[Music] Hey, good afternoon everybody. If we could come to order. All right. Uh, welcome. Uh, first we have the pledge of allegiance. Uh, can I ask Mayor Pro Tim Fort to lead us 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. Next, we had the consent agenda. And I do not believe anything was pulled. Is that correct? And if so, could we have a motion? Move for approval. Second. Okay. All in favor? Uh I I. All oppose? Nay. All right. So that passes which brings us to the report and recommendation of the planning commission and do we have Ben Walter? Yes. Yes ma'am. I'm joined today by chair of the commission Banny Miller and we have a robust report for you. A handful of August holidays identified in the future. We have three petition annexations already scheduled for public hearing on August 19th. And then uh coming out of the report today, we have two items requesting 45 days for additional planning commission discussion. And then a a good number of items suggested for August 19. This is at your discretion how you want to schedule the hearings, but we have brought these forward all with an August 19 uh suggestion. So I go through these in the order that they appear on the agenda. The first request is on Wicker Drive. It's under four acres going from industrial mixed use to a commercial mixed use with a 20s story height limit urban limited frontage and conditions. This is requested uh planning commission recommends approval here. So this is the east side of Atlantic Avenue uh between Capitol and Atlantic. Then uh text change to zoning conditions at 9308 Fairbanks Drive. This is a an item where the planning commission is requesting some additional time. The applicant has been working with their neighbors to verify property boundaries and that seems resolved now and so they're ready to file some revised paperwork to indicate that so planning commission can make a recommendation to you. Uh next up is C-5224. This is two parcels on the north side of Tryan Road. Uh blend of zoning requ blend of zoning existing and blend of zoning requested. Uh this is inconsistent with the future land use map but consistent with the comprehensive plan and the planning commission does recommend approval here. A very small parcel on Brag Street at Blunt Street requesting to go from R10 with the NCOD to a neighborhood mixeduse district with a three-story height limit and retaining that overlay district. Uh planning commission had a split vote here. The Raleigh Historic Development Commission also reviewed uh and they recommend approval. So, the concern from the commissioner here, the neighborhood mixeduse district does allow a variety of commercial districts and there was a commissioner who was uh not certain that that was adequate uh protection for the neighborhood. I will note that the commercial use operating here is a non-conformity. Uh this is a request on uh Z725 is a request on Forestville Road. This is 14 acres being requested to go from residential four to commercial mixeduse four with conditions. This is requested by a church that is wanting a larger sign to advertise their church. So they're move they're requesting to move to the commercial district. Again, planning commission recommends approval. And then a request on cross link road. This is under an acre going from residential 4 to residential 10. The planning commission is requesting an extension here so that the applicant could consider some conditions for their request converting from a general use to a conditional use case request and then two text changes. Uh one uh brought jointly with the office of sustainability about pedestrian passages and crosswalks. Uh the you authorized this in November of last year. Planning commission recommends approval. This was also reviewed by a number of other boards and commissions. And then a text change brought in coordination with the stormwater office to reflect state law and our storm water and our local storm water regulation. You authorized this in April of this year. Planning commission recommends approval. Questions I can answer for you before you set public hearing dates andor grant extensions of planning commission review. Questions for Miss Walter. Uh councelor Patton. Hi. Um, this might be either you or or maybe Blaine can speak to it. Um, the Forestville Road, a church signage. Um, there are a lot of other conditions in the case related to things that are not signage rel like related to like amount of retail and and residential. Um, I was curious if maybe during the questioning at planning commission it came up as to like why those are included and um, yeah. So the request to go from a residential district to a commercial mixeduse district is a significant increase in entitlement and so they are limiting the increase in entitlement. They do not want to um pursue a traffic study. They're not anticipate they their expression on the record at planning commission was that they do not intend to pursue redevelopment anytime soon but to manage the entitlement increase they have limitations. So those limitations put them under a traffic study threshold. Got it. Okay. at time of resoning. At time of resoning. Okay. Got it. Helpful. Thank you. Councor on the cross link zoning case. Did you say additional time is needed uh for the applicant to consider other conditions to consider adding conditions and transitioning from a general use to a conditional use request? Oh, I see. Oh, that's okay. Understood. No. Any other? Yes. Uh, councelor Harrison and then councelor Branch. Yeah, I just wanted to ask for um the Tryon Road reszoning case to be heard at our first meeting in September because I know there was a lot of resident interest in this one. So, just allowing it to be at a 7 p.m. public hearing. Um, and I have uh communicated with the attorney on the case, Toby Coleman, and he said that's okay. Second. Was that a motion? No, I I do have one more question. We also had councelor uh Branch. I'll wait. Wait, I will wait. So, my question is, as of right now, we don't have anything planned for September 2nd other than the recommendation we just heard. Um, planning commission, um, you're going to meet probably before our next meeting. will there on the 19th will we receive a list of um cases to schedule for the second? I'm I'm asking this to try to balance the what we currently have with what we're about to schedule. That's a great question. So, the planning commission will meet August 12th. So, before you meet again, their report to you would uh typically show up on your second September agenda. So, uh, not a prospect of public hearings on the September meetings. Okay. Okay. So, that's helpful if we want to balance some of these meetings out and place on the second unless y'all. Yes, because we'll be here anyway. 1 September. Thank you, Council Silver. Apologies to my colleague. Uh, back to Cross Link. U, this is out of your control, but I just want to make sure we communicate is shifting from general use to conditional use. And from my perspective, my colleagues may be different, but I'll clearly looking for conditions that are addressing an impact. And so as we look at conditions, I just want to be very crystal clear that as the conditions should, in my opinion, mitigate an impact, not be preemptive, be an insurance policy. And so I just want to make that clear as it's transitioning. I don't know the issues in this case, but if it's going from general to condition, that means that there is a concern of conditions that aren't being applied on this particular case. So, I just want to put it out there. So, it's no surprise as something comes back, it's negotiated. I don't support it and therefore I have to oppose the case. So, that's not for you, but that's for the applicant should they be listening particularly on that one or or any case that has conditional uses. All right. Do we have motions that folks would like to make? I wonder if um the body would be open. There's two text changes that are are not brought by particular reasonzoning applicants. Um and then council member Harrison's request to have Tryion Road heard on the second. If we moved those two text changes that don't have someone on the hook for like a land use person on the hook and then moved Triion Road, if all three of those moved to September 3rd, it would reduce our case load on August 19th. So that if if everyone's amenable to that you want. Yeah. So the motion would be to approve to set the hearings for August 19th as recommended except for the two text changes and Tryon Road which will be set for September 2nd in the evening. And grant the extensions. So moved. All right. Well done uh on sorting that all through. All in favor of the motion? I I. All oppose? May can I just take a minute to acknowledge my partner in crime, Chair Blaine Miller, who's stepping down as chair of the planning commission. She will continue on the commission, but she's been a Thank you. Then I must also grab the mic and thank Minam Walter for all she has done and all of her team um and everything that they have done. I also wanted to report that we have elected um new leaders. So Nicole Bennett will now be chair of the planning commission moving forward. Very pleased about that. And um so she will be giving my report in the future. And thank you all. It's been great to work together. Thank you so much. All right. Uh next that brings us to special items and it was uh resoning Z7022 which was held over and somebody presenting or Yeah, I'm sorry that's me. I apologize. Uh, so you heard this at reporter planning commission and held it so that the applicant could offer signatures on some revised conditions. Those changes are uh very much clerical in nature and do not impact the uh effect or uh regulatory concepts of the conditions. And so, uh, ready now for you to schedule public hearing. Okay. Yes. Just, uh, after our previous conversation, um, I'm wondering if we, the body would find it more palpable to put this on September because this is going to add again another case to the August 19th, which we just said we wanted to separate. So, I'm I'm totally in favor of keeping this on September 2nd. Uh, I think we have five cases now, including the street closures that are coming up on September 2nd. So, I just wanted to make sure that was okay with everyone. Okay. So, then I would move to um p hold this until August 19th to set the public hearing for this case. Oh, no. I'm sorry. We just set it for September. Could be to set the public hearing if that is your desire. Yeah. Day or evening? Uh day or September. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm confused because now we're going back and forth. So, let's just say let's set it for the evening on September 2nd. Okay, cool. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have a second? Is that councelor Patton? All right. All in favor of that motion? I I. All oppose? Nay. All right. So, that uh and next we have uh Miss Mlette to talk about council contingency dispersement. Good afternoon, mayor and council. I'm excited to be before you all today to talk about council contingency recommendations or as I like to say this is your opportunity to be Oprah. Right? You all asked me to come before you to talk about your rules around being Oprah. Just as a reminder as this is the beginning of the fiscal year and you all are starting off with a new bucket of dollars. Going to talk about the process, go over your balances and then you have two requests before you. So what are council contingency funds? Council contingency funds are discretionary funds budget annually in the city of Raleigh for $150,000 for council's use to be used during your budget deliberations or throughout the fiscal year. And it does require a council vote. What are the restrictions that we put in place last fiscal year? Can only be used for a public purpose within the city statutory authority. The agency's activities must be consistent with the city, state, and federal uh legal requirement. Excuse me. Not to be used um as a gift of public funds. Raleigh residents must benefit, not to be used for the requesting agency's personnel, and um they cannot be a recipient of current grant funds from the city of Raleigh. And then the agency must be registered with the Secretary of State. What does the process looks like? agencies contact you all directly at the direction of the council member. You work with your PA. They work with the agency to make sure they're registered as a vendor so they can receive payment. They must have a nonprofit status under state law. We must have their tax identification number and then we add the item to council agenda for the meeting. After you all have approved the request, the agency submits an invoice laying out making sure it aligns with the request that you all have submitted. They sign a requ they sign a contract and then we disperse the funds. So here's your new balance. What you have before you in the agenda today are two requests. The mayor's requesting council contingency funds in the amount of $1,000 for 80s for kids. Council member Silver is requesting $7,500 for the North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theater. I will now ask for you all to take a motion on that vote. Second. All right. All in favor of the motion, I I. All opposed. And that passes. Thank you for the educational refresh. You'll get a car. You get a car. Thank you. All right. Okay. Next, we've got the street closing STC5 2023 Woodside Drive. Amanda Jones. [Music] Good afternoon, madame mayor and council members. My name is Amanda Jones of transportation. So, we have two citizen initiated street closing petitions to go over. Um, so we do have an updated process and the two closures are non-conforming with our Woodside Drive and Willow Street and then we'll have the council action. Um, so updates to the current process were presented during the April and May transportation and transit committee due to multiple applications not conforming to the previous requirements and the committee recommended additional step with the process to um to get heard by council. So, city council adopted this recommendation in its June 3rd meeting. So, the area in yellow is what we're adding. So, um, we will now be taking this as a special item for these non-conforming petitions, um, and giving you a presentation so you can act upon them. And here the two are. We got Woodside Drive. Um, the area indicated in red is the closure area. It is to the uh, west of 300 Dartmouth Road and it is just um, on Dartmouth Road. So, that closure area is.124 acre. Uh Woodside Drive was dedicated on book of maps 1955 page 125 as part of the Frier Hill subdivision. The applicant proposes $128,000 compensation for the closure which is equal to the estimated increase of value to the applicant's property for the closure and staff were not able to determine that the closure of the rideway was in alignment with the 2030 comprehensive plan and the public interest. So that's why it's here today. And our next one is Willow Street. So it's um the complete rightway which is just to the south of Con Elementary and to the north of Edmond Street. So this closure is.16 acre. Willow Street was dedicated on book of maps 1920 page 232 as part of the subdivision of WL Johnson and EB Crow. The applicant was requesting permission to close Willow Street wide away right away uh without signature from the adjacent neighbor at 619 Edmond Street who objects to the closure. Staff obtained an appraisal which indicates the adjacent properties will increase in value by 163 um000 through the street closure. And to close the street, council must find that the closure does not deprive any individual owning property in the vicinity of reasonable beans of ingress and egress to their property. And the last part would be the council action. Um, so we have two options here today, which would be council can adopt the resolution of intent to close either or both streets and schedule the hearings for September 2nd, or staff can discontinue the process of either application. Thank you so much for the presentation. Do we have questions for staff? Yes, Council uh Silver, can you go back to the second one? Yes sir. So I'm assuming Willow Street there is no access to Khan ele school. Is it what is it today? It's just a paper street. What is existing there today? Just a paper street. Correct. Yeah, this isn't access to Khan Elementary. Um there there it hasn't been improved in that way. When you say access, pedestrian, vehicular, what what is the um right now it's neither gravel right now it's it's so there's three entrances. This one they have a uh if we have con here I'm going say the main one is southern side. You have a northern entrance that kids are walking through. This one's on the western side. It's wooded is dead in just not being used. That answered my question. Thank you. Yes, councelor Pat. Hi. On the Dartmouth Road one, another one. Um, can you speak to any desire that staff has to create a connection between Dartmouth and St. Albins's and is this a preferred location for a future connection? So, this would not be due to the geography of the parcel to sit south there. Um, so it's unlikely that that would ever be um improved to go to St. Holmans. Thank you. Um I didn't have a question. I was just prepared with a motion. Okay. I was just going to note that one of these cases, well, both were heard in the Transportation Transit Committee, Willow Street. There were folks who were there that were opposed. Um and we believe that advancing this to a public hearing would be the correct forum for folks to then sign up for and against. So ultimately, we'll make that decision at the public hearing. Um so I'm going to move both of them. Can I do them at the same time? City attorney, do I need to do them? So Brandon is nodding yes. So, I'm going to go with yes. Yeah. Um, so I move to um um adopt a resolution of intent uh to close both of the streets, Woodside Drive and Willow Street, and authorize a public hearing for both on September 2nd, 2025 in the afternoon. Second evening. Evening. In the evening. Second. All right. Thank you. And well said on the reasoning behind that. Any other questions? All right. All in favor of the motion? I I. All oppose? Nay. We will see you on the 2nd of September. Uh, all right. Next, we have uh uh Miss Mlette back, not to talk about Oprah, but to talk about crisis alternative response for empathy and support. Yes, you will not be giving away cars, but resources. So, it is still a win for the community, at least how I see it. So, good afternoon again. Um, I am here to talk about the Raleigh CARES program and CARES. Council member Silver stands for crisis alternative response for empathy and support. So, we're going to go quickly over the program, talk about operational updates. I'm excited to introduce you all to the program managers for each of those components and then we'll talk about next steps. So, if you recall, we did a lot of research, about a year and a half, as well as a really extensive community engagement with the community, and we landed on four components of our alternative response program. One being a care navigation program, which is housed out of our housing and neighborhoods group. We have mental health professionals and peer support specialists who do follow-up care in order to help people in the community that are at risk of losing housing in order to help reduce their exposure to mental health issues. We have a co-response team that we've actually had for almost 5 years out of the police department which is made up of mental health professionals and police officers. Then we have created a crisis called diversion line which you all authorized a contract last year which we entered an agreement with alliance. will provide an update about that today as well as our fourth and final component which is a community response team and I'll provide an update about that as well. I am joined today by several staff members. So I do want to take the opportunity to um invite them to move closer now so it'll be a little less awkward as we move through the slides. So I'm going to start off with our care navigation team. Again, as a reminder, care navigation is out of our housing and neighborhoods department, which is led by Emily Sutton, but we recently hired Max Dempsey, who is our care navigation manager, and they are going to come up and talk about the updates of the program since authorizing. Good afternoon, Mayor, Mayor Prom, City Manager, and Council members. I'm Max Dempsey, the care navigation manager for the care navigation team housed in the housing and neighborhoods department at the city. I'm here to give an update on the progress of care navigation and speak a bit about the heart of what we do and why. Um, homelessness is a housing affordability problem. We know rising costs of rent and cost of living directly affects how many people in our community experienced homelessness. The Housing and Neighborhoods Department is committed to finding solutions. One solution is the care navigation team. We source community partners and existing city of Raleigh infrastructure to combat homelessness and get our participants participants, excuse me, directly connected to other services at their request. Uh, effective solutions target root cause housing and support, housing costs and support and care navigation. This looks like intensive case management while at the same time honoring the autonomy of our participants. Care Navigation provides connection to housing resources and follow-up care for people in crisis who have a housing instability concern. We've been strengthening relationships with community partners because we know we are stronger as a community when we work together. Our community is healthier when everyone has access to housing. Care Navigation is committed to keeping or placing participants into homes that they can sustain. As we know, some folks we can the more folks we can keep in housing, the stronger our community becomes. So, updates. Uh, we're fully staffed. Our team has three members who share the workload. Our peer support specialist, Rebecca Neville, has already hit the ground running in the last month and is well on her way to housing more households. Our care coordinator starts on July 7th, so just next week. Um, coordinated trainings. We have coordinated trainings with Acorns for operations and referrals. A partnership between Care Navigation and Acorns has grown while the CARES program has grown. We have had an all staff all day workshop where we discussed our individual teams roles and figured out what the referral process will look like. Um we also did a soft launch in May and the full program will launch in in July once Gelata our technical vendor is live. So outcomes just briefly um so we've housed two individuals um and this is just since May uh a total of five households have increased access to services. Um we were able to find resources to get a medically vulnerable woman into temporary shelter during the heat wave. Her and her husband are actively participating with us in the search for a home for them and their animals. And I'll leave you with one short story that amplifies the joy of doing this work. One gentleman we are helping is a wonderful guitarist. He told me he hasn't played for years because he didn't have the opportunity while living outside. He's been homeless for 10 years. The first week he was in his new apartment, he played me a song he had composed while in his new space, and it sounded wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Max. Wanted to introduce you all to not just her, her team and their story and their wonderful work they have done. Again, as we've said that we know there's a direct connection between housing and mental stability. Can I just ask about the bringing neighbors home program and the folks housed through that? So, this is now a a different program starting. Yep. And how did the two coordinate or do they not coordinate? I'll let actually Emila come and answer that question for you. Hi, I'm Melissa Sutton, Housing and Neighborhoods. So, our uh unsheltered homelessness response pilot is working with um the care navigation team. So, when there's crossover or things that maybe someone needs to pay um attention to, you know, they will cross over. So, they work really closely together to just make sure that we're serving the folks um how they need to be served and that we're housing folks. Thank you. I think the biggest tie maybe where you were trying to go as well just to kind of supplement uh Emila's answer is this is a referral program. Most of the referrals will come from acorns as we know that the police as well as this unit is out all the time and they're exposed to different individuals that are in need of resources where we know that the way to funnel into the rest of our housing programs have a lot of different streams. So hopefully that makes sense. Okay, our next program update is our acorns unit and I am excited to have up here one of our wonderful professionals who's also the sergeant out of that program, Maline Hero. And I also have uh Chief Rico Boyce who will join us to talk about some police updates as that was also a request out of your um funds that you allocated this fiscal year for the police department. Good afternoon. It's wonderful to be here again. Um that's not the right button. All right. So, a lot of exciting things have happened for Acorns in this last quarter. We launched our Gelata system, our database that uh the ARPA fines have assisted us in purchasing and doing. It went live yesterday. Um and we are actively backfilling all of the referrals that we've received uh since our inception and inputting the new referrals as we go forward. So hopefully in the near future, we will have a lot of really good data updates for you guys. Um, and I'll have some slides to show with what the database is actually starting to look like. How many referrals have you had, just ballpark? Um, since we started, we've had about 1,600 referrals. Um, and those are unique referrals, not duplicates. Thank you. We are currently fully staffed with our social workers. That includes the social work supervisor. um they're all completely onboarded and we are really looking forward to being able to now expand into weekend and evening shifts and increase the scope of our services. Uh in addition to being able to answer more live calls directly from the dispatch center um now that we are have the staff to do that. Um we've continued our partnership with the VA um and the uh veteran affairs group through the governor's office. Last year from September to December, we made 30 unique veterans connections um and participated in 30 veterans specific outreach pop-ups. This is a screenshot from the training of the Gelata database where uh you can sort of see we can run reports to see how many referrals we've had, what kind of services they have, and again we're modeling this um and the reports that we'll be able to pull from like the Durham Hearts group. So the data that they're being able to put on their city's dashboard, we should be able to put similar data on to our city's dashboard. This is sort what the face encounter would look like. When we click on one of our referral individuals, we can identify what kind of encounter, what kind of services, how long it took us to um work with that person, and track where the referrals have gone, whether or not they've been picked up by a service provider, if we need to make a new referral. Uh, and this is another example of what that will look like as we track all of the individual contacts that we get running through. We continue to partner with Alliance Health for the crisis intervention training. Um, we host several classes every year. Um, and the Acorns, we teach a section in the CIT class on responding to unsheltered individuals in addition to the overall mental health training that the CIT class provides. We were just notified that one of our officers received um an award. So, I did want um the chief to be able to talk about that because as Maline was referencing our crisis intervention training, if you all recall your action that you took in November was to give us some more funding in order to continue the training across the police department as we knew that was a request from the community and we know sometimes that is a gap. We know the officers have a lot that they are faced with and one of the things that we've seen across the nation is when they do have this crisis intervention training, they're able to deescalate and we're able to move them towards resources and not necessarily enforcement all the time. So, I did want the chief to be able to talk about one of his officers who received some recognition for this training. Good afternoon, Mayor Council Rico Boyce, chief of police. Yes, with the CIT training, one thing that I am very proud of is once officers receive a training, no matter where they go inside the department far as a promotion, they still have that training uh that they can carry throughout their career. Here just recently, a couple of weeks ago, uh Detective Jeremy Pearson, who was initially on the Acorns unit, uh he got promoted as a detective and now he's on our family violence intervention unit, but he also still had this training. Well, he was recognized as the CIT officer of the year for Wake County. So, that is very huge that this is not just training that they can use for the moment. This is something that they can use throughout their career. And I'm very happy and very appreciative of Alliance and NAMI and recognizing him as the CIT officer of the year here in Wake County. So, he's not here today, but just want to give him a shout out for the work that uh that he's done. And like say he's a former acorns officer that like say now is a detective and he's still using his training. Repeat his name again just Jeremy Pearson. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry to put you on the spot, Chief, but I knew that was good news and they would want to know. All right. So, our third component, if you all recall, you authorized us to enter into a contract with Alliance in order to create a crisis call diversion line. So, I'm going to ask our Oh, he's right behind me to the left, so sorry. Um, our director from our emergency call center, Mr. Dominic Nutter. He is also joined by Jacob Butcher, who is our assistant director and who will be over the program. Good afternoon, mayor, uh, council members, city manager, Dominic Nutter, emergency communications director. Uh currently we have developed a uh training outline for the counselors once they come on board so we can prepare them to ensure that we can properly welcome them into the team to ensure uh we can uh have a smooth output to ensure we can integrate them to make sure everything works uh to ensure the transition is smooth because it's going to be new for them and new for us. Uh so we want to make sure everything works well. The one thing that we understand is that right now uh the vendor is still hiring people. So we did not uh begin on one July as we intended. So we're having a slight delay right now. So we are standing by right now. So we intend to kick off our uh crisis intervention training effective 1 August. So we're preparing that with our employees. So we are starting that on one August. We should be done by the middle of September with all our employees. Takes about a month and a half because with our number of employees, it should take about anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks to get everyone done. And we should be uh complete by then. And hopefully we'll have the counselors in uh inside of our organization and we should be ready to begin once we get them on board. Subject to your questions? Yeah, questions for Mr. Nutter. So just confirming I understood. So it sounds like in terms of when this will be operational like residents can call and and be connected midepptember is that what I'm hearing? We will be ready internally with our employees ready and trained. Uh from the time that the first counselor shows up, uh it should take them about with our internal training with them, it should take about two and a half weeks. Um and I believe once they we've get the full complement of them, it should be about three of them. I would think it should take about six weeks to get them up and ready. Okay. And we're just waiting for the uh alliance to complete training and we'll be ready to go. Okay. And it sounded like but you said you think that will happen the 1 of August. The 1st of August is when we should start training with our own people. We're going to do uh crisis intervention training with our own people. We're still waiting for the vendor to complete their hiring process. Okay. So, it's just a big question mark on when Alliance will be ready to embed. They're doing the hing process and uh we're not exactly sure when they're going to complete it and we're just waiting for them. Okay. Thank you. Councelor Branch, did you have a um Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Yes sir. Yes ma'am. Yes. So, there is a delay. Um, unfortunately our contractor is having challenges with hiring and so we are trying to allow them the space and the opportunity in order to get three licensed clinicians on board. They have revertised the role so we're hoping that will help them and so I don't get in trouble with the city attorney's office and employment pieces for our contractors. I'll leave it there. But we are excited um by their energy in order to readvertise as well as try to get the word out. And so it is on our web. We have had community meetings in order to talk to practitioners in order to try to help get the word out and as soon as they are hired we do plan to provide an update in order with a timeline so the community knows when we'll go live with the crisis call diversion line. So our fourth component which I know the community has been waiting to hear where we are and so we are still if you recall that waiting kind of time clock there we do have a proposed draft um for what this program would look like as we are working through the mechanics um with the Wake County partner as well as other licensed and different types of mental health providers. And so the components of this program is more than likely going to look like clinicians and peer support operating under a license. We are thinking that we will work with a 24-hour pilot group within Raleigh. Hopefully by partnering with our fire department, our care navigation, our acorns, as well as our CCD, we'll identify area that we feel we should start off first after getting some data in order to make sure we're starting a pilot that actually would use it. As I said before in previous presentations, one of our challenges that we looked into for the existing mobile crisis units is they aren't being utilized in the way that they should across Wake County as they actually already have a program. And part of the challenge is the response for counselors. So if you call someone now and you use the service that the county provides, you're waiting upwards of two and a half hours in order to get someone. So what we're trying to work through is a program where we would have people housed centrally within Raleigh in order to respond in a timely manner and we will provide an update when we get that uh agreement signed as well. So what are some of the other updates? You all authorized a position in the city manager's office. We have worked with HR as you all are aware. We've gone through a comp study. So, what we wanted to do in order to try to avoid some of those challenges with hiring is to wait until after the comp study in order to get a person in here at the proper um hiring salary as well as a job description. We've done some benchmarking and we think we have um the proper position in order to go live as soon as the comp study is fully implemented. This position will be over the program development. They'll work on the coordination and the partnership between all of the programs that we have across the city. and they'll do oversight as well as evaluation and they will be up here giving you all the updates when we have questions from the community as well as building those relationships with the community and keeping up with our community partner meetings. We did recently have two community partner meetings where we provided some opera operational updates. We were joined by local service providers and community groups that are excited to get the word out when we go live with the CCD as well as the mobile crisis unit. but they are ecstatic over the work that we've done thus far with Acorns as well as the work out of our care navigation program. So, what are some of the next steps? Obviously, continuing to implement our care navigation program once we are able to get the staff from our contractor on and we will implement our crisis call diversion line. The Gelatoa dashboard we know was a community ask. We'll continue to push that out later this month and we'll use that client software in order to connect our care navigation and do direct referrals um from from Acorns. We'll continue to design the mobile crisis pilot with Wake County. We'll also continue to build partnership and seek that feedback from those service providers and those individuals with lived experiences. And we'll continue our planning group meetings in order for program development and coordination and evaluation. I'm joined by all of the staff here today, but I want to say it didn't happen by just these individuals in the seats. It's also with community engagement, the city attorney's office, the Raleigh Fire Department, as well as everyone in the city manager's office. So, I did just want to take that opportunity to thank everybody even though they might not have come to the podium. Couldn't have done it without them. We are available for questions. Thank you so much for all the work and the update. Uh, councelor Silver. Yes. Thank you, Michelle. I had a question about the mobile crisis unit. You had mentioned mental and behavioral health. I don't know if you differentiate that between mental illness and if uh the unit goes out, mental illness is something I think that could escalate to something worse. Yes. So just want to be able to understand when is the unit uh the multiple crisis unit handle it and then when are is the police brought in because it seems like a situation that could that could escalate. Yes. So part of that CIT training that Dominic Nutter referenced is getting that across to our call center and so they're able to identify things like when there's safety involved and what we're trying to work through um with our legal partners from both entities is what does that look like in order to reduce risk. So what will be the words that have to be used? So for example with the CCD contract and that work that we went through has to be selfidentified. So unfortunately you can't call someone in and then be transferred to the CCD line. you have to be selfidentified and make sure that there are not any safety issues around that you post yourself or people or others involved. And so we'll use that same program development when we do the mobile crisis because if there is a safety issue then yes we will have to have uh the police department involved. Other questions. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you. All right. Next we have the Six Forks Road Improvement Project update with Kenneth Richie. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Kenneth Richie with Transportation. It's a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon. Uh I'm here with our partners from engineering services to provide a followup to the major projects update that we provided back in March where we highlighted some continued challenges with the delivery of the Six Forks Road project. I'm going to run through a quick recap of the original scope, some of the project development timeline, and then we'll kind of get into to considerations for next steps. So, as identified in the adopted 2018 corridor plan, uh the original scope envisioned a six-lane median divided section through the corridor, which is from Rowan Street to Lind Road with separated bike and pedestrian facilities really to kind of enhance that multimmoal safety and really kind of create an image for the Midtown area. When we look at the project development timeline, the the corridor study kicked off in 2012 uh and was adopted in 2018 by council. Tremendous amount of work with design and engagement occurred 2020 2021 into 2022. Uh it was in 2022 that we really started to identify that there were some some market challenges that were starting to fall across this project. Uh as exemplified by an addition of $14.8 $8 million through the capital program in FY23 to try and offset some of the gaps we were identifying. Uh as those gaps continue to grow, we did look at an opportunity and were awarded $14 million in federal funding in 2023 uh to try and continue to move the project forward. As we reported in 2024, the original project scope had escalated to $119 million. So about three times the four times the original budget for this project. And at that time council did direct a rescoping of the project. So as we look at the current budget status uh with those funding with the original funding of 30.3 million which was a combination of funds from the 2013 and 2017 bonds plus the the additional funds that we talked about on the last slide. The total budget for this project is about 60.1 million. I will caveat that federal funding with that funding is predicated on roadway improvements that improve travel time. So if we move forward with any considerations that don't have improvements to the roadway, that money would have to be returned to the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization as the project would not be eligible for those funds any longer. So the current scope as was directed in the spring of 2024, uh I guess two major changes there. One, the original uh termination point was Lynn Road. It pulled it back about 7/10en of a mile to Milbrook Road. The other big change that we had was with the streetscape section before it was proposed to be separated bike and ped facilities. We did uh move forward with an 8ft multi-use path estimated at that point about 56.1 million. Uh certainly as we highlighted uh in March, uh market forces have continued to challenge this project and consistent with what we've seen on other projects in the area. We discussed some of those challenges that befell the US1 Capital Boulevard project that cost estimate for the current scope has escalated to about 93.5 million. So about a 67% increase, which is consistent with what we're seeing with the market. What as we have gone back since that march and looked at really what this has identified is there really is no feasible way for us to deliver on the original vision and really the original intent of the Six Forks Road corridor and certainly this project. As we look at at some at considerations uh expenditures to date on this project total about 9.3 million. uh 4.3 million of that is work that's been done on real estate acquisition as we had been discussing in late 2023 early 2024. There were some total takes that uh people had concerns about because it continued to drag out. Most of those have now been closed out. Uh so those people have gotten clarity but what we've continued to identify is challenges with funding. So with the available funding what staff's recommendation would be and there's really two here. One would be to look at moving away from it as a corridor improvement project and looking at this as really kind of a spot safety and an infrastructure enhancement uh effort. We would look we would recommend closing there's about a 500t sidewalk gap along the frontage of Carol Middle School. What that would provide is continuous sidewalk connectivity along both east and west sides of Six Forks Road really from the belt line up to at least Lynn Road. With that, we would also look at uh improvements to the Milbrook intersection to make those crossings more safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Look at the proposed signal at North Glenn. And look at the proposed uh signalized pedestrian crossing between Northbrook and Northwood um which y'all have seen throughout the community. Those are the the high activated crosswalks or the hawks that we've seen. really trying to enhance that connectivity across the corridor because today really your two natural points are you cross at Rowan or you cross at Milbrook. So about a mile in between opportunities to cross the street. The other option that that estimates at about 7 million. So the total expenditure against the budget would be about between 16 and 17 million with that option. Or certainly we could cancel the project in total and our only expenditures on that would be the 9.3 million that we've already realized uh through the efforts that have on gone on with these two options. This does provide u some available funding and looking at some considerations for that funding. Um as you recall with two recent projects that we brought before you for bid awards we had to scale those scopes back to bring them within budget. This could allow an opportunity to to complete those two projects in full. So the Barbell Road South project, that project was cut back by about 7/10en of a mile. This would allow us to complete that to Berkeley Lake um in keeping with what was committed to in the 2017 bond. Uh the potential to deliver the rest of the Lake Wheeler Road project, as you recall, we we stopped that at the rail. That would allow us to get it to Maywood, install the signal at that intersection to really enhance that corridor. Uh we are estimating a funding gap on the Old Wick Forest Road, Dixie Forest Road project of about $18 million. Um I will caveat that with that is a federally funded project. So once we realize uh the bid amount, we could potentially go back to the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization for some consideration for some additional federal funding to help offset some of that gap. And another consideration would be um an effort that is certainly of interest in the Midtown area would be the the multimmoal bridge. Um we could look at some of this funding to move that design forward. Uh given the scope of that, the size, knowing that we're crossing a major highway, it is going to likely require federal funding. So being able to move the design forward would position us to put forward a competitive bid for a federal application in the in the future. So requested action today would be to direct staff on how to proceed with potential improvements to Six Forks Road and for any residual funding, provide feedback on priority considerations for staff to assess. And I will just as a reminder, anything that moves forward with Six Forks that doesn't include the road widening, we will have to return that federal funding to the capital area NO. And I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you, Mr. Richie. Uh first we have councelor Lambert Melton. Um thanks for purpose of of providing direction. One I'm really glad to hear that some of the funds has gone towards the acquiring those properties that were going to be whole taking. I think the biggest takeaway I received from the last time we had to go through this process was there were folks that were just in limbo and that's just not what we want people to do to the position want people to be in. So I'm glad that's taken care of. Um obviously I won't you know beat a dead horse. This is very disappointing um to have this in front of us again. But dealing in the reality of the situation, I would like for us to do the sidewalk app on Carol uh in front of Carol Middle School. I'd also like us to do these signalized pedestrian crossings at Northbrook and Northwood, the new signal at North Glenn, and intersection improvements at Milbrook. I think that at least addresses the safety and connectivity concerns in the corridor. on the other possible funding considerations. I think if we can keep some of this money in the area, then that makes a lot of sense since it was supposed to be going here. And so designing the Midtown multimmoal bridge, I think it would be great. Get that shovel ready for federal funding. And then I would like to see the entirety of the Lake Wheeler Road project completed to its full scope as well as Barwell Road. And then if there's anything left over from that, it could go towards the Old Wake Forest Road. Uh my priorities would be plugging these gaps and safety concerns on the corridor, the multimmoal bridge, and then the two roadway projects that we are planning to start construction on or are already constructing. Okay. Uh councelor Silver, uh I concur with everything my colleague just stated. uh being new elected to the district. This was a quarter project of extreme interest, but we could now see the escalation in cost which makes it just impractical or impossible to do. Uh just want to add a question. Um in a previous meeting, is Six Forks a state facility or a city facility? So, Six Forks is a state facility. It is because I had talked about the potential of painted crosswalks and is it scheduled to be paved anytime in the near future? So, I know NC DOT has the section north of Milbrook on their repaving list. We will have to coordinate with them on what that would look like with potential change in direction on this project. Okay. From the standpoint of that southern section since this state facility, cuz I'd expressed some concerns about crosswalks, but I'm pleased that there'll be safety improvements along the corridor we're talking about. The only thing that I would add is that I would strongly urge uh you know, city manager to work on a public engagement process that involves capital projects. There's no question this is a city that values public engagement. When capital projects are involved, the plan was in 2018, 2021, 20 2020 and 2020 was engagement. You know, 2022 acquisition started. uh when it comes to capital projects, we understand planning which is policy, but anything tied to funds, I think we really have to sit back and figure out talking to community about the expectations of how long engagement is because as things go on, this went from the 50 million range to the 90 million range. And so I'm not saying that was all engagement, but we have to be quicker from the time we have those capital funds committed to the to the actual construction. If we could narrow that down, my hope is that we can keep the estimate more in realistic terms than it doubling almost doubling in size. So that's something I strongly suggest. We'd have to explain that to the public. They may have one or two opportunities to weigh in versus a year-long engagement because that year can cost $10 million. and we have to kind of weigh how do we get this important facility done but also listening to the public. So that's something I'll put out there not just for road projects for all capital projects. I just would hope that we don't get put in this position because we have bad news to deliver for people who are expecting a very important project. Councelor Patton. Yeah. And um kind of building on that, I want to make sure we don't land the full uh weight of any of the delays and and cost escalations on the residents here. I do think when we last heard the major project and bond update, there was a big takeaway that all for all of us, lesson learned, we're going to make sure that in any future bonds, we're closer to being shovel ready before we put the package forward. But I do wonder, and Mr. Richie, I don't know if you can answer this, or maybe I think Council Member Branch was has been here since the inception. I do think some of the responsibility delays at the feet of the folks who sit in these seats. Could were there any um like significant delays based on deliberations of previous councils? Did this spend time in committee or or anything like that? So I wasn't here in the initial conception because I wasn't on council in 2012. Um but I did come on around 2015. Um I do know there were some delays in trying to get continued feedback and continue information um between 2012 and 2018 and I think if you just look at that six-year gap our country changed a lot in that six-year gap. So I think that caused and then that led to more delays when we came back and said hey this is what we're looking at and we asked well we need more feedback and we need more feedback. I I agree in feedback, but we have to also put some type of time limits on it um and things and I think part of it came there was some disagreement within the community on what they wanted to see as well. So um unfortunately the math is the math and and we just don't have the dollars and values have gone up and I definitely know support the recommendation by councelor um Lambert Milton and Councilman Silver. Yeah, for sure. I just want to make sure like sometimes our own indecision and our own deliberative process I think can sometimes be the sticking point as well and we've had a lot of turnover in who has represented this part of the community as well over the time frame. That's fair. Um I do have a handful of other questions. Um with the money that like with the consideration if we if we um just do the spot improvements and then kind of reinvision the use of the other funds, some of the projects were tabled, some of the projects from the bond were tabled. Is this enough money to reinvigorate say Marsh Creek, the Marsh Creek project? So we do not estimate that this is going to be enough money to deliver fully Marsh Creek. We estimated about $34 million to complete that project and that likely would deplete all of these funds. Got it. Okay. And then out of the three um three road projects that are you're sort of envisioning reallocation, you know, basically we gave the public a a package of projects. A bunch of them have taken a haircut. Does this restore those three projects to the full presentation to the community? Yes. Based off our estimation, it would allow us to complete that commitment on Barwell, complete the commitment on Lake Wheeler, which was not a bond project, but certainly has has some funding therein and based off would allow us to build Old Lake Forest U in total, not not withstanding any major challenges we may get once we actually see the bids on that. Got it. And then um one last one, the and I think maybe you spoke to this, but I might just need to ask you again. So the um the Campo money, the 14 million that can only be used to improve travel times. Do any of these other projects improve travel times such that we could like do a swap sees? So what I think the answer is we'd have to go back and they would have to recompete through the process and the next time next opportunity we get will be with the federal fiscal year 27 cycle that opens in October and that money wouldn't be available for a whole another year. So um I think the short answer would be no just immediately. Okay, got it. Um, well, with with all that in mind, I do think rather than just like continuing to haircut all the projects and get all of the projects farther away from what we promised the p public, taking this one and reallocating those funds to get, you know, three of the projects back to the way they were originally scoped and, you know, investments in the multimmoal bridge, you know, continued investment in the area. Um, and then these spot safety improvements that we can actually get done, I think is the best path forward. Mayor Prom Fort. Yeah. Guess I have a little bit of a different You're smiling. A little bit of a different question. Um, are there any other potential trees to shake in terms of finding other money like through the state or any other potential um um opportunities for funding? We have looked we have tried to turn over every stone we could to try and find opportunities for additional funding and it's just not there. Certainly not within a a reasonable timeline where we don't continue to see the project escalate beyond our control. Councelor Silver, just have one clarification, two clarifications. Uh, council member uh Lambert Melton, I have a question because my hope was that majority of the money, as you were stating, would stay within the district since there's going to be a lot of bad news to be shared. So, were you you suggesting in what I believe was going to be a motion uh to shift it to the improvements along the Carol School, the other intersection improvements and then Lake Wheeler because I don't know how much would be left to do all those projects cuz my hope is that and the bridge that it would stay within the district and I understand there were needs across the city but there's some difficult news I have to share and so I just wanted clarification on your motion before I go to my next question. Yeah, I mean I think they're just looking for direction. I can make it a motion, but my thought was we need to do as many projects along the corridor in the district first. And so I would like to do close the sidewalk gap so we have continuous pedestrian access. Um the footnote on that slide says alternatives could include I want to do all those signalized pedestrian crossing at Northbrook and Northwood, new signal at North Glenn, intersection improvements at Milbrook. Then the next slide where it's like other remaining fund options. I would go first to the multimmoal bridge, get that designed. Then I would shift to the projects that are already under construction, Lake Wheeler, Barwell, get those fully done. Then whatever's left, you can put it towards Old Wake Forest Road. But in my opinion, that Old Wake Forest Road gap should be the last priority. Okay? It should go everywhere in district A first on the corridor, the two projects under construction, then the last one would be the All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you for that clarification. And the other one in terms of the the process so I'm clear it's not just a public engagement it should be the process internally for both staff and for the public so we can look at any capital projects as a planning design procurement construction I think on a front end the planning and the design uh should be carefully crafted where public engagement is so across the board for both staff and the public there's a tighter time frame uh particularly when there's funding available so that we can ensure that those funds that we committed, you will not see that escalation, but now puts it out of the realm of getting constructed. So my comment is across the board for both staff internally and the public just have those expectations up front so people understand we're going to move very quickly to make sure this gets done. noted. Um, so I was going to comment um on this. You know, I know this is incredibly frustrating and for everyone and uh I guess I would also want to highlight we've talked a lot about process and it is extremely frustrating to hear a six years for a corridor study, years of design. I mean just you know what are the ways we can do these things more efficiently. Um but I will also just highlight um you know I was land acquisition everybody's real estate has gone up dramatically and I think now you know Michael Moore our assistant city manager said this is the first project in his 40-year career where he has seen the land cost two and a half times the road. So to me this this just begs that the whole paradigm of how we build roads you know in a city like Raleigh now that we have such you know high valuations and I'm not suggesting that you answer this right now but sort of what are the broader thinking as we go through the comprehensive plan as we think about transportation it may be impossible for us to move curbs in the future and I know there's also general assembly bills that are saying that the city should have to pay for any moving of you know uh Duke Energy or Google Fiber and all that then would fall back on the city which again would just make it impossible for us to ever widen a road. So as we think about the policy context, the level of land value, just what are the shifts and thinking that we need to take as a city uh on transportation and that would be my biggest takeaway from this unfortunate situation. Um, all right. Any other comments? Um, we do we have a motion? Well, the only I don't have a motion, but the only other thing I would say is that it's not just in this realm. I mean, we see this with parks. I mean, we see this with housing. We see this everywhere. And certainly after the pandemic, I think things like cost escalations just really spiked beyond really anyone's imagination. So, I mean, I don't want you to feel like we're beating you up and we don't recognize that a lot of this is just well beyond, you know, your control, the department's control, everybody's control. So, yeah. Yes. I just have a quick clarifying question. When we do the sidewalks, uh, if that's the path we decide to take, how wide will they be? There's they're there's narrow now. Will we be widening those sidewalks? We'll have to go confirm. Uh typically our standard for just sidewalk extension would be six feet. Um part of what along that frontage of Carol that we've got to be mindful of is they've got some Champion oak trees along that frontage that we want to try and mitigate impacting. So that may play into to the width, but certainly I think we'd be looking no less than five or six feet. Thank you. Do we have a motion? They need a motion. I I mean I Yeah, we really can't allow you to speak right now because we don't have a comment. Um so move to what I said earlier. Do I need to repeat all? Do you have it? You have a cast staff recommendation. Okay. I I will move that we approve the staff recommendation to fund the alternatives on slide six. All of them including the asterk. and then to proceed with the remaining funds be allocated towards the considerations on slide seven starting first with the multimmoal bridge then leg wheeler and barwell road and the fourth priority would be the old wake forest road Dixie road project second all right any other discussion if not all in favor of the motion I I oppose nay and thank you thank you all All right. Next, we have an update on citizen advisory councils uh from Nikki Jones, assistant city manager. Can I take just a moment? Um I just want to introduce and um give a few comments before we get started. Excuse me. I want to begin by thanking our CAC chair and team who've been meeting with me and city staff over the past few months. Our conversations have been constructive and I'm genuinely excited to share the progress staff is bringing forward based on those discussions. I also want to acknowledge the confusion and frustration surrounding today's meeting. I asked for this update to be included in our last council meeting for the sake of transparency. My goal was for the public to see the work that's been happening behind the scenes. Unfortunately, I came down with COVID on June 19th and that knocked me out for a while. And during that time, I missed a message from the chair asking for clarification about why this update was moving forward without direct CAC participation. Once I understood the concern, I completely got the frustration. That's why I asked our CAC chair, Robert Rice, to join us today and share the CAC perspective. That inclusion should have been part of the plan from the beginning, and I appreciate everyone's patience. This also opened the door to a new idea that the RCAC chair have regular check-ins with me and the mayor every six months. I think that's a great way to strengthen collaboration and I've already reached out to the mayor and to hopefully get this on the books. Had I not gotten sick, I believe we could have cleared this up confusion before the agenda went out, but sometimes life has other plans. This process was never going to be easy or perfect, but I'm proud of how we've stayed committed to solving problems as they arise. Let me be clear. I'm deeply committed to uplifting the voices of residents across the city and to honoring the CAC network I was proud to help lead for three years. We're building something new together and while there will be bumps in the road, I will always show up to address concerns and keep us moving forward. The silver lining in all of this is that we've strengthened our communication and reaffirmed the importance of both the liaison role and and the RCAC chair's leadership. I truly appreciate all of the feedback and I hope that we can take a moment to celebrate the hard work that both staff and our CAC's have put in over the past few months. So, thank you so much u for all of your work as well, Nikki. And um I just wanted to make sure we level set before we got started to get on the right foot. So, thank you so much. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council. Nikki Jones, city manager's office. Uh today, I'll be providing an update on Citizen Advisory Councils. uh specifically the progress we have made uh related to the February 6, 2024 motion uh and that motion and all of it asked us to provide support to CAC's in very specific ways. Briefly, this is a timeline. This represents about a year period uh prior to the motion. And what I'll add is after that year, uh, deputy city manager Tanya Hayward and myself have worked with Council Member Jones, RCAC Chair, and others to kind of focus in on the assignment as we understood it uh, related to the motion. So the motion was made up of three key elements and the first is here verbatim and generally it says free monthly meeting space as I as we understood it speak a little closer to the mic certainly sorry so free monthly meeting space is that better the second element allow access to city-owned technology and this one was really specific to Zoom. We did a great job evaluating all virtual technology. Uh but we did land on Zoom and provide a succession plan and really we understood that to be build future civic leaders. [Music] So just some context, uh there are 20 community centers that CAC's have free access to and since March of 23 there have been 73 meetings held at city facilities and what you see below that are some of the CACs that have taken advantage of those meetings and those facilities. So we conducted a technology assessment to help us understand where we were. And when we conducted that technology assessment, we recognized that some of our facilities did need upgrades related to hybrid meetings and having a proper hybrid meeting as we understood some of the CAC's would would like. Uh so in that uh a media kit idea was created for those facilities that did not have proper technology. Uh in addition to that uh those media kits are, you know, a laptop, an owl, power cables, basically something that someone could rent from the community engagement department and take to a meeting. And the other part of the technology issue was audiovisisual uh capabilities in community centers. So what you see before you are recently completed community centers where we have upgraded technology and they have state-of-the-art audio video technology. um in fall of 2025, those community centers you see right there will also get the same treatment. So for you know some time we've been going back and forth on the proper solution and as you all might remember uh there have been some challenges with some of the zoom meetings with the CAC. So, we were very intentional about what technology software to use, uh, who should own it, how we should license it, and this is where we've landed. So, there is a Zoom solution, specifically a Zoom business solution, which is about $200 per uh, license, and that we can use specifically with CAC's does not require a city email address. Um, the good thing here is that it can be transferred to someone else. So, let's just say I'm a CSE chair and I decide to up and leave to go to Portland. Well, that license can be transferred to someone else. We thought at one point in time it had to be uh addressed to an individual, but we we've rectified that. Uh so, it can just be uh in an account with this. It is important to note that city staff will have to have some some management and some administrative duties here. Um, also we were we heard uh one of the reasons why free Zoom technology would not work is because they wanted meeting capabilities over one hour. So this has a 30hour duration. I'm not sure if they'll have 30 hour meetings. However, this will give them the ability to do so. model. So, uh, succession plan. Um, with this we understood that, you know, building future civic leaders, uh, finding those folks within the neighborhood college, the citizen leadership academy who wanted to be a part of CAC's. So after having conversations uh we landed on you know having the ability for uh CAC folks to come to uh the citizen leadership academy the neighborhood college to speak and kind of market themselves if you will. In addition to that uh we heard uh some desire uh from CAC leadership or the RCAC uh to have leadership training modules specifically Robert's rules of order. uh running a meeting as you all know is extremely important and uh that was one of the desires. So earlier I said you know the motion had three key elements and that was the assignment as I understood it as we understood it in the conversations we had with our the RCAC folks there were additional items that they asked for so we listened we couldn't deliver on all the things but there are some things that we thought we could deliver on uh so uh the first thing you see here is generally 20,000 email addresses from past CAC's. So, you know, getting those email addresses, allowing them to send uh an email to see if those folks wanted to subscribe back to their CAC. That's an additional item. A website presence. Okay. Uh so, we think we can do a website presence with a caveat of joining the engagement network. In addition to that, opportunities to share information to the neighborhood registry or existing residents. We thought we were okay with that. We think we're okay with that. Uh we would just be that'd be a staff responsibility. We would take the information from the CAC's and then share that information. So something for y'all to chew on. Here's some staff recommendations. Get the media kits, pay for them, continue to upfit our community centers with the new technology, implement the Zoom solution as noted earlier, implement the items in the succession plan as noted earlier, and go ahead and implement those additional items. Now, there's a caveat there because we do believe that joining the engagement network is extremely important. Happy to answer any questions you may have. Great. Um, thank you, uh, Mr. Jones. Uh, I'll turn it back to, um, thank you so much. Um, I've been part of these conversations and I think you did a really great job recapping. I do want to take a moment to, uh, give some space to the CAC's to be able to let them, but I if there's any other questions for staff before we move on to the recommendations, I'd love to hear how the CAC's felt about this process and give them space to to share their uh, their thoughts as well. But I I know that there might be some questions before we do that. No, no, no. I I'm just questioning on process. Can we um That's not typically how you do it, but mayor, it's your meeting. You can run it how you choose to, but that's not typically how we do it when we have the agenda item this way. Okay. Well, let's first just um get questions from council for staff and then um see where we're at. So, sounds good. Yeah. And I would definitely appreciate hearing from the chair of RCAC. I know they've um made time to be here. Um thank you. Thank you so much for these updates. Um, thanks to Council Member Jones, um, to Nikki, um, you know, all the folks behind the scenes who have been working with the CAC's to really help bring back some of the capacity that was lost in years past. I know that is meaningful. Um, I am familiar with the District D CAC's quite well and they are loving using the community centers. So, just in case anyone wants to see what a CAC is all about, I invite you to the West Raleigh CAC meeting on July 8th at 5:30 p.m. That'll be at the PAL um uh community center, PAL Park. And I have attended, you know, meetings recently with the Southwest Community Engagement, CAC, and I know Hillsboro Way also uses those spaces. I look forward to seeing them soon. Um I love the idea of these succession plans. I know there is new blood in Raleigh that wants to be civically engaged and I hope they see the CAC's as a place for themselves as well and I would definitely recommend that CAC's be involved in the community engagement network. I think there are extra opportunities for them like uh free mailings for example and so that is something I'm interested in. The only piece I saw that I guess I have a question about is at the end of the list. I don't know if the engagement network needs to happen prior to the implementation of these other items. I would say more concurrently. And then just a clarification on process before um uh because I know that that was a question when we last met um we had discussed doing this portion in August. So when I saw this today that these are the recommendations that were going to be voted on that is not what we discussed in in the meeting. So that's why I want to give them space to to be here. That was part of the reason why um I was making sure that they knew I I I wasn't trying to exclude them. I thought this was just for information. So uh about process and if this is something that we were going to choose to vote on, I think that they deserve a moment to to share their perspective. So that's that's why um deviating and I also did text message uh ACM Jones yesterday, but I never heard back. So that's why I'm wanting to make sure that we we get their voices heard. Okay. And I will just say on here we have recommended action is just receive as information. So just so everybody is um uh okay with that we we are just receiving these and we understand that the CAC's are also going to chew on these. Um so just Okay. So but I will