[Music] Oh. [Music] Oh. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] All right. Good afternoon. We will call the meeting to order. And first item of business is the pledge of allegiance. Um I'll ask would councelor Harrison lead. I aliance 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. Okay. Consent agenda. I do not believe we had any items pulled. Turn to staff. Is that correct? Move for approval. Okay. Second. Uh if there any other discussion? If not, all in favor? I. All oppose? Nay. All right. So, that completes that. All right. Next, we have the report and recommendation of the planning commission. Yes, ma'am. Good afternoon. Bam Walter Rally Planning and Development with the report and recommendation of the planning commission. a review of upcoming holidays for you through May and June. I don't believe any of Shvoot uh the end of Shootout uh conflicts with your upcoming schedule. Um you do have some items already scheduled for public hearing at your next meeting. There are a couple of demolition of unfit building questions, a petition annexation and three reasonzonings already scheduled for the 1 p.m. meeting uh on the 20th. And then in June, I believe these are actually at the 7 p.m. meeting. I apologize for the error. The proposed budget for the new fiscal year will be in front of you, as well as the contract for services for both of the municipal service districts in the city. We have three items coming out of planning commission. Two of them are being recommended for public hearing. The first is a text change about cottage garages and cottage court development. That's being suggested for a May 20 public hearing. And then the other item coming out with a recommendation for for public hearing is a reszoning on Athens Drive. That's being suggested for an evening public hearing on June 3rd. So let's dive a little deeper into those. The Athens Drive request is two lots. This is under three acres. It's going from residential four with the special residential parking overlay district to residential three mixed use uh with some conditions and the overlay would remain. It is consistent with the plan but inconsistent with the future lane use map. Planning commission recommended approval by a split vote with an additional recommendation that council consider additional setbacks again suggesting a public hearing here of June 3. The votes in opposition here were largely concerned about conditions that were applied to the property when it was reszoned previously um that that are not being changed that pro prohibit uh this property being able to take advantage of FTD the frequent transit development option which would allow a little bit more density if affordable units were included and and generally uh would prohibit um really limit the density that could be achieved. D on the transit corridor. Then the second item is c the cott garages and cottage court development. So this would amend the maximum size of principal structures in a cottage court by regulating conditioned space rather than gross floor area. And then it sets a maximum allowance of 500 square ft for unconditional space and accessory structure. This essentially allows uh for an attached twocar garage to be constructed as part of a dwelling uh within the cottage court but not uh contributing toward the condition space square footage limit again suggesting a public hearing of May 20 for this item. And then the third item is a result of some work that the planning commission did in their strategic planning committee. They had taken up neighborhood conservation districts for conversation after seeing the Forest Park neighborhood uh the name of that conservation overlay district change as well as the uh a regulatory change that was proposed in the Moriki uh neighborhood conservation district. And in both instances they were concerned that the process had not uh brought enough community engagement by regulation. And so they are suggesting that you consider a text change to modify the process for modifying an a neighborhood conservation district. And uh the recommended action here would be for you to request staff to bring back some more information to you as a special item on June 3rd so that you have um advice from staff to complement the request from the planning commission. What questions could I answer for you? Council Patton. Hi. Just two quick ones for me. Um on the cottage court garages, I um remember when we talked about this and so the um I think the sentiment of the committee was they they thought you could kind we kind of wanted to get to a place where you'd end up with a garage or like a shed. And I want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly where it says 500 square feet of unconditioned space and accessory structure. that kind of speaks to that spirit as well. I believe that it does, but I'm going to ask one of my colleagues from zoning administration to answer specifically. I think there's somebody behind me. Your understanding is correct. Council member Pat Young, Planning and Development. Okay, cool. Great. Um and then not direct it's not directly but if you'll grant me some grace we on the topic one of our residents saw the topic of the NCOD conversation come up as an agenda item and they emailed us to suggest that um they have an interest in NCOD's periodically being re-evaluated at a regular cadence like every 25 20 to 25 years and I perhaps is not going to be addressed in this but I wonder if that's been discussed in the comprehensive plan the new comprehensive plan or so council looked at this uh in I just looked at this yesterday 20 in 2020. Thank you. Uh and at that time decided to take no action. We can certainly bring that information back to you as context those details and then also yes this is something that we will be discussing as part of the development of the comprehensive plan. Okay. All right. There's no other questions. I'm happy to approve recommendations as suggested by staff. Looks like Council Harris. Yeah. I just had a question about the Athens Drive reason resoning case for the applicants because I see you here. Um if that's okay. Um I'm just curious about setting the uh date public hearing date on June 3rd. Um I want to clarify if there are any changes that want to be made on this resoning case. They can if we set the public hearing now, you won't be able to do so until after the public hearing. So we would have to have the public hearing on June 3 and then any changes that would be made would you know uh happen and you could come back two weeks later. So there is another option if you are expecting to make any changes. I know that neighbors have had some concerns about buffers and heights things like that. Um we could delay setting the public hearing to you know look at you know any changes in the case. Um, and then that would allow you to make changes and then come back and have your case ready to go. So, it's it's up to y'all. We can set it for June 3rd or we can delay the setting and it could come back to us that second meeting in June or that first meeting in July. Hi. Um we um spoke about adding buffer to the uh with trees and bushes that would be on the east side of the property which is where the majority of the houses are. So do we need to put that in now or I think what I'm trying to figure out is um if you want to add that before the public hearing then we would wait to set it and the date would likely be the second meeting in June. Um, but you're also welcome to have the public hearing on June 3rd and then you can make those changes and come back to again the second meeting in June. I'm confused. So it creates like a blackout period. So you if you're hoping to make changes, you can either go through the like we can allow the blackout period to pass and then your public hearing would open and you could change it or you can change and then we'll have the blackout period. Does that make sense? We spoke with Matthew Burns and we thought we added those um buffer conditions. Uh we spoke with him after the meeting, the planning commission meeting and we thought that they had been added. So they hadn't been added. It looks like no. I'm getting a a head nod no. So uh the application cannot be modified after planning commission makes their recommendation. Oh, and before you receive it. Okay, great. Uh so today really opens the first possibility that they could modify the request. I don't believe there's any time difference in terms of the two options you outlined, council member Harrison, it's really just a matter of sequence. So as you said, um if you held the item today and and brought it back at your next meeting and set the hearing at that time, between now and then, the application could be modified. those those modifications would need to be submitted to staff by Friday of this week. If you set the public hearing today for a date in the future, the request could not be modified until after the public hearing is opened and then once that happens, the applicant has um and the council. So, can we simplify for the applicant? You have until Friday if you have condition to submit. If not, you have to wait until after June 3rd. Yeah. Okay. So, if I make the if I do the addition of the buffer zone by Friday, then June 3rd, everything is it's either June 3rd or the following council meeting, it'll be scheduled. So, I I would I would like to set it for June 3rd. Okay. Why don't we go ahead and have that? That's the simple maybe way. Um, yeah. 20th. So, so here's what I'm hearing from the applicant. It's real simple based on everything saying you want to add conditions. Correct. Well, we when we did the planning commission, we agreed to add the commission. So, you want to ask some conditions. So, in order to add your conditions, they need to be in by Friday. In order to do that, we need I move that we hold this until May 20th. The only thing is he wanted to have the public hearing on May 3rd. We can't set the hearing until he does that. I know, but he may just could he could just do it in sequence and we could do the hearing on June 3rd to meet that time frame and then he could add the If we set the public hearing today, he cannot I understand that. Yeah. So, if we hold it until the the 20th on the 20th, we can set the hearing for June 3rd out of town on the 20th. Yes. Somebody make a motion and uh we'll just put this all out of our misery. Sorry, we It's a very confusing process. truly. Um, if we don't set the public hearing now, then perhaps there will only be one. But if we set June 3rd, then you'll have to come back twice. That's also the kind of thing here because you'll if you're going to put in conditions, if we set the hearing now, you won't be able to put them in until after June 3rd. Okay. Yeah exactly. I serve on the council. I'm also confused. What day would you like us to set your public? Well, we're out of town June 20th. Let's I move to set the public hearing June 3rd. But I want to make we want to be able to add this buffer. Can't do it till after June 3rd. Will you be back the first Tuesday in July? Yes. Yes. Okay. So that's what might happen then is we'll have the public hearing on June 3rd and then if conditions have to be made added we can have the second hearing or it you know hold it until the July meeting. So I want to ensure that you all can be there. Sure. Sure. Okay. So it sounds like my motion is to set the public hearing for June 3rd on Athens Drive. All in favor of the motion I I all opposed. No, you said June 20th. It it is your date conflict June 20th because the meeting would be June 17th. Yeah, we're out of town that So I I don't add anything this Friday. No, no, we'll have the case. We have a lot of time with the applicant and yeah, and I'll I'll email you all so we'll get on we'll get into the same page. And all of this just to be said is is that if the library wants the property, it has first priority. