects from the city. No sewer
extensions for the Queens or otherwise scheduled in the in
the difficult budget decisions you're going to have to be
making in the next two months, Historic preservation is also a
component preserve Durham. Excuse me? Preservation Durham
has confirmed in writing that they will take ownership of the
two acre parcel that it was previously committed, and
that's also been in your packet. So in addition to the
prior commitments now in the UEA, the utility extension
agreement, having those binding elements that the zoning case
otherwise had, we have the conservation subdivision plan
filed, we have the recorded open space covenants filed
protecting this North Carolina Natural Heritage Area in a way
that it doesn't otherwise have protections today means that
this is the most certainty possible at this stage to
provide more environmental protection and certainty than
the council and the community would otherwise have. By right,
with the same amount of housing and traffic as the county would
have by right, it's tempting in the face of opposition, to feel
that a no is kind of a good thing and serving the
community, but in this case, a no would actually not protect
the very trees that the community has really focused
on. The hardwoods that are part of this North Carolina heritage
program. It would not provide the sewer extensions or the
traffic extensions that have been so important to this
community. And so we ask that you give these trees the
production that they do not have the day and do the right
thing. And to vote yes on this annexation, I'd like to reserve
the rest of my time for Shawn Vanderslice to come up and
explain the innovative techniques we've used in the
conservation Subdivision Open Space Plan. Thank you.
Good evening, mayor and council members. I'll be brief here,
but from a I'm a landscape architect and land planner with
McAdams. Sorry. You're a bit taller. Yes.
So, from a community design and placemaking perspective, a
conservation subdivision for this development provides the
best avenue forward for Morgan Farm. So per the Udo, it not
only encourages but requires the conservation and
preservation of environmental features. And as we all know,
there's no shortage of those at this site. Per the Udo, our
plan preserves over 50% of the 218 acres. 40% of that is
floodplain, riparian buffers, wetland, wetlands, water
bodies, steep slopes, wildlife corridors, forest areas greater
than one acre in size. Our plan also includes secondary areas
that would include also stormwater control measures
that are designed as constructed wetlands, as seen
in this final graphic here, MI has entrusted our team to
develop an ecologically focused programming elements that will
further emphasize the significance of the project for
the Durham community, the elements you're seeing here are
not code required, but are crucial components to the
cohesive plan centered on ecosystem services and
environmental design. So internal trail networks connect
residents with nature, while untouched wildlife corridors
remain permanently protected to encourage existing ecologies to
continue to thrive. Where wildlife needs to cross
vehicular routes, for instance, added space and signage will be
provided. How much more time do you need?
A minute and a half. I have two minutes, please.
Thank you. Preservation of historical structures and the
voluntary implementation of Environmental Education program
will further set this development apart from the rest
in Durham. I want to end by just making sure to mention how
much the input of staff, council and the citizens of
Durham has impacted the way we've approached this project,
as well as the way that I've designed it for am I, and
worked with them to improve the project and the submission
tonight. The efforts that I detailed in terms of open space
and ecologically focused protections are not what would
be considered the easy way forward for a nationally
recognized home builder. But we feel this approach certainly
constitutes the best path forward. It's our hope that
Morgan Farm can serve as an example of ecologically
sensitive and innovative design in the residential market,
where it is desperately, desperately needed. We have
before us the ability to flip the narrative where the need
and desire for conservation of our landscapes works as a
valuable tool in addressing the unwavering need for places for
our citizens to to live. This is not unplanned, uncontrolled
urban sprawl because in this case, conservation is the
control. The overarching goal here as a designer was not to
design a neighborhood that simply exists in the woods, but
rather to build a community that coexists with nature in
ways that innovative, timeless and precedent. And with that,
I'll end my time, but happy to answer any questions. Thank you.
Thank you so much. All right. I'll start with my online
speakers. Kate Heim, can you hear me?
What should we see? Oh. All right, Laura McCall,
you have the presentation. Hi. Can you hear me?
Yes. Welcome. Laura, just one moment.
Sure. This is her.
Presentation. Okay. Is it Vivian? Is it multiple
slides, or is it just one? I do.
Not know. Is this one just this one?
Can you see it? Okay. All right. We can see it now.
Welcome. You have two minutes. Great. Morgan Farms first
submitted a new Tia and a PDR 2.5 rezoning that was quite
similar to what's before you tonight, a proposal for 560
mixed residential units and included a 5% affordable
housing commitment. The primary win now is the 50% open space
requirement, but the ability to provide open space was never
the real question. It was always what the applicant was
willing to pencil. In. This version increases open spaces
but removes affordable housing, lacks housing diversity and
avoids real, enforceable protections to run with the
land for historic sites, corridors, habitat, steep
slopes and stream buffers beyond the minimum. You know,
in many ways this appears less like a fundamentally new
proposal and more like a rebranding effort. Tagged as
conservation instead of a cluster design. And that
matters because what is lost in that shift is leverage.
Council's leverage is the ability to evaluate a major
land use change for a large and sensitive site through
transparency, scrutiny, and enforceable commitments that
protect the public interest. Instead, this approach approach
moves many of those issues into an administrative process where
the role is no longer to secure broader public benefits, and
the current ordinances with waivers and NPAs are not robust
enough for sites like this. Section 624 removed shall to
shift from clear requirements to suggested features. Much of
what's being discussed tonight could change later and still
remain compliant, the applicant told neighbors they would not
pursue subdivision without annexation, and that reveals
where a true leverage still sits. If development of this
site is only reasonable with utilities, then council has
every reason to use legislative authority granted to it. That
means asking whether this is the right project in the right
place, under the right terms. It means durable protections
beyond promises or good intentions, and it means
ensuring that public value, not just private feasibility, is
what drives the decision. Tonight is not simply about
whether something can be built, but whether Durham will use its
leverage wisely and not succumb so much from developers. Thank
you. Thank you. Katie Ross.
Hello? Can you hear me? Hey there. Yes, welcome. You
have two minutes. Okay.
Katie? Ross? Yes? I'm going to follow up, Laura, by talking
about conservation subdivision. I know quite a bit about this.
Because I've been. Involved from the beginning and
the Mason farms case, which was just resolved in favor of the
neighbors by the Court of Appeals. Oh, some of you were
taken on tours of some of the worst subdivisions in southeast
Durham by PRD. Electeds. I recall, were quite shocked at
what they saw, and they were stunned when they realized and
were told that the worst of those subdivisions with the
worst environmental destruction were conservation subdivisions.
How could that happen? Well, it turned out through the we
learned through this lawsuit that was Robin Barefoot lawsuit
that for years the planning department had been approving
15. They said conservation subdivisions without any regard
for the 12 purposes of the statute of the ordinance that
12 conservation oriented purposes and the planning
department was interpreting those as totally optional. They
were not enforcing them. So we have now learned that that was
wrong. And the court said that that those 12 purposes were
mandatory. But the planning department came and brought you
and you guys passed an amendment to the conservation
subdivision ordinance that removed the language that made
those purposes mandatory. So now you have the same statute
that allowed those horrible subdivisions, and it doesn't
even have the purposes enforceable at all. So what I'm
trying to say is do not be fooled by the name that this is
a conservation subdivision, conservation is only as good as
the enforcement, and they cannot be enforced.
Thank you. Thank you. And lastly, I have Elizabeth Miller.
Elizabeth, can you hear me? Hi.
Welcome. You have two minutes. Thank you. So the constraints
on this site are not hypothetical. They were
established during the prior Sheffield proposal and they
have not changed the environmental sensitivity
sensitivities, access limitations and infrastructure
challenges remain. By definition, this conservation
subdivision should have 50% open space and 80% of that has
to come from a primary list defined by the Udo. The staff
report tonight says there are no wildlife corridors on site.
The applicant has 22 acres of wildlife corridor as part of
the 80%. So do we know if these are existing corridors or are
they self identified theoretical corridors? The Open
Space report from 2025 notes that we should leave a 300 foot
buffer undisturbed next to the protected wetlands just north
of the Jordan Reservoir. Obviously, because that's going
to be our future water source. It seems a bit foolish to spend
millions of dollars to get water out of there, but then
not ensure we have that 300 foot buffer in place to protect
that source. So this conservation subdivision
doesn't eliminate these constraints. It postpones the
moment when the binding decisions are made. Truly, the
real problem is there are no mechanisms in place that make
sure that this is actually enforceable like they have an
application in. But when you annex today that's
irreversible. That application could be denied. So this isn't
a question of trust. It's a question of good governance.
And good governance requires that permanent actions be
matched with permanent protections that secure the
public benefits. So for those reasons, I respectfully urge
you to deny the annexation. Thank you.
Thank you so much. All right. I'm going to call five names at
a time. We can queue to my right. You're left. Julie
McClintock, Betsy Buchanan, Judy Tilson, Haley Sanders and
Barry Sanders. Thank you. Thank you.
Yes. No, I don't.
Good evening, Mayor Williams and.
City councilors. Thank you for your patience. My
name is Julie McClintock. My address is on record.
I am here to oppose the minimization request and
explain the drawbacks of using translational rezoning for the
Morgan Farm project. Despite the glowing report you heard
earlier, translational rezoning was created as an
administrative tool to maintain zoning continuity when small
properties move from county to city, it was never intended to
serve as a back door entitlement for large projects,
which should undergo meaningful review. While the zoning label
may remain residential rural, we know that approving
annexation would allow MI homes to connect to city water and
sewer, and to achieve urban densities for a very large
parcel. This would result in hundreds of units being exempt
from a full review. Here are two strong reasons not to annex
this property. First, approving annexation would allow
translational rezoning to bypass the normal safeguards
the council relies on, including comprehensive impact
analysis and mitigation measures that is reasonable for
single home, but not for a multi hundred unit project with
regional impacts. Second, if annexation were approved,
proffers could disappear. The city would lose the ability to
negotiate bonding, conservation and phasing conditions such as
affordable housing, sidewalks, additional open space. We will
lose the ability to see what we are getting, like buying a pig
in a poke. This is not about opposing development. It is
about ensuring that this development is reviewed by
staff, residents and you through a transparent public
process where we know what we are getting. It is about
insisting on a thoughtful review of an application that
will cause environmental harm and severe traffic congestion
over a wide area. Please follow the lead of your Planning
Commission and reject this request. Thank you.
Thank you. Welcome. You have two minutes.
I'm all right. Okay. Let's.
It's. Good evening, Mayor Williams.
City council members. My name is Betsy Buchanan and my name
is on. Address is on file. Morgan Farm, formerly
Sheffield, was withdrawn. Has withdrawn their proposed plan.
An original rezoning request, and tonight only seek
annexation. Last year, when the City Council denied Sheffield
one labor member in favor stated by the loudly this land
will be developed. And my question tonight to you is why?
Why does every inch of Durham County have to be developed?
And why would a developer seek annexation unless they plan to
develop in my homes, made modifications to their site
proposal prior to changing their rezoning request?
However, none of these changes address the very real problems.
If taken into the city, then their plan comes to light. But
no plan can ever overcome the difficulties and obstacles that
face building on that property. Again, I say this is not about
locals resisting development. This is about recognizing the
facts of trying to develop in this area. Morgan Farm would
add about 1000 cars daily through their three exits
directly onto Farrington Mill. Already stressed land along
Farrington Mill is part of the watershed for Jordan Lake, a
source of drinking water for Durham. The property has
historical evidence that has raised unanswered questions
and, if annexed, may never be answered. Morgan Farm may not
be a wildlife corridor, but the animals don't know that this
area provides wildlife a safe haven not disturbed by cars or
guns, providing sewer is a huge issue, especially since there
is also a timing issue with the repair of the bridge near
Stagecoach Road. Tonight, you decide if Morgan Farm will be
annexed into the city of Durham. Current proposed plans
and proffers are not binding and your decision is
irreversible. Please do the right thing and vote no for
this request. Thank you.
That's fine. That's fine. I think I should
say good. Morning. Thank you.
All for saying. So much. Good morning.
My name is Judy Tilson and I live just south of the proposed
development site. My address is on record. I'm here to share
concerns about the proposed annexation for Morgan Farm. The
character of this area is fundamentally rural. Despite
its designation as a mixed use neighborhood place type in two
areas on either side or designated as recreation and
open space. The intent of a mixed use neighborhood is to
support communities where residents can meet most daily
needs within a 15 minute walk or bike ride, including
groceries, schools, parks, pharmacies, restaurants,
libraries, and health care. Rural areas are highly car
dependent. The nearest public transit is approximately an
hour's walk away, and essentially daily needs such as
groceries and fuel are roughly 2 to 3 miles from the site, and
you have in front of you the list of the how far it is to
Food Lion and Harris, Teeter and Rowntree, and they're all 2
to 3 miles away, and there are no sidewalks. Now, as a woman
who's trying to get more exercise, I know exactly how
far away that is. And that's a long distance for anybody to
go. So annexation implies that the city will provide these
services, and it simply cannot. And obviously we've heard
tonight it doesn't. There's also no bus transportation
that's convenient. Please oppose this request. And thank
you for staying up so late. Thank you.