continue with questions. Uh uh councelor Patton y hi thanks. Um couple questions. I too love the succession planning. Um, North CSC has recently gone through a peaceful transfer of power and so it can be done and um I'm glad to see that I mean I'm glad to build a system that allows that to happen. Um, and so just want to make sure I'm understanding one thing one thing I have heard in community separate from the three requests made is the presence on the city website. If I'm understanding the additional items slide, it sounds like that is that's what that second bullet is that they'll have a presence on the city website of some sort. If I could offer a point of clarity here, we generally do not let outside entities represent themselves on the website. That's why we suggest that the engagement network be the vehicle by which they do that. Just as a point of clarity. Okay. So, so a resident would Google commu would somehow land at the neighborhood community engagement network and then they would see CAC's and it would click out to some dashboard. Got it. Yep. That that would let them they would somehow be able to find like, oh, I can go to Abbott's Creek on the third Monday of the month. Absolutely. And theoretically, they just be able to type CAC's and it take them to the engagement network page. Got it. Okay. as anything that's helping residents go from like not knowing anything to to being like, "Okay, I can go to Barwell Road next week and and and participate in this." Um, and then I did want to ask questions about the technology option. We we've um in previous updates talked about this some as well. Um, we know that some CAC's have um, experienced some Zoom bombing in the past and I wonder what our responsibility is. You know, if this is a city-owned Zoom account and then something unourred happens during the meeting, sort of what's our where's the responsibility sharing there? Like what if any exposure or legal exposure are we creating for ourselves etc. I'll try to answer the beginning of the question then I'll defer to madam attorney. Uh so uh I think I know uh our RT department has looked into this and then there are some security settings that we can put in place. Not to say that we can fix or mitigate all the risk but I know I know there are some security settings that we can put in place but as it relates to the legal exposure madam attorney I'll defer to you. Well, certainly we would um work with the CAC's to try to minimize any of those uh risk and we understand uh particularly using the business um plat the Zoom business platform or business Zoom platform whichever way you say um that it does come with some enhanced security measures that should help us be able to uh minimize or almost eliminate that from happening in the future. Mayor Berta. Yeah. Um I'm going to weigh in on the process portion. I know Mr. Hellfant was here earlier and wanted to comment on Six Forks Road. We did not provide that opportunity because it's not in order. Um I would say that um we're not taking action on this today. So certainly um moving this to another meeting where there's public comment, send it to committee, scheduling a public hearing, any of those things that would give the public an opportunity to weigh in, I think is definitely important, but I don't think we should allow somebody to speak today um that's not a part of the agenda when we've already denied an opportunity for somebody else who wanted to weigh in on a conversation. I think that's very inconsistent and not necessarily fair to folks who come in. So, I think we've got multiple processes to hear from folks. Um, and so we can work with the city manager's office to get it scheduled appropriately to allow the CAC chairs to come in and whoever else wants to come in and weigh in. I know there multiple members of multiple CAC's who've got a lot of thoughts on this particular issue. We should have an opportunity to hear from all of them at the same time, but not allow one person to speak today and we're not even taking action on it. So, that's my thought. Yeah, I mean I I am certainly happy to meet with um anybody over the next few weeks. I guess I'll ask for the pleasure of the board. I do understand the fairness issue that I didn't recognize Mr. Hellfun earlier. Um do anybody have other strong thoughts and again I'm happy to meet with Mr. Rice if you know I don't want Yeah, I mean I I just think it's all about just consistency from that standpoint. The thing I wanted to speak to though was just from the presentation information provided. Uh first of all, thank you for the work that you all have done and are continuing to do and have those conversations. I think out of the meetings that councelor Jones and the mayor are looking to have um along with the the the RCAC is very beneficial. One of the things I just want to highlight is if the RCAC can also share some information of how people can restart their CAC's. Um, I know in particular I've just email people when people have contacted me, but if we can just make it some way and maybe that's something and us working with them, we can at least share, hey, if you want to restart some of our, um, I won't say defund, but I say resting CAC's um, to get them active and going, um, I think is very beneficial. I have seven listed here on the u on the website that we do have up but only three are active. Um so for me that's very important on how we can get we talk about getting people engaged and we talk about what happens once they get engaged but I think the issue we're having right now is getting them engaged. So whatever we can do there I think is very beneficial. But again I think out of fairness uh I know Mr. Hal I saw him leave. Um I think we just need to be consistent um with how we move around our agenda. Okay. All right. Well, so then we are accepting this as information and just a clarify process and the CAC's will have their own deliberations. Again, I think I and probably others are willing to meet um I'm happy to meet in July. during this period um with them in order to remain the consistency and not right try to have that right now um and then um we will come back in August with feedback from the CAC's on this and then take action. Does that sound I know councelor Jones you've been working hard on all this. Yeah. Um I will go of course with whatever the body says. Um uh I I think my efforts to reach out to have this conversation that were not met with a response um and and me saying come because this is our conversation and we were trying to hear from both sides. So I would still wish to allow uh Robert Rice to at least it's not about getting the CAC's every individual's perspective with the funnel of communication that we have created is a liaison and the chair and I'm not asking for 10 people from CAC's to speak. this is about the meetings that we have shared what we have done and our whole goal is to include CAC so I would stick with that but um but you know whatever the body decides uh I understand that this is going out of of the line of process but I also didn't I thought this was justformational and I got a note right or spoke to uh ACM Jones beforehand and thought there was going to be a vote today so that's why I was pushing for that but yeah just wanted to put that out there okay well let's just stick with the information for now. I will reach out to Mr. Rice and apologize for the confusion on process and um um talk with you and then again um can meet with folks in this interim period. Um I will be around. Thank you very much for your work. Okay. Uh next we have the uh report and recommendation of the city manager. Good afternoon mayor and council. And I typically do the extra items at the end, but for the sake of the young adults that you see in front of you. Um, I'm going to kind of reverse the order and recognize some special guests that we have here with us today. You will see before you in the blue t-shirts members of our partnership Raleigh program, which is a program that was formerly housed in housing and neighborhoods. Now it is in community engagement. and they provide career exploration and paid internship opportunities to young adults in our community. We have two programs that we want to highlight today. First is the Pathways to Public Service Fellows, which is a six-month cohort program for college juniors and seniors and some recent graduates who are interested in local government. So for those of us who have invested invested all of our times in this work, we are so excited to work with these young young adults to make sure that they see the positive side of government so that they can too hopefully fill these seats when we retire one day. The second program is the community climate intern program which is a collaboration between the office of sustainability, Raleigh water, solid waste services and engineering services. And this is a 10-week um program for college students and they carry out the goals of our CCAP program. Today we have 15 fellows from the public service fellows program and 23 from the community climate action plan. Um so just want to give these young adults a round of applause. If you guys will stand up and be recognized. [Music] And overall, this program is managed and and ran by Kathy Ectctor. And we all know Kathy Ectctor is the queen of Raleigh summer youth employment. And so she had a vision years ago to to take it beyond high school once we get them in at 14 years of age or 15 years of age and they start working in our departments. Now, this is an additional opportunity to keep them on the hook to be local government employees of the future. So, totally excited about these two programs. Happy to continue to support these programs. We told Kathy she can never retire. Um, and I think one of the really fun facts about these programs is most of these employees end up in city departments. So, not only do we put them out in the community, but most of them end up in here with us. So, we're so grateful to have you all here with us today. It's a long meeting and so I did want to give you the opportunity if y'all needed to get out to get out. So, but but thank you um for being here. And you're welcome to stay if you like to really see how long our meetings last sometimes. Oh, yeah. You want to do a photo? Will you do a photo? I was trying to scare you, Jane. You be the main one talking about time. How does the best work? And there are some of us that are, you know, shorter. So, you wouldn't mind allowing them to be in front and some of us who are taller. Got that jean? Please join. Yeah. Come on. Ask me if I still like each other. [Applause] That was So, as they are vacating the premises, if Mr. Evan Raleigh and Carrie Painter will come down to the podium for the first official item on the manager's report, we have an update on the convention center hotel restructuring um opportunity. We have Evan Raleigh and Carrie for any questions if that you might have. Yes. Good afternoon, mayor, members of council. As uh the manager said, have some uh welcome news to share with you related to some uh changes that have uh transpired with our uh convention center project that I'm going to share with you and um take you through that very briefly here. So just in terms of the uh items we're going to cover, just going to for context for those that may be new to this, share just briefly some of the history related to the project. We'll talk about the amendment deal amended deal terms uh and lay out the advantages and then we'll ask uh for council's authorization to take some specific actions to uh continue to advance the project. So again, brief history. Uh this all began in earnest in the summer of 22 when the city put out a request for information, request for interest on uh the property that has now become the site of the Omni uh immediately in front of the performing arts center. Um you all for those that were here at the time will recall that we u selected Omni as our preferred development partner for that site back in September of 2023. And since that time, we have had substantial negotiations constructing the deal and the hundreds and hundreds of documents that uh go along with that deal since that time between our team and theirs. Um and you got an update in November. Uh so we have continued staff has had continued conversations uh with the development team. There was a change to the structure on their end recently that has created frankly some opportunity uh for us to enhance the deal and that is what I'm going to share with you now. So, as you will recall, the deal that you initially approved um was a for 550 room hotel. Uh that is uh the Omni team has uh put on the table enhancing that the the room count to approximately 600 rooms. The original terms of the deal in terms of how the land was going to be treated, it was a 99-year uh ground lease. Again, it's a city-owned property. Um I will note in that original um deal structure that there was an option in the developer's favor to purchase the site after approximately 50 years. Uh we are now under the amended terms proposing a fee simple sale which creates some opportunities to leverage that land value in ways that we'll talk about in just a moment. Uh initially there was no project completion guarantee. We uh are fortunate now to have a project completion guarantee on the table. Um the other really nice aspect of this change initial deal called for 40 years uh of the for the room block agreement in terms of how long that be in place. For those that may not be familiar, the room block agreement basically is our guarantee of the city's ability uh to access those uh rooms that are going to be constructed in the hotel for the benefit of convention business and other groups that are coming to town. Um the amended terms add 10 years to that term. So it now stands at 50 years. Um the project team originally had a structure that involved tax exempt financing. Uh that's gone away. It's become an equity deal which creates a lot more certainty uh in terms and and lowers the risk profile of our project. Uh the uh city investment originally was going to be $75 million of course from the hospitality or in a local funds. There was also going to have there was also um a burden on the city to identify the uh cost of the remediation of the site which through further exploration we realized was roughly 5 a.5 million. Again uh the new terms still call for that same $75 million of investment from the hospitality fund. But as I mentioned, the benefit of the now having uh sales proceeds to work with uh we'll be able to offset the city's cost on environmental uh the environmental remediation cost by crediting that against the the acquisition cost of the land which is a very fortunate thing. We'll also be able to cover some uh increased costs related to the public infrastructure items that we will own as part of this uh project. And then lastly, again, we were operating under a lease under the original terms, which meant there would be no upfront opportunity for revenue to coming to the city. We do have an opportunity now um to receive some proceeds on the land sale. Of course, the transaction will be fair market value. Uh and we will net out whatever is left after the applicable credits are applied as I've described kind of in that uh previous section. and we expect that to be a low seven figure sum. So just in terms quickly the advantages obviously we now get a much larger hotel that can help support increased business u for our convention center and and just generally um but aside from that I'll just highlight a couple. You can see all the advantages there. Um the beauty of a land sale as opposed to retaining that property in the city coffers, it provides the opportunity now for tax revenue uh property tax revenue to be derived from that property whereby obviously if it was held and maintained by the city those tax uh generating opportunities uh don't happen. Uh and then of course um you know future uh revaluations on that land we would expect the value to grow and as a result the property tax proceeds to uh to increase as the years go forward. So I promised to be brief. Um so now we are back before you asking for you to authorize the three items noted on that slide. uh the first of which would allow for the disposition of uh the property to Omni for uh simple and then the two other items just authorizing the city city manager to take steps and actions that are necessary to to advance the deal. So with that I will pause and uh entertain any questions you have. All right. Thank you so much uh councelor Patton. Yeah thanks for this. Um, so it sounds so we were in the land lease agreement. We're not going to receive any t um sale property tax revenue. Now we will with this can um for the benefit of the public give us like some comps. I know we won't know the actual assessed value of this until it's built. But what are some comps on like how much property tax we might seal? I don't know. I couldn't tell you that offhand. I can tell you that um we did do an appraisal for the for the site. It's um roughly 19 and a half or 20 million dollars. So you can do the math on our tax rate to to know what that would generate from you know tax prop tax revenue from the city's perspective. But that's roughly the value of the property we're talking about. Got it. Um, and then for the benefit of the public, I think like the thought sometimes when we pitch the public to pitch things to the public is like if we own the land, we we have all this control over it to make sure it goes the way we want it to go. What other things are still in what other guardrails are still in place to make sure we're we're going to get the product that we have promised the public? So, I'd point to the the master development agreement. So, I'll say there are many many documents of support that are behind the scenes on this uh transaction. One of which is the key document which sort of spells out the terms of the city's relationship with the developer. That's uh identified in the master development agreement which spells out exactly what um the city is committed to and what the developer is committed to delivering to us. So that's a that's a key document that both parties sign and are held to. Other questions? Nope. I was just going to make a motion. Want to um I move to uh approve the staff recommendations. Second. All right. Um this is an important project. Appreciate all the work and the some of the improved conditions as well as tax prop uh property tax uh uh in the future. So uh all in favor of the motion I All opposed. All right. Thank you. Awesome. Next item we have a downtown major projects update. You will recall last year we talked um um a little bit at length about communications and as opposed to bringing the items to the council table for an action, let's do quarterly updates so you all can kind of get um a check-in from the progress of each project. So this is our quarterly project update and we have Priscilla Williams and Patrick Young and probably someone from transportation that's going to talk a little bit too. So this is a tag team Painter. So, thank you, Madame City Manager, and good afternoon, Mayor Cal and the members of council. As she mentioned, I am Priscilla Tyrie Williams, and it's my pleasure to kick off the presentation of the updates for the major projects. These are the projects that are going to be covered today and I will be followed by Carrie Painter, Pat Young, and Kenneth Richie. And at the conclusion, staff will be available for questions. So, the big project, not that I am um you know, trying to push city hall the new one, but it's at 25% complete construction. And if you see, we are at floor eight and we are actually planning for four floor 9, which means we are taller than the AT&T building across the street. We also are averaging one floor every two weeks and our new city hall progress tracker is live on the website. We're installing the breeze sole and architectural pre-cast and we're tracking with a substantial completion date of the end of 2026 in December and a final completion of the end of March of 2027. The fire station one fire administration building project also includes a regional backup E911. We're in the con concept design phase and we'll be coming before you shortly for a design amendment to add a public safety themed playground. The construction manager at risk delivery has been selected for this project and we have brought on the Shraider group as the designer and Brassfield and Gory as the Seymour. This project is going to be located on the corner of Salisbury Street and MLK Boulevard. Next up is Carrie Painter. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Carrie Painter from the Raleigh Complex. Um, Red Hat Amphitheater update. We are rolling along. As you can see, there's trucks of dirt and and moves of fencing and things which we're great about. We're working towards the final design details primarily on the plazas and some of the service areas. Utility work is underway now. South Street is um the utilities being laid in it and in some of the streets surrounding us. We are still anticipating a 2027 season opening. The convention center, I am thrilled to say last week we were after many designs finally delivered a schematic design that is in budget that is going to be fantastic. And so we are moving to design development phase as of yesterday. And uh that will help us move along forward once we get a little further into finishing up the details of the design, continuing to check that it remains on budget. Then we'll be announcing some of the the renderings come fall. Um we are launching a project email that will allow any and all the neighbors and or businesses around us to sign up. So they will get continuous updates which include everything from today there will be a lot of dust perhaps trucks moving to um you know this is where we are in the project just so we can keep the community uh on board with us. We're anticipating a 2029 opening and um I'm going to shamelessly take a moment to pause and congratulate that we're working on a award-winning convention center because yesterday they launched that there are two of f there are five venue excellence awards by the international association of venue managers each year worldwide and we actually scored two of them which has never happened. So, the convention center and the Martin Merida Center were both uh awarded yesterday and will receive their big award in July. So, we're pleased to say we're working on a award-winning new convention center expansion. Great job. All right. Next is the Dick Strollway. Good afternoon. Pat Young with Planning and Development. Um, as you know, the uh Chavis Dick Strollway is conceived as an urban heritage trail. Also, it's designed to connect uh two of our great parks, uh John Chavis Park and Dicks Park, and recognize the rich history and uh culture that exists in in that corridor. Um although existing uh development in in this area and the variable right ofway will require a varied design approach, the route uh and the trail will have a unified approach to elevating culture, history and heritage with a special focus on the historic fourth ward um and Shaw University. So we are in final negotiations with a design uh consulting firm. Um we're working our urban projects group is working closely with engineering services on this. Um there will be about a year-long um engagement and design process and so about this time next year you would expect to see um detailed concept design that you could comment on. What is the alignment of the um I've heard of it but not familiar of the streets it will traverse. I know Chavis and Dex what is the street that the connecting street? So that this the design team is going to do a deep dive with both community and with um um staff and council on whether we use South Street exclusively Lenor or some combination of the of the two. There's also going to be a need to deviate from those rights of way to get around the convention center. Okay. Or the Red Hat amphitheater. So you'll recall that the city received a federal grant in 2024. Uh and the available funding will allow us to design and complete a portion of the strollway. Uh there's not funding for the entirety of the strollway. Um staff's recommending that we focus on the western portion of the strollway. A couple reasons for that. That would be from Dicks Park entry on South Saunders to the intersection of McDow and South Streets. Um this segment was selected to honor and uplift the fourth ward which uh was displaced experienced significant displacement in this area in the 1970s. Um, and then the trail fronts, the Red Hat Amphitheater, their proposed location, and the Raleigh Housing Authorities's Heritage Park project, which will allow for close coordination of construction of those projects and incorporation of the of the strollway. And it also helps create and improve downtown Dicks connection, uh, since South Saunders uh, the west the the South Saunders and Western Boulevard underpass are the primary way that we you can get from downtown to to Dix. Uh and then finally I want to give a quick update on the Raleigh Housing Authorities's Heritage Park project. This is of course not our project but is um being undertaken by one of our close partner Raleigh Housing Authority. Um the blue dots there are the phase numbers uh and then of course the the numbers in black are the proposed number of stories. This is conceptual but this is what they're moving forward with. Um the tenant relocation um is underway and nearly complete. The demolition is scheduled for this fall. Um the for phase one, the financing for the senior uh uh citizen housing is um uh secured and uh there's a $1 million gap award from the city that's been already granted. Um for the remainder of the portion, there is a reasonzoning and the resoning is not required for phase one, so that can proceed, but there's an aspirational goal on the site of over a thousand units, which would be significantly more than the the current number of units in the site to house more new neighbors. Um, so again, I'm going to turn it over to Kenneth Richie. We've had a long time interest in connecting West Street and the Heritage Park development to the larger community. And so there's a revised interchange concept that that Kenneth can speak about and we'll be here for questions at the end. Good afternoon again, Kenneth Richie with transportation. So I'm going to go through some of the the more transportation related efforts that are ongoing in downtown and certainly uh looking to improve throughout the community. So, with the revised interchange concept, really looking at trying to square off kind of this existing interchange, make it a much more urban style kind of concept. Uh, somewhat akin to what we did there on the northern side of downtown with peace and capital. Uh, little bit different concept that we'll we're looking at here based off converting conversations with DOT, but really looking at trying to tighten a lot of this to try and slow speeds. We really want to make sure as we are with a lot of our efforts, downtown is safe for all users and that really kind of starts here in this area. Um, and does integrate well with our BRT. And with this concept, there is a a pretty significant storm water uh system that runs through this area as well as sewer. This concept will not require a lot of that costly utility relocation that some of the other concepts that we looked at would likely have required. We just going back, one of the I thought key goals was to get rid of those clover leaf because of the loss of real estate. And I mean I know there's a lot of competing goals here, but I mean that would be really disappointing to have that much land, right? And one of the most valuable corridors uh just lost as a dead zone. So we've been working intently to try and look at different options with this. Um certainly as we went into this trying to look at how we can activate as much space as possible within this area was was a goal uh have tried to maintain that as much as possible and mitigate what could be just otherwise non-activated property. But certainly I think even within those areas there will be opportunities to to activate some of that space differently than it is today within the context of the interchange because the street design it's not going to be kind of your sweeping interchange design. Um as Dr. Dr. Hummer at NC State calls them. He really calls these great separated intersections versus interchanges. So, that's really the concept we're going for here is slower speeds that allow different activation than you've got today. Madame Mayor, if I may. Yeah. Um, one thing I would like for you all to keep in mind, this is a great entryway, a beautiful entryway into our city. So, whatever activation and things concepts we're looking at, let's also keep that aesthetics in mind um as well. Absolutely. So then looking at some of the efforts that are ongoing from a transportation perspective and a big shout out to the staff and transportation, there's a lot of work going on within downtown to really focus on how we provide uh a a safe experience and really commit to and promote the vibrancy in downtown. So one of those is our downtown pedestrian safety phase two. So this builds on an earlier phase one effort we did. Some of you will recall, we implemented uh 25 mile per hour speed limit throughout downtown. Uh no rights on red and really started to to push the leading pedestrian interval uh throughout our downtown. So what this will bring is 13 raised crosswalks throughout our downtown. Really trying to hit at some of those midblock locations to provide that additional safety and visibility for pedestrians as they're crossing those areas that aren't necessarily at an intersection. And with that, we're looking at integrating art to really try and create some vibrancy and some context with these efforts. Uh this effort, we're looking at that going into design later this year with implementation in to mid to late 2026. We're also looking at some safety improve pedestrian safety improvements along MLK. So we it's been this corridor between Blunt Street and Pool has kind of been broken up into four sections. uh really looking at integrating curb bumpouts, high visibility crosswalks, enhancements to traffic and pedestrian signals, as well as the implementation of two new signals to really again create that safety of crossing along this this larger corridor throughout our downtown. So, some of the planning efforts, and you will be seeing these reports later on this year and early next, uh, our downtown mobility study, which is really looking at what are those different opportunities for programming our streets to make sure that we're providing accommodation for all users, uh, and creating a network that allows people to have options as they come into and navigate through our downtown. Uh, paired to that is our active mobility plan, which is really building on the downtown mobility study is kind of focused on the downtown core. The active mobility plan is kind of building beyond that to make sure that we're really creating a transportation network that promotes accessibility for all users and make sure that that's safe. We're all with the active mobility plan. We do have a survey that's out there live now kind of highlighting some of those recommendations. We are looking at both of these reports coming to the council later on this fall. And then the third and certainly not the least of those studies is our uh safe streets for all our safety plan. uh the this is a critical effort as we look to really enhance safety throughout the city. Uh we have through the efforts with our consultant identified a high injury network and our high injury intersections. Those have been mapped and those will really start to kind of as we move forward in anticipation of the final report start to look at a prioritization of those to really guide some of our future CIP or capital planning efforts. And then an item that I know has been of some interest, our micro gap program. Uh this was a came out of a FY25 budget item. Uh happy to announce we have completed two of these. So Cub Trail and Dandridge Drive. And we've got some pictures of those completed sections here on the slide. And upcoming later this year, uh, will be gaps on Nancy Drive and Woods Place and really looking at how we can start to take some of these missing links in the system, get those done so we can really provide that that kind of priority connectivity that we need within the network. So that is all that we have for now and certainly we're happy to take any questions. Thank you, Councelor Silver. Um, Patrick, can you go back to the fourth ward phase one? And I know there are two slides back to Yes. So I understand the legend. I it I guess the peach color is the strollway. I just want some clarification on why the property was highlighted blue. Just so I understand cuz I was looking for a legend. Understand. I see the strollway. What did the blue represent? Which seems to be a parcel along the railroad tracks. No, that's Oh, that's Red Hat, right? So the so the blue parcels and I'm sorry you're right there's not a legend there that should have been clear. The blue parcels are publicly owned property right. So that's on the west side park is Heritage Park and on the east side is the um future site of the um Red Hat Amphitheater. So the peach the peach is the alignment concepts. Got it. Because it included the north west quadrant of the interchange. So that's why I was trying to reconcile. Can we go to that one again? And I can just two slides down and I don't know this is your item right there. Uh I know Mr. Richie you could probably respond to this. I concur uh with the mayor's assessment if we make this change. I know that there have been a lot of thoughts uh not just improving the current interchange which was built in an era which took property just to facilitate cars getting in and out but there's amazing real estate opportunity and I don't know the return on investment of actually bringing it into a normal uh intersection that frees up that real estate because it's not just a connection to Dicks it's the experience of that connection to Dicks and just having alignment and doesn't mean it's going to be a great walkable experience. I'm not putting a blame on you, but I don't know there's an opportunity as this is proceeding to take a step back. Don't know if the state would be supportive. It would be a massive infrastructure project, but the return on investment is now you have a place that now connects downtown to Dicks that creates an environment, a district, a place uh one Heritage Park on the northwest. uh probably limited opportunity near the development to the south, but it starts to actually provide a major intersection, a walkable environment. So, I'm just putting it out there as this is going forward. Certainly, we had an early conversation about not slowing down capital projects, but this one is critical. It's been talked about for years. And just, you know, you may not be able to answer it, maybe the city manager, but I just feel, you know, cuz the mayor brought it up as well. Can we understand why that opportunity will not work? Uh and then I see my colleagues to the right has his hand up. I guess certainly happy to. So we have had ongoing conversations with the department about this this design. And I think when we looked at the square loop concept that I think had been shared with y'all previously, one of the concerns that the department had was just the volume that we would be putting onto those local streets with the number because I think they estimate about 450 cars in the peak hour that make that movement today. So certainly that was one concern. The other piece that was referenced with the utility relocation, based off coordination with partners in storm water and with uh Raleigh Water, we're estimating it probably would cost upwards of $10 million or more to relocate the storm water and sewer infrastructure in this area on top of the infrastructure cost just to reorient the the interchange itself. Um so those are two of the factors that have been part of those ongoing discussions. Councelor Lambert Milton. Yeah, I just wanted to add because now I'm a little confused, so I'll make sure we're all talking about the same thing. It sounds to me like what we're seeing here, this rendering, and I'm not an expert on reading these things, is there were two goals. One, how can we improve connectivity, make it safer, and could we possibly unearth some of this space for active uses and not just um wasted land in the middle of an on-ramp? And what you're basically saying is is we can accomplish one of those goals by increasing the connectivity, slowing the speeds, but due to all of the infrastructure that's in that little clover loop, we don't think it's feasible to try to build something there. Is that right? That's that's kind of what we've ascertained at this point. I think certainly there's opportunities for activating it in different ways that aren't right. So, as long as