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. And that vote was 71, I believe, with uh the pro the protest. Okay. I move to set the remainder of the public hearings as recommended by staff. Okay. Uh any other And did we want any additional input on the neighborhood conservation overlay district? Oh, if some context could be circulated in like a manager's update, that's fine. I don't think it that information needs to preclude this piece. Okay. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second on the table. All in favor? I. I. All oppose? Nay. All right. Thank you. Next we have special items council contingency and we have Evan Raleigh pinch hitting today for Michelle Mallette. Yep. Good afternoon mayor and council. Um Evan Riley with manager's office hopefully with a slightly more straightforward item for you. Uh so so you you you have in your uh in your agenda item a request to appropriate uh funding from various uh members of council's contingency funds to a variety of organizations. Um I could certainly go through them. Sorry. Get our mic straight here. Um but uh as I said, you you've got requests for several appropriations to various organizations. Uh, I can certainly take you through, but I can spear the presentation if move for approval. Second. There's a motion. Yeah. Any other discussion? If not, all in favor of the motion. I I. All oppose? Nay. Thank you, Mr. Raleigh. Uh, next, the NC DOT state transportation improvement program. This is the Capitol Boulevard tolling scenario. Kenneth Richie from Transportation. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Kenneth Richie of Transportation. uh following up from the April 15th presentation that uh our partners at the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Turnpike Authority did regarding the consideration of tolls on Capitol Boulevard from I540 uh up to Harris Road, Prrenell Road and Wake Forest at the Wake Franklin County line. So, just a little bit of a refresh. Uh what we're talking about is the 10 milei segment from I540 to uh Pernell Harris Road. Uh the first two sections A and B are the sections that are directly in Raleigh. But certainly with the regional draw Raleigh is this corridor is of interest to a lot of us. Uh looking at the the preferred design or the design section, what is shown here is just specific to the controlled access portion. There are also parallel service roads that are part of the consideration in the design uh of this corridor. I know there was some confusion that was voiced during some of the public engagement about would we all be forced into it. No, there will be parallel kind of collector roads that will run that will not be told for some of that more local access. This is just a little bit of history on the state transportation improvement plan. Uh this project was first programmed in the into the state transportation improvement plan in 2012 with a projected in year of 2023 and certainly over the course of time that project has continued to get more expensive and has continued to be delayed. The current draft uh plan has it with a start year of 2031 and a completion after 2035. Uh but certainly I think there with what's going on in western North Carolina that really is just a projection for now and certainly cost will continue to increase and could impact this project the longer that it draws out. Some of the activities that have happened with this uh in 2024 uh Campo requested that NC DOT and the turnpike authority do the tolling study to try and accelerate uh completion of this project. And the turnpike has analyzed four base scenarios. Uh the first two scenarios are an all told expressway. So all the lanes both northbound and southbound would be told. Uh one adds the second scenario adds it to the expressway system as a means of financing. Um and then scenarios three and four are looking at express lane where it's one lane in each direction would be told. And again scenario four there would forecast that to be added to the expressway system. This is just a highlight of some of the financial analysis that was done. Certainly looking at the the capital cost estimate in year of expenditure. So this would be looking at that in that 2033 20 27 to 2033 time frame. Uh also looks at some of the funding scenarios. As you can see with the expressway scenarios, the financing, the leverage of the financing capacity of the turnpike authority allows uh the state contribution to be less and still be able to deliver the project in total. And then just a couple of summaries really highlighting there in the green box that with the with three of the four scenarios, there would be legislative changes that are required. Uh in the expressway scenario for the turnpike, there would be two legislative changes that would be required. It would be allowing a non-ontiguous facility to be added to the expressway system. It would also be uh the providing a special provision to allow this free highway to be converted to a toll highway. There is an express prohibition on that in the state statutes currently. And so today um to help inform the conversation that will be upcoming likely at the May 21st Campo Executive Board meeting where they likely will take action on directing this project forward would be a resolution regarding the implementation of tolls. In the scenario where there is support, you would there could be a consideration of one of those four options to put forward. Um this will help inform uh Raleigh's vote on that at the Campo Exec board. One thing you will notice in the draft uh resolution that we included would be in the air in the event of support there would also be we would ask for considerations of some pricing considerations to ensure equity and affordability in there. Uh understanding there's a lot of concerns with regards to having to pay tolls throughout every trip that may happen on that corridor. But that's all that I have for now. Any qu I'm happy to answer any questions. Yeah. Uh, councelor Silver, can you just go back so clear on scenario one and two? That that's the perfect one. Just one clarification. It says triangle expressway system expansion. It seems beyond the financing capacity. Can you explain the difference between not part of the Triangle Expressway system expansion and the number two that it would be? So really the difference there is going to be the amount of uh really that amount of financing capacity adding it to the turnpike obviously gives some additional financing capacity beyond what the state has on their on their own with this project moving forward. So that's where if you look at that state funding uh requirement down there at the bottom, uh if it was a standalone project, it would take the funding equivalent of the A and B sections as programmed into the state transportation improvement plan to deliver that project. In a told scenario, if it's part of the turnpike, it's really just the equivalent of the funding that would be programmed for the A section, which is from I540 to Durant Road today. uh that B section would extend it essentially from that would be I540 to Burlington Mills Road just north of the Noose River. So the equivalent funding for those would be required and in the the told scenario where it's not added to the expressway. Any other questions? Yes. Yep. Councelor Patton. Hi. Hey. Uh I know this is not your project, but thank you for being the messenger. Um, does the current road design account for buzzes in the center median or on buzz on shoulder? It does not preclude uh the potential of the medians being essentially designed in the future to accommodate median running uh extensions of potentially BRT in the future. I do believe that the the outside shoulder has been designed for bus on shoulder uh in the current state. Wait. So both both bus on the road design offers bus on shoulder and future median. Certainly the intent is that it does not preclude the ability to do median running in the future. In the future. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Just discussion at the table. Comments. Yeah. Go ahead if you have comments. Sure. Um not directed at you. Um so yeah I am I'm challenged by the project overall toll the toll itself is not like a the main point of my resident's concern. Um when I've taken this out to community it see every resident I've spoken to understands that no toll means no build and for them that continues to resonate as being a better option than any of the told scenarios. Um, so that I've, uh, so I need to represent my constituents on that. Um, so at the appropriate time, I'll be voting against any scenario. Um, however, I know that that is probably not the the will of the body. And so I'll just lift up things that if a toll scenario is to move forward, things I hope will be advocated for to improve the project. And so some of those are that we make sure the um ability for future center median bus options are not procluded that we don't shrink that center median so we can put transit there in the future. um that we consider time of day tolling so that our overnight workers at Wake Med or whatever can um have a lower or no non-told option that there would be the highest toll rates on peak and then maybe during the daytime it's a lower amount and maybe at night it's nothing at all or some version of that. Um and then there's a list of um betterments that were provided by our city staff that you know often in NC DOT projects when we want something like a wider sidewalk we have to sort of chip in the incremental difference but I think this list of betterments if if a toll option is being pursued then we have a new revenue source and I think those betterments should be included in the base and not on the on uh on the budget of the city. So those are some of my top priorities for advocacy if this is to move forward. Um, so those are my comments and that's how I'll be voting. Yep. I just want to add, you know, we've received some emails. I've seen some chatter online. This is not a city of Raleigh project. This is um not what we're initiating. People keep saying, "Why do you want to put tolls on Capitol Boulevard? This is the North County Department of Transportation." Um, and having been our representative recently on Campo at some of these meetings, this project will be moving forward. Um, and so what we're being asked to do is weigh in on knowing that it's going to be told, knowing that it's moving forward, which of these four scenarios would we prefer. Um, and so I just wanted to make sure that that was out there, that this is not any of us saying, let's go ahead and add toll lanes to a a city road or something like that. And so I think that is important that it's this uh this project's moving forward but by the North Carolina Department of Transportation and Campo is seeking just input from municipalities who are affected by which one of these four scenarios seems best to them. So that's what we're being asked to weigh in on today. Any Yes, Council Branch. Excuse me. Definitely thank you Councilwoman Milton Lambert for for those comments because this is truly a NC DOT project. But it's also about regionalism and how we work as a region and how we operate in um with our partners from Wake Forest um and even North now in Franklin County. and this corridor it it grows it grows in the impact and the time and businesses I'm aware of businesses that have decided not to move to this area because of the way things are currently so I would definitely support moving forward with either scenario one or two um I think they're on the lower end of cost estimates um and impactfulness um to the state as a whole because we all are state taxpayers um so those are my thoughts thoughts. And the thing I wanted to keep in mind, um, again, like council Lambert said, let's think regional. Sometimes we get bogged down in Raleigh and we support Raleigh and we represent Raleigh, but Raleigh also has to a lot of times hold the region because the region holds the state. Let me concur with my uh colleagues, um, Council Member Lambert Melton and Branch. Um, I'm not going to reiterate what I said