Trick in the millennial. I'm Haley Sanders. I now live
in Chapel. Hill, but my.
Childhood home, my parents home is in the downs neighborhood. I
spent much of my life less. Than a half mile.
Downstream from the bottom of this image. I asked that the
council vote. No.
On the annexation of Morgan Farm property. My remarks
concerned the threats that this commercial request presents to
our waterways. The first and most immediate threat comes
from the new sewer main that annexation would require the
route of the sewer main. According to Sheffield, would
follow on the southeastern side of Farrington Road, the sewer
main would cross Little Creek, southeast of the Little Creek
Bridge. This Google Earth image shows how the bridge and the
Army Corps levee already artificially constrain a
braided, marshy stream to a single channel. It's important
to put in the context of the planned replacement of Little
Creek Bridge, which you'll hear more about later to accommodate
the southeastern shift of the new bridge relative to the old
bridge, this new sewer main would have to cross Little
Creek and intrude on the protected falls. Jordan Lake
watershed. If this sewer line were buried, it would bring
huge disturbances in downstream. Silting of the
braided stream bed of Little Creek within the critical
protection zone of the lake. A district, a lake. If the sewer
line has to be moved around a bridge replacement that
multiplies the havoc. If the sewer line crossed the creek
above stream grade, it would be vulnerable to other kinds of
damage and leakage. You'll hear more on this later. Sewer lines
do not guarantee the protection of sensitive waterways, most
certainly not in their construction phases, and not
from corporate interests. If you all sign off on the
annexation, I won't get to publicly comment again. So on a
personal note, I've been swimming, canoeing, swamping
around in Little Creek, new Hope Creek, and Jordan Lake,
and in the stream bed behind my house. My whole life, my
family's current phablet activity is watching our dogs
get the zoomies in the same stream bed my sister and I
played in with rubber duckies children. The most important
times in my life are water based activities very near the
sewer proposal. I'm not done making memories on this
protected watershed. Thank you. As Mr. Berry is
coming up, I can ask Kate Haim. There she is. Elizabeth Bibi.
More bets. Field bets. Field. Jon Cohen and Tom Galloway to
come up. Welcome. Mayor.
Council members. I'm Barry Saunders. I live at 8110
Kennebec Drive, Durham County. On watershed protection.
The Morgan. Farm parcel.
Is a mostly forested plateau overlooking.
The. Morgan Creek floodplain, a mile
and a half from the creek's connection to Jordan Lake. The
critical watershed boundary runs close. That creek.
Floodplain has been awash in Jordan backwaters several times
these last decades. Much of the Morgan Farm west boundary has
been flood waters, shoreline. In prior comments to this
council, I showed deeply eroded basins of intermittent streams
draining the west edge of the property. That's with mature
forest around them. I showed cutting of slopes from
significant subsurface water movement. I described major
slope along that west property edge. I also suggested the site
surveyor may have undercounted areas of officially steep slope
25% or more. Today you weigh a sparse annexation proposal
without many enforceable details about development that
will follow. Late timing is strategic, but indulge just one
look at their pinky promise conservation subdivision site
plan, which we won't have a chance to address if you
approve annexation, there's plenty of paving and building
planned through sloped and eroded topography along
ephemeral and intermittent streams, and where subsurface
water movement occurs as well. Turning so much existing forest
into so much impervious surface would still bring a huge shift
in how stormwater is delivered to Morgan Creek. Despite
engineered containment, retention ponds would not
prevent significant increase in new toxins and new nutrients
draining to a wetland and stream that are already
nutrient sensitive. Development here would still increase.
Durham's already significant contribution to the impairment
and eutrophication of northern Jordan Lake, a drinking water
supply. For many, the future expense of mitigating this
impairment of a vital environmental resource is not
shown on any cost benefit analysis. I've seen. Thank you
for your time. Thank you. Welcome.
All right. Good evening. City council members. Mayor.
Mayor pro tem, my name is Kate. Haim and I.
Live on Kennebec Drive in the downs neighborhood.
Most importantly. On the environmental side, I
think is the translational rezoning does not provide any
security or transparency for whatever development happens on
this site as a sensitive area identified by the Durham Open
Space Program and the North Carolina Natural Heritage
Program, development here deserves intentional and
transparent planning for review and approval of the City
Council. The need for this oversight is reinforced by the
most recently proposed plan, distributed last week by Morgan
Farms for conservation subdivision, which does not
adequately address the concerns. This would not be
reimbursable even if it was adequate, but it's not.
Submission of an application is not a commitment. The this plan
violates the Durham Comprehensive Plan policies 79
to protect Durham's most ecologically sensitive areas
from the impacts of development policy 81. Protect the most
environmental sensitive portions of the site and policy
83. Existing habitat and wildlife movement corridors
should be left largely undisturbed, including that and
identified in the North Carolina Natural Heritage
Program. All of these policies are considered to have the
greatest impact on development cases, and should be weighed as
such. And these maps you can see the identified areas of
priority with the Wildlife Habitat Connectivity map
showing the most of the parcel, with a minimum of high priority
areas of higher and highest priority. The red circles show
the largest area of highest priority, with the green double
arrow added by me as a suggested wildlife corridor or,
most appropriate. The pink boxes are the Morgan Farms
proposed wildlife corridors. This is the most recently
proposed map received last week by the neighbors. You can see
there is not a wildlife corridor in the highest
priority area. Animals would have to cross two roads, one
alley, three rows of houses likely with fenced yards,
preventing access and or endangering lives of animals
attempting to go through here. The final graphic that was
shown by the the individual here tonight was not shared. So
this does not reflect this. There are more responsible ways
to do this. Thank you.
Thank you, thank. You.
But I want. Full screen. Is the.
Control panel. Oh.
My name is. Elizabeth Moore. and my.
Address is on record. Few words tonight. Permanent conservation
is possible. For.
This property. The land is being looked at by local
national conservation organizations for purchase, for
permanent permanent conservation protection. And
look, Durham and City Council would then have a public park
or a nature preserve. What a good solution to this. Okay,
now I have to go here. I want to be clear that my concern is
not with annexation or development. Again, it's is
this appropriate for this location? Why are you not
advancing a comprehensive plan emphasizes context sensitive
development. Appropriate transitions and density, and
directing higher density housing to areas with adequate
infrastructure. Here you see orange, Durham, Chatham and
Wake County, and there's a confluence of seven linked
natural corridors. Do you see that dark green up in the upper
left hand corner? It's like a Y shape. And then it goes down
south, to the east, to the head of, you guessed it, Jordan
Lake. And the red arrow shows you where this property is
located. Now two deers. Oh hi, dear one, how do you get to the
Wildlife Conservation Trail? I don't know, deer, but I think
you go 30 steps to the left and 30 steps to the right. And then
two miles down the road, if you run, you'll be safe. Well, this
has to be a corridor following water and tree coverage. I'm
going backwards. So I said my part. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miller. Good evening.
Mayor Williams. And Durham City Council. I'm
Beth's field addresses on file. As noted in the rezoning report
and shown here in the plat, the site hosts two historic
buildings. The antebellum Hutchens Farm and a double log
pen slave quarters. The Hutchinson family and their
slaves farmed cotton, tobacco, and other crops. In 2020 for
preservation, Durham toured the site with the developer and
found both buildings suitable for preservation. Additionally,
there is credible evidence for a burial ground for the
enslaved. The NC Natural Heritage Program Property
assessment for Sheffield Farms. References. A possible Old
Burial ground and non-native plants historically used in
landscaping, such as periwinkle graves of the enslaved, were
often simply marked with stones or nothing, but periwinkle was
the most common wildflower brought to gravesites by
enslaved Americans. This perennial has guided
researchers to many abandoned burial sites that would have
otherwise gone undetected. When planning commissioners
questioned the developer about gravesites, their response was
basically, if anything turns up its site plan or build will
abide by the laws in place for disturbed burial sites. Because
the application has taken a certain approach by requesting
annexation, they were not required to address or
acknowledge any of this. Approving annexation without
fully addressing the documented history of this property risk.
Thank you. Irreversible harm. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Hello again. I have my AV specialist.
She's everyone's AV specialist tonight.
Okay. Are we ready to go?
You tell. Me.
You speak to the microphone. Hi.
I'm John Cowan, the owner of. The 112 acre farm directly
across Farrington Mill from the proposed project. My address is
include 8301 and 8303 Farrington Mill. And these are
directly across from the proposed outlets for hundreds
of cars per day. Now, these guys admit that 40% of the
property is is critical wetlands on my side of the
road, we have hooded merganser, buffalo heads, kingfishers,
osprey and we are searching for bald eagle nests. The current
plans for the Western Water Project pipeline, which I
support, are to use the right of way along Farrington Mill,
right where they say they're going to do all this
construction and put in turn lanes, building hundreds of
units directly north of the new water treatment plant is
contradictory. Federal law limits timbering to renewable
sectional timbering, not clear cutting. I'm committed myself
to run my horse, sheep, hay and honey farm and ensure our vital
and growing rural community continues forward forever. This
is not an unused area. We are an active and vital established
community. That this proposal would change forever. The area
must be restricted to rural farming and single family
homes. It's not a simple filling of an urban area. This
proposal is going from 0 to 1000, destroying our natural
resources forever. This land is an ungainly finger of intrusion
impacting all areas around it. Between large tracts of land
committed to long term preservation, triangle land
conservancy and other conservancy organizations are
actively attempting to purchase competitively. This property.
Already, I've committed my land to the Voluntary Agriculture
District for ten years, joining at least two other properties
nearby. I have 17 people who work for the farm and several
live their low cost housing. We raise honeybees and hay and
produce sheep, a source of meat to underserved ethnic
communities in North Carolina. We have a large equestrian
resource center employing North Carolina State AG program grads
and students, supporting and teaching the people who will
grow your food tomorrow. And as my. You, Tom Galloway.
Yep. All right. So after Tom will be
host Farley, Joe Segura, Eddie Williamson, Dana Young and
Larry Cheatham. Good evening. My name is Tom
Galloway. My address is on file. Here are two maps. This
map shows a three mile radius around Morgan Farm. Notice the
major transportation corridors around the perimeter. 501 to
the west, 54 and I-40 to the north, and 751 to the east. Our
local roads are in the center, including Farrington Mill Road,
the yellow Dot marks Morgan Farm, and the Red line shows
the proposed sewer route. Let's take a closer look. The green
space in the center is primarily Army Corps protected
land. Every local road passes through Army Corps land and is
subject to strict constraints and regulations. These roads
have a finite capacity and they are already near it. This map
also shows 17 housing developments. The red dots
totaling nearly 7400 units that have been advanced since
November of 2022. Notice they're located near the major
highway corridors. There are no developments on our local roads
except proposed Morgan Farm. Recall Bryn Ward the black ex
was denied by this city Council on January 20th of this year.
Our primary highways are already congested and traffic
is diverting onto our local roads. Farrington mill is the
main commuter bypass between Durham, Chatham and Orange
County's. Traffic there increased 12.9% from August of
24 to August of 25, and will reach level of service F by
2028 due to ambient growth alone. The proposed sewer
route, the Red line, would cut our local road network in half.
Farrington and Farrington Mill would be reduced to single
lanes with flagman for at least nine months. The sewer also
crosses the Lower Little Creek Bridge. The Red arrow, which is
being replaced from 2029 to 2032. This is Army Corps land.
These projects, as well as other infrastructure projects
in this immediate area, will cause severe traffic
disruption. I urge you to deny large housing developments on
our local roads. Our infrastructure cannot absorb
it. Please vote no. Thank you.
Hello mayor. Williams Mayor Pro Tem
Caballero and. council members. My name is Holt Farley and I
live on Copley Road. I'm here to discuss the traffic impact
of Morgan Farm. I have previously sent each of you a
detailed written analysis, traffic analysis, and I'll
briefly summarize my findings. Durham Planning. uses a Florida
dot level of service handbook for road capacity. The handbook
for the entry for the Farrington Mill Road type is
highlighted here in yellow level of service, D is
typically used for maximum capacity. However, there is a
footnote stating that once level of D service is reached,
the service degrades to failing grade F at intersections.
Bottom line, 14,200 vehicles per day represents gridlock on
Farrington Mill Road, Durham uses the IT trip generation
manual to estimate traffic for housing projects for a single
family unit. The manual estimates ten vehicles per day.
Morgan Farm will add up to 437 units, which will result in
more than 4000 additional vehicles per day on Farrington
Mill Road, using 2025 NCDOT data. Farrington Mill Road
traffic is growing at about 7% per year, projecting forward
ambient growth alone pushes the road into gridlock. By 2028,
when Morgan Farm traffic is added. Phase through the
buildout, total volumes reach about 165% of the gridlock
capacity before the project is complete. This would push an
already failing road network into severe and sustained
congestion. The developers described the new Tia, but that
To has significant omissions and unrealistic assumptions.