So, what I'm seeing here is a con connection through Heritage Park, removing these clover leaves that function like on and off ramps for the highway and turning it into a regular street with sidewalks with more of a grid approach. And maybe there's an opportunity then if we do that that maybe that area where we know there's utilities underneath, instead of it being housing, which would be great, but it sounds like it's not going to be feasible maybe with the cost, maybe it's a little pocket park. And so as you're strolling your way to Dicks, you could stop there and get some shade or rest or something. Is is am I corre correct in that understanding that? Yeah, we're we're continuing to explore all opportunities that with any space that may come open. And then while Sorry, I didn't mean to cut that. While I have time with the mic, I also wanted to say that I think that this Chavis Dick Strollway project um and particularly through the fourth ward, um maybe I'm a little nervous from what has happened with Six Forks Road, but I would really like to see that move forward to construction as soon as possible. I I know there's going to be consultants and designing and community meetings, but I don't want it to come to us in a year and be like, "We've designed it and now it's three times as much money." And so, we've talked about this for a really long period of time. I know it received some federal money. I would love to to see what we could do to expedite this. I think it's going to be an economic driver, obviously, a cultural destination and a much needed connection to Dicks Park. And so, I would just I would love to see it get off the ground sooner rather than later if that's possible. Councelor Branch. Yeah. Can you on the map can you show the strollway on on this one? Can you draw the line? I just want to make sure I'm clear because my understanding the strollway is north. Yep. That's what I figured. So that's our strollway concept and then the parts where we're talking about getting rid of the cover leaf. My question there is who owns that land? Because my understanding is I know that's 70 that comes through there. So my other question as far as ML becoming Western Boulevard, is that a state or a city road? That is a state facility. Okay. So every all of that property what we call clo relief that's property owned by the state of North Carolina DOT. Correct. The only difference is in this quadrant here and we closed that was closed by the board of transportation and that is what has constituted the changes needed the changes here associated with that development at city gateway. Okay. That was my understanding. I just wanted to see it there to make sure what I was thinking was clear. Thank you. Well, and then as you know, we put in a a grant proposal that was not awarded by the federal government on trying to cross over MLK. And it just seems like if we're doing all of this work and we're thinking about all of this, we should we should also be thinking about that pedestrian the shortest as the crow flies connection between downtown coming over MLK as we design this so that we're not doing that as an afterthought. That is certainly something that we're very cognizant of with this is really making sure that any of these are really playing into that larger goal of how we create that interconnectivity really throughout Any other? Oh, yes. Councelor Patton. Awesome. Thanks. Well, I've got one for you while you're here. Um, forgive me. I think we've been I think we were given an update recently, but can you just remind me this progress on the slip lane? So, uh, conversations. So, that has been submitted to DOT at kind of the advanced kind of design stage. We have received comments back from them recently. I think we are still tracking towards trying to get that squared away with DOT by the end of the year. Okay, great. Um and then uh maybe for Pat then Dick Shavis Strollway. It sounds like we only have money for the western half. I do agree that putting the cultural um interpretation on the western half where the most impacted communities were is a good move, but uh are we thinking about which couch cushions we're going to search in to get the the rest of the money? Any thoughts there? Yeah, so um part of the work with the consulting group will be to identify as wide a range as possible partnerships and sources as possible so that when we come back with a more firm design, we'll bring you opportunities and ideas about how we would would do that. Okay. Thank you. Um and then one just one last comment. It's not a question. Um I think this city hall progress tracker is really great. Um and I think the more we can do that, this is it's very easy to understand. Like for everyone anyone who hasn't looked it up, it's like it's like a little thermometer, but it's in the shape of city hall. And so the more I think the more we can do that, the more we communicate easily to the public where these projects are and and build public trust in our ability to to do big things. So just wanted to put a star on that. Councilor Silver. Yeah. I just want to say for the record, I am strongly encouraged we at least be more clear. Uh that interchange has been eyed as an opportunity for two decades. I just want to make sure if that's going to go away because we have very few opportunities to really create, you know, a great downtown that interchange is one of them. Um, I'm also familiar that I thought I saw earlier sketches from Heritage Park as a hire consultant about dealing with that edge as well. So, it just seems that I appreciate the entire update is very helpful. I think you wanted to hear from council, but to me, this one area is one that's critical. And if that's the move we're going to go, in my mind, I just want to know that we've explored it. For a variety of reasons, it won't work. But to me, it's one of those major opportunities to really help our downtown. Uh so to me, that's just one of a concern because I'm just rationalizing the interchange to provide more connectivity. we should be into placemaking and as an opportunity to create another great place in our downtown near Herage Park connection to Dicks Convention Center or downtown. I just want to say that just to get it off my chest. The last point is I'd like us to do a walking radius of a 5, 10, and 15. As we do the strollway, we're saying it's a connection to Dicks. Beyond 10 minutes, people walking is going to drop significantly. So, as we look at the Dicks, cuz you're just getting to the entrance. You're not even getting to Gibson Play Plaza. So when we say connection to Dicks, it's not just a route. We have to put the five, the 10, and the 15minute walking radius. So we know from where someone's walking, will they walk? And generally beyond 10 minutes, someone would rather drive than walk. So I just want to put that into our reality as we begin to fit this all in. Which is why when I was looking at the interchange by creating a place reduces that walk because it's not just a path, it's an experience that gets you from point A to point B. So, with that, I'll yield and I'll allow us to move on, but thank you for the update. Everyone who presented, thank you for bringing us up to speed. I appreciate it. Well, I won't let us move. I'm going to I'm going to piggyback on on your comment just to say I know the 10 million for that and I think there's a major storm water and sewer right along the roadway there, you know, and 10 million is a big number, but you think about if if Heritage Park was able to, you know, reappropriate that land. It seems like you'd get at least $10 million worth of living units, you know, expanded uh density as well as just all the placemaking and sort of things you're talking about. So 10 million doesn't seem like a compelling reason to keep those clover leaves in my you know but again there's we could have further conversation. Yes. I just want to second what I've been hearing. You know if there is an opportunity to pursue this it's worth at least looking at the options. So I agree. All right. Any any anybody else or we move on to the next item. Okay. Thank you all. Great update. And the last item today is another long-awaited item for council's consideration and that is the fire master plan. So today we have Chief Herbert Griffin here to tee this item up and um we will go from there. Good afternoon, Mayor Cal Council, Madame City Manager. U like she said, this has been a long time coming, but uh for me it's a true blessing that is complete now. Uh, first I would like to thank the departments who assisted in development of this comprehensive plan. The Raleigh Fire Master plan was approved by council April 2024 with a 12-month process to evaluate the unprecedented growth our city is experiencing with a 1.16 annual population increase and a 17% increase in fire and EMS call volume since 2024. The fire master plan strategically evaluated department's current capabilities, our future service demands, and mutual aid partnerships to help reduce growth pressures while maintaining NFPA 1710, which is a national fire protection association compliance standards utilized by the fire agency in North America. The fire master plan employed a multiacet evidence-based methodology that included four phases. It looked at stakeholder engagement, performance diagnostics, predictive modeling, and strategic recommendations. Now, to provide the results of the comprehensive study, I would like to welcome Darkhorse Emergency in partnership with North Carolina Fire Chiefs Consultant. [Music] Thank you. So, what we'd like to talk about today first, um, I want to provide a bit more context on the study and give an executive speaking the mic. You may have to get close to speaking the mic. Sorry. Is that better? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, first I'd like to give some background on the project and give an executive summary um of our recommendations. I won't go too in depth because I think Chief Griffin gave a really good um explanation there. Um, following that, I want to take a bit of a step back and talk about what is uh fueling those recommendations, particularly how Raleigh Fire Department is currently performing and how we expect it will perform into the future. Uh, and then dive into more detail on the recommendations themselves. So, some context. Uh, as we know, Raleigh is one of the fastest growing communities in North America, uh, with a quickly growing population, uh, and voluntary annexations, uh, fueling an expanding service area for the fire department. Um, it highlights a need for proactive planning, which is why we're here today. Um we conducted a datadriven analysis that uh underpins a lot of the recommendations that we have um in order to uh improve and maintain a high level of service uh for the community here by Raleigh Fire Department. As mentioned uh this took a three-pronged approach. Uh we first engaged a number of stakeholder groups uh both internal and external to Raleigh fire uh mainly to gather insights, validate challenges and identify priorities for the department. Uh we then moved into a phase of data analysis uh where we reviewed Raleigh Fire's incident and response data uh to identify trends uh identify root causes and explore their resource utilization and then tied that all into a predictive model uh that looked into the future uh to predict incident demand uh and test various scenarios and how Raleigh fire uh is expected to perform as the city grows. My name is Greg Grayson. I'm with NC Fire Chief Consulting. We appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today. Uh we serve as the League of Municipalities Fire Consulting Provider as well as the Association of County Commissioners. It's been our honor to work with Chief Griffin, his staff, and Darkhorse on this initiative. As Chief Griffin said earlier, there was stakeholder engagement and involvement both internal within the fire department and within uh Raleigh city government. We were able to meet with key stakeholders. You'll see some of the groups over on the left hand side. Uh to get a really good understanding because many of your departments support the fire department in their day-to-day operation. And we had the opportunity to hear from from many of your staff. They were very professional, engaged, and involved. And if you look over on the right hand side, you'll see some of the topics that we were able to gather information on. While much of this data is very datadriven, uh it's also important to be qualitative and hear from personnel and hear from folks that are working in each of these areas. And we were able to gain that in this initiative. I'm going to share with you some of the um summary of recommendations. You you will see receive a voluous report. has lots of information and lots of data, but this is a takeaway as you look at the executive summary of those recommendations and you'll hear about it each of these pieces today, but uh it's important to look at them collectively as well. So, first you'll hear about station infrastructure and within the report uh it will discuss replacing or relocating several of your fire stations to more optimum locations and some new fire stations, but those aren't immediate. uh as the report uh will demonstrate to you, it's over a 25-y year period of time, but it's also a time in which the city of Raleigh will continue to grow uh in that that time period. Second, you'll hear about apparatus and staffing. The report recommends four frontline units uh considering some alternative methods of delivery such as use of quick response vehicles. It talks about maintaining staffing and areas of increasing staffing both in your current arrangement as well as the need for four firefighters on each piece of your response apparatus. And all of those things, as Chief Griffin alluded to, is consistent with the industry standard. It's not a legal required standard, but it's an industry standard. Uh, and that's National Fire Protection Association standard 1710, which is how urban areas and municipal fire departments across North America operate. The third area you'll see is optimizing the response and coverage. We provide recommendations and suggestions uh to use traffic preeemption to help your apparatus and emergency responders get through traffic. Uh, completing critical task analysis with your personnel. So you really see the capabilities of the crews that you're you're sending and responding. We also identify some ways that you can uh increase your automatic aid agreements around the city of Raleigh. You have mutual aid. We mutual aid means I need help and I call for help. Automatic aid agreements is that other agencies are sent automatically and initially and we help identify those for you where that may be uh considerations you want to to look at moving forward. The next section is standards and accreditation. In that section, uh, we talk some about the the standard of cover or standard of coverage, which is really just the level of service that you provide to your residents in Raleigh and how that works in a continuous improvement environment around accreditation. And the last section here is risk reduction and training. Uh while you have the the response responders and the fire engines and ladder companies and rescue companies responding, there's also infrastructure behind that that is necessary both within the city and also within the department. And we touch on several of those areas such as recruitment, retention, uh training and your instructors and also some of your prevention uh activities as well uh preventing the incidents from occurring in the first place. We'll take a look at several of the current state um information and data points because it's important for you to have a grasp of of where your city is now based upon the data. Uh Darkhorse has done an extremely good job in looking at a significant amount of data and they they truly have uh state-of-the-art tools to be able to do that. So when we look at where you are today uh in your current state, we look at several pieces. So everything about fire response is timed driven. It's very time-sensitive, time important. Why? Because someone is is having a cardiac arrest, their chance of survival drops about 10% every minute. Why fire doubles in size about every minute. The size timing is very very important. So ways that we measure effectiveness and efficiency there is first looking at uh what is the time and service delivery for your first arriving unit. That means Mrs. Smith dials 911. How long is it before they see the first Raleigh fire engine or personnel arrive? How what does that time look like? You may not know all the components that are working behind the scene, but what does that look like to Mrs. Smith who's having a crisis? Her kitchen's on fire or her husband's collapsed on the floor. How long does it take for that first unit to arrive? And so when we look at that, this graph shows some visual of what that looks like in the city of Raleigh today. This is your current state. Those lighter colored areas represent the the times where it's less. The darker colored areas represent a longer time period. So when you look at that overall within the city based on your 2024 data, your first unit is meeting that standard arrival time that arrival time standard 54% of the time. So ideally you'd like to be at 90% or higher. So there's a gap and we'll talk about why that is and some measures that will will hopefully be helpful. They vary though throughout the city. If you look at your downtown area and your station one area literally across the street, you'll see that that's some of the the shortest or the highest numbers towards that 90% goal uh at 81% for that station. But when you go out to station 23, that's in the northwest up off Pine Pinerest Road. When you look at that area, it's at 31. But when you look at your city overall, it's at 54%. You may say, well, what what is happening there? What why is that? So, let's take a look at that a little bit further. The term that that Darkhor has used in your report for this is over goal, meaning we we're our response is o is not where we want it to be. There's a gap. Where where is that and why is that happening? So, we've looked at a number of the the causes for that and this chart over on the right hand side helps to show it and I think it's important for you as as elected officials and policy makers and decision makers to recognize as your growth increases so does your demand for services. And so when you look at why is that happening today? Why are we at a 54% versus a desired n optimal 90%. One of those and that largest chart there is to say that your companies are busy. A fire service term we use for that is reliability. Meaning that there's an incident, the the typical fire engine that would respond to us can't because they're on another incident somewhere else. So the next unit within the system responds to me. So when you look at that that biggest column, you're busy. So it's population grows, so does demand grow. And so we think that's important for you to capture today when you look at that. Some of the other key pieces is optimizing your call dispatch and processing, receiving calls, processing those calls and dispatching them. Some of those opportunities and driving opportunities. That's some of the travel and there are recommendations throughout the the report to help with some of those as well. But the piece that we'd hope you'd have a takeaway there is that that as you grow uh and you're looking at that first unit arrival, you have a gap today. And so there's some measures to take in the short term, but also keep in mind as you grow, there'll be measures you'll need to take long term as well. The second way of measuring, we mentioned this first unit arrival, that's the Mrs. Smith time. The second one is very important. as just as well and it's the term is an ERF and what that means is an effective response force. That means placing enough firefighters on an incident to safely operate and do the job that they need to do. Firefighting is very labor intensive and so it takes a lot of people to do that. And so when we look at your your uh measure within the city on assembling that necessary team of people that may look differently on a residential house fire than it does a commercial building than it does a a you know high-rise building, but whatever is needed to assemble an effective response force. What does that look like for the city of Raleigh? Again, you're seeking to meet that 90% or greater. Uh based on the current data, uh you're meeting that 48% of the time. So again, two key measures. What's that first unit arrival look like? And what does the entire team arriving that's necessary to do the work? What does that look like moving ahead as well? Okay. So let's take a look uh into the future. Those pieces were all around where you are currently. So as we look into the future based upon the the data data that the city has provided, you have substantial growth coming. uh you've had substantial growth. I lived in in the Raleigh Wake area about 14 years myself. I served with Wake County uh before becoming a municipal chief. Uh and so you've grown a lot since since I lived in in this immediate area and you will continue to grow a lot. Uh when we look at the numbers uh with the population growth, as I said before, so will happen with your call volume that your fire department's responsible for responding and helping people. This chart will show you how that's projected to grow over 25 years. So the needs analysis and the needs of the pieces that we recommend are over that same period of time because there's a real correlation between the population and the demand. And so as you look at each of these areas, you can see that certainly over time uh the city will continue to grow and be uh you know important that you keep a good pulse with this. The report looks at four target areas or study areas in particular where either land size is increasing uh density is increasing the number of of people living in a particular place is projected to increase. We'll focus on just two of those here but you'll have more of those within your report as well. This first is the uh special study area in the northeast and in that particular area it's looking at the population as well as travel time. That's a challenge and so uh we we will come back and offer some recommendations for each of these. One of those in this particular situation is forming one of those automatic aid agreements with Wake New Hope. um and and being able to to have partners assist you both in the shorter term and longer term in addition to some of the additional uh resources that the city is going to need in that same period of time. The other area that we will highlight for you here today is the southeast special uh study area. And as you look at the southeast area, very similar when you look at the population and you look at the growth and projected growth in this particular area. uh here again we recognize and and identify for you as an example that uh the town of Nightdale's fire station 3 could be a great partner for you there. So we give that type of data for each of these areas and be able to to help illustrate for you that you know this is a concern or a challenge but here are some viable options as well. Mr. Smelky will move forward. So now I'd like to talk about some of our recommendations uh mainly to do with the station plan moving forward. Uh first uh talking about station replacement. Uh a number of Raleigh fires uh fire stations um are are reaching the end of their useful life uh or are at the end of their useful life and and those stations are presented here um in the order of their priority. So, station 23 uh needing the most immediate attention uh and station 17 uh being lowered down on the list. We conducted a uh station location optimization analysis um to look at all of the locations uh of these stations and determine um you know does do these stations need to be uh rebuilt on their current land? Is is that position uh optimal from a response perspective? uh or should they be repositioned uh somewhere else into the in the city uh to improve their coverage? And this table uh describes those recommendations. Um we're recommending that three of the stations uh 23, 9, and 8 uh are relocated um not very far from their current locations, but repositioned uh to uh cover some existing gaps. Um and stations 10 and 17 uh to be rebuilt as close to or as close to their current locations or on their existing lots. Um the station, station 23 is located in Raleigh's northwest. Um the station should be moved slightly south uh to around Country Trail and Pinerest Road. Uh station 9 is somewhat central in Raleigh. Um there were a few candidate locations along Six Forks Road that were presented uh that offer uh good response performance. Uh station 8 in Raleigh southwest. Um the the area to the west of that, the Aspbury area, is expected to grow significantly by 2050. Um and so we're recommending that station 8 should be moved slightly west uh to address that growing call or that uh growing call volume um and a need for improved performance there. Uh stations 10 and 17, like I mentioned, can stay at their current locations. Uh station 17, the lot is large enough to rebuild on. Uh whereas for station 10, unfortunately, that lot is too small to rebuild. Um however that location is optimal and um any options that can be taken to to rebuild either on that lot, expand that lot uh or keep it as close as possible um should be taken. In addition to that, uh we're recommending four new stations be built. Uh, two of these would be to uh address existing coverage gaps within Raleigh city limits uh particularly in Wilders Grove and the news crossroads area. And two additional stations should be built uh in Raleigh's northeast and southeast uh particularly in response to service area expansion uh as voluntary annexations occur. Um the map on the right there shows the final end state uh of the station plan. Uh the light blue markers uh denote uh the optimal locations for the stations. You'll see some of the ones that were moved uh become shaded out. And by adopting all of those recommendations, uh we would expect uh an 11second uh improvement in response time across the whole city. Um, when looking at some of the areas more locally, uh, such as in Wilders Grove or News Crossroads, uh, the improvements are are more significant and you would be able to, uh, expect an improvement of two and sometimes even 3 minutes of response time in those areas. It's a lot of station projects and so we're not recommending that they're happening overnight. Uh, this should be, you know, protracted over uh, the next uh, 15, 20, 25 years. Uh and we've split this up into three phases. Uh the initial phase uh around the first 10 years should be spent uh relocating and remodeling existing stations to optimize coverage wherever possible. Uh the second phase uh is where the department should start thinking about adding additional stations uh to keep up with expansion and demand. And then the third phase is adopting a continued focus on improving and increasing uh resources proportionately to demand and and growth. Uh on the bottom right you'll see some dotted lines and the reason for that uh is because the these new stations are primarily in response to voluntary annexations occurring uh and service area expansion. Um because those timelines are sometimes nebulous and hard to plan for. It's important that uh the department and the city remains flexible on those timelines um and evaluates that on on a regular basis. um at at the end of each station uh uh project uh the department should sort of re-evaluate this timeline and these recommendations to ensure that you know what we're presenting here uh and the plan moving forward still aligns with the needs of the community. With that, I'd like to talk about uh some of our recommendations surrounding apparatus and workload. Um, so it might sound obvious, but uh, Raleigh fire units are busy and will only continue to get busier uh, as the city continues to grow. Um, the map on the right there uh, shows the geographic distribution of the um, some of the busy over goals that um, Greg previously previously mentioned. Um, these are responses that missed uh that first due target because the unit that was best suited to respond was either busy on another call or was backfilling in another area. Uh, these types of over goals signal where additional units are needed. Uh, and it's particularly an issue during peak hours uh as units become busier. It's an issue that we've seen grow over the past four years uh fairly steadily and with the uh increase in population that we're expecting um this will continue to compound year-over-year uh unless the department is able to grow alongside the city in that respect and I'll pass it back to uh Greg. So this um is to give you some insight on uh your ladder trucks uh and and the need for ladder trucks and ladder service. This visual will show you some opportunities for coverage of ladder trucks. You're currently underserved. You obviously are are served and well served but by numbers in the data. You're underserved by the number of ladder trucks. And this helps depict that and it's outlined within the the analysis that that increasing that number of ladder trucks help you get that number of people that's needed for a fire incident on scene more quickly. So you're able to achieve the number of people more quickly, more readily, and be able to um be more effective, also to be a safer operation for your personnel as well. The analysis looks at the frontline uh apparatus and and adding four uh frontline apparatus as well uh over time and where those should be to to be able to provide that network across the entire city that will provide uh the ability for your level of service to increase closer and closer to that 90% at the same time that you're growing. Because the two of those don't work in in vacuums, right? your your demand continues but you also have an increasing demand. So how do you do that over time? Uh those frontline units that are recommended are to have two ladder companies uh one engine company and we also recommend you consider a quick response vehicle. Basically that looks at areas that have high demand maybe e even in a portion of a day to help uh distribute that call volume. So it helps the reliability of the trucks and companies that you have. I'd like to also note about your firefighter staffing and the title of this side slide is right sizing daily firefighter staffing. Part of our responsibility within this is to look at your current staffing level and make observations and recommendations. Raleigh Fire Department has historically been a very strong and capable fire department. Today you're very strong and capable. The recommendations within the study are designed to continue to allow you to be strong and capable into the future. There are several pieces in this section that we would say that u need addressing as soon as conditions would allow. First is increasing your number of staffing um each day of the the shifts are working. you have three operating shifts in increasing the number of the people today before you make additions of additional companies, ladders, engines, and those type of pieces. The study will recommend that uh six firefighters should be added on each of your three shifts. So, that's a total of 18, but uh again, that's one of those pieces that is where you are today again to remain capable, strong, and be able to handle the challenges uh before you. It further recommends as you add these additional companies to add them at the at today's um standard and looking at the industry standard and what should be added. What's the multiplier that's needed? And so you you're looking at the num minimum number of firefighters that should be on duty each day. Where are you today? You've got some gap there, an opportunity to address that. But as you add companies, add them consistent with the standard and be able to to determine that. We have more data today in in the fire service than we've ever had uh in looking at performance and what difference those numbers make. The National Institutes of Standards and Technology has done incredible studies to show the value and importance uh for safety for not only your residents but also your firefighters in this dynamic. Also, as you as you move forward, um, staffing all of your companies with four firefighters. The standard recognizes four firefighters, and it really relates back to those NIS studies that I mentioned a moment ago. What is the most effective number of people to complete task? And you'll notice earlier I mentioned something called critical task analysis. How long does it take you to do these tasks? And you'll be able to see, you know, what the the capabilities of your personnel are, but also what numbers needed. that's been looked at nationally and we recommend looking at that also specifically with Raleigh. But as you work on uh moving your your fire service delivery system forward, uh the four firefighters per engine over the next six years, uh we think is a a a realistic goal and uh something that will will provide improved service as well as safety to your firefighters. There's a number of of recommendations and as I said earlier there's a pretty voluous uh data collection and analysis that you'll receive in in written form but we do want to talk about some of the things that are more immediate in nature. What are some of the things that that really rise to the top that have some immediiacy to it and this particular section looks at opportunities with your call answering and call processing. uh we look at where you are today, where it's the standard, what's the gap, and we have looked at that and make a recommendation to set a goal of improving that by 30 seconds. Now, is that does that bring you to the to the 90th percentile? Maybe not. But setting that goal is part of the continuous improvement approach. Here's a goal we have. Let's work on on achieving that. And there's many pieces that go into that. We think that is a piece when you remember the column a few minutes ago, some of those those were not in place because of the time it took to uh process and answer and dispatch calls. So, we think setting a 30 second improvement goal is very realistic and achievable. We also think uh working with Wake County, the medical director to re-evaluate your medical responses that you're responding to. Are you really making a difference and impact? And if you are, great. If you're not, re-evaluate those. That's going to require some collaboration with EMS and the medical director, but we think that's worthwhile. The uh drivability piece, uh Raleigh is not currently using emergency signal preeemption. Uh many cities across our state effectively do and have been for many years. as you grow, as your traffic becomes more uh dynamic, uh more congested, that's a tactic that we think uh has place es especially in corridors. Um you know, when you are able to get uh control of a signal and be able to to safely get apparatus through that that signal and get it to the person, Mrs. Smith, who's dialing 911, when you're able to get that to her more quickly, uh we also noted the uh some of the non-traditional response types. That's that quick response vehicle that I mentioned a moment ago and all of those support functions uh for your department such as in your your training uh your maintenance your HR support. We are recommending that you add personnel short-term and long-term and that takes people to do that people to hire people to train people to prepare and career development for those personnel. So all of those are captured as well as the the community risk piece and that's really your prevention efforts uh that you have an outreach to your community and asking for help throughout the community. We identify several mid mid to long-term goals as well. uh looking at your current level of service, setting some of those achievable benchmarks that you can move your system forward with uh and advancing and improving your standard of cover. The great a great model to follow with that is accreditation. Whether you pursue the accreditation process as many North Carolina municipalities have or not, following the accreditation model is is a best practice and is recommended um uh in you know for you to consider moving forward. We mentioned the opportunity to expand automatic aid with partners, be that Nightdale or Wake New Hope or Kerry, whoever that may be, when that can help with an automatic response to those those crisises that are occurring that also Raleigh's responding to and being able to uh to get someone there as quickly as possible. Continuing to work with your training staff and determining your your critical task, how long that's taking. And that's a really important factor when you're planning your stations as well. So we've given you a map for 25 years forward. But uh there's a lot of variables, right? So part of that is is continuously looking at your