at the previous meeting, but I certainly agree with the regional approach. Uh, there are implications to saying no. Um, doing nothing will be unsustainable long-term as we'll look at our growth projections and delaying a decision will make this project unaffordable as we heard from the previous presentation. So I too understand the importance of having we all support transit but we also have to support our roadway system and our networks uh that both provide opportunities for people to drive the places to live and to work. And so for that reason I too will support either scenario one or two. Well, and I'll just weigh in to say I sit on Campo, so I will be rep, you know, helping represent the city of Raleigh's interest and appreciate councelor Patton, some of the points you're making on how this can accommodate uh more, you know, uh mass transit and uh buses and and other uh opportunities along that Capitol Boulevard. So, um just we will carry those messages forth. Um all right. Does anybody have a motion? Go ahead and pick your preferred scenario. Well, y'all are going to have to decide between scenario one or two. And I would say if you're just ask you should I would say of those two, having someone co-sign by joining it to the existing Triangle Expressway in terms of funding and backing seems like more it seems like it'll stretch your dollar a little bit farther. That's that's for y'all to discuss. I move to recommend scenario two. Second. All right. Any other discussion? If not, all in favor of scenario two say I. I. All opposed. So that's a 7 to one vote. All right. Thank you. Uh, next we have the report and recommendation of the city manager. Good afternoon, mayor and council. We have two items today, but before we get into those two items, I would just like to take the opportunity to thank our amazing staff. This week is National Public Service Recognition Week, and many of us are getting out into the operational departments. I started my day over in transportation, and we have an amazing, top-notch staff, and we don't get the chance to tell them that often. So, I'm going to give them a shout out today and just recognize the true work that they do to keep this city as one of the best places to live, work, play, and learn. So, um, shout out to my men and women, um, that work for the city of Raleigh. Thank you all for your public service, and thank you for your commitment to this community. And the first item um in my report is an affordable housing opportunity. The cottages of Idaho. We have Erica Brandt from the Department of Housing and Neighborhoods here to speak to this item. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Erica Brandt with Housing and Neighborhoods. I'm going to introduce um representatives from Raleigh Area Land Trust who are coming to council to ask for approval to a project adjustment for the Cottages of Idol Wild affordable housing project. So, I'll start with a little bit of background and then turn it over um to Ralt. So, to refresh everyone's memory, in 2021, the city issued an RFP for three city-owned parcels at Lane and East Street or East Lane Street um in the Idle Wild neighborhood. Um, and those parcels were about 1.17 acres in total with the land value around 1.8 million. And the idea was that the city would give that land um for a dollar to the the receiving developer, a development partner, and that would act as a city subsidy. And in 2021, council authorized the negotiation of the land sale to the um awarded development partner Raleigh Area Land Trust or RAT. In February of 2024, council approved the termination of the original RFP and accepted a modified project proposal which included $700,000 in city gap financing. And then in July 2024, council adopted a resolution that authorized the city to sell the parcels to Ralt. And in October of 2024, council authorized an additional $560,000 in gap financing, bringing the total gap financing to 1.26 million. Um, and then combine that with the 1.8 million in land, and it's about um 3 million in city subsidy. And now I will turn it over to Raleigh Area Land Trust. Mayor, before they start, I forgot to ask this, but uh city attorney, I live adjacent to this site, so I need to know whether I have a conflict or not. right across the street. Yeah, it's like the site of my house. Okay. All right. Thank you uh very much, Erica. Um and before I get started, I'm Rhett Fussell. I'm a consultant with the Raleigh Area Land Trust and the founder of the Raleigh Area Land Trust. And I have uh Kevin Campbell behind me. He's the executive director. Um and we appreciate your time here. Um, I did not think I would be back here um for yet another meeting with you all, but I'm glad I am. Um, and hopefully you'll be smiling after the end of this. I think I saw Nikki back there. Um, I haven't seen him since he's back, but I I'm convinced that you came back to us, Nikki, so that you actually see the groundbreaking for this project. So, I'm convinced of that. Um, I do want to say thank you to Housing and Neighborhood staff, particularly Erica and Annie, who's not here. They have been fantastic with my crazy ideas over the past year or so. And then finally, Brandon P. I don't know where he is. I saw him earlier, I think back here. Um, without him over the past six months, we would have not been successful. So, with that, um, I will move forward. Let's see. So, uh, what I've learned is affordable housing is hard. Um, very difficult. Um, and the capital stack for this particular project is quite complex. I think I've had multiple lawyers say, "We've never had a capital stack like this with competing interest." Um, because there's both, um, rentals and for sale units on this property. Um, but we're thankful for all the partners that we do have. And so, um, with that, we want to talk through, uh, one of the latest challenges, which is why we're back here in front of you. Um the the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency um committed uh 938,000 to the project for some of the rental units that we have. Uh typically they're considered permanent financing at the back end of the project. Um but they have a relationship with the State Employees Credit Union to fund construction at a 0% interest. And so that was our intent. Um but at the last minute uh those funds were uh not available due to obviously the western North Carolina hurricane recovery. They've committed a lot of funds to that uh which is very needed. And so we were forced to try to figure out how to cover that additional $938,000 gap. So uh I went uh to or we went to uh self-help who is our construction lender and asked them could they cover this. Um, I think I begged uh cried uh meetings. No, I did not cry. Um, but we we actually got them to commit um to fill the additional $938,000 gap, but that of course came with some conditions and one of those is the condition that we're going to discuss. Um, this is the development budget. What is not included in here is obviously the land donation which Erica mentioned, but as you can see, Self-Help Ventures Fund um is the main uh construction financing on the project with both the city of Raleigh and Wake County bringing in substantial funds to the project as well as um contributions that RAW has raised over the past couple of years um and about 1.2 million. The last one um which is a new addition to the project which made this possible um to to partner with self-help is this Federal Home Loan Bank grant that we received. Um we went after that late last year. Um we were one of only 73 housing projects that received a grant. Um so it was um a pretty pretty good deal for us. Um but that helped to bring down the cost of the potential uh shortfall in the the gap funding. So um the ask is essentially that um we need to make a recommendation or we need to have uh some flexibility for self-help to recover um in some case of foreclosure if there is some foreclosure on the property property itself. Um and so presently we have seven units for sale dedicated at 50% AMI and seven units dedicated for sale at 60% AMI. And so the flexibility that Self-Help Ventures needs is for that to go to 80% only in the case of foreclosure. Now, we anticipate we'll have most of those units sold before that would ever happen. And they have assured us that they will go to extreme lengths to not go into foreclosure, and we don't anticipate that, but if they should, they would like for the flexibility to be that they could go up to 80% of AMI. Um Brandon can speak to this if needed to be, but the city's uh sale of this land to Ralt um was dedicated um by the statute where the conveyance must serve a public purpose. And so that's why we were able to get it for a dollar. Um this revision that we're asking for in the foreclosure would still meet that condition. So, um, if you approve that today, then it will allow me one to be a happy man and get rid of the last four years of my life to get this project on the ground. And as Council Member Melton just mentioned, he will be excited to see some construction out of his backyard window. Um, and hopefully construction will be complete by the end of uh, 2026. So, with that, I'll take any questions that you may have. I don't have questions. I I'll make a motion at the appropriate time. I also just want to thank you for all your efforts. Um I've chatted with you over the last four or five years because I see this every day and think this is land people could be living on and why is it still empty? And I know the considerable challenges and contortions you've had to do just to figure out how to get it off the ground. And we're laughing about it now because we're close to the finish line, but it is so hard to get affordable housing built. And if it if you didn't have the stamina and perseverance you have to thread together all these funding models, nothing would be happening. And I think that's important for the public to know because folks always often come up to us, hey, just build affordable housing here. Well, someone has to build it. And to build it, it has to be financed. And so, thank you for sticking with it. I'm happy to support it. I think this is a reasonable change. And um don't let them foreclose. That will not happen. You make a motion. Do you want Do you want to It's your district, Counc. You do it. Um, I just had just had one quick question just for having on the record from the city attorney's office. Making these changes, we're still compliant with the original intent and purpose of our contract. Okay. With that being said, I move for approval of the modification of this agreement. Second. I will say your site work starts on Bastile Day. So, you're like breaking out of the prison of bureaucracy. Even better, man. That is I did not even realize that, but thank you. Um, okay. All in favor of this motion, I I. All opposed. Thank you. Thank you all so much. And the next item is a result of our 2024 community survey. Every other year we have the opportunity to go to the public to kind of ascertain what their concerns are and typically it gives us a few bragging rights. So we have Macy Hunt here from strategy and innovation here to pres present this item. Macy Brush. Great. So, good afternoon, mayor, city council, uh, city manager. My name is Macy Rush and I'm with the Office of Strategy and Innovation. Joining me today is Jason Morado with ETC Institute and today we will both be presenting to you the results from our 2024 community survey. First, I'll provide some overall context for this specific survey and then I'll hand it over to Jason who will share our overall summary of results and then I'll come back and share a little bit um in more detail about the specific data highlights our office found and talk a little bit about how we're trying to use this data and then cover next steps. So, if something isn't working in our city, how would we know? So we hear feedback, complaints and praise. But telling the difference between an outlier and a real trend is what this survey