But most importantly, it has not been reviewed or validated.
So please use that carefully. I urge you to vote no. Good
morning, Mayor Williams. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and council
members. My name is Joe Regula. I live on Kepler Road as well.
I want to follow up from what Mr. Farley has stated to you
and and explain to you how Farrington Mill Road lost it.
No. Where is.
It? It's not showing. There it goes. Okay. Okay. Sorry. I want
to follow up and explain how Farrington Mill Road fits into
the broader network and why traffic congestion in this area
cannot realistically be mitigated. Morgan Farms is
indicated here in the middle of this map. As you can see,
Farrington Mill Road along with US 15 501 and route 751 have
become major conduit into Durham from the southwest. But
as you can see here, all Farrington Mill Road traffic is
forced into just three roads Barbee, Chapel Road, Farrington
Road and Stagecoach Road. There are no alternative roads. These
three roads are already heavily commuter roads, which, if
you've traveled any of them, you would probably know that
and continued nearby residential development keeps
adding traffic to this already constrained system. Now look at
the blue areas on the map. You'll see this is the Army
Corps of Engineers critical flood control lands. As you can
see, these three key intersections fed directly from
Farrington Mill Road, are constrained by the Army Corps
flood control lands, congestion is already severe, with backups
often over a half a mile on these roads. And for more than
30 years, the Corps has not released land for any expansion
and multiple regional studies with NCDOT have concluded
approvals are not feasible. This means there is no
realistic way to increase capacity at any of these
locations, so adding Morgan Farms traffic would make an
already overburdened system significantly worse. Thank you
for your attention. Good morning.
Well, she's. doing that. Thank you. Thank you for.
Your patience. To.
Thank you. I've changed everything.
I. Wanted to say tonight. I. My
GPS brought me from Montclair. My name is Eddie Williamson. I
brought. Me from Montclair.
A Po Valley road, 47 years ago. My wife and I bought a house.
Our first house on Hope Valley Road. I brought my son.
Home. Who is now the father of my two
grandkids that are at Jordan High School as a pass by.
Obviously, there was some really good moments of memory I
got here and I felt like I needed to say that my wife and
I have moved around a lot as I was a football coach. We moved
back. We started our life here in Durham. We chose to come
back here and end our life in Durham, chasing our grandkids.
Now, if you will, just look at the pictures on the wall. I
came home from Chapel Hill, Fort Fordham Boulevard one
afternoon later than I normally like to leave the gym. It took
me 14.5 minutes when I made the turn off of 54 onto Barbee
Chapel to go one and a half miles to my home in Montclair.
I thought, well, there must be a wreck. There was no rec. Then
I thought maybe road construction for some of the
development that is opening up at the west end of Barbee
Chapel. That wasn't the problem. Easily. What? What
caused it? And then I realized it's just a crowded, crowded
area. There are more cars feeding into that place than
anyplace else. And the real problem that I would have is if
I wanted to bring a carton of ice cream home from Harris
Teeter. It would melt before I got home.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Make it full screen and then just the arrow second.
Good morning, Council members. My name is Danny Young and my
address is on file. But I live. Off of Farrington Mill Road.
This is a picture of Farrington Mill Road. To the right is
where the proposed Morgan. Farm development site begins.
And on the left is where the whip pipeline is going to be
coming up. From, from Chatham County, up
Farrington. Mill Road. Farrington Mill Road
is, as you can see, a. very narrow rural road in poor
condition. It has no shoulders, a 55 mile an hour speed limit,
and is already operating at a level of service. D and this is
also the as you heard, the primary commuting route between
Chatham, Orange and Durham counties. These are fully
funded high priority infrastructure projects that
are scheduled from 2027 through 2032 that all impact Farrington
Mill Road, Farrington Road and Stagecoach Road and the highway
54 widening may not be in the direct network, but it's also
going to be widened and impact this local network. All of
these projects overlap. The Western Intake Partnership will
run up Farrington Mill Road to a new water treatment facility
being built. A sewer main is being relocated out of a
floodplain up Farrington Road to a sewer treatment plant and
the Lower Little Creek Bridge, already severely degraded, will
be replaced, requiring long term lane closures. Even
without these projects, traffic is projected to drop to the
level of service within the next two years, and that
estimate does not include Morgan Farm, which proposes a
three mile sewer line and a lift station along Farrington
Mill, and Large, a large multi-unit development with
three points of access, all on Farrington Mill Road as well,
which is already strained. This map shows how all these
projects converge on the same small network of two lane
roads. It looks crowded because it is, and it will be. So the
question is simple why approve a major development, one that
hasn't gone through standard rezoning and bedding right in
the middle of overlapping critical infrastructure work?
Durham's priority should be clear safe roads and bridges,
reliable drinking water, environmental protection and
the quality of life of existing residents. Adding Morgan Farm
into this mix increases risk, compounds congestion and
threatens to delay or disrupt essential projects.
Thank you. Thank you. All right. I'm Larry Tatum. Are you?
Lynn Collier. All right. So after Larry. I have Linda
Castiglione and that rice. Judy Jones, Naomi Echols and Whitney
Harris. Welcome. Good morning, Mayor Williams,
council mayor pro tem and city council members. Thank you for
staying. Awake this long.
I my name is Larry Tatum and my address is on file. I'm here to
oppose annexation. I would like to talk to you about a very
important 107ft, about a mile and a half from the site. You
are deliberating on tonight and located along their proposed
sewer force. Main traffic studies have been done in the
past. However, these numbers that have been generated do not
account for the increased increase in construction or
heavy equipment that now passes over the. The bridge and
through this area. On these two lane country roads. The Little
Creek Bridge was constructed in 1979. It was bus just
buttressed in 2006 with riprap, and it was last inspection
found on public records was June of 2023, and at that time
it was structurally deficient, meaning meeting minimum
tolerable limits. NC Odot will be replacing this bridge in
2029 to 2032. In the meantime, we have been assured that they
will continue to limp it along until a replacement is
complete. Weight limits are a likely step to make sure it
remains safe. Heavy construction traffic will speed
up the deterioration of this bridge. The images that you see
here are the current images of the structure, and remember
that these images are talking about the destruction that's
going on, along with erosion. They've placed sandbags to help
stop erosion, which isn't working. And I urge you to deny
this request. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next. Up or down?
Greetings, mayor Williams. Mayor Pro Tem Caballero and
city council members. My name. Is Linda.
Castiglione and my address is on file. Morgan Farm.
Is in the. Same location as the rejected
Sheffield Farms project. And while it is true the project
has been scaled down, the sewer issue is still on the table.
The developer must provide a sewer lift station and three
mile plus sewer main force at a projected cost of $10 million.
All on his dime. That is the only requirement. Sounds
awesome, doesn't it? It's a win win. Or is it? This slide shows
the Morgan Farm home construction timeline. That
big, beautiful sewer lift station in three mile plus
sewer main force force main has to be installed before any home
construction can begin. Fiscal year 20 2855 homes to be
completed are. But what about the Little Creek Bridge? At
this point in our timeline 2028, the developer has
provided the sewer lift station and all it entails. Utility
relocation begins April 2029, with new bridge construction
beginning in August 2030. Guess who has to pay for the utility
relocation costs? The City of Durham. The City of Durham will
also be responsible for repairs, ruptures, maintenance
for perpetuity. Perpetuity. I'm tired. Estimated cost $5
million. The City of Durham will have to pay for the
relocation of that sewer lift station and three mile plus
sewer force main in order to replace the Little Creek Bridge
and active sewer line will have to be moved. So I ask you, will
this $10 million sewer lift station in three mile plus
sewer force main be the gift to Durham? It is made out to be.
Thank you. Thank you. Do you need help
with the Ave? Could you come down.
Here and give me a hand? Good morning folks.
Good morning. My name is Annette Rice.
My address is on file and my fingers getting sore. As you
can see on this. Image here.
During the deliberations of the IRB for the new comprehensive
plan, which is 2023, the Durham Planning Department initially
suggested the removal of this particular area from within the
urban growth area, simply because of the difficulty in
supplying sewer to the site. If you look at this map, the red
arrow there and the red pen there basically show you where
the United States Army Corps of Engineers Jordan Lake project
lands are with the red marking where the Morgan Farm site is.
Here's a picture of the utility extension agreement image
there, showing you how it has to go up to the the
Southwestern Durham Water Treatment facility. And this is
that same line running through the Army Corps of Engineers
properties. In 2013, the the the Corps of Engineers modified
policies regarding non recreational land use out
grants. Those include leases and utility easements. Any
modifications made to the passed out grants pre 2013 are
now considered new applications subject to the full Army Corps
review process. A non recreational policy specifics
per chapter 17 er 1132 550 change six states that for the
evaluation of a new grant, there must be no viable
alternative or a direct benefit to the federal government. Of
course, there are some exceptions. However, the Army
Corps of Engineers refuses to consider cost as a factor
whenever they decide whether or not there is a viable
alternative in existence. So do you think that the Army Corps
of Engineers is going to permit the running of a sewer main
through the their property and through property that's also
controlled by the NDDC? Furthermore, who asked the
developer about coming down to the regular density and on the
strip, there is a limitation because of Army Corps of
Engineers property. Why put sewer through there?
Thank you. I'm not. sure how to get this
slide. Up yet.
I need my tech advisor. We have two duties.
I know. There are a lot of us at
Carolina meadows. Okay, perfect.
Thank you. Hello. Good morning, I'm Judy Jones, and I live at
Carolina meadows. My address is on file. I'm adjacent to this
property. I am a retired high school biology teacher. And for
my whole career, I was helping students understand the
interconnectedness of nature and how disturbing one part
disturbed the whole. And I feel like this is just a perfect
example of what disasters could happen. Jordan Lake is a
reliable drinking water source for Durham and several other
counties and municipalities, serving more than 700,000
customers, and Durham recently committed to move forward with
the western intake Partnership, taking on all the
infrastructure expenses to pump raw water from Jordan Lake, up
Farrington Mill Road and to a new treatment plant. As you
know, the Corps of Engineers has been said before owns the
land around Jordan Lake and the reservoir and will not issue
permits for road improvements or sewer incursions. If it
determines there's potential harm to water quality. That
limits Durham's growth and makes it impractical to provide
city services in an area protected by state water supply
rules. These state rules and classifications are designed to
protect water quality and guide future development. Mr. Shelton
Sullivan, a Department of Environmental Quality staff
member, verified during her call last year the following
statement the subject address, 8422 Farrington Mill Road, is
located within a protected area of the water supply. Watershed.
The receiving water is classified as nutrient
sensitive and the area is subject to the Jordan watershed
riparian buffer, and you can see from the map that the
proposed development is already within a protected area, and
impinging upon a critical area. Please vote no.
Thank you. Thank goodness she's here. I'm
a Neanderthal. Good morning. Ladies and gentlemen.
Mayor Williams. Mayor Pro.
Tem, council members. My name. is Naomi. Echoes, I.
Think, and. I live just off Farrington
Road. My address. is on file. I haven't.
Been up this late since I met my husband, and we talked till
4:00 in the morning. I'm asking you to please oppose.
The request. To annex this property into the
city of Durham. The consequences of such an
annexation were posing enormous consequences of such an
annexation to the city. Water supply. If there were a water
main sewer break which would disturb, which would discharge
raw sewage into our drinking water supply, while a sewer
break. Is always.
Harmful, in this case, it is especially so because of the
proximity to our watershed. The risk to the health of thousands
of people outweighs any benefit. Could a sewer break
really happen? Absolutely. The image before you is the
catastrophic catastrophe that happened in 2013, in Durham,
when a tree fell and broke the sewer main south of Duke
University, nearly half a million gallons of sewage was
discharged into Sandy Creek, which feeds Jordan Lake, the
main source of our drinking water. More recently, in 2025,
Tropical Storm Chantelle floodwaters caused a sewer
break. An 819,000 gallons of untreated water wastewater
flowed into Morgan Creek and onto Jordan Lake. Additional
flooding occurred, caused a total of over 3 million gallons
of wastewater filled with sewage to flow into our
regional drinking water supply. That's the equivalent of five
Olympic sized swimming pools. We asked the City of Durham to
keep additional sewer lines out of this water critical area
near Jordan Lake, which currently supplies over three
quarters of a million people with clean drinking water. And
to protect the future water supply for Durham, allowing
annexation is simply not worth the risk. Please deny this. We
crest just as the Planning Commission has. Thank you for
your time. Thank you.
Well, I don't know about. Y'all, but I'm.
Excited because we live in a country where we get.
To speak with. Our elected officials. So for.