performance, how you're performing, and how you can improve. We realize the the growth in Raleigh and Wake County is such that that land is often not available where you're looking to place it. So we we encourage you as policy makers and decision makers to secure land for fire stations when and where possible. Um that's that's a typical practice many municipalities try to to do and you've got a plan now that that really looks longterm into the future. So we encourage you to be uh use that tactic to be really good stewards uh moving forward. Okay. And the last point I have to mention today is just about continuous improvement. So, uh, Raleigh is a growing and dynamic city. Uh, at key points, uh, such as when stations are completed, uh, the department should re-evaluate its needs and the needs of the community. Um, as part of this project, we've left behind our analytical app suite that we've used for much of this project. um that will allow Raleigh Fire to continually monitor uh these performance metrics and do a lot of this work uh inhouse um which will help adopt that mindset of continuous improvement and effectively guarantee um you know the best uh performance possible for the community. Uh and that concludes what we have. Uh you know we would love to entertain any questions if there are any. All right. Thank you for a lot of data and uh work who has I'm sure there are questions. So um I'll start with Mayor Prom. Yeah. On I think it's page seven of your slides. Um the quick response vehicles, can you all tell me a little bit more about what those I'm assuming it's a smaller than a a ladder truck, but can you kind of describe a little bit more about what that is? Yes. Um, a quick response vehicle is like a pickup truck with staff with two personnel. It can be moved from station to station with there's a high call volume. Uh, and they run EMS. They do not run fire calls. Only EMS calls in those particular areas. So that would avoid having to use the ladder trucks to respond. That is correct. Okay. Yes. All right. Thank you. Very mobile. Yes. Right. Um, councelor Patton. Okay. Councelor Silver, I had a quick question uh for the city manager. I know we talked about as we rebuild. I know there's a replace a rebuild and you talked about potential for a public safety building. Yes. Are these in that category or they're not? Cuz as I was looking for the location and relocation for a larger site, just wanted to know was that included? Some was rebuild, some was relocate. So I was just trying to reconcile do any of those qualify for that vision you had shared about potential for a public safety building. I think as we dissect and put each one of these components into buckets of how we're going to respond and kind of phase in what our response and that approach would be, there will be some dual facilities that come out of these recommendations for economies of scale obviously for financial reasons and as we continue to grow the same response that is expected from the fire side is also expected from law enforcement as well. So we're not going to be able to build dual you know separate facilities. So how we bring that in-house to um do combinations is what we're looking at. So as we bring you back a phased approach of what um we always say the lowhanging fruit what makes most sense first um we'll bring back that back in the fall and then ultimately the staffing study once that data comes in will help us as we deliberate for FY27 budget which stations we can do which which apparatus we can procure from there. Thank you. Yes, that was it. Okay, down this way. Um, definitely thank you for the presentation and and chief, it takes 25 years, so I look for you to help and see this full implementation. Um, well, a couple questions. one, I know I I I do think we can work on getting more getting the fourth firefighter on the trucks, but one of the questions I have is as we look at these stations and we talk about response time, some of these are not going to be relocated or rebuilt, but the ones that we do, what about the idea of putting a second engine at that location to deal with the response time as well? Right. I'll give you a preliminary answer and I'll let uh the consultants uh primarily station three is one identified that they pulled up in the actual impact and it could use a second engine right we're moving station 3 now to rock quarry but it is slotted for a second engine could be due to that particular to help station 26 out so they do have the optics for that as well okay um my other question is um this is kind of actually chief this is for you um they talked about preemptive signaling. But I noticed in some of the new communities I use I use Nightdale since they were brought up. One of their new stations, they actually put new signaling on the street, especially the one on Haj Road. Is that an idea to help with response and helping our engines and trucks get out of the station um in order to respond? Is that something that we're thinking about or considering and working with transportation? Actually, fire station one is set to have pre preemptive uh opticon out at that particular red light. So most your major the fairs in major cities have uh what's called opticom systems that's on the trucks and what happens is as a truck is approaching the actual light the light picks up it on the traffic light whether it's 200 feet away and it changes it so the truck never has to really slow down through that it actually goes throughout each red line. Thank you. And my last question is we did this fire study and 25 years is a long time. So my question is what should be the interval of an updated fire study because the city's our city is going to change in the next five years. Um I 540 is going to dramatically change our city um when it's completed in 2028. That's that's in two and a half years. So how often should we actually do a evaluation of doing a study such as this? Uh so I think it's important to re-evaluate uh sort of at the end of any major project like uh you know a station construction or a station move. Um just a you know quick check in does all of this still make sense? Um o over time as we learn more about how Raleigh will grow as a city as we learn more about the specifics um we'll get a better idea of sort of a natural point where it makes sense to re-evaluate things. um you know a forecast in terms of um performance and and incident volume and population is is just that it's a forecast and and we actually expect these things to change um as we learn more um and so when um you know because the department will be self-evaluating and and you know embracing that continuous improvement um it it will be evident um when those plans begin to deviate from you know what the community needs at the time. Um so there isn't a um you know set uh interval I would say um I would say at at the very least maybe every 5 years of like a formal reevaluation um but otherwise on an ongoing basis. Okay. Thank you council member. Can I quickly add to Pat Young with planning and development? Certainly our goal, we talked to the chief about this is using the this great data that the consultants brought us um incorporating it with land use and growth data and really kind of have a dynamic tracking of those impacts so that there's early visibility. So just wanted to take a moment to to say that and to thank the group for delivering such a great product. Thank you. Yep. Councelor Patton. Sure. Um yeah, I mean thank you all for all your work that went into this. Um, I think we commissioned this study two two plus years ago. So, I'm glad to finally see the results of it and all this data is really helpful. Um, to build off Council Member Branch's point about the care and keeping, it's um, comforting to know you've left us with the software and tools that will allow us to manage this inhouse. Um, and just want to just chief want to make sure we have like a staff member who will be assigned to the care and keep like there's someone who's going to be able to input and update all this data as appropriate. Yes, we have two staff members that train on this actual door software. Awesome. Perfect. Um, and then one thing that wasn't I don't think clear as clearly spelled out in the executive summary, but I was comforted to see here, you know, we've been presented with this data that says uh 65% of the calls are EMS calls. So figuring out how we re-evaluate that with our partners at Wake EMS to make sure we're we're only going where we're needed and then also um send in smaller trucks so that we can so that we can um you know get around the city a little more easily. I think is I'm glad to hear that that that along with these um I guess they're called automatic aid agreements. Um getting those in place because certainly in my district I I do you know I acknowledge the same truth that was spelled out here that there's going to be times when Nightdale responding or Wake New Hope responding is just a better use of everyone's time and resources. Um so I was really glad to see those. I in general I just was really grateful that there were um sort of like performance metrics that were um called out, staffing improvements and infrastructure like new construction, new apparatus. I just felt like this was very comprehensive in terms of all the things that need to be done. Um so I'm just really grateful to see it all. Thank you. Right. Any other Yes, councelor Jones. Thank you so much for this. I think my question is going to be for the consultant. Um I just like some clarity when we talk about staffing. So uh on the slides that you brought up, uh there was a 36 I don't remember the exact number and I'm wondering what metrics we're using because when I pull up the NFPA, which is another standard that you used, that is not what they have. They have per thousand people, um it's 1.454 to 1.81. So how does that measure up to what you put and why are those different? Okay. So, a couple pieces that I would say to you is you have to look at if the four-person staffing is clearly articulated in the 1710 industry standard. Uh, in order to achieve that though, uh, if I had four four firefighters on engine one, I have to have four for a shift, four for B, and four for C. So, that makes a total of 12. But you also have to to kind of supercharge that because you want to make sure your firefighters have an opportunity to be uh on vacation, uh away for training, sick leave when that needs to occur or vacancies that occur within your your system. So the the industry standard that that is used is typically going to be that you have 15 firefighters assigned in order to accomplish a four-person staffing on an engine. So four-person staffing is under the 1710 standard. How do you do that? You can accomplish that in other in many ways. Uh we we would uh say to you that that having that buffer uh I believe the the measure is 3.75. Basically having 15 people for a minimum of 12 is what most cities use to to make that calculation with. It's more effective to do that than paying overtime for personnel to be able to fill those positions. So the the goal is getting four people, a contiguous crew together performing a task. How do you do that? The the most typical way that's done is ensuring you have that four-person crew at all times. But to do that, you have to to have an over staff to be able to accommodate uh FMLA, sick leave, annual leave, vacation, train, training away, and all of those types of of pieces that are just realistic in the fire service. Yeah, I think I understand that. I just don't understand the differences to the metrics and and what would it be if we were to do a thousand if if we were going to measure it as NFPA does at a thousand people uh residents and that's what you know we're talking about population we're saying our population is growing why wouldn't we use the population metric to make sure we understand what our capacity actually is. Sure. Mr. Smel you may want to add something to that. Let me just clarify another piece that's when you say the thousand people. So anytime you have a a density of a thousand people or more, that's considered an urban environment. So that urban demand and and and need in an urban envir environment may look different than a suburban environment. Suburban is going to be between 500 and a thousand. And that rural environment is less than 500 people. It's just density pieces. So some of that depends upon the areas that you serve. You serve urban areas, you serve suburban areas. You have both obviously within the city of Raleigh. So Mr. Mr. Smowski, would you add anything to that? Yeah, just on the the distinction between the two metrics, um the number of firefighters per thousand people is sort of an indicator of how the fire department will need to scale along with population. It's it's sort of a number of um firefighters on shift um if you will. The 3.75 number is um on the other hand, it's sort of a a minimum staffing number. So if we were to plan for um you know say 180 firefighters on shift um in order to um make up for f FMLA in training and you know time off in general um it's effectively hiring that extra 75 firefighter um for every single position across three shifts. So um yeah looking at sort of minimum staffing levels versus um how they should scale. Thank you. Um, I probably will just need further and beyond this conversation, you know, maybe scheduling some time to better understand because that that's what really stuck out to me and I think staffing in general to to everybody, but I was really looking at this because I I know that for the last few years our highest amount of overtime is spent in fire. And so when I know that and um and I look and then we say 18, I'm like really is 18 people going to solve us and bring us from essentially an F for both standards. I mean, you put a 54% and a 48% and it just makes me go 18 is really going to bring us to what? And I know we're not going to get to 90 and that's that would take a lot of money to do that. Um, but I don't know how far that brings us. Does that bring us to a D? Does that bring us up to a C? You know, the 18 because it feels low. Now, that that's just me saying this on on feeling, not on any statistic that you guys have have presented by any means. Um, but that's where my concern. I love the the the report you guys did was phenomenal. And Station 23 and 17 are right next to me. So, I'm like, "Yes, let's get those done." So, I I totally appreciate all of that. It's the staffing levels that I'm most concerned about, and it's due to the fact that we've spent the most in overtime with them. Um, I would love I know that we've had some um uh I feel like our our retention is the issue because we get to we hire and then people will last fire academy went from I think 47 down to like 22. So, we're constantly in this trying to hire, hire, hire. and um and I feel like that's what is reflected in in our low scores. And so I'm trying to just measure and get put questions in my head that would better articulate that. So I will do a better job of writing those down and maybe scheduling some time with you to further clarify um because it's I get nervous with with all that. So but but thank you so much for for your reporting. Um I think I have one last question and that would be in uh to chief or maybe it would be to uh city manager in terms of ourmies which we've watched and we've seen that they've had attrition rates that are really high. I'd be interested to see the last maybe five or 10mmies and how many people are still here because I feel that our retention rates, not just our hiring rates, but all of that is part it. We can say all of the the numbers here, but unless we're having them and keeping people here, we're never going to attain that. And and I'd be interested to see what that's looked like over the last, you know, 5 to 10mmies so that we can see where are the issues. And I don't know if that's something that um can be done quickly. I don't know if that's too much. I don't know how quickly we can do it, but we can definitely get that data to you. And I think one of the things that we have decided or Raleigh Fire has decided in working with HR and we mentioned this when the chief last did the presentation on how many people had fallen out of that last academy. If we keep an open recruitment like we do with law enforcement, when folks drop out, you've got people eligible that you don't have to go back out and do a posting and do all the things that makes that transition a whole lot more seamless. There are a couple of blocks in fire that create issues for folks and that's the medic piece that people have a hard time with like in fire in police it's the legal block and so people do really well initially through the interview process the physical piece but they can't necessarily master the those stronger more indepth um portions of the academy. So I think that's kind of what we've seen here recently in police and fire. But yeah, we can pull that data and kind of show you. We really don't have a retention issue once they make it through the academy. I wish everybody's I say that to you guys a lot. I wish every department in the city was as locked in as fire when it comes to once they're here, they kind of stay through their career. Um and here recently, we've had folks that just haven't been able to make it out of the academy. Sure. And then lastly, and then I'll I'll uh give the mic back, but um I think we had spoken a few months ago, and it was about the call outs because that was something that was an issue. Um and I may have missed it in a in a manager's update, but comparatively to other departments, you know, how does the call out rate look here with fire comparatively, and I know we talked I don't know if I I missed it, but if you could resend that, that would be fantastic. We'll get HR to pull that data for you, and we're working internally on some things to try to address some of that. Okay. Um I see Mayor Pro Tim Fort down there is going to ask and um that hopefully will come back as part of that. I already know um is going to come back as we look at staffing and we bring that data back. So yes, thank you. Other questions? I guess I did have some just on some of these um you have things like community risk reduction. I mean, we talked about some of the drivability and these things that get response times down. I'm just curious how we, you know, are we out of line with other communities and having some of those like is our community risk reduction? Do we have a lot more calls per capita than other communities? How big a deal is that? Um, and then on the drivability, like what percentage of cities of a half million have all of these tools to help drivers get to and then what does that cost? I mean, there's sort of a whole, you know, analysis of are there smaller things we can do to chip away understanding the staffing is obviously a huge issue. We we've known that. Um, it's really helpful to see this, but I I guess the cost, how severe some of these are, how they're weighted, uh, would just if there's any immediate response, but then maybe this is all just additional followup as as staff get their time to work through this, but any No, it's a great sentiment what you brought up. Uh, we look at that in a fire versus a EMS. Right now, we have 11 stations that make over 44% of the working fires here in the city of Raleigh. Right. So, a lot of our efforts are going community risk reduction. We have one educator. So, we have to send him in those different zip codes to do the fire ed education and canvasing versus the EMS. We can break it down for you and show you where the majority of your calls are coming from, what location, what zip codes, right? So, therefore, as Councilman Brandt said, can you put a dual unit in the station? Yes, you can. You can run two fire trucks there, right? To alleviate that or the quick response vehicles. Council member Ford asked about, those are small things you can do right now with a lot of impact. Okay. right towards reducing community risk. Yes, that's helpful. Thank you. Yes. All right. Well, I think Yes. Appreciate it. More work to come. And yes, and so for Anna or whoever is covering this story, I don't want the headlines to be we are an F and how do we get to a D. We have an amazing fire department and while we may be at 54% of what the standard is, we put fires out and we provide life-saving services to this community every day and every night without um reservations. So, we have a strong department that does amazing work. So, I don't want anybody to walk away thinking our fire department is less than the best. And with that, I hope you guys have a long and restful summer break and we have enough homework. Don't add anything else to the list today. We have enough homework to do to keep us busy till December, Council Member Patton, especially you. We've got your list already. Okay. Thank you, uh, city manager. Uh, next we have matters scheduled for public hearing and we have, uh, it's two sort of joined items on AX1724 Tar Hill Clubhouse Road. and we have Hannah um to present. Good afternoon. Uh Hannah Real with planning and development. So yes, this is two items AX1724 and Z1424 that go together for the same property on Tar Hill Clubhouse Road. Provide a update on both and then you can uh return to the two hearings. So there's uh really no update on the annexation request. AX1724 uh remains a request for connection to both water and sewer. Um I'll make one note. I know uh the topic of uh solid waste services came up at the last discussion. We do have staff here that can address any remaining questions you have on that topic. And then the reasoning Z1424 um continue to allow the conditions to be revised which they have been. Um specifically uh all the previously offered conditions remain the same. And then one condition has been added um that would um dedicate up to three acres for use as a fire public safety station or if the city chooses to not accept that land, the property owner would make a contribution to go towards fire service and that uh contribution is tied to the issu issuance of the first building permit. So that's the the update on this case. Happy to answer any questions you have. Okay questions. All right. So, we had continued this. Um, we do have uh folks who have signed up. Um, so if it's continued, I don't need to bang the gavvel. Um, I can call it was Marie Farmer, Matthew Carpenter, Jeremy Keaney, and Bill Robinson. Yeah. Okay. There was so if there was no time remaining I mean how about just a couple minutes is that yes mayor cow we'll keep our our comments very brief um as staff had noted uh we had previously uh asked for continuance to address the only outstanding issue that we had not addressed with our conditions yet which was the fire response times in the area and so as staff explained we have added a new condition uh for the reservation of three acres I thought I was touching that for a moment. Um uh we've added a condition for uh 3 acres uh being reserved for the fire station along Tar Hill Clubhouse Road uh or um with an alternative uh that if the land is not ultimately selected, $50,000 will be donated uh to Raleigh Fire. And so with this change, this request now addresses the feedback that we received from neighbors. It addresses every recommendation that we received from staff. It addresses the concerns from the planning commission. And so at this time, we respectfully uh request approval, but our team um all of the names that you read out, that's just our team, and they are available to answer questions as needed. All right. Thank you so much. Timely presentation on the fire station uh land. We have questions, councelor Patton. Yeah, I think um last time there was a speaker they mentioned the um land being farmed but then there was some concern about whether this is actually used for agricultural use. It sounds like there might be some useful additional context. Can you provide that? Yes. So, since the last council meeting, we did look into the history of the sellers a bit more. And the land was inherited in 2022 by the children of lifelong Wake County residents who grew up on Old Mill Bernie Road. They farm the land for many, many years. Uh, but the family is no longer in the business and they are are looking to move on. The children are not farmers and so that is the decision that they made to sell this land. Any other questions or is there a motion? As I said at the last time and I guess I should bang close the public hearing. Yeah, as I had mentioned at the last hearing, I'm really struggling with this one. Um, I had to zoom out on the zoning map and future land use to get a better picture of this general area. Uh the closest R six conditional use is on the other side of a uh conservation management zone. I just don't know if R six uh conditional use even though it is conditioned to 225 homes and the size I think varies from 5,000 to 12,000 uh with open space set aside. This seems to be jumping ahead of any planning. If this is an area that's going to be evolving, I just don't want the tail wagging the dog and um I will have to defer to my colleague that this district looking around it manufacturing housing uh agricultural productive it just seems very rural type uses and I'm just not sure the intervention of 225 homes would start to set in motion a domino effect of what will happen in this region without thinking through the planning implic implications. s back then. I know in 2010 2009 looking at the future land use uh it defaulted to agricultural productive because I think that was a use in surrounding area but I I'm just inconsistent. I believe the plan commission recommended denial. So I'm going to struggle supporting this case but I do want to commend the applicant for doing as much as they could including issues with uh insufficient fire service. So, this one I just feel is uh probably not the right designation at R six with all my concerns because I can just see this one very quickly, this part of the of the district and the city changing very rapidly uh with this intervention. So, I'm just going to put that out there. All right. Um Councelor Patton. Um, yeah, I certainly acknowledge that thoughtful and well-meaning people can disagree on on where to land on this case and I I will harbor no ill will no matter where anyone falls. The way I'm thinking about this is that I think our body has some big work to do in discussions around growth and annexation at the fringes that we need to tackle at a policy level. Um, and while understanding that like case by case is maybe not the the best way to to manage or mitigate things and that uh when you know every no to something is a yes to something else. And so I ask myself if what what is the yes that we're inadvertently giving if we say no to this project? um you know some things that abut this property are already annexed uh housing already annexed public school and a city park of our of our own city. So there's these public amenities in this area that we have already invested in and there I think that for me primarily fire service constraints were the the number one concern. And I do think the limitation in the units brings it down to like a three unit per acre average which I I think kind of roughly splits the difference um on the you know the rural designation but while still like allow I think the conditions allow a more targeted preservation of the natural spaces that are left in a way that if we just said we have to be rural it would be less dense but we wouldn't be protecting nearly as as much of the natural space that's aail available. So, I think that, you know, I think we have big policy work to do as a body, but I think as an individual case, they've really done everything that's needed to to mitigate my concerns. Um, particularly that since there's already been public investments in this area. So, um, with all that said, I will move to adopt the annexation on this case effective immediately. Second. Okay. Is there any other discussion on annexation? Right. All in favor of that motion. I I. All opposed? Nay. Okay. So, two nos. All right. And then I'll move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated July 1st, 2025 contained in the agenda materials and approve those zoning amendment with the adoption and effective dates described in the agenda item under recommended action. This approval is also deemed an amendment to the future land use map to the extent described in the adopted consistency statement. Second. Okay. Any other discussion on the resoning case? If not, all in favor? I I I. All opposed. And two nos. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. And next we have the report and recommendation of the special committee on council advisory boards and commissions. And we have uh assistant city manager Evan Raleigh. Good afternoon again, mayor and members of uh council. So um here to provide you the report from the um special committee on boards and commissions. Before I do that, do I I I do want to make a just a couple of acknowledgements. Uh take a point of personal privilege. Um certainly appreciate the hard work I'm here recommending and reporting out, but um the hard work of the staff that contributed uh we got a lot done in uh span of three meetings. Thanks in large part due to the city clerk, staff, uh staff from community engagement, uh our liaison, uh certainly Miss uh Taiisha Mosley want to acknowledge her for her effort uh in support of the committee's work. So with that said, I will uh take you through the presentation. So there are three areas that we'll cover. Uh just to kind of quickly remind folks where we were, what the um uh charge to this committee was, how it was established. Um we'll uh summarize the recommendations of the committee and then uh share with you a few items that the committee is recommending for council's consideration. So again, just to remind um anybody that may not be familiar with the the work of this committee, it was um back at the March 18th meeting of of council, the committee was established and was charged with reviewing all matters uh related to the the current functioning of the city's advisory boards and commissions, looking at the structure of bylaws, composition, uh any other things that were related to the composition or structure of those advisory commissions. So I will uh begin with uh a review of the recom recommendations. So the first recommendation of the committee uh was around standardizing the bylaws. Um so as you all know every committee has a set of bylaws. Um over time of course uh as councils come and go, committee members come and go those bylaws get amended over time and we ended up in a situation where bylaws from board to board uh could vary somewhat significantly. So the committee uh took up this question and um has made a recommendation for a standardized set of bylaws which are attached I believe in your agenda materials and those bylaws really again the the the key there the goal there is to establish comm consistent practices uh when you move between the boards ensure that there's adherence obviously to city and state policies um and uh again just bring consistency in the way that those boards and advisory boards and commissions operate. So, just to kind of give you a sense of what um items are specifically contained in those um in those in that standard bylaw template, uh obviously the way that work plans are prepared and presented, uh the nature of the activities that the boards and commissions would undertake, uh the way in which resignations of members are treated, the removal of members, the establishment of corn, really the way that these these uh boards and commissions function from a structural perspective uh is addressed. And I will say um we have reserved a section in those bylaws recognizing that there are some unique things um you know in terms of the way certain boards function. We do want to uh make room for um you know those boards to maintain some of that uniqueness and should the situation require. And so there's a section in the standard bylaw template that does reserve that opportunity for for uh boards and commissions to build in uh some of those unique aspects to their um their operation or their function for council to consider and adopt should they should council choose to do so. So the second area of of recommendations that the uh special committee has made relates to the uh guidance to the city council liaison to the various boards and commissions. So um the committee is also recommending the adoption of again a a sort of document that lays out um in in quite specific detail um the roles and responsibilities of council liaison. Uh this is just an example generally of what those um those uh liaison guidance is offers. It's you know things that council leaison should avoid, things that they should do, shouldn't do. Um addresses uh the attendance expectations of of council liaison to the various boards and commissions. Um and again just further examples of the types of things that that guidance speaks to that again avoiding personal perspectives not essentially you know council members not acting as uh additional members or exeicial members of the boards and commissions. Um really focusing on providing uh you know a two-way a medium for two-way communication between the board and council. um not providing procedural direction but really not uh interjecting personal uh opinions not endorsed by by council. So the next area uh that the committee reviewed and is is prepared to make recommendations on relates to the naming of certain boards and commissions. So there were two specific boards and uh that the committee has recommended a name change for. Uh first the Fair Housing Hearing Board was recommended to be uh that name to be changed to the Fair Housing Advisory Board uh to better reflect um the the general nature of what that that group does. The second group that was recommended to for a name change was uh what's currently the Raleigh Transit Authority. Uh the recommendation was that that board become the Transit and Mobility Advisory Commission. And uh I think probably the biggest area of recommendations uh comes in this section related to the structure and composition of the various boards and commissions. So this is a table I hope it's not too busy but um essentially on the left represent the boards that the committee recommended remain standalone or not standalone I should should say the parent board. The sec the column in the middle uh is are the boards that uh were previously independent that are recommended to be folded in to that parent board. And on the far right side you see the size when you bring all of those boards together under that parent board, what the size uh the membership size of that new parent board would be. So I'll just uh just quickly run through these again. parent board. For the first example, the the committee endorsed um collapsing the historic cemeteries advisory board into the historical resources and museum um advisory board, which will become the new parent board. Human relations would um be comprised of uh the hispanic and immigrant affairs advisory board, substance use advisory board, and the African-American affairs board. Uh there is an asterisk there simply because that that board has not yet been seated. Uh but in this uh proposal would become a subcommittee of the human relations commission. And then finally that retitled uh transit and mobil advisory commission would be comprised of obviously what was uh the the transit authority board uh BPAC the bike pedestrian advisory commission and the mayor's council on for persons with disabilities. So those were the committee's recommendations on uh alignment and and consolidation of boards. The committee also took up the question of um composition which I kind of spoke to but I'll I'll a moment ago but I'll do it in more detail here. So the recommendation again is for multiple bird uh boards and commissions to merge to form the boards that I just laid out. Um again, the the total number of uh overall seats at least at the outset of the merger should council choose would be as I identified on that previous slide. But the goal would be that um a we'll just say an appropriate number of uh members would be identified at some point in the future and the way in which uh the boards would uh reach that size uh would be through natural attrition of members. either um uh vacancies occurring and not being reappointed or members leaving for for other for other reasons. Uh in terms of um again I referenced those those boards that were previously standalone that would become uh a subcommittee of the parent board. uh what the committee recommended was that uh membership of those subcommittees would be uh through self- selection of the members of the parent board. So this is just the summary uh again uh to capture in just two slides um all of the recommended actions that the committee is uh presenting to council for consideration. So one again is the adoption of those uh standardized bylaw templates that I uh spoke to. Um the second action is the adoption of that council