can help us to do. It gives us a clear picture not just of what's being said but who is saying it and why it matters. So we worked with ET instit etc institute for the past several years. Um they are a national leader in the field of local government research and the city has administered a community survey every two years since 2016 making this one the fifth time we have done this. Conducting surveys helps local governments understand how satisfied residents are with our programs and services and allows us to compare our performance across previous years and against our benchmark communities. This survey is unique because it's uses a statistically valid representative sample of our city residents and the questions are grouped along these areas. So there's overall quality of life questions and then there are questions that are aligned with our strategic plan key focus area topics. And then we have behavioral and demographic questions. So this isn't just anecdotal feedback. It's robust. It's high quality data that you can trust and Jason will provide more information about how they ensure the random sample of the survey is representative for the community here in Raleigh. So in past years we've heard concerns that this data was nice to know but not particularly useful. So this year we tried to do things a little bit differently. We our office intentionally redesigned the survey to go deeper specifically by adding more behavioral questions. And these changes were in response to feedback that we heard that the survey was too broad to act on. And it gives us a much more nuanced understanding of our respondents lived experiences. For example, we added questions like whether respondents have participated in a city arts or educational cultural program in the past 12 months, allowing us to compare quality ratings between participants and non-participants. And these results are also directly informing our fiscal year 26 strategic plan. And finally, the city of Raleigh has been recognized as a what works city through Bloomberg, which means that we use datadriven decision-making for our service delivery. This 2024 community survey was one piece of our work to get that certification. And with that, I'll hand it over to Jason. Jason has over 18 years of experience in this field and has worked with over 300 communities on similar survey projects. He will walk us through the broad results and national benchmarking insights and talk about how we compare to other cities across the country. Great. Thanks, Macy. Um, good afternoon, mayor and council. My name is Jason Marado. I'm the director of community research at ETC Institute, and we're a marketing research firm that specializes in conducting community surveys for city and county governments. So today I'll go through the results of the 2024 community survey which as Macy mentioned this is the fifth time we've conducted your community survey. It's been done every other year since 2016. I have just a little background about ETC Institute. We're a national leader in providing market research for local governments. We've been doing this type of work for over 40 years and in the last 10 years alone we've conducted surveys in more than a thousand communities across the country. So, this is really the type of work that we specialize in. This is just an overview of what I'll go through today. I'll go over the purpose and methodology of the survey. I'll walk through the key findings, give a summary of our main takeaways from the survey results, and then I'll answer any questions as well. So, there are several reasons to conduct a survey like this. One is to get an objective assessment of how satisfied residents are with major city services and to determine what residents feel are the top priorities for the community. We're also able to measure trends from your previous surveys. Most of these questions are the same ones we asked in previous years, but as Macy mentioned, there were a few changes to the survey this year. Um, but most of the questions were the same. And then we're also able to compare your results with other large communities across the country. So this survey was administered by a combination of mail and online to randomly selected residents throughout the ser throughout the city. Uh the survey is page seven pages long in length. So it is a fairly lengthy survey. On average it takes residents about 15 to 20 minutes to complete the survey. And our goal was to receive at least 1,000 completed surveys. We had a good response. We ended up with 1,18 and the results of the 118 surveys at the 95% level of confidence has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9%. Essentially, this means that if we conducted this survey the same way 100 times, 95 times the results would be plus or minus 2.9% from what we're reporting. So even for a statistically valid survey, the results are not perfect, but the margin of error is small. So here we have a map of the city. The red dots are households that completed a survey. So we had a very good distribution throughout the city. Uh the area without dots are non-residential areas. The the airport is there in that section as well as some other non-residential uh areas. And as we administered the survey, we made sure that the demographics of survey respondents overall reflect the population of the city. So, one of the demographic questions we asked, we asked respondents how long they lived in the city of Raleigh. We had a good mix of new residents as well as those who have lived in the city for a long time. 23% of respondents have lived in Raleigh for 10 years or less. And then 25% have lived in Raleigh for more than 30 years. This chart shows the race and ethnicity of survey respondents. And this also is a very good representation of the actual population of Raleigh. Uh this very closely matches up with the actual population based on the US census. And then this chart shows the gender of survey respondents which this is also very much represents the actual population of the city. So here's what we learned from the survey. We found that residents have a very positive perception of the city of Raleigh. 84% of respondents rate the overall quality of life in Raleigh as excellent or good. We also found that satisfaction with city services is much higher in Raleigh than other large communities. Raleigh rated higher than other large US communities in 25 out of the 28 areas that we compared. And in most cases, your ratings are significantly higher. We'll we'll look at this in more detail in just a little bit. And the top overall priorities are affordable housing, pace of growth, and transportation. And these were the same top three priorities on your 2022 survey. also in this in this same order. So, first we look at some general perceptions that residents have of the city. This was the very first question on the survey. And here we ask respondents to rate the quality of life in Raleigh in a number of different ways. You can see the dark blue are ratings of excellent. The light blue is good. The gray is ne neutral. And we interpret neutral as average or meeting expectations. So, it's not a bad rating. It's a rating of a three on the fivepoint scale. And then the pink are ratings of below average or poor. So overall with the positive ratings far outweigh the negative. If you look at the top of this chart, most respondents gave very positive ratings to the overall quality of life in Raleigh, the overall quality of life in their neighborhood, and also Raleigh as a place to work, and as a place to raise children. We asked respondents how likely they would be to recommend living in Raleigh to someone who asks. You can see that 76% of respondents are either very likely or likely to recommend Raleigh as a place to live compared to only 9% who are not likely or very unlikely. And these results are very similar to what they were on your last survey. So here we broke the results out by zip code and this tells us if residents in different parts of the city have different perceptions of the city or rate services differently. We created a map like this for every question on the survey asked on a fivepoint scale. So there's are over a 100 maps overall in the report. This one is for the overall quality of life in your neighborhood. You can see the entire map is blue, which means that residents in all parts of the city gave very positive ratings to the quality of life in their neighborhood. And you can see there are a few areas in dark blue, which is the highest possible rating. Um, but everything in blue is is positive. This map shows how residents feel about Raleigh as a place to raise children. Again, you can see the entire map is blue and you've got a couple of areas there that are in dark blue. So, very, very positive all throughout the city. We also found that residents in all parts of the city are satisfied with the overall quality of city services. Here again, we broke the results out by zip code and this is for the overall quality of city services. You can see the entire map is blue, meaning that residents in all parts of the city are satisfied with the overall quality of city services. And this also means you're doing a great job providing services equally in all parts of the city. Sometimes what happens is even if the results are very positive overall, once you start breaking it into these smaller geographic areas, you might see some pockets where some residents are not as satisfied. Um, but here you can see that's not the case at all. The results are consistently positive all throughout the city. So I mentioned earlier that satisfaction of city services is much higher in Raleigh than other large communities. Raleigh rates higher than the US average for large communities in 25 out of the 28 areas that we compared. And you rate significantly higher in 23 of those areas. So in other words, 4% or more the average of other large communities. And this is based on a national survey that ETC Institute conducts every 1 to two years with randomly selected residents from all across the country. So this first chart is for organizational excellence. As we go through these, the dark blue are Raleigh residents who gave a rating of either excellent or good. So the positive responses and the gray bar are the excellent or good ratings for residents for all across the country who live in cities with at least 250,000 residents. So here you can see Raleigh rates significantly above the US average in all five areas. This chart includes some of the most important questions on the survey. That first row shows the overall quality of city services, which is one of the most important questions on the survey because here we're asking residents to take into account all the services that the city's providing and really give an overall satisfaction rating for how well you're doing. And you can see Raleigh has a 73% satisfaction rating. The national average for other large US communities is only 41%. And then if you look at the second row down, overall quality of customer service received. This is another one of the most important questions on the survey. You can see Raleigh has a 66% satisfaction rating, which is more than double the national average of 32%. You also rate it much higher when it comes to the ability for residents to access the information they need, locating information on the city's websites, and then the effectiveness of city communication. This shows comparisons for the overall quality of life. You can see that Raleigh rates higher than other communities as a place to work, as a place to raise children, and as a place to retire. And not just rates higher, but rates significantly higher in all three of these areas. This shows the results based on the questions related to having a safe, vibrant, and healthy community. You can see Raleigh rates significantly higher than other communities when it comes to fire and police services, the overall quality of parks and recreation, openness and acceptance of the community