No matter. What happens tonight, that's
worth celebrating. In my opinion. Good evening. Good
morning. Depends on how you're feeling, right. My name is
Whitney Harris. My address is on record and I live in South
Durham. Is a proud Durham resident. I'm here today to
personally ask you to respond no to this proposal to annex
this property. Not because I oppose growth, but because
we've already seen what happens when we approve projects based
on promises that are not guaranteed. My ten year old
daughter, who also believes in democracy, made this nice
little graphic for you to see what happens when a project
like 751 South is approved, and then all of those promises are
not upheld. And I want to acknowledge up front that,
again, I understand this project or something like it is
likely going to be approved at some point, and that's okay.
Durham is growing and it's this wonderful place to live that we
want to share with other people without growth. People like my
family don't get to experience this wonderful community. But
growth alone is not the goal. The right growth should be the
goal, and the right growth is not this project. We don't have
to speculate because we've seen what's happened with 751 South.
It was presented as a thoughtfully planned, mixed use
community, a place where people could live, work and gather
together. Its promises seem balance, infrastructure and
benefits to the broader community. With
Annexation. These were.
All promises. and EMS, fire station.
, school all within that. Planned community.
Guess what? All of that since 2023 has
been. taken off the table. In exchange for a payment.
To the housing fund in. exchange for Durham doesn't
have the money to build the land. So let's just give DPS
some funds. That's not okay. Not what we were promised. And
who absorbs that impact? The increased traffic, the schools
becoming strained, the environmental concerns and the
trust in the process. It's weakened. We do. Durham
citizens do. My family, my ten year old daughter, Elizabeth.
This is the lesson of 751 South. What is promised in
annexation or what's granted doesn't always guarantee that
that's what's going to be delivered. And this is what we
are concerned and what we fear with the Morgan Farm developers
in the end. So tonight it's not just about should we grow? We
will, but let's grow the right way. Ask for more.
Thank you. Thank you for that human espresso. I needed it,
alright, tell me your name. Kathy Rexford.
Say it one more time, Kathy. Rex road.
Okay. All right, so if I can have Chris Peckham won. Montez.
No, not not won. William. Few. Nope. Chuck. Darcy, Andy Lowe
and Katie Jackson. Jennifer. Mayor. Ma.
I wish I had her energy. I don't right now, but. Good
morning. My name is Kathy Rexford and I live also in the
downs. Neighborhood.
And thank you for listening to us tonight in the middle of the
night, I'd like to speak briefly on how this annexation
application relates to the County Durham County
Comprehensive Plan, specifically policy 165. Part
of it reads, annexation into the city limits should only be
considered when a substantial benefit to the community can be
demonstrated. We've heard about proffers, and just like the
last speaker said, we've got money being offered, but no
actual affordable or accessible units in this location. We've
got issues with the Jordan Lake watershed. We've got increased
traffic in areas where roads cannot be widened. We've got
increased utilization of overcrowded schools with again,
money thrown at it. But does that really fix it? Future
water and sewer line maintenance issues and many
concerns that you've heard. Policy 165 also states that
annexation should not cause service delivery or operational
issues for the city or county. You've heard and seen on the
map how the proposed sewer line would be laid perpendicular to
water flowing into a floodplain in the storms, that water flow
is very forceful. And if and when this sewer line fails and
sewage either flows into Jordan Lake watershed or backs up into
the proposed 437 conservation homes, Durham will have serious
service delivery and operational issues, and people
will be asking who thought this was a good idea? The planning
department wanted to remove this parcel from the urban
growth boundary. When the light rail project was canceled for
the specific reason. Council. As you're well aware,
annexation is permanent and it obligates the city to provide
city water, sewer and other services. If this is not a good
plan for sewer and it's annexed, then you are on the
hook forever. We are on the hook forever. The guidelines
for the City of Durham that the City and County of Durham have
created for annexation have not been met. Please vote no.
Thank you. Good evening councilors. My
name is Chris Peckham and I am the president of the Montclair
Homeowners Association. My address is on file. I want to
thank you for your service and for taking the time to listen
to us well into the morning here this morning. I would like
to speak to you about growing pains. Yes. Growing pains. This
is what I once heard of. Member of the city Council referred to
about potential disruption associated with developing
along Farrington Mill Road. Now, when I think of growing
pains, I think of the challenges of being a teenager
and growing up to be an adult. In other words, I think the
pains that go away. But what we are talking about here today
won't go away. It will create permanent generational pain.
While we are just talking about annexation, we're really
talking about a development because without the annexation,
there will be no development. But with annexation, there will
be a development without further oversight. So this
evening you will have heard from folks that have talked
about the pain that development will cause. This will be
similar to what you have heard before. With the Britt Moore
proposal, and it will be 3 to 4 times the size. You will have
heard about a significant disruption to traffic during
annexation and significant increase in traffic from the
development itself on roads that are not allowed to be
expanded, and there's no land on which to expand them. If you
could, permanent pain, you will have heard about impact to
ecology and wildlife that cannot be restored because no
one ever tears down a development to build a forest.
Permanent impact. New students will be underserved at schools
that are at or over capacity, with no plans to expand them.
That's generational impact. Economically and physically.
Disadvantaged persons might be expected to live here, though
they will have no access to public transportation.
Pervasive systemic challenges. And then there's the potential
impact to our drinking water that comes from this sensitive
area. A remediation here would cause financial pain for
generations. Our comprehensive plan did not take all of these
factors into account, so I urge you to please vote no to
annexation. Thank you. Hello. Thank you. everyone for
being here. And.
Thank you for. your patience, everybody.
My name is Katie Jackson. My address is on record.
I'm here tonight. To.
Speak more about the consequences of growth that
outpaces our infrastructure, particularly as it pertains to
our schools. We're already seeing this impact in Durham
Public School. In a recent message to families, the
superintendent acknowledged that Lyons Farm Elementary is
experiencing significant overcrowding. In fact, the
current enrollment already reflects what is projected for
next year's high enrollment scenario. Meaning we're not
just growing, but we're ahead of the most aggressive
projections. So what happens when a school becomes
overcrowded? We don't just add students, we lose opportunities
because of the state class size requirements. The district is
now being forced to consider repurposing classroom space as
currently used for core instruction, to accommodate
additional students. So this would mean spaces that are used
for enrichment, innovation, Stem education for students
with special needs. These are at risk of being a eliminated
or reduced reduced. So let me say that again overcrowding is
not just a numbers problem. This is an education quality
problem. So this is where accountability matters. And we
should not be approving more homes for families without the
ability, without the promise of being able to educate those
students. So as an example, when we have this current
development on Fayetteville Road, when this was being
proposed, the residents of my community and the surrounding
community, we were told overcrowding was not a problem.
At that time, Creekside Elementary was already at 125%
capacity. So clearly we do have an overcrowding issue. Adding
more homes is not going to solve that. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning, city Council.
Mayor, mayor Pro tem, I'm back here before you. Normally when
I come before you, I'm urging you all to approve more
housing, more density. And as you weigh the trade offs of of
that density, there's usually kind of a give and take. And
many of you have acknowledged that tonight with some of the
other cases in this case is unique for me and that there is
no additional density right now, the very close to the
amount of homes that are being asked to be built are already
allowed to be built just with septic tanks and no utility
hookup, but still there. It's still the same traffic. What
the developer is asking you to let them do is hook up to city
water and sewer, not puts up the tanks in the ground and put
a covenant on massive amounts of open space. Now, I normally
don't have my environmentalist hat on here, but I guess
tonight I do, because that seems like a very good deal
compared to clearcutting a good part of the land, timbering it,
selling it, building a large estate, homes and building the
set to dig into septic tanks and wells for them. So from an
environmental perspective, I definitely would take that deal
over leaving it in the county. So thank you. I urge you to
support the annexation tonight and hope you all sleep well.
Are you Jennifer? Good morning. My name is
Jennifer Maher. My address is on record. Thank you for your
patience and I admire your stamina. I am speaking on
behalf of the new Hope Bird Alliance, for which I am the
conservation co-chair. I want to bring two issues to you that
I don't think have been addressed. Really. One is the
effect of fragmentation. So we have done studies that show
that the new Hope bottomlands, which was a very productive
bird breeding, rare bird breeding area of Durham, has
suffered a serious decline of bird population because all
around the edges the land has been developed and that means
access into the land and much less attractive breeding
association. So if you looked at the maps that you were
seeing of the conservation area, you saw a chunkier,
chunkier, chunk here. What you didn't see was how this land
now connects down to the Jordan Lake forested area and creates
a very intact and environmentally important area
for birds. The second thing I want to bring up is, is the
effect of groundwater in filling our reservoirs and
giving us clean drinking water. The more that we have
impervious surfaces replacing mature forests, which this land
has, the more the less drinking water is actually retained and
flowing into Jordan Lake. At the same time, if we develop,
we're adding more people trying to consume this drinking water.
So I have a feeling that that we are in trading off for
little bits of affordable housing or small parcels that
are some percentage of natural heritage being preserved. It's
almost like the biblical story of Esau. Yes we are. We're
getting a porridge now. We're getting a few affordable
housing, but we're giving up our natural resources that we
will depend on for the future, foreseeable future. And for
this reason that I hope that you will not annex this land.
Thank you. Thank you. Next, I have Steve
Cohen, Astrid Cook. Pablo Friedman.
I'm Chuck Dorsey. I've lived.
Out in that area for almost 50. Years.
You don't want any. Part of.
The city being out there. It's going to cost you more money.
And that's something that you guys are very aware of when you
when you consider projects like this, this is going to cost you
money over the long run. You don't want any part of it. And
and I urge you to to vote no. Jeff, do you also go by Chuck?
It's a different person. I.
We just spoke. You did say Chuck. I thought
you said Jeff. Darcy. I'm sorry. You're good. Yeah. Steve
Cohen. , 1406 Pennsylvania.
Avenue. Chair of the. Open Space.
Committee of the Durham Open. Space and. Trails Commission.
Because because. much of this property.
Is in a. State designated natural
heritage area and because it contains other sensitive
natural areas, including buffers to the area owned by
the Army Corps for protection of Jordan Lake, approximately
63% of this property is marked Ross Recreation and Open Space
on Durham's place type map, the comprehensive Plan is explicit
about the purpose and treatment of these areas. It says.
Recreation and open spaces are areas that will remain free
from development. Natural features and environmentally
sensitive areas should be preserved in all recreation and
open space. Place types on the site plan, the developers are
showing well over 50% of the properties designated Ross Land
will be built on top of in their plan for a nominally
conservation subdivision. In keeping with the priorities for
which space to keep open the substantial pond and the area
with historical buildings must take up much of this project's
open space, leaving not much room for including the land
actually designated as Ross. In the part of the development
that would remain undisturbed. The majority of the Ross place
type will not remain free from development and will not be
preserved in the way our comp plan, the comp plan you are
meant to follow, demands. There would be some benefit in
bringing water and sewer to the southwest corner of the county
and adding more single family homes to Durham's housing
stock, but it is essential to net that out against the
irreversible loss from enabling a developer to build over land.
The state has designated as vital to North Carolina's
biodiversity, and the city has identified in its comp plan as
critical open space that should be fully protected.
Thank you. Hello.
My name is Astrid Cooke. My address is on file and I'm
speaking once again on behalf of the Durham City County
Environmental Affairs Board, Land Use and Planning
Subcommittee. We have reviewed this annexation, and I am
opposed to the request as presented. This opposition is
based first and foremost on the absence of any enforceable
mechanism to ensure that environmental protections
discussed during the review process would be carried
forward and upheld over the life of the project. The
application proposes annexation into the city without a
concurrent zoning map change or binding development plan. As a
result, there is no clear, enforceable framework by which
commitments related to stream protection, tree preservation,
stormwater management, or construction practices could be
guaranteed. In the absence of such a framework. EIB Land Use
and Planning Subcommittee cannot evaluate the
environmental impacts of the project with sufficient
confidence to support annexation. While the proposal
is described as a conservation subdivision, preserving
approximately 50% open space. We note that this figure
includes areas that are already constrained from development,
such as stream buffers and floodplains. The application
does not demonstrate that preserved areas will be
contiguous, functionally protected, or managed in a way
that maintains the ecological integrity. Without a binding
plan, these areas risk becoming fragmented. Residual spaces
rather than meaningful conservation features. EA is
further concerned about the scale and duration of
construction activity associated with the project.
The proposed development includes up to 437 residential
units and approximately 22,000 linear feet of new roadway
infrastructure, with a multiyear buildout extending
from 2028 through 2032. Prolonged land disturbance at
this scale, particularly within a watershed protected area,
presents a significant risk of sediment transport and long
term degradation of downstream water quality. Thank you for
your time. Please vote no. Thank you. Our last speaker.
All right. Good morning.
One in the morning. This might be a new record.
Council. Congratulations on that record.
All right. Close. So let's talk.