liaison guidance. Uh the third uh action the committee is recommending is uh well authorizing staff to draft an ordinance that would rename um both the fair housing hearing board and the um transit the transit authority board. Uh the fourth action is um for that reorganization of those newly combined boards to take effect January first again with a eventual number of seats on those newly created parent boards to be determined at a f future date. Uh and again endorsing the process to reach that ideal size through natural attrition. I spoke to this uh recommendation a moment ago to rename the um transit authority board. And then finally um committee is is recommending that staff be given the direction to provide uh education outreach sessions related to the to the proposed changes should they be adopted. So I uh will close with that and um happy to answer any questions on behalf of the committee. Right. Thank you so much for all the work on this. Um, yep. Yeah. Um, thank you for the presentation. Um, I was glad to be part of the committee and the conversations. And one of the reasons why I supported voting this out was because we said we're going to have some community conversation um about this because I have a lot of hesitation in the Raleigh Transit Authority and the combination with the bike as well as the mayor's um committee for um disabilities. Um so that I I really believe we need to give space for feedback from the committees um with these because these are big changes um especially when we talk about the transit authority, the mayor's committee and um bike and ped. So, I would not support any action other than actually the first three um items, the first three recommendations um of this today. Can we go back to the recommendations just so we know what you're referring to? Yeah. So, the first three was one was around the bylaws and the template for the boards. Um the adoption of the le liaison role and guidelines. um and also directing staff to renaming the fair housing um hearing board to the fair housing advisory board because they do not see hearings. So those will be the only three that I will support at this time. Um the rest we definitely need more conversation. Okay. And then can we just go to the rest of the committee so we know what we would then be? Um yeah. So this would be if you want to have a public hearing or some sort of feedback. Okay. So that we would be proposing that the January 1 and then I will say the one change that I had talked about was we were pulling out the disability committee uh the mayor's committee that was not going to be rolled in and this was just conversation that we've had subsequent and feedback. I had um gotten a number of pieces of feedback there. So, I think we were if we were putting this to a public hearing, I would go ahead and make that amendment to what was being proposed. Um, and the rest could go and then what's five and six just to make sure. That's just a uh Yeah, direct staff to Okay. The ordinance renaming and then Okay. Well, and then you would approve six, right? Which is the Oh, okay. But you're saying a hearing, not outreach. Yeah. Yeah. We had talked about having a even if it was in a work session having a work session um where people cuz we said that we had committee chairs and represent in our meeting and that's the thing that we promised them that we will have opportunity to receive feedback um and conversation and we and the reason for that is so that it's not like you only get three minutes to come up and speak where we can actually have a conversation because these are major changes. Um, again, now that I'm hearing the pull out of the mayor's committee for persons with disabilities, um, that only leaves the bike and paid advisory commission, and I think we really need to talk about do does that fit in com combining them with the Raleigh Transit Authority because the transit authority does a lot of heavy lifting and work with our transit system. Okay. Yes. Yeah. I I just want to agree about keeping the mayor's committee on persons with disabilities independent and I appreciate council member Branch's um thoughts too on the Raleigh Transit Authority and BPAC and whether those maybe need to be independent. Um I just have a few questions I want to raise. I don't think there's probably any answers at this time, but things I'm thinking about if these emergggers, you know, go forward, who would be the chair of these new combined boards? How will that be determined? um who will be facilitating the mergers themselves. I assume it's staff. Um but there could be a lot of conversation and process to the point where work plans may not get done. And so I think we just have to recognize the disruption that this will cause to ongoing work plans um without very thoughtful facilitation of the you know combinations. I'd be curious how often are subcommittees expected to meet? So, what will be the duties, you know, of these new boards? Are they going to have to now come to meetings twice a month to get their work done plus go to the joint board meetings or how do we work that out so it's not, you know, a burden? Um, and then, you know, again, other subcommittees that maybe these boards already have, h will those still be subcommittees or, you know, how does that work? So, I'm just thinking about kind of the getting into the details. I don't know how it works, but I know groups can be tough to navigate and when we make changes, we need to be prepared for that. Y councelor Jones. Yeah. Um I was really happy to be part of this uh task force and in this last meeting um echoing councelor Branch's uh thoughts because we had a lot of chairs from there and they were not this is the first time they saw it too. So, I I definitely echo that one and one one through three I'm okay with, but we need to definitely have a uh public conversation and gain their impact and their their feedback outside of the survey. We did send a survey to all boards board members and that we were able to review it briefly, but we've only had those three meetings and these are monumental ships. I think something that we talked about um like the human relations which would have 42 members. I guess in my brain the way I pictured it is kind more like buckets. Not that they would merge completely, but that that this would be your team of of of boards that did similar work. U because when we push them all into one board of 42 members, I think we talked about space. We can't I don't know if we have space to put 42 people. And then those that joined the boards that had let's say uh third Thursday at 7 o'clock and somebody else had a meeting on the second Tuesday at 5:00. Now those are different times and they've committed to those times. So if now we switch it, I think that that really uproots what people thought that they were committing to. So um less about merging for in my in my estimate and more like just grouping together kind of like what I had mentioned at the last meeting about our strategic initiatives. And I I do really appreciate that staff gave us a presentation or or part of their presentation was about keeping it to our strategic initiatives. Um but I I more so see these as groupings because changing it fundamentally like that I think adds some confusion. So listening to the public and having that meeting I think is imperative. Thank you. Yep. Councelor Silver. Well, first let me commend staff and my colleagues for doing a a lot of good work in a short period of time. I was very impressed. I agree with the first three items particularly standardized bylaws the work plans which I'll ask a question in a second. Expectations of liaison what you should and should not do. Uh to me all that is extremely helpful. So I do agree because when there's change there's three three stages there's storming norming and performing and I think we want to get to the norming and performing so having a lot more conversation would be helpful I just do have a question I would like to see a little bit more specificity on the work plans uh just my review of some of them uh there's a thin line between advisory and oversight and oversight means staff has to do a lot of work to prepare documents ments and want to make sure they're focused on operations and not doing audit type informations for oversight. So yes, I like the fact that it's tied to strategic plan but a lot more specificity and that it's more in the advisory and not necessarily oversight role. So just looking for more clarity on work plan since each board required to do it and it wasn't in the material but just wanted clarification. We've had issues with meeting quorum. Who makes that call to make sure before people come to a meeting? Uh is it the chair of that board or is it staff? It's so important that we avoid people coming down and then we find out there's not a quorum and everyone has to leave or they cannot conduct official business. So for me somewhere it should does not have to be naming the rules but an unofficial rule that someone should count to ensure uh in advance uh that there will be a quorum so business can be conducted so people don't come down and unfortunately waste their time. Other than that, I was very impressed and I do concur. We need more time uh to discuss some of these con consolidations just as uh council member Harrison had mentioned who chairs are these or you mentioned um Mr. Raleigh are these subcommittees of a larger board. So to me just understanding the mission of all these groups could be a bit complex. So with that I do support the first three and certainly support more conversation on the other three. Um, I'll just keep going down. Councelor Patton and then Lambert Milton. Sure. Yeah. Thank Thank you to staff and thanks to the committee members. Um, I'll echo my colleagues and the the first three standardization of the bylaws, uh, roles of the liaison and, um, renaming a fair housing board. I'm aligned with those. Um, I'll share council member some of the previously expressed constrnation around um combining Raleigh Transit Authority with with anything else. I mean, as the name implies, they're empowered with more authority than than some of our other boards. And they are really in the weeds like being like providing feedback on like whether the bus stop should be on the east side of intersection or the west side of the intersection. And so they're like a like they're doing a lot of work in a way in a different way than um any of our other boards. And um I also think we'd lose a lot of the advocacy of our bike and ped community by combining them. And then the mayor's committee um for persons with disabilities I think is sort of crosscutting. you know, our our folks with disabilities do like have a lot of feedback around how they move around our city, but they also need like meeting access and um housing access and and there, you know, the the nature of how any given disability might crosscut on on all the things that we do here at the city, I think makes that feel misaligned. Um I think if anything it's a little more closely related to some of those other boards that are also sort of identity based. Um so I think that needs a little more discussion. One thing and maybe committee members can respond. One thing I haven't seen is sort of the um the main goal or like the problem we're trying to solve the most and I think that would help us target like what we're trying to do. So if it's if the issue is the primary issue that we're trying to do is reduce staff time on this part of their work, then that's going to lead to one set of responses. If it's to improve uh commission member satisfaction, then that's a different set of responses, you know. So I I wonder if like there was a stated goal. I can tell you I mean I think one was we've like I was on council right 20 years ago. We had a lot fewer commissions like human relations. I was on human relations. We all worked together across all these categories. I thought it was a really good experience. I obviously then led me to go do other things. And so the you know one was quorum. We had confusion on some boards as to what they were doing. And because we're all busy when you have 30 boards and commissions, lots of times city council is not going to go. So I think it was trying to value their time, streamline, get people to collaborate more. We heard a lot about people want to meet with other boards. So how can they work together and blend these issues and not work in silos and then also align with our strategic plan. So I think there was a lot of different goals we were trying to accomplish and that would also allow staff to better support some of these groups where we had also had complaints that for some of these boards they just didn't feel like staff had the time. So you know I don't and again Chapel Hill had just gone through this. So 30 boards and commissions is a lot more than we had 15 20 years ago. Are we getting value out of that? I think there were enough issues. The thought was how do we make this a really meaningful and very quality advisory set for this council so that everybody's using their time well. And then the one last Thank you for that. Um the one last thing I'll add is one the piece of feedback I get a lot from directly from commissioners is can um sort of orbit around the idea of events and I think maybe to this maybe to your exact point of making sure we're aligned with our strategic plan it might be worthy of consideration that we instead of like some boards do events and D it's like each of these boards is just providing almost like a white paper like every quarter their their guidance their thoughts to us on various ious elements of the strategic plan. So, you know, one quarter they're they're giving us their uh feedback on housing and one quarter they give us their feedback on public safety as sort of informed by their, you know, topic. Um, but rather than there being a mix of boards that do a lot of events and boards that review plans and this and that, like maybe those the nature of their work gets more standardized rather than compressed. Thank you. I will add it was helpful to hear from the mayor the intended outcome. Um I I think and this may sound harsher than I mean it to but we need to remember that all these boards and commissions maybe not all of them. There's a few that are statutory and a matter of construct. They were all created by city councils over time to serve specific purposes. And I think what the mayor has said is coming back in with fresh eyes. This has really ballooned into a way that it feels unmanageable perhaps or there's redundancy in the work. And if that is the goal, then I think it is our responsibility as the council to say we are going to trim some of these boards back. And that and we need to just make that the clear direction because I think if we go out and ask, hey, what do you think about this? We're I'm going to assume we're going to hear a lot of we don't like it. We don't want to do it. And you know, these are volunteer positions. They're not paid. But this these aren't positions that folks stay in forever. uh everybody's up for reappointment every two years or so depending on the board. People are term limited and so I would say to get through the three stages that uh council member Silver said I think it's our responsibility to to say these are the ones that we think we need to either cut or condense and set that direction and provide ourselves and the volunteers who are serving sort of an an on offramp. And so I will also say that if we're having quorum issues, creating one board that has 42 members is really not going to help with that because they're going to have a lot harder time to meet quorum now. And so I think we should almost just set the direction. And even if it's a matter of a couple of years before these boards start to wind down or get combined as members naturally roll off, that can be fine. But I don't think we need to group think this project because my opinion is going to be what we're going to hear from folks who are serving now is they don't want to the system to change. And so if we know it needs to change, we need to we need to signal that, do it, and figure out a way that we can be respectful of people's time, but um wind it down at our direction. Well, and just I I know Mayor Bertm, I would say we one of the other strong recommendations we had was natural attrition. We know all these people have volunteered. We do not want to remove people from board. So while there's a target number and that also while we're in the midst of this conversation I think we wanted to freeze appointments to the ones where we were thinking about combining. So as an example I did not vote on anybody for human relations today because I knew right this is not clear and I'm not going to add to that 42 number which I think would really be maybe you know five or six months before we had all these rolling uh sort of folks that just were you know naturally uh in you know completing their terms. So, um I do think there was a long-term goal here with uh I I certainly want to respect people who have volunteered and then um but anyway, so that was just on that point. We did not want this to be removal of anyone from any boards. Yeah. Well, and the other part of it, excuse me, I'm not sure if it was completely clear. as um some of these boards are folded into a larger board, they would be sort of like subcommittees and so you wouldn't necessarily have the issue about quorum and some of the other stuff because it would be subcommittees kind of meeting and then reporting up to the larger body but to your point folks would be rolling off and it would get more condensed. Um the other thing that I wanted to say kind of addressing your point um council member Patton I think across the boards there are different responsibilities. So quasi judicial boards probably wouldn't be providing us with you know documentation or papers. Yeah. And but some of these other boards that do events um I think for community members those events have become signature and pretty important and in some spaces pretty impactful. So, I think we have to be sort of careful about um saying that we wouldn't want them to do events and things along those lines because I think for some communities those events are signature and have a lot of meaning and historic meaning and things along those lines as well. So, just something to keep in consideration. Okay. Well, I think we've all had our commentary. So, it sounds like there's uh folks here we want to have either some sort of hearing or and then I heard work session. I think we want to support one, two, and three. Does that Yeah. Yeah. But one thing I want to say, I think part of the conversation about having the public comment was because of the conversation we had at the time was combining the mayor's committee of disabilities with the transit authority and and BPAC. I think that group right there was what was so controversial. and I saw all the emails ready to come in um for and people signed up to speak on Tuesday um tonight if we had told them that we were not going to have a public meeting. But if the version that I'm hearing now is not to do that, then I think we can even look at the BPAC part. I would say if we just drop option five, recommendation five, the rest of them possibly could go forward. And five says direct to draft ordinance. Yeah, I don't have It says direct staff to draft an ordinance renaming the Raleigh Transit Authority to the Transit and Mobility Advisory Commission. if we do not do that last part and we move forward with the rest, maybe there's an opportunity to do that because I agree with those groups that we talked about that align with the human relations committee. They they that's where I think they should fall. Um and then when we talk about the historic resource museum advisory board, combining those two bodies, those two bodies, we've already had a conversation about combining them for the last year and a half. So if we do decide not to do recommendation five, I think there is a path forward as far as getting option four, which is can you scroll up for me? Which is to authorize the reorganization of the four mission boards and commissions by January 1st and so forth. And then option six, as you just saw, the education and moving forward, the controversial piece was that mayor's committee and the transit authority because I never saw a true alignment of those committees. And I'll add on to that. I'm still not uh in favor of option four just because uh those same committee member or those same board members that were there who are not part of transit but were part of human relations or community engagement have not they want to weigh in as well. And I don't that that's not there. It's not just about that one. It's the merging of all those into a 42 member board for human relations where I think that's overwhelming and it needs a little bit more conversation. So for me I couldn't support four. So just one well can we also just I know you've clustered things in these but we I think are we okay with the historic combination right we could vote on that if we haven't voted on that I would also uh not to confuse everything but the mayor's commission on persons with disabilities if we could think about just changing that name having the appointments come from the full council not just the mayor so it doesn't need to be the mayor's commission and then I don't understand board versus commission advisory whatever the new name I would also suggest that when we come back we don't have to do it today on the fly why don't we just go ahead and rename that and put it more in alignment with the other boards that have full uh council appointment um and again I don't I don't know whether there was anything else we can act on I understand your point councelor Jones that you want to have the hearing on the transit, uh, BPAC, and then the human relations. Um, that all of those you still we want to have the work session. Don't do it. So, you're just saying you want to pull transit and BPAC, correct? I second that. Okay. Okay. So, really the only uh potential uh we have the historic cemeteries and historic uh I don't know what the other name is. Museums. Museums. those were going to go ahead and vote but the human relations we are going to have a work a work session or a hearing or some sort of thing where they can provide some of their thoughts right um at least not right now you know I'm going to meet with them over the summer during their board things and I have already spoken with historic cemeteries and they are fine we've gotten confirmation from staff so that's the one that I would feel confident in saying that that one can merge because we've spoken to everyone there but the other ones I just think we need to have an overall discussion to let them know what the the plan is okay and may heard maybe whenever that item returns to us. I think some of the logistics it would be helpful to like just put a little bit more meat on the bones like this how we go from like super committee with all these subcommittees of the people we've appointed then they there attric like do the chairs of the chair the the chairs all roll up and you know like just the sort of logistics on how that's all oper becomes operational I think would be helpful. I think Evan Ry's got that all in his head. He knows it all. Um, okay. Well, so we still have some some motions to make here. Um, which we may need to go back to the source material to actually phrase them or if if somebody's comfortable. I I move I move for um approval of recommendations one, two, and three in the given presentation. Yeah. Second. All right. All in favor of that motion? I I All opposed. And then I will add that I will uh recommend changing the name of the mayor's commission on persons with disabilities to and and I will leave it to staff to to rename that to reflect that it is the full council appointing to that to that board. Um so that's my motion. Second. All right. So all in favor of that motion I all oppose. Nay. Okay. Do you want to historic? Yeah. move to combine historic resources and museums advisory board and the historic cemeteries advisory board into one board. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor of that motion? I all oppose, nay. Okay, and then uh the remaining is uh is there anything else on four, five or six that we're doing? No. And then um so instead of six we're now suggesting that uh we are actually going to have either do you have uh since public hearing or uh work session I don't know the terminology city manager was the preferred or committee let us because you know the agenda that's why I know let us kind of take the feedback we've gotten today and we will try to separate it out in a way that's meaningful and get back a recommendation to you guys over the break. Not a meeting over the break. We're just going to get the information to you how we're going to set up the actual meeting, whether it is an actual work session, whether it's another agenda item, whether it's a committee, all the things. Does that work? Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm I'm really I'm really sorry. I know we have a long day. One last thing and this might be more directed toward the clerk although I think there will be cross departmental efforts. Um we use granicus to look at um applications. I often like try to cross reference demographic needs uh district distribution all sorts of stuff. At times we put forward I have put forward nominees um based on what I've seen in granicus and then like a little bit of Google searching on my side um only to find that there is sometimes additional like sensitive or contextualizing information that uh is relevant and I just wonder if we can consider a way that that might be able to to be denoted or flagged in granicus differently. Um, maybe we can get with you afterwards because I'm not sure what you mean by sensitive information and try to understand more what you're referring to and we can address. Absolutely. We can talk offline if that's okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. We next have Okay. Report and recommendation of economic and innovation and uh no report. No items pending. Yep. And then uh growth of natural resources. No report. No items pending. And chair branch. No report. Meeting August 26. See you all then. Okay. Uh transportation transit. Yep. We have our pavement marking items pending and we will meet in council chambers Thursday, August 28th from 3:00 to 5:00 in council chambers. Great. Okay. Um, next we have the report of the mayor and city council. I will start at this end. Um, I will not be having a uh district meeting in July. We will meet in August. Um, there we have a summer break. So, that will be Saturday, August 16th, I believe, at 9:30 a.m. Um, and that is at the uh Crowder uh Community Center. Just want to wish everyone a nice um break, good time. Staff, please enjoy yourselves. Um you don't have to see us for six weeks. There's a fifth week in July. God God bless the calendar. Um, so just have a good time. And as far as there will be no District Council meeting um in July. Um, there will be one in August. I'm fine-tuning the dates and I will put it all out on all the forms of social media to get the message out. Um, our next district E community meeting will be held Wednesday, July 9th from 7:00 to 9:00 at Lacusina Italian Restaurant. We are pushing back time back an hour so that I can attend the uh community engagement board meeting in full to discuss the boards and commissions conversations. Our decoding democracy book club will meet Saturday, July 12th from 9:30 to 11:30 at Oberlin Regional Library. We will be discussing article 3 of Raleigh's charter. Um, just so that I don't screw this up for the next time, um, uh, city manager, when we bring CAC's back in the in the fall or in August, if we can, uh, make sure that they do have time to speak because I'd like to have have that dual um, conversation. So, if we can make sure that that is allowed so that I don't screw that up next time. Um, and then lastly, my oldest daughter graduated from fifth grade last week and we are so proud. She is nervous about going to middle school. And so I wanted to share some advice that I gave her as she walks into this next chapter of life. When you walk into rooms where whispers grow loud, remember not every voice means you're meant to respond. Some people speak just to hear themselves speak, not to listen, not to learn. Not every knock needs you to open the door. And not every glare deserves your gaze. You owe kindness, yes, but not your peace and never your power. Choose when to answer, choose when to walk on. That's not weakness, that's wisdom. That's how we hold both grace and ground. Thank you. I just have a procedural matter. Um, we have a uh rule at city hall, section 1240009, that specifies if we ever want to have a reception with consumption of beer and wine in city hall, uh, we need prior approval from city council. Um, this is coming up partially. We were going to have a portrait unveiling. This has been rescheduled, but I just want to ask this council to authorize the city manager to permit these activities in the lobby for the remainder of the current fiscal year. So moved. Second. All right. Any other discussion? Can't wait to see Club Marshall. We can do it in part. All right. All in favor of that motion. I All opposed. All right. We are we're set up. Well, uh, last Friday was a occasion. Uh, I said I retired, but I semi-retired from my daily practice on Friday, as well as celebrating a birthday, so it was a big day. But, uh, thank you. I'm going to take heart to your comments as I walk into spaces. So, thank you. Uh, Council Member Jones. All I report is that I will have a District A uh meeting on August 28th at Milbrook Exchange Park from 6:00 to 7:00. Look forward to seeing everyone there and I will do another reminder when we return since it'll be before that meeting. That's all I have to report. Um don't have a lot. Just um good stuff from consent. We authorized budget amendments for groves nearer gardens, updated lease agreement for southeast rally promise and authorized rally housing authority to issue debt for affordable housing. Um, also the food bank of central and eastern North Carolina is putting in rain gardens and sistns. Wait. Oh, there. Um, so that was really exciting news. Um, we authorized a contract for Marsh Creek Greenway Planning. um approved contracts for SRO's in the high schools within the city of Raleigh. Um authorized awarded a bid for the a new electric train at Pulling Park. Uh got an ADA spot for the Raleigh Lace Museum who was a public commenter in time past. And then my favorite, we awarded the the bid for the first segment of Newburn BRT. So huzzah, what a great way to go on go on break. Thanks y'all. No report. Um, couple things. Uh, congratulations to Miss Octavia Rainey who's in the audience when they had the uh, fair housing uh, hearing board conference last week. She was one of the award recipients as well as a number of uh, other folks in the community who've done a really really good job on housing. So, since she's here, want to give her her flowers. Congratulations. And congratulations to the group for a great conference. Uh, Council Member Lambert Milton has been a little shy. We hung out for several pride events uh this month and moved around the city uh for a couple of those things as well. So, I wanted to report that out and also wanted to congratulate the mayor and the governor on the great jobs announcement that you made um earlier last week. I mean, that was really impactful for us to to know we're going to have a number several hundred jobs coming over the $100,000 mark in the city of Raleigh is impressive. So, congratulations on that. Okay. Uh next we have appointments. Good afternoon. First is Centennial Authority. John Harden received two votes. Latant mccurman six. So Miss McCurman would be appointed. Next is civil service commission one regular vacancy. U that is for the management of private business or industry slot. Seth Wood received eight votes so would be appointed. Uh human relations commission we have the two alternate vacancies. Stacy Lynn Webb received seven votes and um Daphne Moore received six votes. Um given there's not a hold on this, I'm I'm assuming just proceeding with that. Okay. Um lastly, police advisory board, one alternate vacancy. Um Carl Ashford received five votes. Uh so would be appointed. Um Mr. Cazada received two. However, that nomination was withdrawn, but you did make that appointment to the alternate vacancy. And there's no new announcements today. All right. Uh report of the city attorney. Mayor, members of council, I actually have two items today on the longest meeting of the year. So, I'll jump right to it. Thank you for the opportunity to highlight changes to the city code regarding activity in street medians and rights of way. The proposed changes that you have in your packet aim to enhance the uh pedestrian and motorist safety by adding uh new provisions to our code that prohibits standing, sitting sitting or loing immediately or rights away in a manner that impedes traffic. It also forbids approaching vehicles to solicit contributions if it disrupts traffic and restricts activity on medians that are narrower than six feet or at intersections designated as high incident risk areas. The revisions are before you for a second and final reading. if adopted today will take effect on November the 1st so that it allows time for a public communication plan and installation of appropriate signage. Happy to answer any questions. Any questions for the city attorney? I would like to make a motion to I had a question. Second. Um I know that already enforcing some of our um like um picketing or or um panhandling in isn't difficult to enforce. Um is there how what's our plan to communicate to people that these medians are too narrow and they're not allowed to stand there? Well, we will be um uh placing signage on those uh what we call high incident uh risk area medians, but also the reason that we are not pro that we are proposing the November 1st date is so that we can do um communication about the changes as well as um placing the signage. Okay. Do we have any chance we already know like a few places where we're going to start? I always think about Capitol and Calvary, deadliest intersection in the city. We do, but I don't want to um state those until we definitely have them in place. But yes, that those are some of the ones that we're looking at. Cool. All right. I move that we on the second reading enact the ordinance as stated by the city attorney. Second. Yep. Any other conversation? Okay. All in favor of the motion? I I. All oppose? Nay. All right. So that passes. Uh thank you mayor and councel. So to our second item, uh council previously referred an item to the safe vibrate and healthy committee community committee regarding noise and amplified sound. Following the presentation of the socialable city report, staff reached out to several peer cities to benchmark how they regulate noise and amplified sound within their communities. We have with us today, Miss Whitney Shonfield, who will present the findings from that benchmarking effort, after which senior deputy daddy Kibler and I will be available to answer any questions regarding our current ordinance and receive direction from council. With that Whitney. All right. I am not a city attorney, but I am happy to work alongside the city attorney's office on this subject. Um, so good afternoon, mayor and members of council. Once again, I'm Whitney Shonfeld with special events. Our team has spent a significant amount of time researching and engaging with cities across the country about how they manage commercial establishments who use outdoor amplified sound. What we found is that Raleigh is not alone in managing outdoor sound from our nightlife and entertainment venues, especially located near residential areas. We've done our best to take what we've learned from conversations and local ordinances, and today we're sharing that benchmarking data with you. As a reminder of how we got here, um the city authorized a sociable we contracted with the responsible hospitality institute to conduct a sociable city assessment which measured our nightlife and social economies within the Glenwood South and Fateville Street districts. Those findings were presented dur during your May work session and again talked about at the safe, vibrant and healthy communities committee meeting also in May. One of the many recommended action items is to revisit the noise ordinance specific to commercial sound. The three key areas we've looked at in our benchmarking is what standard different cities use to regulate sound, what hours outdoor sound is typically allowed, and finally who is responsible for noise regulations. [Music] What we've really found is that sound regulation varies. It's certainly not a one-sizefits-all approach. It's complex and there's a lot of nuance to it. There are three common standards which are plainly audible, decibel limits, and the reasonable person standard. Many cities may use one of these standards or a combination of multiple standards when they're managing outdoor sound. The first standard is plainly audible, which is when sound is clearly heard and identified from a certain distance or location by a person of normal and ordinary sensitivities. The second standard is decibel limits. Decibel limits measure sound intensity in decibb. Levels are measured using a sound meter and different limitations are set for different times. This is what we previously used. The third standard is the reasonable person which is about what a person of normal and ordinary sensitivities would find acceptable. It's not about whether one person is very sensitive to noise or whether someone loves loud music. This is the model we currently use to help guide discussion on potential updates to our noise ordinance. This chart highlights details from several cities across the country and some locally within North Carolina as well. I'll start off again by saying that no one has noise fully figured out and each city experiences its own challenges and all are trying to strike a balance between supporting nightlife and entertainment venues while also protecting the quality of life of our residents. No matter what standard or combination of standards is used, we found that predictability and accountability are important. It's really difficult to capture the unique nuances of each of these cities into this chart while keeping it clear and easy to understand. Several cities have also shared with us that they're also looking to revisit their own policies regarding noise regulations. So, let's go through the chart. In regards to standards, some form of decibel limits are used by 18 cities listed on this chart, making it the most common approach of this specific group. Plainly audible is used in seven cities. The reasonable person standard is used here in Raleigh and San Diego and venue specific and district specific decibel limits are used in Austin, Texas. From attending a recent conference, we learned that Raleigh allows outdoor sound significantly later than most cities. Very few cities allow outdoor amplified sound past midnight on the weekends. of this group. 