to residents of diverse backgrounds, and then the overall cleanliness of the city. We ask uh residents how safe they feel in various situations. And you can see Raleigh residents feel much safer than residents in other large communities, especially when it comes to in their neighborhood during their day, in their neighborhood at night, in city parks and greenways, and then just when it comes to the overall feeling of safety in the city. This question focuses on growth in natural resources. Again, you can see Raleigh rates much higher when it comes to garbage recycling and yard waste, wastewater services, drinking water, uh, storm water runoff. One of your lower rated areas was managing growth, but even in that area, you can see that Raleigh rates four percentage points above the national average for other large cities. And then when it comes to transportation and transit, Raleigh rates much higher when it comes to the condition of neighborhood streets. The only areas on the survey where Raleigh rates below other large communities is the overall maintenance and condition of city streets and then traffic flow. Uh which traffic flow it's typical for that to be rated low for such a fast growing city. So we compared these results to your previous survey. Overall the satisfaction ratings this year are similar to the 2022 survey. Now, here are the areas that had among the biggest increases and decreases in satisfaction since 2022. The biggest increases were related to creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for all community members, the availability of downtown parking, uh managing storm water runoff and drainage and flood control, the ability for residents to access the information they need about the city, and then the variety of housing options. The biggest decreases in satisfaction since your last survey were walking to places in Raleigh, the availability of information about arts and cultural programs, efforts to promote and assist public and private partnerships, the overall quality of new development in Raleigh, and then drinking water provided by Raleigh public utilities. So now we'll look at top priorities. For these these next few charts, we call the important satisfaction rating. And this is a tool that we use at ETC to help communities set priorities. This analysis is based on two different types of data. First, we ask residents how satisfied they are with these services. Then we ask which of these services are the most important for city leaders emphasized over the next couple of years. So the idea behind this is that the items that have a combination of low satisfaction ratings, but at the same time are rated as the most important are the areas we highlight as the highest priorities to focus on. Now this doesn't mean that the areas in green or yellow are not important but making improvements to the areas in pink as well as uh the yellow areas would impact the greatest number of residents. So this first table is for having a safe, vibrant and healthy community by a wide margin. The top priority is the availabil availability of affordable housing uh which is also the top priority on your last survey. The next highest priority is a variety of housing options. This table focuses on arts and cultural resources. Uh you can see the top priority is the availability of information about programs and events and then the cost of arts and cultural programs. When it comes to economic development and innovation, the top priorities are efforts to promote and assist public and private partnerships and then efforts to promote and assist small minority and womenowned businesses. When it comes to the growth and natural resources section of the survey, uh the top priority by a wide margin is how well the city is managing growth. Other high priorities include quality of new development and then efforts to protect natural resources. And then when we look at the section on organizational excellence, the top priority is just the overall effectiveness of city communication. And then for transportation and transit, the top priority is the overall traffic flow in Raleigh. Um, other high priorities include the overall maintenance and condition of city streets. That just missed being in the uh pink section. And then we had a question where we asked respondents what are the most significant issues Raleigh will face over the next 5 years. The top priorities are affordable housings first, pace of growth second, transportation third. These were the top three in your last survey as well. For this question, we also broke the results out by different demographic variables such as household income, owners versus renters, race and ethnicity, age, and any way you looked at this. Um, for every demographic variable, affordable housing was the number one priority, pace of growth was second, and then transportation was third. So, just a quick recap, we saw that residents have a very positive perception of the city. uh 84% of respondents rate the overall quality of life as excellent or good. There are a lot of other examples of this in the report as well that shows residents clearly have a very very positive perception of the city. It also you also rank very high as a place to raise children as a place to work. We saw that satisfaction with city services is much higher in Raleigh than other large communities. U there are a lot of examples of that as well. A couple areas that really stood out were the overall quality of city services and then customer service provided by the city and then the top overall priorities which we just looked at are affordable housing, pace of growth and transportation. So that if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them. Okay. Thank you uh councelor Silver. Well thank you Jason for the presentation. Uh it's refreshing and I think we could all retire now. Well, it seems like the job well done. Well, for staff, congratulations. That's really some positive numbers and it's refreshing to see something that's statistically valid. So, it's very helpful and compares to last year. Uh just a couple of points and I know it's a survey so you can't dive deeper but I always have a question when affordable housing rises to the top of the list and I don't know how the question was posed because people have a different interpretation of affordable housing. There's affordable housing the program and then is housing I can't afford. There are two entirely different things. I love this neighborhood but the homes are 800,000. I want this home for half the price. uh versus I can't even access decent housing in Raleigh, therefore I need affordable. So, did that question tease a definition of affordable housing or was just thrown out there as affordable housing? It it didn't really get too much into a specific definition. Um, one thing I noted is that affordable housing was the highest priority no matter how you broke out the results based on geographic area, based on age, based on whether they rented or owned their home. Um, so I think it's probably a lot of everything that you mentioned. My second question is that you didn't cover it deeper in the survey, but I noticed on one of the earlier charts we showing good excellent good neutral it talked about direction of the city and I noticed it wasn't strong. Did you get any insight what was felt or it was in earlier slides? Uh was there any other survey questions that would allow you to lead a conclusion when they say the city's not moving in the right direction? What were the factors that you believe may have people come to that conclusion? Right. Yeah, we asked that just in a very broad way. So it includes a lot of things. Um I Yeah, that was one of the earlier slides. I don't know if I can go back or not. Yeah, I don't know if I'm able to go. Let's see. Oh, there we go. Thank you. Yeah. And as he's finding that, just to let you know, a lot of these questions are asked in a specific way so they can be benchmarked so you can use that data with the other cities. Yeah. I just wanted to know because for us uh we have some returning members on council, some new ones, and someone else overall direction uh that the city is going in. I mean, that's to me, while these are good results, it gives us as a council and staff something to work on. I just didn't know when you look at these numbers, they're not bad, but of all the ratings, that one came in the lowest. So, I just wanted to know if there was any more insight into that one in particular. Right. And that a lot of times does rate lower. We don't ask this question on every quite as often as some of the others, which is why it wasn't part of our benchmarking, but when we do, it usually does rate a bit lower. Now, you can see this year 55% of respondents gave positive ratings. The city moving in the right direction. On your last survey, it was 52%. So, it has gone up a little bit since your last survey. Um, now only 21% gave a negative rating. So, it's still, you know, almost a 3 to1 ratio of positive to negative, which is very similar to your last survey. Even a little bit better than the last survey. My last question is the one right above that. Uh, cuz I know that we have a lot of people 55 plus that are moving our location. again any insight why it rated the way it did in terms of Raleigh for a place to retire. Those results are also very similar to your last survey and it's been pretty consistent. Um yeah that that can just include so many different things and this is one where we ask it this way really to to compare to other communities. So thank you. That's all my questions. Thank Sure. Counselor Pat. Yeah. Um, and I'll just mention there are um, appendic slides after this that go there's a little bit more raw data in the packet and one asks how many people experienced a cost burden and it's 30% which um, they cited that they experienced their own cost burden and it says that 57% of those are renters. So um, a little bit more insight maybe into the affordability question. Um, one thing I'm always interested in is like when this used to h you I was a teacher there would be like teacher satisfaction surveys. What always happened on the teacher satisfaction survey was it was like my teachers my kids teacher is awesome but the overall quality of education sucks or you know it was a manager they'd say my manager is great but overall this company doesn't support its people and like I feel like this sometimes tells a similar story right it's like my trash gets picked up on time my police are great my fire is great my water's clean uh my neighborhood's awesome but overall Raleigh's you know not managing growth in the right way and you're kind of like how can all these things be true at once Um, but having seen you give this presentation twice, it is nice to um see that the the results are similar. They're high. Our residents like living here. We're glad to provide them a place where they're happy to live. Um, and I I am always refreshed that um both times you've presented this to us, the priorities expressed here are the same priorities we hear in our other like public forums. I think we always wonder, you know, do the people who come to these other types of formats like are are they really representative of the sentiment, but this is randomized, statistically significant, and it tells the same story. So, I think that's helpful to us to know that we can kind of trust the information we're getting in all the different formats. So, okay. Y other questions? Yes. I uh I appreciate that this I now understand why it's coming out of you know strategy and innovation and that this is aligned and benchmarked all super helpful and appreciate the greater detail um that just overall cleanliness I get so many emails around you know litter and things I'm just curious is there any more detail there is uh around what is it that people are referring to when they talk about cleanliness I think we word we worded it just like that without much more detail. Um, one thing you could like look at is