A little bit about this one on the previous case before you, I
talked about how the standard for net per pupil had increased
dramatically from where we started at the baseline a
couple of weeks ago of 500. And I think the developer didn't,
or the sorry, the applicant didn't talk about this, but I
do want to commend them. I mean, the net per pupil
commitment is over is somewhere between 30. It's between 3300
or 3500 depending on my math, which I haven't seen those
numbers come up before. And I think that's I want that now to
be the floor. We have a developer, an applicant coming
here and setting that expectation going forward. I
think the council should be weighing future requests on
that expectation. Going back to the question that you asked at
the last meeting, Council Member Kopac, about what the
expectation needs to be changed around per pupil funding by the
applicants. But I also want to talk about this being a
continuous improvement process. Earlier we talked about how
comments from the environmental affairs folks being
incorporated into the documents that you received. I think
that's really good. I also want to continue that conversation
around the EMS. There were four individual elected officials
that spoke from the dais tonight. Council Member Kopac
Council Member Burris Council Member Cook and Mayor Pro Tem
Caballero saying, you want to see that data, right? And I
agree with you. I don't know this person, but some of his
posts have come to my attention, which is Jerry Ray.
And you saw that earlier on one of the slideshow presentations
that were before you. There are moments right now that those of
us who are premium taxpayers of Durham, where the emergency
responders go into what's called Stab mode. I had never
heard of that, which is that there's no ambulance available
to pick up the call. And that's already right now, without any
new approvals. So how many times have has Istat happened
and how are these new applications going to
ameliorate that or provide more capacity when as is, we can't
even service the calls that are being received? Thank you.
Thank you very much. All right. Those are our
speakers for this evening. Did I did I miss someone? Oh. I'm
sorry, you're right. Yeah. At the bottom of this page over
here. Yeah, good time. William. Phew. Now is a good time. Yes.
All right. And Randy. Few as well. Yes. Okay. Sorry about
that. That's all right. We didn't want to be excluded.. As
you know. My name is Bill few. I'm the
president. of Kendrick Estates Investment Corporation.
Kendrick Estates is a family corporation, and it is the
owner of Morgan Farms. We have as a family held this property
for five generations. Now, as an investment to recover the
growing timber value and as a potential and for its potential
development. The growing timber on the property has been
managed in compliance with the professional Management Plan
for forestry for decades now, and the timber is mature and
ready to be cut. So we must, in order to maintain our
compliance with the plan, either timber, the property or
do something else. If we don't maintain compliance with the
timber management plan will likely lose our present use
valuation for property taxes for the property. It will be
reappraised at its highest and best use, and it will be simply
unaffordable for the family to maintain and hold on to the
property any longer. Timbering. The timbering. The property is
not our preference, however, so we have an opportunity as an
alternative to tempering the property. The property to
develop the property. With MI homes as a conservation
subdivision, preserve the hardwood forest and pine timber
forest on the property, and extend a sewer line to
Farrington Mill Road at the developer's expense, which is
needed. So, in conclusion, I'd simply like to say that I think
the best of all alternatives is for us to develop the property
with MI homes as a conservation subdivision, and in order to do
that, to preserve the pine and hardwood forests on the
property and the environment. Annexation.
Thank you. Is necessary by the City
Council. Thank you. Thank you.
Good evening. I'm Randy, one of the owners of the Morgan Farm
property in development. Discussions.
There's often the perception that projects are driven solely
by outside interests, with little regard for the land or
community. That is not always the case behind many greenfield
proposals. As a family, trying to make thoughtful, long term
decisions. And that is our story. Morgan Farm is part of
the original 680 acre Sheffield farm, which has been in my
family for more than 90 years. In the 1970s, more than 400
acres, nearly 60% of the land were conveyed or rendered
inaccessible as part of the Jordan Lake project. The loss
of pasture land, crop and hay fields to the Army Corps of
Engineers fundamentally changed the agricultural potential of
the property. Since the 1970s, we have believed this land
would one day be appropriate for development. We have made
deliberate decisions to retain the land rather than pursue
piecemeal or premature development. We waited, often
at the encouragement of planning staff and elected
officials, until public utilities were accessible so
the property could be planned comprehensively and developed
in a more environmentally responsible way, without
reliance on septic systems or other on site wastewater
solutions. This belief was reinforced by the construction
of the nearby wastewater treatment facility and the
water line along Farrington Mill Road. The city modified
the urban growth boundary some 25 years ago to include our
land. This is not a short term or speculative endeavor, but
reflects a consistent commitment to align the future
of this property and its transition with Durham's long
standing growth plan. After more than 90 years of
stewardship, we believe this proposal represents a
responsible transition, preserving 50% of the land is
open space, providing needed housing within the urban growth
boundary, and aligns with the policies and planning that have
guided this area for decades. Thank you. In addition, it adds
$1 million to Durham's dedicated housing.
Thank you. Can I respond to one other
thing regarding regarding the question of conservation? Oh
yeah. Entities interested in purchasing the the property,
these conservation entities should talk to the owners and
not the neighbors. I think I speak for my cousin. We have as
well. We've had no discussions with our contact from County.
To be clear, the these are the property owners with the
applicant. So they actually do get to respond.
Yeah. And and and Mr. Cowan is right. In fact, he sent me the
email saying that there was this some unknown group who was
interested in the in doing this. And was it okay for him
to send my contact information to them? I said, yes, fine.
Never heard anything. And this was February. Thank you sir.
Thank you again and my apologies about that mix up.
There are there is equal time to both sides, proponent and
opponent. So it's been about an hour and a half or two for the
opponents. Technically it could be the same for the others.
Hopefully you guys won't take that, but that's usually how it
works. All right. I don't have any other speakers. Applicant
would you care to respond? So a lot has been said tonight
and I know it's late or early. I appreciate your attention.
And what is a straightforward planning request. But obviously
a complicated emotional request when you take into account the
folks that live closest to this property in the Montclair and
Chapel Wood neighborhoods. And we understand their sentiments.
But they were just like, just like us. Ten, 20 years ago when
this property was held by the few family. For the last almost
a century, they've been here. Stewardship of the land.
Following the directives of the Planning department of City
councils before you and maintaining this land for
conservation, they've been doing exactly what these groups
are now turning and asking them to do. Except those
subdivisions were approved by council in 2012 with the same
density that we're asking to come before you today. They're
up here complaining about what we understand are valid
concerns about traffic and patterns that they experience
in their daily lives because their neighborhoods were
approved by this council at the same density that we're asking
to be approved here today. And so we understand those are
existing problems that exist because their neighborhoods
were allowed to go ahead, just like the 437 families that
we're trying to house to house. Durham's shortfall, where these
people are moving to Durham at an accelerated rate, and they
need to live somewhere. The folks that are here, before you
were given that chance, and we're asking you to give the
437 families that we'd be able to house here the same chance.
Now that density is able to come here one way or another,
but the only way that the Durham gets meaningful public
interest benefits, the $1 million towards the Down
Payment Assistance Fund, the money towards the schools, the
money towards the EMS. And I misspoke earlier. It's actually
$3.5 million of transportation improvements that the developer
would be bearing. You heard one of the neighbors mentioned the
$10 million of sewer infrastructure that would be
extended to this area. All of that is possible if these same
437 families get the same opportunities that everyone
before you here tonight received.
We will not do that. I'd like to briefly hit just
several of the points that were made. Lots of points were made
here tonight. I've just liked to follow up on the several
that I think are most salient. There was discussion of the
cost benefit analysis and how we weigh our environmental
areas depending on what the the annexation provides in the cost
benefit analysis. I'd like to turn your your attention to
attachments with G and H, which shows that the financial
analysis that your staff did shows the project will be
revenue positive for the city over a ten year period. So the
financials that we discussed about those improvements of all
the extensions that we provided by the developer, would also
end up having a positive net flow for for revenue for the
city based on property tax and other improvements and fees
that the development would produce going forward. At the
same time, no operational analysis and operational
analysis does not show any deficiencies in service. So
you're getting positive cash flow without detracting from
deficiencies. And we heard about some concerns there.
Second, there were policy cited as to the comprehensive plans.
Policy 7981 and 83 about not disturbing the North Carolina
Heritage Program. The heritage Program is a voluntary program,
and we understand the comprehensive plan adopted the
open space designation and alliance to a great extent with
the hardwoods that are protected under that voluntary
state program. But the reality is that the Comprehensive Plan
of the City of Durham cannot be used to penalize an existing
owner who has maintained the hardwoods on these years under
a voluntary program, and take that same that same
justification and say that this should be denied because it's
inconsistent. What we've done here is preserve the majority
of the hardwoods that we're able to be preserved. 60% of
that North Carolina Heritage Program Natural area is able to
be preserved in the filed conservation plan that is with
the city and will be binding once approved. Again, the
restrictive covenants for open space require any owner of the
land to follow that that open space, and so protecting the
North Carolina Heritage Program, which is voluntary and
not regulatory, is the only way that those hardwoods have
protection. The annexation is denied tonight, and that's the
will of the council. There is no protection for those
hardwoods. So we can talk about how much we want to preserve
them and how much we want to follow. The comprehensive plan.
But the reality is there are landowner rights that these
folks have had and held this hardwood forest intact,
providing 100% candidate fee for everything that you see on
site today. For the last hundred years they've done that
time, they've done that service for the public, and it's time
for them to be able to move forward and to move on and take
care of their own families. With respect to the two
historic buildings, there was concern that Preservation
Durham had not been consulted. I believe that we made that
clear and provided that letter with the support of
Preservation Durham. They are ready to take the maintenance
of those two structures and work with us. Those are shown
on the conservation subdivision plan that we filed with the
city. There was concern over a potential burial ground and not
enough investigation done on that. We sent materials over to
you in an email last week that showed that there was an
initial indication that there could be potential burial
grounds based on that periwinkle and headstones. We
had a consultant named Spangler go out there in 2023 and
investigate the very area that was suspected for potential
burial grounds, and found no evidence of cemeteries or
burial grounds in the area that was initially initially
inspected. So there was a suspicion of it. It was
inspected and no evidence was found with respect to the
comments, about 40% wetlands on our site. That is not true. If
you look at the conservation subdivision, there is no
indication that there's 40% of the sites being taken up by
wetlands. There's a tremendous amount of hardwoods on the
site, and again, those are being protected by our ability
to move forward with the annexation. And this
conservation subdivision. With respect to just speaking
briefly on the offer to to purchase, this case has been
before you for three years at any time, a legitimate offer
could have been made by a conservation group stepping
forward and expressing all of the passion that you've heard
tonight, that we want to save these hardwoods. We want to
protect this. The best thing we can do is protect this forest.
And the reality is there has not been any offer made to
these folks. And so they've done the best they can after
taking care of this land for nearly 90 years. And they're
moving forward with the best group that they could find that
would make a commitment to file a conservation plan. And that's
exactly what MI homes did. They filed the conservation plan,
saving as much of this hardwoods as possible and
making good on the promise to try to do the best they could
in a new form of stewardship of the land. With respect to the
Tia, I mentioned that the improvements that we would be
committing to would be 3.5 million. It's important that
that's not just to serve the development, of course, that
relates to our traffic. But as you've heard tonight from the
very folks that want you to turn down this annexation, the
problems they're experiencing exists today. There's a
citation of the level of service going to the level of
service F without Morgan Farm. What does that mean? You've got
an existing traffic problem, and either we pay for it or the
city pays for it. And the way the city pays for it is with
taxpayer dollars. And so what we're trying to do here is to
balance that growth and to balance the revenue shortfalls
that already exist here. Those capital improvements are not
funded for either the for those roads to be improved. And we're
trying to take that burden upon ourselves. Finally, there was a
discussion about the sewer. I think there was some concern
about an aerial sewer crossing that is not part of the plan.
The UEA does require sewer improvements to the tune of $10
million, as was stated earlier. And that's important because
the only reason this area is in the future growth area is
because the city contemplated that a sewer has to be extended
here, and it has to be extended either by a capital
improvements project or by private investment. We're here
before you to try to extend that sewer for the private
investment, to help people like Mrs. Quinn, who unfortunately
couldn't stay because of her health issues but has been
waiting on things that these people already get to exist.
They already have an ability to have that sewer connection that
Miss Quinn and her neighbors do not. And so we're asking you
tonight to look at the the positive outcome that could be
with the approval of this annexation tonight, not only
from a revenue perspective that's set forth in your in
your manager's report, but also from a conservation
perspective, and that we've done everything we can to
provide the binding commitments that that existed before you,
but taking them to the next level by tripling the amount of
open space, by providing the same amount of stock of housing
and doing it in the best way possible to protect the trees
that do not have a protection today and will leave the
landowners with no other choice but to follow the forestry plan
and to timber these these trees that have been growing for
quite some time. That's not a a threat of what could happen.
That's just the reality of what's been binding on the
site. That's the reality of the existing regulations. You have
the power tonight to choose. Yes, to protect that forest by
choosing no and denying the annexation. You will leave the
owners with very little decision but to leave the the
trees with the protection they have today, which is nothing.