10 p.m. is the most common end time when sound ends or is significantly reduced. 11 pm is used by Charlotte Charleston Durham Greensboro, and Nashville. 12 a.m. is seen in cities such as Atlanta, and in parts of Austin. Only in higher intensity entertainment districts in Austin and Orlando is music allowed until 2:00 a.m. And it's important to note that residential is limited in these areas. The earliest time frames for ending or reducing outdoor sound are in Savannah, Philadelphia, and Dallas. The cutoff in Dallas is actually at sunset. I will say in most of these cities, ambient or background music is still allowed after these listed times, just at a lower volume or decel limit. And keep in mind, these weekend hours only apply to outdoor amplified sound. Venues may continue operations of live or recorded entertainment. They just need to do so indoors. In terms of enforcement, police departments are involved with enforcement in nearly every city. Code enforcement or public health works police in some cities like Chicago, Denver, and Philadelphia. Austin is supported by a specialized group which is a dedicated sound enforcement team within development services. Related to Austin, that's the city we found the most takeaways from. Here are two examples of portions of their outdoor music venue permit that includes a sound impact plan. They also have a professional sound consultant on staff that reviews all of these permit requests. The example on the left is for a fullscale live music venue in their downtown Red River Cultural District, which is the primary live district of Austin, live music district of Austin. The example on the right is a downtown mixeduse entertainment district with both entertainment and residential. You can see a description of the surrounding area to indicate whether the venue is in close proximity to residential. You can also see designated operating hours for outdoor amplified sound, which is again based on the district and the establishment and how close it is to residential. Factoring in distance to properties zoned and used as residential is a criteria that impacts the operating hours of sound in Austin. That's our benchmarking data. So, based on what's been shared today, we will certainly take any guidance from council as we determine next steps to possibly revisit the noise ordinance. Thank you, Whitney. Um, questions? Just a clarification in terms of what time what's what is the time you were saying for Raleigh to take things indoors? You said it's was it 11:00? No, we're 28 2 a.m. We are way outside the norm. You said the average was 1000 p.m. Some as early as 7. So we're No, you say the average was at midnight. I'm just trying Yeah, the most common end time was 10 p.m. There's some midsize cities that used 11:00 p.m. A couple midnight. We're 2 a.m. So technically, we do not have an end time. typically ends at 2 p.m. because that's when alcohol sales mean 2 p.m. 2 a.m. Sorry, 2 a.m. Yeah. But but also just to be clear, we don't technically have an end time. We just correct things tend to shut down at 2. Correct. Correct. Because of the alcohol sales, we do again have the reasonable person standard. So our nighttime hours begin at 11 p.m. So sound shouldn't be heard from a certain distance at that time. But the outdoor amplified sound can technically continue as long as it's abiding by the reasonable person standard. My last question, so as a new council member, did this council or pre the previous councils ever considered that time? Because I know it seems like there've been various iterations. Do we have any historical context as to why we never established a time when outdoor music, amplified music is not permitted? No, I believe that was an item that was discussed with the prior city attorney in close session. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. But the current noise ordinance does change at 11, right? There's an amount. There's a like a a distance requirement. It's 350 during the day and 250. It's 300 feet during the day, 150 feet after 11 p.m. 150 feet after 11. So you have to be a lot closer to this this the volume has to be lower because the point at the distance at which you have to stand away and say oh I can hear that is much closer. So there is like it does have to get quieter at 11. Correct. By the current ordinance not indoors. Right. Quieter but not indoors. Got it. Okay. Got it. All right. Do we have other questions? Um not a question. I mean, I think for me, from a time standpoint, let me let me ask this question. Amphitheaters, are they exempt from this? They are. Stadiums, arenas, and amphitheaters are exempt from the current noise ordinance. Okay, I have no more questions. Yeah, I just wanted to note um those examples from Austin I thought were instructive. Could you go back to Yeah. Um I just I really like how specific they are. I like that the um it looks like the sound meters have to be perhaps owned by the businesses. So, it's not up to an officer to have a decibel reader on hand. They can just go in and look and it should be there. And if it's not there, then I'm guessing they're, you know, in violation. I like that it's specific about, you know, the decibel limit and thinking about the residential versus, you know, a different kind of area. Um, and I just wonder if if this isn't the model that we need to move towards. I will, sorry. Um, I just wanted to uh echo that sentiment as well. I feel like we are so to Mayor Cowell's point, we are so out of line just with what we just saw timewise. Um, and I know that some business owners have been like begging like just tell me what the decibel level is. Just tell me what it is. And so to your point, uh, council Harrison, this really sets a a great metric for us to to follow. So, thank you for your work. Yeah, I would echo I really appreciate the specificity of like the size of the speakers and this and that. Like I I think that is what's what's needed. Um, I I also I wouldn't I think if we can get to something like this, then I could pro probably ultimately support it. Um, I do, you know, I did listen to say 5% a healthy committee meeting. It sounded like Chief Boyce was saying he, you know, he he understands there's inconsistent enforcement and wants to spend into the summer like doing inservice and making sure all the officers are feeling really consistent. And so I think we should like allow him the time to do that thing which he um owned and committed to. And then I just want to make sure I'm understanding and um I think Die I think you were the interim when we switched to the reasonable person standard. Is that right last term? Um maybe maybe you can help with this. Well, I was under the understanding that what partly that we moved away from the decibel system because the actual like operation of it was like cumbersome that not every not every officer had one and it was difficult to like get the right officer to the right complaint at the right time. And so that was partly like it was a workload constraint. Um, and then that the the idea was that that it's not a determining if the sound is appropriate, but rather just like someone calls in, they say, "Megan's bar is playing her bluegrass music too loud." And so the officer goes out to Megan's bar, walks 150 ft away, and says, "Yep, I can hear that bluegrass music, so it's a violation." Like, it's just like, "Can you walk that distance away? Do you hear it? If yes, then a violation." Did did I understand that correctly or have I missed something? So, let me back up. I I think one of the reasons that this the items were brought forward was because the uh the decibel reading standards were not working. Uh for instance, officers would go on site and be unable to take a measurement that indicated which of the loud establishments was creating that level of noise. And so uh the the request or the the idea was to move away. And the uh the place to which the city landed was that reasonable person standard with the idea that the reasonable person standard was uh implemented throughout the ordinance including at the place where we establish those limits that are included those 150 and 300 foot limits. So, yeah, it seems to me to make sure that we're consistently enforcing we just need to go down the block and like mark off where 150 ft is and and like say that's that's where you stand and if you can hear it then it's a violation. All right, I'm going to continue down. Did you all have councelor Lambert Mountain? Yeah, I mean I have a few thoughts. Um issues of the noise and sort of the vibrancy in particular parts of the city and you know I'll I'll mention Glenwood South for example. These have been recurring issues throughout the time I've been on the city council. It's my third term now and I'm sure they've been going on for longer than that. Um, so I want to be mindful first that I can remember a time where there were complaints about Fateville Street and I think due to some policy changes that were made there compounding with other factors people couldn't control. Um, Fable Street basically it struggles now to the point that we have invested millions of dollars to try to revive what that district may look like. And so I want to be careful that we're not going to do anything that's going to suffocate an entertainment area that for a lot of people is where they decide to come to Raleigh to go to eat and drink and hang out and brings a lot of business into the city. With that said, it has to be functioning in a way that's not disturbing the peace of the people who live around it and make sure that it's a safe place. You know, I think something we implemented in the last few years were the um more police presence on Glenwood, the um perimeters sort of managing ingress and egress. And from what I can tell, that has worked fantastic. We've gotten fantastic feedback from it. I think the incidents we're hearing of uh violence and other bad acts have gone down a lot. I see the chief nodding his head in the back. So now the noise is the last piece that we are just still trying to wrangle. Um I've been to a lot of other cities. Still a little bit younger. I don't turn 40 until the end of this year. I've gone out in Charleston. I've gone out in Savannah. I've gone out in Austin. And when I talk about this, I point to those cities and say you need a fun entertainment district like Sixth Street in Austin. So, it is it is illuminating for me to see that they're on this list and that they have these certain rules um and that their time limits actually a lot earlier than ours. Um and so for me, I'm open to finding a a better way to address this problem. I also really like what I'm seeing here on the Austin example, the requirements that they have each establishment um provide the um assessment of how close it is to residential. Glenwood South, for example, there's one half of that street that's right up on residential and then one half that's closer to maybe more office buildings and things like that. So maybe looking at zones on Glenwood South is is a good idea. But where I'm at today is I could not support any changes until we get the enforcement piece down better. And I know the chief, we're going to speak to you about it. I know that you're you're perhaps working on some ideas over the summer, but if we can't enforce it, whatever change we make is not going to do any good. And then we're going to have people up here saying, "You changed it again and still nothing's happening." And so I could see us moving towards this Austin model, but I really want to get the enforcement piece down first. And also for me the biggest takeaway from that sociable cities assessment I heard that um consultant stand up here and say that there is lack of trust between the city and these establishments and the residents. And so I'm very mindful that I don't want to do anything too quickly that is going to make that lack of trust worse. And so this I think needs to be met with some urgency. I would like to look at the enforcement piece first and then continue to get some um data and maybe options on how maybe we could move towards this Austin model. Any other um Yes. I just want to be clear whether ending amplified music outdoors is an option because it seems some places do that. We don't have a time limit. I don't know. I mean, I agree. We want to do a little more research. This seems that if you just bring it indoors or you have just soft music outdoors, fine. But I'm just wondering why that option is not on the table. Well, what I have a motion. So, we are going to ask the city attorney and and city staff to do a comprehensive review of part 12 and chapter 5 of the city code governing noise and nightlife permit provisions in the city code including standards, hours, and enforcement because I I understand and I you know I will say um and I I'll make that as a formal motion in a minute but if you could go back to the um you know I I am incredibly appreciative of the work from RHI. I thought that was a very illuminating study. There was a lot in it. This is incredibly helpful to and and to me you know uh councelor Lambert Melton that the best cities of nightife the way I mean the city that never sleeps ends outdoor amplified music at 10 p.m. New York. New York. I didn't know what you're talking about. They both um I am going to Nashville next week and look at that. 11 p.m. for this, you know, Music City, USA. So, and I guess I also think that this really validates RHI's study because they said the best cities all use decibel limits. Here we see plainly audible a little bit mixed in, but it seems like it's 90% decibel. So the fact that that Austin model is I mean to me that also just seems like the path and so I wouldn't want to spend a ton of our police time trying out how to enforce the current ordinance if we have fundamentally are not adhering. You know I just think this looks like the path. Uh but we're not making that decision today. Um what we're asking is that we would uh direct staff to initiate this review including engagement activities. So meeting with the business owners, meeting with the constituencies that care about these issues. And again, this is across noise and nightlife permitting. Um and then come back with a first reading of a of of some sort of proposal on August 19th. Um because again this I think this has been uh I think we see how far off the standards we are and that there is some urgency to try and uh bring this in and so some public engagement absolutely but not the months and months or years that we have spent in the past. Yeah. Can I just add one thing? If that's the motion and there's no determination yet on what we're going to do or the time and anything then I will I will support it because I think we should have the discussion and empower them to start. If you go back to this slide for Austin, the one on the left, it allows it till 2 a.m. and that is Sixth Street Entertainment District. The one on the right cuts off, I think, 10:30, it goes to 12 on the weekends. And that's also Sixth Street, but I think that's the one that's like closer to some of the residential. And so, they aren't cutting it off in Austin the the whole corridor at 11. My point is is even and then if you go to back to the slide where before that where it says they have some sort of like turnown requirement um reduction or or stop this whole ambient outside my point of the enforcement is is if we do anything that says it has to just be ambient outside noise and we don't have the enforcement correct. They're not going to put it to ambient outside outside noise and then we're not going to be able to enforce it and people are going to be coming to us again saying you changed it for the third time in three terms and we are still having problems. So whatever we do I want it to actually work. So, I I will I will support this motion, but we we've got to hopefully this will be the last time this comes to us and maybe Austin has given us a good model on on what we could try to replicate here. So, we need a second. Second. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Continuing discussion. Yes, Council Patton. I I too can can support the motion as as it was read. I would just like maybe add a foot as part of the comprehensive component of it. I do think looking at um like zone zoning and as a as a component of this like I I don't I was noticing that like in neighborhood mixed use some of the uses are like a special use but but in DX which is what Glenwood South is zoned like they're p they're allowed to be principal uses maybe we change that and and for in that way serve to prevent a concentration of a block as businesses turn over over time because it was a concentration on Fagatville and it was a concentration on Glow South and like I think as part just as part of being comprehensive let's look at where there's other enforcement tools that are not PD okay just one question um what's the policies in these communities outside of the weekend some of the hours are even earlier than what's listed here. On weekends, it's later hours. Okay. So, it's the same standard, same enforcement, but the hours might actually be even earlier during the week. Okay. Can you just send us that in manager's update? Yeah absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Uh any further discussion? All right. So, all in favor of the motion, I I All oppose, nay. Right. Eyes have it. And um again, really appreciate this report. This is great. Okay. Uh that let's see is there anything else? Are we now move for approval of minutes? I need to I need to make one um amendment to the draft minutes you received uh to revise on page 27 and 28 to reflect the proper outcome of a vote. If you would adopt the minutes as amended I would appreciate that. So move second. Okay. All in favor of the motion I all oppose nay. Right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And now I will make a motion to go into close session. Uh motion is order pursuant to general statute 143318.11a3 to consult with the city attorney in order to preserve the attorney client privilege and general statute 143 31811 A9 to discuss and take action regarding plans to protect public safety as it relates to existing or potential terrorist activity and to receive briefings by staff members, legal counsel or law enforcement uh actions taken or to be taken to respond to such activity. Second. All in favor of the motion. I I All right. All oppose, nay. Uh eyes have it. And we are going into close session. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Oh. [Music] Oh. Ooh. Oh, [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Baby, daddy. Data. Hey [Music] Oh, [Music] hey. Heat. Heat. [Music] down. [Music] Down. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Heat. Hey Heat. Apple. [Music] Blue. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Oh, that heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Oh. Oh. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hey Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Oh. Oh. [Music] Hey. Hey. 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It is available for your review as part of the agenda materials. The Raleigh Historic Development Commission completes an initial review of the report and makes a determination if the property meets the criteria for designation as outlined in the general statutes and UDO. The RHTC has reviewed this report and found that it met the criteria for designation. On May 6, the report was referred to you to the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources as required by statute. The state's comments on the application were supportive and are included in the application materials. After closing the public hearing this evening, the request is for you to refer the matter back to the RHDC to consider the comments of the state of North Carolina and any additional information that's received this evening during the public hearing. Designation will be made final when you approve the ordinance, which typically appears as a consent item at a meeting following the joint public hearing. We are tentatively planning for that item to return to you on August 19th. And I now would like to introduce Chair Rob Allen who will provide a brief presentation about the Weber House. After the presentation, I'm available for any questions. Thank you, Colette. Uh good evening. I'm Rob Allen, uh chair of the Raleigh Historic Development Commission. I appreciate your time this evening. Uh this property has been before you a few times um from prior meetings about its landmark status uh and the city's preservation revolving on loan funds. So um we'll try to keep this presentation brief. As I describe the house and its significance, I will scroll through photographs of the property. Oops, I'm already going the wrong direction. Um, this is the house in its current physical location uh at 1514 Delmont Drive uh in West Raleigh in the Kentwood neighborhood. Uh, initially constructed in 1952, the house is a dramatic split level modernist design by architect William Weber for his personal residence. Uh, well-known architect George Matsumoto served as a consultant to Mr. Weber on the design. The home is architecturally significant for the use of clean straight lines, uh its walls of windows, its open floor plan, use of affordable materials, and careful site planning which integrates the building into its site. Uh some of the features of the home which you can see here shortly after completion include its wedge-shaped form echoed by a linear yet uninterrupted angled roof line, an open carport beneath the upper level of the house, and the expansive openings of metal framed uh plate glass windows. Uh the Weber House is one of several fine local examples of the modernist style uh which flourished in Raleigh during uh the late during the 1950s and60s due to heavy influence from the school design at North Carolina State College. The house was originally designated as a Raleigh historic landmark in 2009. Um it was then designated at the owner's request in 2014. In 2023, a demolition permit was filed by the new property owners. However, those property owners agreed to delay their demolition plans, allowing the Weber House's current owners, Andy and Melinda Nolles, to develop plans for relocating the house. The house was successfully relocated in 2024 and is currently undergoing reconstruction according to the original plans. A preservation revolving loan fund request was executed in March of 2025. And the Raleigh Historic Development Commission's vote to endorse the use of the loan asserted that the house has the requisite historic and architectural significance to be a Raleigh historic landmark. Though relocated and reconstructed, the house retains the integrity of the original design and remains an an excellent example of modernist design while also serving as another example of Raleigh's long history of relocating historic structures to ensure their preservation. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. And as a reminder, the desired action tonight after closing the public hearing is for you to refer this request back to RHDC to consider the comments of the state of North Carolina and any additional comments that are received this evening. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so open the public hearing. Um, and I have one person signed up in support, Melinda Nolles. Okay. All right. I will close the public hearing. All right. Uh, questions, comments, or um, I move to refer the application back to RHDC. Second. Okay. Um, all in favor of the motion, I all oppose, nay. Eyes have it. And we appreciate y'all's work and beautiful home. All right. Uh, next we have Oh, uh, yes, Councelor Patton had a quick request. Yes. My apologies, colleagues. Um, I meant to do this when I was giving my council comments, but, um, I forgot. Blame it on the length of the meeting. Um I've been asked to participate in the exchange program with our sister city roadstock Germany and so I'd just like to request travel authorization from you all second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I all oppose nay. Shuna risa. Okay. Uh public comment is next and we have seven people signed up tonight. Starting with Miss Octavia Rainey. Good afternoon council. First of all, I would like to say that I am so excited today and let me tell you why I'm excited. I heard from Mr. Steven Binley and the fire chief that Fourth W is getting the park. So I am very excited about that. It's been a long time coming for fourth ward and so I am just excited to Dr. Jane Harrison. I would like to thank you very much for all of your support for listening to me the very first time we had the first public meeting on Smoky Hollow. If you look at it, it has been two years and we have accomplished a lot. Thank you so so much for your support. I know I appreciate it because I have been working on fourth ward and smoking holler since 1974. So you can believe for me it's like seeing the end of the tunnel for the first time in my life. I started this project as a young girl but now I'm a old woman now. Old woman. But I think of the challenges. to think of the changes that I went through when I was a lobbyist at the general assembly. Dr. Jane Harrison, you know, not told you this before. We tried to take Smoka in fourth ward out of District D. The general assembly said to us, "Ain't no happenings on that, baby. Ain't no happenings. No happenings." Then Eric Reed tried and then it was a whole gap and then you came along and it was a blessing to us because you listen to us and you was willing to help us and you are still continuing to help us. So I just thank you so very much. I thank the five teeth and I thank Stephven Bentley for the park. I am just so excited about that and I'm looking forward to you going to the five churches now and especially the St. Paul Ame so we can talk about that day shelter and I come back and give a report to all of the city council. You know there was a day shelter, excuse me, there still is a day shelter in district D. Still is but it's just that the Episcopal bishop of this region they took over the day shelter because the city wouldn't give it any funding. Jane has agreed to meet with the Episcopal Church now to really talk about this day shelter. So, we look forward to this meeting. We look forward now and we'll give you a break for July. Okay? But in August, we're coming. But I would just like to thank you so much for your support and to thank everyone. The park means a lot to the Fourth World Association. So, I'm just excited. But I'm more excited for me because from 1974 to present, you don't know what kind of journey, what kind of battle that's been. So, thank you. Right. Thank you. Next, we have Lisa Hwitt. Good evening. Public comment at council meetings is essential for civic engagement. Not just for council to hear residents, but for the public to hear each other and foster collective understanding. Recent changes, including reduce speaker caps, were made without public discussion or transparency. These adjustments, quietly embedded in board docs, limit participation, erode public trust, and create barriers, not solutions. There's no evidence the prior process was problematic. meetings remained efficient and inclusive. And while I was scouring the agendas for information, I noticed you started publishing speaker home addresses. This is unnecessary and I find it highly questionable. I urge you to remove those addresses, restore broader access, and ensure future changes are discussed publicly. Raleigh is stronger when more voices are heard. Moving on. When case Z-54-22 came before you last year, you rightly denied the 40story request at Peace and West Streets, acknowledging the need for a height transition next to moderate density residential. Since then, the comprehensive plan has been updated to reflect that transition zone, recognizing the clear need for compatibility between new development and established communities. Yet, here we are again. The applicant is now seeking 30 stories, still wildly out of scale, now stripped of its previous commitment to help build the park and in its place, a minimal contribution to affordable housing, but yet no affordable units on site. The comp plan designates this as a downtown transition area, a place where height is meant to step down, not surge upward. A 12story limit still allows for 550 units. That's meaningful density. Our focus is on height transitions. They're foundational to livable, sustainable cities. Approving anything higher than 12 stories sets a harmful precedent, especially for neighborhoods nearby lacking the historic protections. Without height transitions, they'll face high-rise shadows, glare, amplified noise, and the slow erosion of their character. This isn't nimism. This is a call to action to follow the comp plan that guides Raleigh's urban planning. One that values smart growth, affordability, and equitable development. It was wrong then, it's still wrong now. Let's stand by our comp plan. Finally, I want to address council member Silver. If your employer is still involved in this case, you are barred by NC Law and Raleigh's ethics rules from participating in any government discussions and decisions regarding this case. The fact that you have publicly stated otherwise is alarming to me. You will undermine our trust in this council's integrity, but I trust that Mayor Cow Cowell will address it directly. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next, we have Mary Thompson. Hello, mayor and city council. I want to thank you for the new board docs, what is the escribe tool, um and for giving your attention to each of the speakers while they're speaking at public comment. it is noticed and appreciated the steps that you're taking to improve transparency and community engagement. Tonight, I want to talk about how we as a city address harm and equity in both words and action. In 2023, this council passed a resolution acknowledging the past and future harms done to the African-American community in Raleigh, expressing support for reparations, reparative justice. However, one element was removed before the resolution was passed, the formation of a task force to develop recommendations for repair. How do you how can we acknowledge harm without taking the time to address it? Last month, my colleagues Deborah and John stood here and reminded you of this missed opportunity. And sadly, the need for this work became even more evident during the public comment session. Speaker after speaker, predominantly black and brown bus drivers, came before you and shared heartbreaking stories on poor conditions, disrespect, and low pay. At first, I was confused because I knew the city budget included wage increases for the city employees. After asking some questions, I learned that the bus workers are contractors, not directly city employees, and not covered under this wage adjustment. Which leads me to ask, does the city require contractors pay their employees a living wage and say and ensure safe and respectful working conditions? It concerns me deeply that public funds could support a two two-tier system where city employees receive fair wages and protection while contractor contracted workers are left behind. Repairerative justice is not just about words on a paper. It's about how we treat people. I urge this council to revisit the idea of a reparative justice task force and closely examine how city contracts impact impacts worker equity and dignity. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next we have James Bledsoe. Uh, good evening, council. Uh, because we won't see each other again until much later. Uh, happy pre-independence day to you all. Uh, so on to my speech. So, my name is James Fletzo. I'm a 20-year Army combat veteran. I'm also a resident of Raleigh, obviously, and tonight I want to bring a few things to your attention that I brought up before years and years and years ago. So, we are a city at a crossroads. Under the watch of this council, including both current at large incumbents, we've seen the worst numbers in our city's history for rape and human trafficking. This isn't new. I've brought this up before. In 2024 alone, rape cases reached a historic peak and human trafficking increased sixfold. These aren't just numbers. They are stories of pain, neglect, and the consequences of a misplaced priorities with your many of you who continue to play politics. At the same time, longtime small businesses and family-owned restaurants are, which are the heart of our communities, are closing their doors. In their place, out of state chains are moving in. We are seeing small businesses leaving and larger businesses coming in. They are pushing out our neighbors and our local businesses. Accessory dwelling units once promoted as a housing solution are incredibly difficult to build still thanks to city bureaucracy and excessive regulation from on high. This council continues to approve plans and policies that make Raleigh more expensive and less affordable unless you are living off of government assistance. first responders, even with their decade late pay increase, which I do thank you for increasing their pay, still can't afford to live in the city in which they protect. And still, there is no parody between RPD and RFD benefits. They have been pushing for that for over 20 years. Uh there is a gap this council has yet to address meaningfully. Let's not forget the same council voted to give themselves payraises uh extend their own terms uh despite widespread public outcry. Uh this is not leadership, that is self-endorsement. And where is the balance? Where's the voice for the people who don't for fit the progressive mold right now? Every single one of you are Democrats. There is no centrists. There are no Republicans. There are no right-wing independents, no conservatives. There is only one side. That is not representative democracy. That is one-sided governance. Therefore, on this first day of July, 2025, I officially declare my candidacy for the Raleigh City Council. I'm running again because Raleigh deserves representation that reflects its people. Uh my platform which can be found at electameledo.com focuses on public safety that works for citizens and those sworn to protect it. Housing policies that promote ownership not dependence and deregulation to help small businesses thrive and restoring trust and fairness and and accountability to a city hall where finally putting a veteran on on the Raleigh city council will do much more good than it will do harm. Thank you all. I wish you all good night and thank you. Thank you. Next we have Tim Niles. Good evening, mayor and counselors. Five years ago, when you defunded CAC's, you eliminated the requirement that resoning cases be brought be before CAC's for a discussion with residents led by city staff and attended by the developer. You replaced those meetings with a required second neighborhood meeting totally controlled by the developer. Although a staff member might be in attendance, the staffer makes no effort to be an active participant or address any issues that arise. I attended the second neighborhood meeting for the West Street Tower last week. It was strictly limited to one hour. And worse yet, the planning department's full report, including a statement of consistency with city policies, was not available. It was a one-sided presentation of the developer's opinions. The residents had no information from the city to challenge anything the developer claimed. It was useless considering there will not be another opportunity for the residents to have this conversation after the planning report is completed and published. The applicant bases their entire justification using an outofdate map that says there might be a transit station at West Street someday. But two years ago at the safe, vibrant, and healthy communities committee meeting, a transportation staffer reported that the West Street alignment for the northern BRT route had been eliminated from consideration. There's no plan for transit at West Street. It had been removed. Councilors Patton and Jones were there as committee members. Councelor Harrison was there as the district counselor. I brought this same question to the first neighborhood meeting in April. didn't receive an answer from the developer. And after the meeting, a staffer assured me they would find out. Well, if they found out anything, they didn't bring the information to the second meeting, nor to the attention of the developer, because two years later, the developer is still making the claim that there is a transit station planned for Rest Street. Raleigh's transportation department has confirmed again just last week there is no transit station planned for this location. The developer continues to insist they can only rely on the map in the comp plan even though they know the map is out ofd and inaccurate. This nonsense is ridiculous. The second neighborhood meeting should not take place without the planning department's report of consistency. In the past, you've talked about taking control of the second neighborhood meeting out of the hands of the developer and putting it back into the control of city staff. It's time to do that now. One final thought. Any developer or land use attorney that knowingly uses false information to justify their case should face some sort of disciplinary action. Just saying. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Niles. Uh, next we have Mama Kai Sanders. Good evening. It's another amazing day in paradise. Thank you all for your service. Um, thank you so much for this opportunity to speak before you take your summer break. I realize 3 minutes is not a lot of time to say everything I want to say, but I really would like to take the time to say thank you to our city employees. I deeply appreciate their service. If you connect with any of them, you know that they only work a certain amount of hours that they get compensated for. The rest are essentially volunteer hours on the job. So, I want to say thank you for all the long days, the sweltering days, the freezing days, the windy and rainy days. I've seen employees out in the community committed to showing up, especially the ones who have office jobs. Because of my engagement with the city, I've also begun to appreciate the focus on using data to inform decisions and pilot initiatives. data was used to create and implement the successful bringing neighbors home pilot um which successfully decommissioned one homeless camp. Each and every department uses it in a number of ways. The remarks I am making about moving the convention center and amphitheater to triangle town center were because of the data that was shared during the reflecting Raleigh series, especially during Pat Young's presentation directed towards infrastructure and city services. I firmly believe the city needs to leave the convention center and amphitheater alone here in downtown and build expanded new ones along with the Omni Hotel out at Triangle Town Center. Not only does that provide District D with an activity center, it also provides much neededed tax revenue to the city in order to support the workers who have complained and the ones who are scared to do so. But for me, it's more than that. The decision to expand the amphitheater and convention center, in my opinion, came without providing a lot of data. I still have questions about the lack of collaboration with Heritage Park, which is expanding to provide muchneeded mixed income housing right here in downtown. Did you ask the residents around their issues with sound? How will you address sound issues in the future? You can't corral sound. No design will keep sound from floating away from the audience. More seating means the need for more speakers or bigger speakers to make the sound carry to all the extra people. How will that affect the people who live across from the expansion or adjacent to it? And since you haven't figured out how to address noise issues on Glenwood South, then how will you address them when hundreds more complain from a new location? What about traffic, both foot and vehicle traffic? When is the slip lane coming and the Clover design going away? Have you ever been downtown where there's an event on Fagetville Street? Something at the amphitheater, the convention center, and the performing arts center. I have traffic is a nightmare. And then there's the Omni Hotel. Please don't get me started because it's going to be in the way of the beautiful vision of from the performing arts center to the state capital, but nobody's talking about that. So, please stop the overdevelopment in downtown. Put in family-friendly features as a contribution to participate in to participating in the decade of the child initiative and make downtown a place for quote unquote for all as both the city mission and vision claim it's trying to be. Thank you and have a great summer. I'll see you in a Thank you. All right. Uh, final speaker is Natalie Lou. [Music] greetings. Um, just talk about Umstead State Park and that is your responsibility to protect not only because it's in the city limits but because you guys put two people on the airport authority. I'm not a conspiracy person, but through my research, which I've got probably 30 or 40 notebooks like this at home, um I keep finding more and more stuff. And um so I can say that RDU is suppressing the truth, not only to you, but to the airport authority members. And hopefully you're not laughing at me. Um I recently found something. So 1971, the RDU attorney told the Oddfellows people they were not going to take their land. That the attorney said that. Then um the RDU master plan environmental assessments that was developed from 72 to 75 said that that plan B wasn't going to affect Oddfellows. FAA then approved a plan that didn't include Oddfellows. So they FA actually said RDU does not need that land. Then in the state in April of 1975 actually told the EPA that they were going to buy Oddfellows and they moved the whole Crabtree Creek sewer line to the south of I40 so the state could buy it. Well, then in 1976 that sewer plan was approved in June. And then in July 1976, the RDU people took control of Oddfellows via threat of condemnation. That's fishy that timing. It's suspicious timing. Why would RDU take land they didn't need and that the FA said they didn't need? Um, and it goes on. So, um, there's, you know, a whole lot of other stuff. So, in 1981, RDU specifically asked Wake County to zone Oddfellows, Lake Crabtree, and 286. They said take it out of airport district and put it into residential district. There was a lot of entities involved in that including Wake County, NC State Parks, Triangle JCOG, but it was instigated by RDU. All of these entities agreed that the airport district zoning was not appropriate because they wanted to prevent unlimited uses of that land that that comes with airport district zoning. They also agreed that the lands were far out of the z um sound so they shouldn't be there. Now, RDU is claiming that Wake County zoned this land without permission. All right. So, this is Bill Sanford just not knowing the history, but that doesn't erase it. They're just trying to cover cover it up. Um, so RDU's claiming that they can do anything with the land and basically zoning evaporates just because they want to. So, basically they could buy a house next to any of you and put a dump on it, put a wh house on it. Um, something fishy is going on and um and it's incremental. um RDU staff and some of the RDU members like Dicky Thompson, John Kaine, Larry Zino and Wakestone, they're bamboozling everybody, the local governments and the state officials and even the FAA. This is like basically gentrifying the Raleigh historic neighborhoods. This is suppressing history like suppressing history of slavery. It's like suppressing the history of women and all this other history. It's just bad. And when you look at how we got to this point, it's just like the good old boy system that is taking advantage of the public. There is a zoning hearing on Wake County on July 9th at 2 PM. So, I'd like to invite there um and just please All right, that ends the public comment uh for this evening. And we have uh now a text change to zoning conditions TCZ 325200 West Street. Madame Mayor, historically, um, after talking to a city attorney, um, I thought I had to recuse because I'm on the board, but because I receive nothing from this, I do not have to recuse myself. Is that correct, madam attorney? Okay. Okay. Thank you, councelor Branch. First case was withdrawn. Yeah, it was withdrawn, right? Yeah. So, I just jumped straight to Hannah Reco. Good evening. Hannah Reko, Planning and Development. So, this is um text change to zoning conditions request TCZ 325. It's a request to amend the existing zoning conditions. They're applied to um 200 Southwest Street, uh which is currently zoned DX40 conditional use. So, this site is um the site of the future Raleigh Union Station bus station, a rest bus located on the west side of downtown. Has downtown mixeduse zoning. You can see the sort of nearby similar districts of varying heights. To further situate us, um we have the site in yellow there. This is Union Station, the Dylan, Nash Square, and then we're right there. and a view from um West Street. So the request uh is really to amend only one of the zoning conditions. the rest would remain as they are and it's um condition two specifically um currently uh would require um affordable housing be provided on site specifically at least 20 units or 10% of the the units that are allowed whichever is greater. The amendments to it would open up the possibility of satisfying the conditions um with a contribution uh to the city for use as affordable housing in its place. So they could still provide affordable units on the site. It opens up another opportunity, another option for how to satisfy the um condition. Um more specifically, that would be $40,000 um multiplied by the number of units equal to 10% of the total dwelling units on the site. I'll just to show you the the remaind remainder of the conditions here as well. So, um existing versus proposed as a TCZ uh what's on the zoning map does not change. It's still DX40 conditional use. The overall buildout would remain the same. that it's just the change about um how the affordable housing condition can be satisfied. The request is consistent with the comprehensive plan uh including the future land use map designation and urban form map designation and then a list of consistent policies you can see here. And then the planning commission recommended approval and a split vote 4 to two. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you have. Questions for M Reco? With two descending votes, what were what was the basis? Um, two commission members um just voiced support for the existing zoning as is. Any other questions? Okay. Um, so I can open the public hearing and we have uh four individuals who um are on the support list. Molly Stewart, Gary Tober, John Florian, and Austin M and Dolia. Miss Stewart, thank you. I'll wait for my slides. One moment. Perfect. Thank you. Good evening, Molly Stewart, Morning Star Law Group. Uh, I have two speakers with me here tonight. I'll go ahead and introduce uh them. We have Gary Tobber, interim chief development officer at Go Triangle, and he will tell us how Go Triangle evaluated the requested change to the zoning and how it came to support this request. We also have with us John Florian here on behalf of Hoffman, the private partner in the Rust Bus project, and he'll describe the investment that Hoffman has already made in the project to date and the deadlines it faces to move forward without losing that very substantial investment already. and we'll hear first from Gary Tober. Thank you. Good evening, councilors, mayor. Go Triangle supports the proposed change for Hoffman's private overbuild. I think it's important to note tonight that the public facility owned by Go Triangle. The Raleigh Union Station bus facility is on time, on budget, and scheduled to begin service on August 3rd. Hoffman and its team should be commended for their delivery of the public facility and the open opening of Russ Bus means expanded and more efficient buser bus transit operations in Raleigh and the research triangle region. So in June 2024, Hoffman asked for Go Triangle support of its reasonzoning request for an option to include an anl inlue payment to fund proposed affordable units offsite as part of Hoffman's private overbuild. Go Triangle would prefer on-site units, but subsequently contracted with HRNA advisers to provide a recommendation regarding whether Go Triangle should support Hoffman's resoning request. In its analysis, HRNA opined that higher interest rates, construction costs, and an influx of deliveries were making development increasingly challenging. HRNA stated that Hoffman was making a goodfaith effort to support affordable housing in Raleigh despite challenging development conditions. HRNA determined that without the requested option, the private overbuild would be at risk of ongoing delays or cancellation. Accordingly, HRNA recommended to Go Triangle staff and board members that Go Triangle support the resoning request to advance the project in a challenging market. Austin Amandolia is here with HRNA to ask uh to answer any questions that may be raised about the financial analysis. Thank you. Thank you, Gary. And good evening, everyone. Um thank you. Appreciate it. Um um public private partnerships are are challenging um and they they need flexibility and teamwork and they take a lot of time. One of the challenges is the public component is funded completely differently than the private component. It's public funded by a legislature where the private component is subject to market conditions and uh and go triangle and Hoffman work together to deliver the bus facility the the transit facility on the timeline of the public funding even though at that time the private overbuild couldn't be built. So as Gary said the bus facilities on time and it's going to be opening up. In my in my 30 years of experience I've I've seen a lot of public private partnerships. They've all taken a lot of time. They've all evolved. There all have been some changes. And so we are asking for this option to be able to be a key step in making the overbuild economically feasible so that we can move forward and complete the project. Hoffman has invested over 5.7 million of their money in the pre-development surfaces um in this project and that's at risk right now. So uh there is a deadline in in 24 months. June 2027 is a deadline to start construction. So financing needs to be procured, closed in place in order to do that. And so we're asking for your consideration and thank your consideration of this request. This council and the few before it have seen a number of zoning conditions offering payments like these. Those conditions over time have converged on a relatively standard payment amount per unit. This proposal offers 10 times that standard. And we know that the city has a need for the additional funding. In the April round of GAP funding for affordable housing projects, $55 million were requested and 38 million of those requested funds went unanswered due to lack of funding. If there had been an additional 1.56 million that the number proposed here of affordable housing funding at that time at the rate that was uh just used for those subsidies in in April that would have produced an additional 60 units of affordable housing um with the additional funding. Additionally, those 60 units would have been far more affordable between 30 and 80% of AMI than the 80% AMI units required by the current zoning condition applicable at Rusbus. They would also have been affordable for twice as long as our condition requires. So, you have heard tonight why the requested tax change is reasonable and more importantly, why it's in the public interest. It allows the project to move forward at all, bringing energy to downtown in the warehouse district with new businesses and with 385 new households to support all of our downtown businesses. It injects $ 1.56 million in new funds into the city's affordable housing fund, and it allows Go Triangle to achieve the project it originally envisioned. The benefits to downtown uh to the supply of both market rate and affordable housing and to the to the completed Go Triangle vision cannot be achieved without the change we're requesting tonight. The whole team is very grateful for the city's long support of this project as we continue to work together to get this over the finish line. The the team stands ready to answer any questions and to continue this conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Questions? Yes. Uh councelor, this may be a question for Mr. Young. Um, do you know just ballpark of all the conditions that tied to affordable housing, how many of those affordable housing units have been developed? Good evening. Pat Young with Planning and Development. So yes, we we've uh recently researched that there's been over two dozen uh just in the last uh seven years uh conditions of that nature where there was either a promise of um contribution to affordable housing fund or on-site units. To date, none of those units have been developed and none of the funds have been provided either because the projects haven't begun or the threshold in the condition has not been cleared. Usually applicants put that later in the project so they can have some cash flow first and that has not been realized yet. Just to clarify, Pat, so are you saying also there haven't been any projects built that had an affordable housing contribution to the city? There there have been uh none where the that triggered the payment. Okay. Thank you. Other questions for applicant or staff? And I could close. Do you want me to close the hearing? Oh, okay. We have something. I didn't know. Oh, okay. So, uh, no. All right. So, we will, uh, we have, uh, Octavia Raineia signed. Rainey signed up to speak in opposition. She's okay. You were hiding behind the podium. I did not see. Oh, am I the only one that signed up? You are. Oh my god. I get to talk tonight. You get eight minutes. Woo. How today? Well, good evening. Tonight, I'm going to put on my fair housing hat. I got on my fair housing hat. Okay. First of all, income is not protected in the state of North Carolina. Number one, I want to make that absolutely clear. Income is not protected in the state of North Carolina. Number two, you're talking about this project. I want to see the racial demographics of the downtown area that you're talking about. What is the racial demographics? I know it is all white. Do you know it as anything else? When you bring in transit, you have to provide by the fair housing act. Transit has the biggest transportation act of them all. And it behooves me how y'all get away with that. You cannot be build anything with transit unless you are talking about race, creed, color, sex, national origin. So I would like it behooves me that you have this project and you are considering taking a buyout when you don't even protect the protected classes. I never heard of such. I've just never heard of such. So, you got to show me the demographics of the white downtown area. How you plan to bring the buses in? Will the buses be riding on white people or is it only to bring black people in to work and bust them back out? So, they don't work there. I mean, they work there, but they don't dream. They don't play. They don't live there. Something is wrong with this picture when you do that. You can't do this in the city of Raleigh. You are talking about segregation all over again. And you are protecting that. What are you really doing? You are protecting a restrictive covenants. That's what you're doing. Cuz that restrictive covenants when black people couldn't live in certain places. That's all you're doing. I question the city about this. Why would you take a buyout when your goal is to do affordable housing all over the city of Raleigh, not segregate, not not have clusters? That's that is particularly wrong. Are you running away to provide affordable housing all over this city? are you? It behooves me cuz I don't understand. You are setting a precedent here and it's dangerous because if they get away with it, somebody else has come along and going to get away with it and you might get sued because they going to go back to what you have previously done. And that's wrong. If you about the business of affordable housing, you about the business of affordable housing. Affordable housing goes for all over this city and that includes downtown. You have got to stop this process now and put the brakes on it. I know black people, brown people who would love to live downtown if you had some affordable housing for them, but you don't have none for them down in the downtown area. So, how can you be exclusive of anybody who want to live downtown? This is crazy. You are not protecting the protected classes. And I have a problem with that. That has been my background for 50 years now. I would like to say I would like the opportunity to bring experts in to say what I said because y'all don't believe me at all. But I want the opportunity to bring experts in to talk to the city about their selective amnesia on affordable housing. To the mayor, this cannot be. If you are about people of color living all over this city, you got to start with downtown. Transit has the biggest transportation. And don't tell me what you did in Durham cuz I'm talking about Raleigh. Don't tell me about Durham. Tell me about Raleigh. I am opposed to I'm opposed to this. It's not right. You are not standing on what you said you believe in. You visit these other cities and bring us back these glamorous reports about how they're doing affordable housing, but you don't ever tell them about you have selective amnesia when it come to Raleigh and that's not right. Protective classes have the right to live even in downtown. But y'all draw the line and that is not correct. I am a fair housing advocate and I be one until I die and this is not right. This is just wrong. And to the developers, you need to tell me how you got around fair housing and transportation so I can come back up and comment. I want to know how did you get around that you would go Raleigh? Something wrong with that picture. Something is seriously wrong. And do you follow the fair housing and transportation plans? I want to know because I'm ready to challenge that. That is incorrect. All right. Thank you. So, we will Any questions for Miss Um All right. You can close the All right. I'm closing the public hearing. Uh, Councelor Harrison. Yeah. I just want to um summarize I think some of the things that are going on and just the questions perhaps in front of us. I appreciate the applicants being here. I appreciate Miss Rainey's comments and I've had some discussions in my own district about this case um as it is in district D. So um you know my understanding the request is to switch from having affordable housing units on site to having a contribution to the city's affordable housing fund. And so there's tradeoffs that we have to consider. Um, and I'm just going to kind of lay out the numbers as I see it. You know, right now what is in the conditions. It's 10% of the units to be offered 80% AMI for 15 years. You know, in the warehouse district next on top of the bus station. And my understanding is the unit count in this building might be close to 400 units. Is that correct? 385. So 10% we'll just say of 400 because easier to calculate that would be 40 units on site as in the current condition. So again at 80% AMI for 15 years there is a floor so a minimum in that condition of 20 sites that would be provided 20 units no matter what how many number you know total we get. So that's just what's on the table currently. And then what's being offered, you know, at let's say 400 units, we get something like 1.6 million, something close to that. But again, it's based on a percentage. So it's based on what gets built. And I will say there's no floor right now in that number. So depending on how many units get built, we don't know. It might not be 1.6 million. It could be less. Um, it could be more, but that is a little bit more unknown. And that money, the way that it could be used by the city is for affordable housing downtown. It could be used for affordable housing by the city further out. We tend to spend more on affordable housing downtown and that's why we don't see a lot of it. And it is a challenge in that people get segregated by income in the city because of the cost of housing. So, I just want to lay that out. I think we all know these things, but that is kind of the trade-offs here about thinking about where would these units go, whether they are built here on top of the bus station, whether the city would use the money for downtown units. We'd probably maybe get 16 units downtown because our gap financing is $100,000 a unit, for example, in the More Square development we're working on. If it was $40,000 a unit further out, then we would get 40 units. And again, those would be at 60% AMI versus 80% AMI and they'd be for 30 years versus 15. So, there's a lot of I think just considerations about what it is we want. I don't know that there's a hard, fast, right answer. Um, one question I would have to the applicants is, have you worked with any affordable housing partners to look at how you could provide these units on site? I know there are financing issues, but are there any affordable housing partners that are, you know, kind of in the mix that could assist with getting these site these units on site? the the issue uh we would have there is is that these wouldn't be um you know lit qualified you know we would have to have a lower um a lower income range so we don't have any we we have um we you know Raleigh Housing Authority has asked us about that we said we look we're open to you know any type of you know um uh you know kind of opportunities but we we don't have um that that income is not um is not the 80% AMI. So that's not eligible. Um so therefore, it's really not they're they're two different things and they're two different structures of financing for a affordable housing development and a high-rise um residential development. So the two really don't kind of mix together. What about entities like CASA or DHIC? Have you talked with them? Because I know they do provide some units at other levels. I I know DHIC. I've I've talked to them in in general, but it really wouldn't there's there's no subsidy for the gap that you know we have here that's created by these units. So that's why we're proposing a payment in loo to be able to leverage those funds with other tax credits and to be able to provide more affordable housing, you know, in various locations in the most expensive type of construction that we have in in the city. I mean, we're we're looking in a in a high-rise, you know, you know, building. costs have just gone up incredibly and just the the shell of the building puts it into a a cost range where there is such a wide gap that it makes the project economically unfeasible. Right now have a sense of what the subsidy would be to have those units on site. I I don't know that we would have to really look at, you know, some numbers now and and then and and kind of run that, you know, rental, you know, you know, it's always a debate about what is the what is the market rental rate and that's a debate that we would have with investors as we look at that. So, in a in a static point in time, we can certainly do that, but that's a that's a dialogue right now because we are looking at, you know, the, you know, high enough rental rates to, you know, to, you know, really substantiate the cost of a high-rise construction and that target is is going. Rental rates have gone down since we opened up Seabard Station, which I'm familiar with. They they've gone down since the opening in in the in the market, and we're projecting them to go back up. So, it's it's hard to say that at one point in time. We'd have to really kind of take a kind of a static look at what that, you know, difference is. Thank you. Okay. Councelor Silver, Mr. Florian. Yeah, please. Would you like to say something? Add one thing. Um Austin, a senior analyst with HRNA Advisors. We were the development adviser for Go Triangle throughout this process. Um we did in our analysis look at an alternate scenario where um some public entity provided more gap financing in order to keep the units on site. Our assessment was that it would take 8 to6 million to do it and even then the project was still only marginally feasible. For comparison, first off, that's over it's about $235,000 per unit, which is much more significant than what the city currently um provides in gap financing, as you mentioned, for even downtown affordable units. Further, um it's basically the size of Wake County's entire affordable housing gap financing program for LITC projects. Um, and it would for the the city, you all could provide potentially between like 180 to 350 units throughout the city with that amount of gap financing, which was part of what led to us saying Hoffman is making a good um good faith effort. Um, it also is still just an option to do the 10% in Luffy. They maintain the possibility of keeping the units on site. So, that possibility still lies ahead. Thank you for Mr. Florian. Just to clarify, this is over a bus station. Uh we had a lot of conversation about stick built versus high-rise construction, which is very different. Can you tell me although this is just a zoning condition and a zoning case? Uh is this stick built or high-rise construction? This is high-rise construction. This is concrete high-rise construction. Thank you, Councelor Patton. Yep. I have a handful of questions. Um, one, the your the bus station was delivered on time and on budget. Great. Love to hear it. Um, and it sounds like you have a legal obligation to begin construction by June of 27 2027. Did I understand that correctly? Okay. Once construction begins, is there going to be an interruption to service during that time? No, there's not. Okay, got it. And from the time that you commence, how long will it take you to have occupants in that building? About a 30-month schedule. Sorry, just for the viewers at home. I'll stay here. Thanks. Approximately a 30-month schedule. There may be some earlier deliveries, but about 30 months. So 30 months. So through three years, give or take. So 2030 is one. Two and a half years. We'll have occupants in there. Okay. Into 29. Let's be optimistic. And do you have like you know the I guess the argument here is that this condition is the barrier to to securing financing. Do you have financing lined up? Like should you be relieved from this? Not not uh directly at this time. We we need to be able to take a economically feasible project to the capital markets for financing and we can't you know right now a performer with the affordable housing conditions in it is not economically feasible. So we need that option to be able to you know look at that and take that to the capital market to do that and it's a challenging time to do it. Do you have a fear that it I agree it is a challenging time to do it. Um, so I'm just I guess I'm just wondering when we'll when we'll have a building. Sounds like I guess 2030 is really the really when we're going to have it be be nice to be able to get that financing started sooner. So that's the deadline. So it be obviously it would be the goal and the objective to not cut it down to the wire, but to do that sooner, but we have to, you know, the market conditions will have to dictate that. Yeah. Okay. And then did you you know I'm I I would assume this is a taxexempt property is properties owned by goat triangle public the public portion but the overbuild taxable. Yeah. This is not a um the overbuild is a is a private project. It is not a publicly you know subsidized project and is not tax exempt. So it is a significant boost to the city's tax basis. Got it. Okay. Um All right. Anything? Councelor Lambert Melton. Yeah, I I just have some comments. Um first I want to start by saying I agree with um Miss Rainey that we need more affordable units downtown and particularly near transit. Um and I just want to highlight that we do have a project by our primary bus um terminus go Raleigh um more square sites going to be 160 affordable units. The entire project is 100% affordable. Um, and we also know that nearby to this site, Heritage Park, which is owned by the Raleigh Housing Authority, is going through redevelopment to increase their capacity of affordable units. And the ongoing challenge we have are the cost of the units downtown versus the cost of units somewhere else. Um, with this particular project, uh, I think it's important to note that zero cases that have conditioned affordable units in the high-rise residential, not a single one of them has ever delivered affordable unit or any money for it. And if we want to actually achieve affordable housing from the private sector through no cost to the public, I think we have to be honest about what is working and what's not working. These conditions in our high-rise uh resoning cases, they are not working. What we're actually seeing work where the private sector is delivering affordable units to us or at least getting them through permitting is through our missing middle program and our frequent transit development option. that's actually producing some affordable units that the private sector is paying for that is requiring no subsidy and that allows our public subsidies to go further. And so what we have in front of us now is a case that is asking for the flexibility that has been afforded every other high-rise. In fact, by their math, which I'm assuming someone from planning would fact check, they're actually offering a great deal higher subsidy um for their fee in L. And so we're at a situation where we know that these conditions don't work. These folks are asking for nothing different than others have been providing before and we're in a situation where if we don't allow this flexibility, we may not get any project here, which means we don't get the affordable units, we don't get the market rate units, and we don't get the retail. If we allow them the flexibility and they're asking for anything different than we've granted other folks, then we at least know that we have a substantial chance of getting the market rate units and the retail. And that is exceptionally important. I I would love if there were a feasible way to include the affordable units on site. Um, and I think for the public, a lot of the feedback I've received is vote no, then they'll start construction and the affordable units will be included. That's not the reality of the situation. If we deny this request today, there I I I feel strongly this project will not get off the ground. So, we'll have no affordable units, no market rate units, and no retail. And that is the worst possible outcome. Um, and so I would encourage you to continue to explore the option of including the units on site. Um, even if it's not the full amount that was previously conditioned. Um, but I do hope that this project will start because we need the residential, we need the tax revenue, and we need the storefront. So with that, I'm prepared to make a motion. I move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated July 1st, 2025 contained in the agenda materials and to approve the zoning amendment with the adoption and effective dates described in the agenda item under recommended action. Second. All right. Any further discussion? All right. All in favor of the motion? I I. All oppose? Nay. Okay. So, is that okay? So, 62. All right. Thank you for coming down. And that concludes our evening session. Happy break. [Music] Down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down