those maps where we break the results out by geographic area to see if there are differences in different parts of the city. Um, that's one way to take a deeper look. But on the survey, it just said overall cleanliness. So, mayor, to piggyback on your question, I was wondering when you were talking about transportation and folks were had some concerns about transportation issues if you were talking about potholes or if you were talking about trash along the roads because we don't know necessarily get a lot of complaints about potholes and road maintenance, but it's more so about sidewalks and areas where there's litter that needs to be picked up. Yeah. So, but you didn't do any deep dive on any of that. Um, right. Are So, like on here where transportation is a priority. Is that No, it was one of the ones where you had the pink. Go back. This um this slide here focused got into a little more detail on transportation. Um so, traffic flow is a top priority. that second row's overall maintenance and condition of city streets. Now, in the survey, it did include potholes is one of an examples of that. Um, I think their residents are thinking more overall streets throughout the city because we asked separately about neighborhood streets. Uh, and those results were the satisfaction rates were higher for that one. [Music] Thank you so much for this. Can you go back to the um map of the city where you had the excellent and the good? Yeah. Take your victory lap, right? Well, well, that's one one I definitely want to take. So, there's a few that the one that had excellent. Yeah. Back a little bit further. That's one of them. The one before that. That one right there. Um um first of all, I want to say kudos to staff and and thank you for this. I know this straddles um um district B, District D, District E. Um and then the next slide over in that's up in district E for excellent. And I really I'm saying this not only to brag a little bit, but to also challenge those in my district, in district D, and in district B that our city should be amazing everywhere. And how do we help? We're seeing all of these concerns that were listed here, housing, transit, um and I write we have this top three. How are those in living in these communities who are experiencing a very very excellent quality of life? How are we making sure that it's for everyone? And uh so I don't want us to look at these results as just a way to critique um the city, but how do we now become a bigger part of it and making sure that each one of us is attempting to make the city best for all. So as you're watching and I have residents in in those districts or not in those districts, I want us to to keep pushing to make that next next time is all dark blue and it's all excellent. So, thank you. And I feel like it's um like timely that it's coming during public servants week uh because these results come because not because of us, but because of y'all, you know, we're we're not the ones picking up trash or keeping the water clean. Um it's because of the work that y'all do. So, I think it's timely. And hopefully this this is a a thank you note from our residents for everything that you do here. Here. Okay. Okay. Appreciate it. Great. Thank you everyone. Now I'm gonna and actually you brought up some good questions of how do we go into more nuances on some of these questions. So Macy's is going to continue because we have added some new new additive questions to this that will allow us to dive a little bit deeper. So Macy will take you on more detail. Thanks Jason. Yeah. So, as you saw from Jason's overview, we're doing really well in most areas compared to our peer cities, and that's really exciting and really something to celebrate. Um, but we think the real value of this survey is to see it as a diagnostic tool. We can see what's working well, but it can also tell us where problem areas might start to come up. So, I'm going to walk you through a few of the data points that we found around the areas that residents said are the most important to them, housing, transportation, and pace of growth. So, as you saw for affordable housing, when we asked residents what issues would be the most significant over the next few years, housing affordability came to the top, which is a challenge for most cities. And this year, 66% of residents rated housing affordability as below average or poor. That's about twothirds of the people that we heard from. And when we looked more closely at that number, we saw that over 70% of people who said that have personally experienced a financial burden due to their housing costs in the past 12 months. So this is important because it tells us that these sentiments aren't about general impressions, but they're actually about lived experiences. So people that are facing tough decisions between rent or medical bills, groceries, or housing. And so now we want to look a little bit more closely at who is feeling the weight of those housing costs. So zooming out a little bit here. This is a new question that we asked for 2024. And we see that 30% of all of our residents or respondents said that they have experienced a significant financial burden due to their housing costs in the past 12 months. So specifically rent, mortgage or utility payments. And then looking even further at that number, of those 30% who have experienced a financial burden in the past year, we saw that over half, 57% are renters. This tells us that renters are more likely to be under strain and suggest that renter specific solutions may be worth focusing on. Obviously, there are many things outside of the city's control with this, like inflation and interest rates. But what's great about the survey is that we're not just seeing the what, we're now getting a better sense of the who. And it's a balancing act with our resources and needs. We have residents who are facing financial burden with their limited resources on the one hand and rising rent costs on the other side. The survey is not just showing us that affordability is an issue. It's now showing us where we can diagnose who's being hit the hardest and start thinking about what targeted responses might look like. And our housing and neighborhoods department is responding to this need. So this slide is from their recent April 15th work session where they've shared that they were able to double the amount of rental units completed since last year. And this is an example of how this survey is actionable and evaluates that we are on the right track with making rental development a priority. And the next priority for our residents was pace of growth. So, how quickly the city is growing and how that growth is being managed is a concern for residents. 42% of residents this year said that the city's efforts to manage growth are below average or poor. But to deepen our understanding of this this year, we asked a new question, one that directly asks residents how supportive they are of some of the development strategies the city is already pursuing. And here's what we found. So the vast majority of residents are supportive of all three of these strategies. The first is about incentives for development near transit. So that means offering incentives to encourage building near existing or planned bus routes. The second is to build more housing, ensuring we have enough places for people to live again, especially as our population continues to grow. And the third is about supporting new commercial development. So things like shops, services, and office space to support those growing neighborhoods. So while there are some concerns about growth, there's also general alignment with the kinds of strategies the city is already working on when it comes to development. So again, residents are supportive of all three of these things. So we did want to look deeper. So when we looked at who was not supportive though it was less um less frequent one thing kept standing out to us when we looked at who was not supportive over 70% of the people who were dissatisfied were people who have lived in the city for over 10 years. So again it's not a widespread concern. This is something that's more deeply felt by residents who have seen a lot of change. And the takeaway here isn't just about approval ratings, but it's about how we can use this information to communicate better, engage more thoughtfully, and plan in ways that reflect the diversity of perspectives in our city and a balancing act with our resources. So, while we have a proportion of our residents who are concerned about change and new development, we see that on the other side, the majority of our residents are supportive of the things the city is already doing to meet the needs and to get there. And then finally, we have transportation. So, as you saw in transportation, the city performs better than our peers overall in most areas. But I wanted to focus on one point where concerns were rising. More than half of our respondents rated the availability of alternatives to driving as below average or poor. And here's a map that shows where people said that they biked or walked instead of driving for transportation in the past 12 months. The red on the map is seldom or never, and the orange is a few times a year, and the yellow is monthly. And now we can look at availability of alternative transportation options. So, we know that a significant number of our residents are dissatisfied with the availability of alternative choices beyond driving. That's what this data is telling us. So, in this map, the dark orange is where people on average rated below average and then the yellow is neutral. But one important issue here that may be less obvious is about housing density. Right now, Raleigh is currently at a lower density than what's needed to support higher quality, more frequent bus service. So again, we need to make decisions with a balance of our resources and needs to make things like public transportation, biking, and walking more effective. We need to build more highdensity housing. things like town homes, highrises, and multi-use developments, which we see we just saw that our residents are the vast majority of them are supportive of. More housing density means more people will be using transit. Without it, driving will always be the default because it's the easiest option. And our data on the survey backs that up as well. We asked residents how often they've used the bus in the past year and 73% said never and only about 5% um said that they've used the bus frequently. And then when we asked why, more than half of our respondents said that they just prefer to drive. And this makes sense based on what we just talked about. Um you know, driving is convenient and it's often the most reliable way to get around in Raleigh. But I want to point your attention to the most common the second most commonly cited reason for not using the bus here. 19% said the bus doesn't serve the areas they need to visit. So that's useful and actionable feedback. Some of this is about preference, but some of it points to real coverage issues that the city can respond to. And so on this map, each blue dot represents a respondent who said the bus does not serve the areas that they need to visit. As you can see, some of those dots are directly aligned with an existing bus route as shown in red. But I want to point you to the area that's highlighted on the map where you can see there's a cluster that's indicating a gap in service that affects multiple potential wouldbe riders. But the good news is that on this next map, we're looking at a planned bus route that's scheduled to be implemented next year. So bus route 32 that you can see in orange on the map, if it goes live as planned, it will directly serve that underserved cluster, closing an access gap identified by the community. And so this is what it looks like to use the survey as a diagnostic tool, not just asking what's working, but figuring out where we can treat the gaps and improve the experiences for everyone in our city. So, we've