And we don't think that's what the neighbors want. We don't
think that's what you want. We're happy to answer further
questions. I know it's been a long night and an early
morning, but we appreciate you giving this a lot of thought.
We certainly have. We know the neighbors have and we
appreciate your support. Thank you so much. I don't have
any further speakers. So therefore I will declare the
public hearing closed and back and forth. The Council.
Oh my. God.
Yeah I feel yeah. Council member. But I am really
appreciative of everyone been here tonight. Not casting any
shade. Y'all are welcome. Well, he be here as long as you need
us to be. So really appreciate the engagement this evening and
the thoughtful back and forth we've seen with the residents
and the and the applicant. So some questions for staff,
because I still feel like I'm seeking some clarity on
understanding what the potential paths forward are.
There's, you know, concerns around trust of like what is
actually committed to or not. So some of the initial
questions are, first of all, like is the conservation
subdivision guaranteed under the Utility Extension agreement
and the CS filing. It is not. They have the
applicant has submitted a conservation subdivision
application. So that application is in process. But
any applicant has the ability to withdraw an application at
any time. And is there a way forward
where that is agreed to and guaranteed? Is there any way to
get to that point of confidence?
So I mean, in theory, the applicant could put a, a pro a
commitment within the UEA that the UEA could only be extended
to a conservation subdivision. And if there was going to be
something other than a conservation subdivision on the
site, the UEA would need to come back before the council to
get approved. So that's not currently what is
in the. That is not currently in the
UEA. Okay. How is the conservation
subdivision filed without a piece of metal meeting? How
does that work in there? Would there would have been a
pre submittal meeting with the major with the land development
review staff in our department. Okay. So there was that
meeting. That should that should. Well
actually yeah I'm trying to think they do things a little
bit differently in land development review. I believe
they have the neighborhood meeting first and then the pre
submittal. Is that right. Yeah I think they do the the
neighborhood meeting first and then have the pre submittal. So
that pre submittal may not have taken place yet. It has taken
place. Okay. And then in terms of concerns
around the management of the land for environmental purposes
through a transitional zoning and the absence of enforcement
mechanisms. Is that the case that we're facing?
I'm sorry, rephrase that please.
So is there any way oversight and enforcement, you know, by
the city and development or in planning over the practices of
the build out of the conservation subdivision
through this translational zoning?
Well, there would need to be a there would be a requirement
for a site plan to be submitted, and that site plan
would need to be followed. And that would follow.
That would. be that would be the standard same way we would
do it with any other site plan. Okay. Next, just trying to
understand the potential paths forward. So is there a way for
this land to be developed as been described by right,
without the annexation? Yes.
And is that what single family homes with septic.
Single family homes without access to water and sewer so
well in septic. Okay. And so we have the
annexation or we have single family homes with, you know,
with septic or there's potential.
There could also they could do a community waste wastewater
system. They could do a community well system. There
are those are difficult and expensive. But those are
possible okay. And then there's the
possibility of the the trees just being clear cut.
Forestry management. Planning what we've.
Heard right in a conventional subdivision, there's no
requirement for. Is there an identified wildlife
corridor. So we do not there is not an
open space, an adopted open space plan in this part of the
county. So there's not a locally adopted and identified
wildlife corridor. Was not a been identified.
There may be something identified through other
mechanisms, but we as staff do not see an adopted wildlife
corridor in any of our local plans because we don't have one
for this area. I may have some additional
questions and thoughts. I'll pause there. I just want to
make sure we're understanding all the potential paths
forward. So we're being thoughtful. Understand this is
an area of high ecological sensitivity. There's concerns
around the traffic. You know those things matter. I also
want to make sure we're not what's the expression? You
know, cutting off our nose to spite our face based on what
the outcome could be, if that is ultimately a worse outcome
from an environmental standpoint and from a neighbor
preference standpoint. And I'm not fully confident that I
understand and convinced that that I, you know, I kind of
know what the outcome will be of a yes or a no, which
sometimes is easier to discern. So I'm going to pause there.
That's next. Yeah. Go ahead. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I'll jump
in. Yeah. Thanks, Council Member Kopac for the for the
comments and questions. I mean. Yeah, there are so many
questions here that I think folks have raised here. Also
the late breaking. I appreciate the late breaking to the
investment in roads as well as the conservation subdivision.
I've got questions for staff. Actually, I have one question
on that. I have a million, but let me ask this one. So I know
that I know there was a court case about like Mason farm
related to conservation subdivision. That was the case
against the county, not against the city. There were those
requirements for conservation subdivision. Have we have we
changed things based on the case, like what is how does
that case relate to what what we're here considering for the
city of Durham. So the.
Ordinance was. Changed subsequent to.
That case. Now the. The issue that was in question.
As to whether or not the purposes were requirements as
opposed to purposes, that has been clarified. The purposes
are just intent statements. They are not regulatory. And so
what what applies are the primary and secondary
conservation areas, the requirements for those that are
further down in that section. So that has been clarified.
That is not an issue. I'm sorry, I don't quite
understand. So so they so we've changed the language. So it's
no longer is it something that shall or may or something like
that. Correct. It just clarifies that
the purposes are not regulatory.
Or not. So that so there's these 14 like purposes that all
14th May be met or just one. Right.
Correct. Okay. Yeah. Following the lines
that Council Member Kopac was going down, I think there's
different options here. Right. We could if we don't. And then
I think the attorneys have been clear about this. If we don't
annex this property, there could be logging, there could
be development by right, the same amount of units that that
were have been proposed by the development team. So I think
we've got I think we're between a rock and a hard place here. I
think there's a lot of questions around what the Tia
would actually do that's have not been validated to me.
There's it's like 130 in the morning. We outlasted the
hurricanes game. They want to double overtime. We've been
here longer than the hurricanes. I know Mr. Kane is
a big fan of the canes. Sorry you missed the game. I like I'm
not a no on this, but it's hard to say yes given all his
questions. I feel like we need more time. It's like 130 in the
morning. There's so much here. I think this council has done
good work to really wrestle down some of these cases. I
feel like we can't do that right now. So for me, I think
we need some more time. I would send this back to the to
planning to answer some of these questions, because I
think there's I think there's potential here. I think there's
also like risks if we don't do anything that we've not fully
evaluated. So I would like more time on this. Thank you, Mr.
Mayor. Any other comments? Yeah. Go
ahead. Well, I'd like to I mean, if you can make a motion,
that's fine. But I do want to hear everyone's comments.
I mean, I can I can make that motion now or I can.
I was still open for discussion. Okay.
I. I'm not sure.
We're going to get any more clarity if we.
If we spend longer on this. I think that at some point in
time, we're going to have to realize that we have to grapple
with. some unknowns, and we're going to have to make a
decision. I want to say thank you. I heard many of you talk
about our patients, and I know that I'm very wiggly up here
because I have horrible sciatica pain, but all we are
doing is sitting up here. Y'all are the ones that have come
out, you've researched and you've stayed up. It is 130 in
the morning. I want to just appreciate public comment and
the ability for residents to come speak to us. It is
amazing. As someone said earlier, it is an incredible
opportunity. I think we heard earlier that there was a
statement made that the development wouldn't move
forward without the annexation. That to me feels like it is the
likely thing to happen. We heard that this is emotional
and I get that it is emotional, but I also don't want to
discredit the like dozens of speakers who came out with
intensive research, photos of infrastructure, timelines for
plans. I mean, we have so many questions about whether any of
these things could happen. The Army Corps of Engineers land,
and whether they're going to allow the sewer, whether we're
going to have to end up getting those costs passed down to us
because of the bridge renovation. Those are the two
things that are kind of standing out to me in terms of
economic impact. And then we've heard all about this
environmental impact as well. I just reread the letter, the TCC
letter, and see that the conversations have been
ongoing. This one is is easy to me. I think we've heard y'all
have been out here for hours and hours. There's been lots of
work put into it. I, I don't need any more information. I'm
ready. I'm prepared to make a decision tonight. I'm
understanding that there's risks to that decision, but I'm
willing to stand in and make that decision tonight.
I have. A question.
For the applicant. for either of the fuse, for the
landowners. I'm sorry, Mr. Wheeler.
Have you? You said you have not had any
conversations with any land conservation folks, that you
have not had any direct contact.
Not about this property? No. Okay.
What was the question? No contact with any
conservation group? Absolutely not. I can tell you
that. I have been looking after Kendrick Estates for 30 years.
My name is on the Secretary of State's office. As a registered
agent. I'm on the tax rolls and I've had no contact with
anybody who's shown any interest in buying this
property. Is parkland or anything similar. So to say
that that's a I think that was a disingenuous.
Comment. And.
Apparently. Sir, we don't we don't do that
here. We don't shout at us from the audience. I'm sorry.
And I'd be happy to share in private with you all the market
value of this site. It's a it's a very expensive piece of
property. We have 21 shareholders. Some of them are
minors. They're in five different states, and we don't
have the authority to give away any part or parcel of this
property. That's simply not in the cards. It's not available
to us. So can you say the last part
again? I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
After the 21 shareholders, can you say what you said again,
please? Randy, did you pick up on that?
I think yeah. Santos. It's it's, you know, family
businesses are hard, particularly multigenerational
ones. And yet to get all 21
shareholders to agree to a thing I got you.
Yeah. It's. Thank you. That's all. Thank
you I appreciate it. Yeah. All right. Good morning.
Afternoon. Evening night. So thank you all for, you know,
being with us or just expressing your concerns
regarding development. I know some folks say that, you know,
we'll be here as long as it takes, but some of us do have
different responsibilities. And there's a single income. You
have to go to work in the morning. So look forward to
that. Exhaustion. I'm not in favor of continuing this for
the fact that we've heard from residents concerns. And so I
think that I have sufficient information to make my decision
and be confident in that decision making at this point.
And I'm solidly at a no. As I have arrived at no. For other
developments along the same area of town in Durham. I
remember some of your faces from last time, so I won't
belabor the situation. I think that while I do appreciate some
of the efforts, I have not been convinced by what's been
proposed this evening to to change my vote to the
affirmative. Thank you all for for making it
this long. Thank you to staff and to folks who have come and
spoken and and to the applicant team as well. I do believe in
the, the the motivation of the the landowner. Randy, I
remember meeting with you back when I was on the Planning
Commission many years ago about this, this very property. So I
know it's been it's been in, you know, something that you've
been taking a look at for a long time. You know, there's a
lot of persuasive comments that I've heard on both sides. But
ultimately we are here to review this against the
comprehensive plan and do our very best to make the best
possible decision for what is a very large and consequential
site here at 1:39 a.m. and so you all have heard my position
earlier. This or yesterday. Earlier this evening, I am not
I'm not leaning towards supporting any any further
large scale. Lose my my train of thought here this evening.
Growth, outward growth at this kind of scale. It's something
that I've been deeply concerned about for a very long time. You
know, short of a very, very impressive master plan. I do to
the to the landscape architect. I do think the, the layout here
is, is, is is not bad. I also want to say I do want to point
out the the commitments here are spoken by the by the
applicant. Unprecedented. And I do I do think that they are
they are impressive. But ultimately we do need to weigh
the positives and the negatives and make the very best decision
here and mine currently is is a no Council Member Rist. I don't
know what kind of questions you would be seeking clarity on. I
currently lean toward just simply voting no, but of
course, you know, if if you know majority for council
members wanted needed more time to to ask questions or
whatever. You know, obviously you have you have the right to
do that. So that's that's where I'm at at this point. I think
that is the there are a lot of unknowns. And so at this point,
I am leaning toward a solid, no, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The applicant has made a lot of
ambitious commitments on this. I feel like this case has
changed substantially since Planning Commission, and
sometimes that allows me to be able to make a decision. But I
feel like there are still unanswered questions that more
time would benefit from. It would give us time to evaluate
how we can integrate some of the Oeb recommendations, think
about other adjustments to the utility extension agreement to
make sure that we would get the outcome that is being proposed,
and have it as a promise, and see what else can be baked into
that. UEA. May it be time to see if there's actually a legit
buyer. I spoke with the TCC about this. I think that
there's a desire to see that, but as I've heard, there's been
no real conversation. Perhaps this is then that time, right?
Rubber to the road to see if there is that opportunity. I
think the TCC, they communicated to me that they
are concerned about the potential for this site just
being logged. But from a value standpoint, it's hard for
anyone to advocate for something that feels like not
fully aligned with what you believe in and want to see in
your neighborhood, but with it being Earth Day and Earth
Month, I don't want to end up with a much worse environmental
outcome because there's enough consternation about the option
in front of us. And so if there is more time to explore that
and these other options, I think that that is worth it for
a really consequential case. And so with that, you know, I
would be interested in having the support of, you know, our,
our, you know, our volunteer advisors and planning
commission to see this completely different case. I've
spoken with half the planning commissioners. I think that,
you know, from what was holding many of them up, I think some
of that has been addressed. But I think that there is a lot
that else that is outstanding, that makes me unable to vote
for this, but makes me concerned enough about the
consequences of voting now. And so sometimes it's worth doing
continuances to try and get it right instead of rushing ahead.
And so I would be supportive of that motion to explore some of
these open questions. Colleagues, you know, I'm not
I, I'm I'm not doing my best thinking. And I think none of
us are. It's 144 in the morning. My suggestion is that
we figure out a continuance if the applicant is available. I
actually want to I do want to say this because I remember
when Mr. Few came to us, I was on the council when we made the
decision to not do urban growth boundary versus future growth
boundary. And part of it was because there's a pretty large
black family that had been on their land, quite frankly,
longer than anyone in this room. And they have been denied
sewer and water. And so they were part of the team, the
neighbors who said, please, please, please don't put us in
the urban. It wasn't just a fuse. There were other folks
who were like, please don't put us in the urban, you know,
outside the urban growth boundary. We are never going to
get sewer if you do that. And I know that that family is not
here this evening. I know they had to leave, and I'm part of
the reason I don't want to say anything. I don't want to. It
is very upsetting to me when I see older, affluent white
people deny housing to other folks. I will never forget
Mayor Shull and the amount of respect that I have for that
man, because early in my tenure on council, he was a huge
proponent of housing and he was a huge environmentalist. And no
one can ever challenge his credibility on either. And a
good friend of his, a man he'd been friends with for 40 years,
came in and was an opponent on a case. And I remember Mayor
Shull very matter of factly, in a kind way, just said, I don't
believe in pulling up the ladder behind me. And then he
said, and I hope I see you for lunch on Friday like we're
supposed to have lunch. And that was the end of that
conversation. And I remember, I think I'd been on council maybe
six months to a year, and I remember what an impact it made
on me. And that is how I've guided many of my decisions, is
thinking through who I have. I own a house. I think most of
the folks in this room own a house. I think most of the
people on this council own a house. I know a few folks are
still renters and and that is what I think about it is
environmental, but it is about housing. And so I don't want to
continue down this path. I think maybe buying us some more
time, getting some questions answered. There have been other
cases where you've done a continuance and it has resolved
itself in a more positive way. So that's where I'm at.
Colleagues. I thank you, colleagues. Is
there any other. Yeah. Go ahead. Council Member Cook.
Well, one of the main things that Council Member Kopac said
that he was interested in was getting the planning
commission's take on this new case. So if I think if we are
going to truly do the continuance, that adds to the
value to what folks have said, then we need to send it back to
planning Commission. A little hard.
To hear you. I don't. These mics are wild. I
can't hear y'all either. So okay, what I said is that one
of the things that you mentioned wanting to learn was
how what this new case would look like in front of the
Planning Commission. And so in order in my mind, in order to
make a continuance worthwhile, it would actually be to send
something back to the Planning Commission. And I see Aaron
Kane has already raised his finger at me, but that is that
is my. Yeah. Go ahead. Sure. So just something to be
aware of is that Planning Commission does not have a
purview to review annexations per se. All they have to review
is the zoning. And they do not review annexations. They do not
review utility extension agreements. So from a planning
commissioner's perspective, nothing has changed. This is
still a direct translation. Annexation to rural
residential, rural residential. Rural. Residential. Not
reviewing the UEA, not reviewing whether or not it
should be annexed. So just something to keep in mind if
you're going to send it back to Planning Commission. To them,
it's going to look just like the case they saw.
Oh, that's a good. Call.
Council member does that change your.
I guess then the continuance is just with us and we can choose
to engage Planning Commission, Environmental Affairs board,
others and helping to evaluate it more informally. But I guess
then the continuance would just be us.
Can I say one more thing? Oh, sorry, I, I just want to say
one more thing, which is that I appreciate that comment. And I
think it's important that we are looking at things with an
eye towards race and equity, and also I spend I have to be
also at work in seven hours to court to help people stay
housed, which is what I do with my daytime job all the time and
what I don't want for folks is to be housed in places where
it's not sustainable for them. And we're hearing this, these
comments about this horrific traffic, the terrible
infrastructure that's not a sustainable place to live. So,
I mean, we can build houses, we can just build houses
everywhere, I guess. But it's like we have to build houses
that are meaningful and actually can house people and
are places that we think that folks deserve to live. It's
it's not enough to just build four walls and a roof. It has
to be a place where we also would feel comfortable living
and, and put the standards as if it were our own family. So I
understand both sides of that, but I just want to I wanted to
to state that, which is I think we're all worried about housing.
And also we can think critically about growth. With
that concern in mind.. And just since we're going down
memory lane at two in the morning, I do recall a case
where it was around a light rail maintenance facility at
the fencing where we did, I think, go the transit authority
did condemn a black family's land, and they also condemned
it. And then they also offered a lease back to them. So if
we're going to just want to make sure that we're just
weighing all the sides of the coin. Now, if we talk about
like, you know, we're talking about the past, that we have
had some moments where we may not have made the best
decision. So I just want to gain clarity on from this point
forward, though. So are we just simply my colleagues asking us
to send this? I mean, continue this while you all conduct
yourself study to feel more confident in your answer or
just like and then ideally like what? What's the timeline for
that? I mean, I'm the one proposed
that, you know, to me like three months, 90 days to answer
some of these questions. Right? Is there a potential like as
Council Member Kopac said, rubber hits the road. Is there
a potential buyer for this? I think I think conserving this
land long term, some kind of folks who want to buy for
conservation purposes would be a great option, but I think we
have to be like, there's there's questions that have
there been conversations, whether or not that the owners
have saying there's not conversation. So I think giving
time for that conversation to like, you know, what part of
yeah, yeah. Let me ask you a question. Can
I councillor. So what is what is the value of the land? Do
you all know that. The my liberty.
To share. That the the lands under
contract for $40 million and we have not had a an offer from
any groups, not just a serious offer or were in discussions.
There hasn't been an offer for that land. So to continue it
for a discussion that frankly could have been had during the
last three years that this case is pending, I think, is if
there's groups that are out there that are waiting in the
wings, I question why they haven't approached the owners
directly on that. I think the other thing to note, and this
might have been my mistake, is that the Tia has been
submitted. It was submitted in connection with the
conservation subdivision. So that has been reviewed by both
the city staff and Ddot, and they've concurred with the
findings. So of course that goes through the the process
for the conservation subdivision. But it was
submitted. And that's how I'm able to say we're committing to
these things because we already have an email back from both
city staff and from Dot that that they agree with. What
we've shown is improvements. And then Council Member Kopac
to your question on the conservation subdivision, we're
willing to offer a proffer that that that be part of the UEA.
We had discussions with planning and the city
Attorney's office about what things would go in the in the
UK and what wouldn't. But that's how we arrived at doing
the open space covenants to not only say we're recording these
binding covenants on the land, to say that it will be
submitted as a conservation subdivision, but it will also
be reflecting the open space that's shown in that
conservation subdivision. That exhibit B I showed on the
screen was the actual open space exhibit from the
conservation subdivision. So we're already bound under the
the open space covenants that will become effective if this
land is annexed. But we're also willing to say that can be a
condition of the UEA that this would proceed as a conservation
subdivision if that would make the council comfortable in
taking action tonight. We don't have time under our contract to
to wait for three months, and I think the questions, they're
tough, but I do think that they've been answered and we
would like to proceed tonight and and hope that you can find
it more beneficial than not to approve this case and move
forward. Well, I have a question. What
what's different about this property than the other
properties adjacent before housing was on them? I don't
know if that's a staff question or like but before there was
development out here. What what what the land that was
developed on where there are communities and subdivisions on
now, how did that land differentiate from what's being
proposed here? Do we know that. I cannot speak to that, though
those the existing developments that are out there now very
much precede my time with the city? I can't really give you
an answer as to what the decision making process was.
Then, when those were approved. Yeah, I I'm just thinking about
the all of the. I mean, I, I still used to live over there,
you know, and and I'm looking at what is happening over
there. I and to be honest with you know, your colleagues I, I
do want to make a decision tonight if there is more
information that needs to be, you know, retrieved. I'm
amenable to that. But I think, you know, when I do look at the
complexities of this case, I think the positive outweigh the
negative on it. And and that's just me weighing the options
here. So I won't I won't belabor editor. And I don't you
know, I won't believe it I, I whatever you guys want to do
I'm amenable to it. I'm prepared to make a decision
tonight as well. Yeah. And I would want the
opportunity to review the UEA with the committed language to
understand whether it reflects the protections that have been
asked since. I think that still remains an open question. And
so, I don't know. That's harder for me. I mean, I can't do that
this evening. So I don't know if there's a shorter
continuance period than 90 days. It would be acceptable.
And for me, I don't think since the, you know, the court case,
I don't think we've done a conservation subdivision at the
city level. Right. So we've got so is the planning director
said this is no longer a regulatory language. It's sort
of like a suggested language. So it's not clear to me with
the concept, with the with the, with the proffer to do one.
What exactly that what are we actually what can we count on
as a city. So that's why I have questions about that. I'd love
to see answered. I try my best to answer.
Commissioner kopecks question or Council Member Kopac
question. I'm still getting still, still used to be you
being on planning commission. So if the council chooses, what
you could do is if you were to approve the annexation. And
City Attorney Raber. Yeah, I see you're looking okay. I
believe what you could do is you could, if you were to vote
to approve the annexation, you could delay the UEA. And that
could come back to you at a later time with that language.
And then that could be on consent. And then you could
approve the UEA at a, at a later time. That might be a
possibility to address a. Few leverages.
Question. Well, let me go here and then
go ahead. I just wanted to clarify for
the attorney in this case, and I'm also the applicant, I feel
as though you've stated that you do not desire to have a
continuance. Is that what's been stated, and that you want
may not want like you may not have the time. I just want to
make sure like we're that we're aligning like what you've
expressed and that we're not overlooking like what's been
articulated tonight. Yes. Thank you for asking. We
always do our best to make these decisions easy and not to
put you all in a difficult position. We've done our best
to do that tonight. If we had more time, I'd I'd be willing
to do it. But we don't. And so we we have had cases where we
make a commitment to the UEA to follow the conservation
subdivision, which does have that restriction of the 50%
open space in your Udo, that's required. That's not something
that would be a wishy washy intent. It's absolutely
required. And again, the covenants show where that open
space would be. So we can make that verbal commitment. We can
add that language and that can come back for the city
attorney's review. If you can act upon it tonight. And
subject to the the review of that language. But it would be
a commitment to filing the conservation subdivision and
that the UEA would be tied to a conservation subdivision going
forward. So we would have to proceed with the conservation
subdivision and only a conservation subdivision under
the under the rules, which do have a tremendous amount of
restrictions on how it's managed, who manages the open
space, how it's maintained, all sorts of restrictions about
what's to be included and what's not. And so I don't want
to make it. I don't want to make light of the court case,
but I don't want to pretend that there's nothing in your
Udo about the conservation subdivision, because there's 3
to 4 pages of requirements and regulations that we would have
to follow, and we're willing to make that verbal commitment to
work with the city attorney on the language of exactly how
that would look in the UEA, and be able to move forward tonight
to to give you that certainty. I mean, I appreciate that. I
think the struggle is 1:02 a.m. and also, you know, through,
you know, a couple of years I'm planning commission and time on
council. I haven't seen a case on conservation subdivision,
and I've never seen an attempt to do a translational zoning in
connection with the utilities extension agreement and
annexation. And so, you know, like I, I appreciate the
suggestions that like, these are things that can just be
made to work. But, you know, given what we're trying to
accomplish here with the complexity is just difficult
for me to have as much confidence signing up for that.
And so I'd feel more comfortable at the next council
meeting having this discussion. But if you don't want a
continuance and you don't want a continuance. So I understand
that. Yeah. Go ahead.
So, Mr. Cain, Mr.. Henry, so what you propose one one
possibility would be to approve the annexation, but to but to
leave the UEA to a like at some later point.
I think there are a couple of ways to address the concern.
Council Member Kopac brought up about wanting to see the
language. I mean, you have in the past approved zoning cases
where a proffer has been made with an understanding that
staff is going to work out the exact language later with the
applicant, we could go that direction with this additional
proffer that the applicant is made on the UEA, and staff is
perfectly comfortable doing that, and it would involve
staff from the city Attorney's office as well. We could do
that. The other option I had kind of just thrown out there
was you could vote on the annexation and if you approve
it, wait to bring the UEA back to you with that language on
consent. If you feel more comfortable wanting to see the
actual language that's laid out, I don't think it's going
to be that difficult. It's basically going to just say
this UEA is only is contingent upon it being a conservation
subdivision. Anything else that you, the UEA is invalid. Or
again, city attorney will come up with much better language
than that. But basically that will be the gist of that. I
believe. So staff will be fine either way. Just wanted to
throw those those options out there.
So do we need to we need to modify the motion. Then if we
want that right we need it. Yeah we would need to shape the
motion for that. If that's the preference of us.