shared the data and talked about housing growth and transportation, but behind every number here, there is a real person and a real story. And so, these photos are from our focus groups that we did last fall. And a lot of what we heard there is reflected in the community survey results we shared with you today. One resident told us, "I don't have a car, so this is every day. When I want to go somewhere, I'll check the bus, but it's too slow. So, I ride my bike or decide not to go. I end up missing out on a lot of things that people with cars just do on a whim. And this kind of feedback doesn't just belong in a report. We want the survey to be something that actually helps you as decision makers and leaders to make decisions with limited resources. And so the information is here, but the question is how do we want to use it? And here's how our office is currently answering that. Um we're already working to put a greater emphasis on data in our next strategic plan. And we are directly aligning resident feedback with the future initiative projects so that what we heard through the survey will show up in the work. And we're also developing curated data packets tailored to different service areas so the departments and strategic plan teams can use this information and apply it directly to their own goals and strategies. And thanks to our communications team, the survey materials will be made available to the public today and they can go to that QR code on the screen and it'll take you to the landing page. And they'll also be posting some social on social media to highlight some of these findings. And with that, I'll wrap up. This is a real opportunity to act on what residents have shared with us. And our office is here to help you use this data. And thanks for your time. We're happy to answer any questions that you might have. Great. Councelor Silver. Thank you, Macy, for the presentation. And uh it is my hope and I'm sure you're going to work with the plan department and other partners as they look to update the comprehensive plan. Uh I had a question about housing supply and affordability, but it seems that the residents are way ahead. They understand that connection. So it was refreshing to see. So I won't ask that question. One I do want to ask about is they talked about options for uh transportation, public transportation. I know years ago it was a dream, but a lot of people commented on bus service. Was light rail or street car ever brought up as a possibility? Uh that seemed to be a missing opportunity as we embark on uh the next plan for the next 20 years. It would be helpful to know the public's sentiment uh about looking at either street car or a light rail as an alternative. And the other one is sidewalks. I know you glossed over it. We hear a lot of it. High priority. So just those two what is the reaction or was there any conversation about light rail as or street car as we look to uh the comprehensive plan and any other insight uh about sidewalk which is the basic mode of transportation just walking you can use it for bikes but I just wanted to know why that one wasn't highlighted but overall just thank you for the work that you're doing. Yeah thank you. Yeah. So, this particular survey did not have anything about um street cars, but I know that transportation, they do their own surveys as well. So, that might be something that they could help to flesh us out. Um really the the survey is giving us that larger snapshot, but we take all of this information and then we do go back to the departments to see then what are some of those other surveys. So, I do know transportation is doing like monthly surveys and so we can compare this data and see how it aligns with that data as well. But I don't know if transportation has any comments on that particular question. But um but that with all of this information we are going back to each department and then that's also how we are informing some of those initiatives for the next plan. And just a point it said 90% we do have a colleague and I'm very proud that uses our bus go Raleigh 90% either will not use or rarely use that. That is a shocking number. I don't know if it's about the reliability of service or the stigma around buses or the shelters or walking from your house to the bus stop, but it seems like there's more in this. This this is shocking uh to rarely to never. And so this seems to be a lot more of a deeper dive into this cuz I've known some places like I won't go because I have to walk, you know, a quarter of a mile to the intersection to cross the street to go back another quarter mile to get to the bus stop. So it seems like there's more to it than just the option. It could be the system itself. So I think it's an opportunity for further digging, but to me both street street car or light rail may be a possibility as we look to the future. Yeah. And adding to that, it's a interesting discussion with again access to our our community centers as well. So, some of the other work that we're doing with with parks is those surveys about um do you feel that you have a center or arts and recreation that is walkable to you? So, those are other forms of of data points for us and those are other components that we'll be thinking about for initiatives for the strategic plan. Yeah. Um, while we're here in the transit section, um, can you go to that slide that has the the dots and the yellow square with the Yeah, that one. Um, I think it's awesome that you've you were able to highlight that cluster and then there's already a future route planned. U, one thing I was going to mention later in the meeting is the route to the Falls of the Noose route just got extended to Lafayette Village. there is like a little cluster there and I have this vision that u the route two will get to wake me north and this cluster sort of reaffirms my thought that there's some desire to get to that destination point. So I'm just going to say it out loud and and manifest it and the next time the route two gets extended it'll go all the way to Wake Med backed up by this data. So that's all. I I think this uh this data is really exciting because again we can make improvements, we can make enhancements, but now we can actually align them with preferences and know that those investments we're making are going to the right the right citizens. Question. Um first of all, thank you for the information. Thank you for the survey. My question is around the zip codes and how they weigh in the scoring. The reason why I asked that is because depending on what source you look at, my zip code is either the first, the second, or the third largest in the state of North Carolina as far as population. And I interesting how that zip codes and the sizes because some of these are bigger and smaller than others may impact the data for that zip code. I don't know if Jason has more information on that one, but what you're seeing here is the average for each zip code. Um, so to your point, there may be some respondents that there are less respondents in one zip code compared to another, but the color coding here is the average of that zip code. Yeah. And just to add, the for for the survey, the the density of the survey respondents reflects the actual density of the population. So if you had a more populated zip code, there would be more survey respondents from that zip code. Um we don't the charts we showed doesn't show the exact numbers but we we could find that but yeah the more densely populated zip codes would have more surveys. Okay. If you could provide that data that would be helpful. Sure. Any other questions? Okay. Well, thank you. This has been a great presentation and lots of good questions. Appreciate it. Thank you. So that concludes my report today. Great. Thank you, city manager. Uh, next we have matters scheduled for public hearing. And the first item is the text change to zoning conditions TCZ4124 3616 Lewis Berry Road. And we have Hannah Reco. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Hannah Recal, Planning and Development. So, this is a request TCZ 41 um 25. Um, if you recall, this hearing is open. Uh, at the at your last meeting, you continued to allow the revisions uh staff to receive signed conditions and time for consideration um which they have been uh submit uh been received. Uh as a reminder, this request is asking to remove um a handful of the existing conditions uh that apply to the site. And then the latest revision is the addition of one condition that would apply hours of operation for all commercial commercial use. So uh commercial use would have to um occur between 7 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. So that that's the update. um signed conditions have been received and you may act on this version of case. Great. Uh questions. Okay. So this uh we have I can open the hear or the hearing is already open right and now we have Carolus Cahil who is here. Hey good afternoon council and mayor. Um I'm Carol. one of the applicants and um last time we had an issue with two neighbors. It was the ones next to us and the ones across from us. Um the ones next to us were concerned about the building being up and so were the ones across from us like in the uh front of the property. And then the ones next to us were also concerned about the oper the hours of operation and like noise. Um, so we've implemented this con this last condition um for the noise and they said that was fine. And then when we spoke to them about the building being up front, we told them it probably wouldn't be as nice for them since it would be so high up that it would like block their view to the like to the left of them. Um, and they agreed on that. So they were fine with us moving it to the back. Um the neighbors in front of us had a problem with it still. We we let them know that we couldn't really do anything about it. Um and that's it. Thank you. Do you have questions for Mr. Cahil? Okay. Um do we have a motion? We need to close the Oh yeah, close here. Do we have a motion? Yes. Um so thank you for making these updates and working with your neighbors. Um after your conversations, the neighbor the neighbors on the side emailed me and said that they appreciated your outreach and that they're satisfied with the case. Um so thanks for your work on that. Um and with that, I move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated May 6, 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. Any other discussion? If not, all in favor? I. All opposed. Great. Uh, next we have the resoning Z4624 on Pearl Road. And this was also um continued. That's right. Um, uh, yeah, you continued this hearing to allow the applicant to revise again, which they have done. Um, specifically they have added two new conditions that would require uh a fence and uh planting of evergreen shrubs along the shared property with uh one one of their neighbors to the west. Okay, questions for Miss Recal. Okay, so then we will uh the it is open. Worth Mills and Michael Burch are here in support and we have one in [Music] opposition. Do the applicants want to Good afternoon, Madame Mayor, members of council. Worth Mills here on behalf of the applicant. Um, since we last had any substantive conversations about this case, we included conditions to increase side setbacks and create a condition to require a traffic calming treatment along Princess Curry Way. We came back to council, asked for another deferral, met with Tanya our who is the property owner at 5731 Princess Curryway, the northern shared property line to our our northwest, tooured the property with her, offered these two new conditions that address buffering closest to her property. Uh, and we feel like we've done everything that we can to address the comments of the neighbors, but happy to take any questions that you all have. Okay questions. Clearly, this case is consistent and I applaud the council member for addressing a resident's concern. I'm struggling with the traffic calming. It seems that I'm not sure why