I wanted the city attorney can help us with some of that. So
what would that what might that look like?
Any idea on the language. Motion?
I mean, you could do something like.
In a moment. Nice.
I mean, I think it depends on which of the two options to
city council. Yeah. Can we get clarification?
Is there a preference on the options here?
So option one again one would be that we would we would
approve the annexation with a some contingency there. The
other one would be that we actually come back and vote on
the. So let's say option one is that
you vote on the annexation. If the annexation is approved,
you're going to hold off on voting on the UEA, and we will
bring that to you at a later date. And that would likely be
on consent. Option. The option two, let's say, is you go ahead
and just vote on everything like normal with an
understanding that a proffer has been made by the applicant
to add one additional contingency to the. To the UEA.
And you're going to go ahead and vote on that with the
understanding that that contingency will be in there
with final language to be worked out between planning and
development staff, the city attorney staff and the
applicant. Like I said, we do that somewhat regularly on
zoning proffers. Go ahead.
So, Mr. Mayor, if I'm sorry. My apologies.
Council. Member I just wanted to say
that. The Aaron is right.
We do. Often take direction from you
all in these meetings and follow up and make sure that
things get in that were verbalized and committed to one
additional kind of safeguard for the UEA is even if you were
to approve the UEA tonight, as part of this consolidated item.
Those UAS. Afterwards have to be executed
by the city. So they go into our contract. Q I review them
and then the city manager sees them. So there is an extra
additional set of eyes to verify that what is supposed to
be in there is in there. I'm comfortable with that. Go
ahead. So just for clarifying
questions. So we move forward. Then we basically like we're
just going to we we done the public hearing. And so if you
work these things out in the back end the public would not
have any opportunity to provide feedback on it. It would just
be trusting the will of council to make sure their issues are
addressed. So are you asking.
If you have for clarification on the options presented
tonight? Yeah, well, I would prefer just to vote for it.
There's a motion as it currently exists because that
feels like I don't want to take away the opera. It feels like
we're doing some more negotiating, but in a silo that
doesn't necessarily represent like what the community members
want. So I'm just trying to figure out, like, if we're
moving forward in a way that kind of cuts out the voices of
some people in the neighborhood.
I didn't get that same interpretation. Let's get more
clarity on that. Could you repeat what you said it.
Sure. So the only thing that I have heard tonight in terms of
like an additional commitment that could be baked into the
UEA, is basically making the UEA contingent or valid only if
it is a conservation subdivision. So it would be
like adding one phrase or sentence to the UEA to make
sure that that it is only applicable to a conservation
subdivision. If someone were to try to do a different
development, it would be void and they would have to come
back and get another UEA. That's the only thing that I
have heard that is actionable, that we could put in in terms
of like an additional commitment. And so what I was
suggesting is that we can do that just like we do. Like
Aaron said, we do that all the time when there are additional
proffers. You all don't see the final development plan or the
final ordinance. We get it cleaned up. We work with the
clerk and it gets stamped and signed, and we all verify that
it has what it's supposed to. So we make a decision tonight
and everything else is just a formality of it becoming the
language that is contracted. So I don't I don't see another
need for community engagement after that, since we're giving
everyone what we're we're making the decision tonight.
Everything else is administrative after that.
That's what my interpretation is. Yeah.
Go ahead. I mean, so I think I hear councilmembers question, I
would prefer what Mr. Kane laid out as the first option that
actually the, the actual the the utility extension agreement
actually does come back to the council for later vote. That'd
be my preference. And that is the additional
language that would be added in. Correct?
I think I think that's right. It would just be.
To the adoption. Is that if I am I correct that
was option one, that there the the UEA you UEA does come back
to the council. It may be on consent but it would come back
to us on an agenda. Correct. So the, the additional
language that would be in there would be the same in either
path we choose. Because again, the only thing that I have
heard is adding a commitment that stipulates that the UEA is
only valid if it's for a conservation subdivision. So
the question I think before you is, do you do you want to see
that explicitly and you could just omit the second part of
the motion. Don't say the to enter, you know, authorize the
city manager to enter into a utility extension agreement.
Leave that off of your motion and you could go that route.
You include it. Then staff will do what we normally do with
development plans, and we will make sure.
That that will be back on the agenda at a later date.
In the in the first yes scenario.
I am okay with that. If you all are okay with that.
Not asking for that is that still? You? No, no no, you
would. Be the we'd be voting.
You would just. Oh okay. So that would.
Come back okay. The. Councilor. Do you have
clarification on what we are talking about of here?
I think I do. The option one is to take or one of the options.
I'm not sure I've lost track which one is which. One of the
options is to take action on both the annexation and the
UEA, with the verbal proffer that we do agree to, that we
would be only be able to move forward with the UEA if it's
developed as a conservation subdivision, and staff would
work that out based on how they typically do for development
plans. Or the second option would be making taking a step
forward on the annexation with the UEA to come back at a later
date. Our preference would be the first, but if it's we want
this project approved and if the only way to do that on this
is the second we can make that work, we just need to be able
to move forward. Council Member Cook.
I'm not sure how I understand that. That second option is
functionally different from a continuance, so I'm just
struggling a little bit if it's going to come back anyway. It
sounds like we're all coming back anyway. But that being
said, I just want to I just want to like go back to the
fact that this is only one issue of many, many issues that
have been brought and that we still don't know. And the big
one is that there is a huge chunk of Army Corps of
Engineers land that they are likely to not approve any
development on. That is going to be infrastructure
improvement. That's going to be sewer pipes. All of these
things that we are talking about tonight that make this
seem like it might be a nice project, could possibly not
happen at all. So to me, it's this whether it gets verbally
put in and we come back later or, or because verbally put in
tonight or we come back later for this amendment, it doesn't
actually impact the fact that this is a translational zoning
or large parcel of land with a lot of unknown factors that
frankly, like make even the possibility of the good things
just so far outweighed by what seems like it's going to be
just a catastrophic mess that we're going to have to pick up
later. So I guess it doesn't really matter to me which one
we go with. I'm still going to be a no. I think there's so
many unknowns here. I cannot imagine that we would vote yes
on this project, even if the conservation was written in.
That to me, was like sort of not the most important piece of
this. Thank you for your comments.
Yes. I'm just wondering, are there
other? First of all, I'm not sure I fully understand the
safeguard of it coming back to us. Maybe I need to hear it
again, but you know, I you know, anyways, it's been a long
night and a long week, so I'm doing my best here. I want, you
know, is there then an opportunity to have, like, you
know, other safeguards put within the UEA if that's the
direction we're going in. Otherwise I think there are
legitimate concerns that if this doesn't go forward, then
you get the same amount of traffic. I mean, you're shaking
your head, but like that legitimately could happen. Like
somebody could develop this like, you know, without going
through an annexation process where you have single family
homes without the preservation of the open space with the same
amount of traffic. Or you may be deciding, do you love
traffic or trees more, or do you, you know, do you love
trees more than you don't like traffic? Because those are
legitimate outcomes of this of this process. So.
Ladies and gentlemen, please, please.
Yeah. And this is, this isn't the venue for having.
Correct? Correct. It's not having time to discuss.
It is, but have been told by the applicant that that's not
possible. And so it makes it difficult to evaluate.
Are there any other comments? All right. I have to figure out
what the question is. Which of the two options.
All right. Council colleagues I need a little direction here.
The the direction is am I going to read this entire sentence or
am I going to read half of it? And what I is, are we going to
move to adopt an ordinance annexing Morgan Farms, period.
Or are we going to adopt an ordinance annexing Morgan Farm
into the city of Durham and to authorize. Well, I'm sorry, the
first option is annexing Morgan Farm into the city of Durham,
period. Or annexing Morgan Farm into the city of Durham and to
authorize the city manager to enter into a utility extension
agreement with the MI Homes of Raleigh, LLC. I need direction,
so I'm going to say option one is just annexing into the city,
and we bring the other part back later. Or option two read
the entire motion and we follow the same practice that we've
been doing with other cases where they make the proffer and
staff takes it on, adding it to the language at a later date.
So if I can get a option 1 or 2 from each person, Council
Member Kopac. I'm not clear on, I'm not sure
I'm clear on what the advantage of one versus.
The other. So so.
I'm saying I'm not clear. I'm not sure I'm clear on the
advantages of one versus the other.
So option one is yes, we annexed it into the city and it
stops there. Nothing else can happen until nothing. The
utility extension agreement cannot happen until the
language is inserted. The staff takes care of it, and then it
comes back to council at a later date and be placed on the
agenda to be approved. And the annexation just happens by
itself, or the annexation happens and the utility
extension happens, and we rely on staff. Indeed, the legal
team and the applicant and the owners to pretty much do what
we normally do with other cases. The developer makes a
case, makes a proffer, and staff said, all right, we've
heard it. We're going to add it in and we'll we'll move on from
there. So are we going to rely on staff to just add the
language in there and they move on, or are we going to annex it
and they bring this back for us to review it again on the
agenda later, which is the utility extension, which is
where the leverage points are, I guess.
And so can nothing happen if there's an annexation and
nothing else. Let me I'll let the attorney
address it. Okay. I have cleared that
clarify this with the planning director.
So if you want to. See the.
UEA at a later date and you want to see the language that
gets hammered out, making sure that we're dealing with the
conservation subdivision, what you would do tonight are the
things that you have had the public hearing for. So you
would vote on the annexation itself. You would vote to
assign the initial zoning. So it's in it's a translational
zoning and that would be it. And then the UEA would come
back as a contract. So you don't have to have a public
hearing to approve a contract. Okay. Does that make sense to
everybody? But if we grant the annexation
tonight, we cannot grant it. So it would just be granted. So if
the utility agreement comes back and we don't like it as
it's written. We're opening up for not great.
You would have a piece of property that's in the city
with city zoning, but not an agreement to extend the
utilities. Yes.
As a council. So so with that, with the annexation approved,
but no utility extension agreement, that's in practice.
Do you not an annex. You don't you don't have the full rights
of an annexation, right? If you don't have the utilities. So
it's so it's it's annexation in name only. Because you don't
have you don't have you don't have the, the the rights to the
utilities. I mean, the property would be
within the city's jurisdiction. But lacking.
But lacking the water and sewer infrastructure.
Yeah. Thank you. So nothing they can do
basically with it. They our leverage is the utilities. You
know, so that that's you know, and it's going to come back to
Council Member Burris point and we'll come back on the agenda.
No, it won't be a community meeting. But if it's on the
agenda, it can be pulled and people can address it that way.
So to me this kind of meets everyone's concerns. But so
what am I doing? Am I going to. So let me Council Member Kopac
I can start down here, give you some time?
Yeah. Council Member Rist option 1
or. 2, one, which is like the sort
of half. Of the annexation.
Just annexation. Yeah. Okay. How do that.
Council Member Cook. I think we put the whole thing
to a vote tonight. I'm sorry.
The whole thing to a vote tonight.
No. Before we get to that, I need to know.
One was. As I proceed, as normal. Oh, I thought that was
one of the options. Well, before I before I moved
to the entire motion, you know, let me do this. Option one is
just the annexation. Option two, annexation with the
extension agreement later. Option three is everything, as
is. Everything as is.
Okay. If we do everything.
As is. Is that not allowing the
proffer included. with the conservation or it is included?
I mean, the property has already been made, so it would
be so. Yeah.
Proceed like. We normally.
Would with the proffer. So everything as a. as it's all
right. That's option three. That would be okay.
Option three. And I'm open to option one.
Just annexation. Just I'll do three if we want. But I want to
vote for it. So either way. I mean if it's one I'd want to
have more included than we've already talked about, but it
seems that's a little bit difficult to do here. At 2:18
a.m.. So I guess I'll say, excuse me. Yeah. What's done? I
guess I'll do option three. Either. I don't, I don't, I
don't know, I don't, I. Four on three. Oh is it for three. You
said what did you say. Three. Three.
Just read the. Motion. Mr. mayor. The proffer
has been captured. Correct. The proffer is captured.
Of the conservation subdivision and tied to the utility
extension agreement that has been captured. Staff has that.
Okay. Thank you for nodding. Thank you. Just to clarify,
option three is with the commitment in the UEA to have
the conservation subdivision. Correct. Okay.
Thank you. Yeah. We'll just not extending further time. All
right. All right. So I would read it that read everything
is. So I'll entertain a motion at 2:20 a.m. to adopt an
ordinance annexing Morgan Farm into the city of Durham and to
authorize the city manager to enter into a utility extension
agreement with am I Homes of Raleigh, LLC. This is with the
proffers capture. Is there a motion?
So second. Move them properly. Seconded.
Madam clerk, please open the vote. I want you to give us.
All right. Please close the vote.
The motion fails 5 to 2 with Mayor Williams and Council
member wrist voting. Yes. All right. That's a all right.
Thank you all for your time. Thanks for coming out. We are
adjourned at 2:21 a.m..