it's needed, but it's a condition. Can you explain to me your approach toward traffic calming? We're trying to mitigate single family homes from single family homes with marginal traffic impact if any. So can you talk to me about the trafficcoming measures you envision on a small neighborhood street? I think it would be something fairly minor like a curb bumpout to create a situation where people feel that they need to slow down. I agree with you that this is probably not a high priority need for the extension of Princess Curry Way, but we wanted to include something that addresses some of the concerns that we heard at the first public hearing and at the first neighborhood meeting, which was the opportunity for this to become some sort of cutthrough street. I don't think it will be. And I think that the way that our condition is written, it provides a good amount of variety that the developer can work with the city of Raleigh transportation department on to come up with hopefully a lowcost, low impact um treatment that will ensure that Princess Curry Way is a safe street. Okay, any other questions? Okay. So, we had uh one uh gentleman uh FJ Hail. Is he in the audience Francis Hail? Okay. Um so, I will close the hearing. Um Madame Mayor, I want to thank you and council for um allowing the applicant to um make the changes that they saw fit. And with that, I move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated May 6, 2025 containing agenda materials and to approve the zoning amendment with the adoption and effective dates described in the agenda items under recommended action. Second. Any other discussion? If not, all in favor of the motion I. I. All oppose? Nay. All right. And that passes. Thank you. Right. Uh, next we have the report and recommendation of the parks, recreation, and greenway advisory board and we have Emma Liles. Good afternoon, council. My name is Emma Liles and I'm here from the parks, recreation, and cultural resources department uh to present on the schematic design for Rivercane Wetland Park. My presentation will start with a brief project introduction. Um the bulk of my slides will be about the schematic design itself and then we'll wrap up with the recommendation. This project is funded through the 2022 parks bond. Uh really exciting. We have money not just for community engagement and master planning and design but construction as well. Uh we have about $8.94 million. Uh we've been working on this for a few years now. We started with the situation assessment in 2023. Came to y'all with the master plan last year. Um, right now we are in design and permitting and hoping to get into bidding and construction next year. Rivercane Wetland Park is in Council District B off of Lewisburg Road, right in between the split from Capitol Boulevard and 540. Uh, the nearest large intersection is at New Hope Road. Um we are very excited for this park development because this actually perfectly fills a gap in our network uh right in between Spring Forest Road Park, Buffalo Red Athletic Park, Marsh Creek and Green Road Park. We have been doing lots of community engagement uh with this project from the get-go. The bulk of that during the master planning process, but we relied on some triedand-true methods during schematic design. uh our project team as well as our design consultant Withers Ravenell worked with our community advisory group worked with the public we had in-person and online outreach and my favorite part of it uh we finally got to launch our public art engagement during this phase and so we worked with our land stewardship group as well as our volunteer services and had an invasive species removal and public art event and it was very cool. uh moving forward engagement will primarily focus on that public art development. I also wanted to take a minute here to um share some exciting public private partnerships that we've been able to uh do in the vicinity of the park. Uh we worked with Halley Company through two different reasonzonings and they are now going to be building out a greenway trail with a direct connection to our park. Um, not only is this going to serve all of the new residents in these new developments, but also connects all the way up to Wallingford Road and provides access to existing residents in the area as well. So very exciting. So, now drilling into the site itself, uh, you'll notice along the northern boundary of the site is Kyle Drive. Just south of that, uh, running parallel to the road is a stream tributary. It flows east to west into the Beaver Dam Creek wetland. Uh that wetland is about 9 acres of our 25 acre site. Um so due to those sensitive habitats on site, we are focusing a lot of our traditional park development along Kyle Drive north of those amenities. Um and south of the creek, we're going to take a much lighter touch that kind of low impact development focusing on nature play trails and connections to those existing neighborhoods. Um, I'm going to zoom in now, uh, near Kyle Drive, uh, and talk a little bit through our traditional park amenities here. This is where you're going to find our parking, the restroom, a short basketball court, a picnic shelter, um, and our traditional playground. Um, also very cool in this part of the site, we are also going to have green storm water infrastructure as well as the start of our food forest, which is a focus on edible landscaping with interpretive uh, educational elements as well to teach the community what they can eat on site. And then, of course, I want to take some time to talk about our most iconic feature of Rivercane Wetland Park, our boomerang boardwalk. The vision for our park development from the get-go has been about improving the community's access to nature and educational opportunities surrounding the importance of wetlands. Um, and that is exactly what this boardwalk is hoping to accomplish. We are calling it a boomerang boardwalk because this is not a typical boardwalk that gets you from point A to point B, but actually widens at the apex to provide an experience exactly like you're seeing in this rendering. space to rest, to gather, to reflect on the natural beauty of the Beaver Dam Creek wetland. Uh we've talked a little bit about the amenities in this area. Could be public art, seating, some of those public binoculars, and of course, educational signage. And with that, I leave you guys with the recommendation uh that city council approve the schematic design for Wetland Park as recommended by the parks, recreation, and greenway advisory board. And I'm happy to take any questions if you have them. Great. Thank you, Silver. And then Pam, thank you for uh the presentation. Just one question. First, I applaud the board and the designers for including a basketball court. That's not always the case. Can you tell me why it was a half court versus a full court? Was it space? Uh was it having the play area next to the basketball court? Just want to know the thinking. Why half versus full? Yeah, totally. Um so it's definitely um physical space constraints. that area along Kyle Drive where we're doing that most intensive development is not very large. Um, and secondly, another big goal from the community from the get-go is multi-generational play. And so we're thinking more of the half basketball court being a complement to the playground where you kind of reach you maybe not your younger kids, maybe not your full adults looking to have a serious game of basketball, you know, but just the middle ground of, you know, parents with their kids or teenagers. Um, we do think that, um, for fullcourt basketball games that that there are amenities in the area to go to an indoor gym. Uh, and that's the case. Um, yeah, I'm always glad to see updates. It sounds on time and on budget and headed in the direction the community has asked us to head. Um, got to see the public art options at the Earth Day event. Um the the bird heads were like a little bit at the edge of my lite sensibilities, but I can't wait to see what the community has picked. Um and so if there's no other questions for my colleagues, I'm happy to recommend or I'm happy to approve the schematic design. Yeah, if you want to go ahead and make a motion. Yeah. So moved. Second. And I will just say I love the boomerang boardwalk and the the preservation and the nature focus of this area. Um just highlighting the beautiful wetlands we have here. So great job. Thank you. All in favor of the motion. I I All opposed. Okay. Thank you. All right. And then we have a second schematic for Sertoma Arts Center. Welcome. Good afternoon, Mayor Council. I'm Terry Nuranjo, uh Capital Projects with Parks. This is the schematic design for the Sertoma Arts Center which is located at Shelley Lake Park. Here you see it, the existing uh built in 1979. And this project is part of the 2022 parks bond. So I'll give you a project overview. Uh we'll get into the community engagement. We'll cover the schematic design itself. Uh this talk about the schedule and then we'll open it up for questions for you. So the project scope involves the expanded art center with updated facilities for everything that's offered at uh Certto currently which includes ceramics, painting, jewelry, fabric arts, the youth studio, gallery and administrative spaces and we're improving the site accessibility. Our design consultant is being led by HH Architecture here with us tonight. They're doing a great job for us. The public artist is Jim Galuchcci. Uh the bond allocated budget is 15.275 million with a public art uh budget of 85,000. So for the public engagement, we began in the fall of last year collecting input uh from the community which included an online survey uh which received over 4,000 responses. So we we definitely heard how much people love this place and and how much it means to them. And so we're hoping to get it right and we think we did. Um in January of this year we met again to present a concept design. Uh and then in March more recently developed the schematic design which you're which I'll show you now. So here we are into the schematic design. So as you approach the building the first thing that you see this is all new construction. So on the left is the new uh main entry which will serve as the front door experience if you will. Um, directly behind that that portion of the building is the existing building. Um, which we'll you'll be able to see when I pull up the floor plans in the in the sections. On the right is the uh is the new ceramics swing. And this is a more simple shape here, but um you can see the push and pull what's happening architecturally. This which actually represents some of the things that are happening inside the building. This this whole design here really in the ceramic space and throughout the whole building was really trying to utilize and optimize the lessons that we learned from the from the pulling art center. Uh so really leveraging that that information. You see the uh the accessible parking here in front and then on the right is a very important feature with the loading dock uh loading area. Currently, this ceramics use is in the basement and so uh they have to either haul clay around the back or through the building. This is this will allow us to come right to the side of the building which is a much more uh improved situation. One of the things we heard was that the existing building was not very welcoming or inviting. Uh so you can see that through transparency and openness, this is really an opportunity to to provide that more welcoming environment. If you're familiar with the existing facility, it kind of the roof kind of slopes down. It's kind of dark in there. So, this is quite the contrast. It's complete opposite really. It's uh way more airy, open, and light. On the left when you when you approach is an actual an art gallery. So, you'll be able to uh see some of the artwork that's happening as a as a function of the of the programming and really trying to invite people in and learn more about the the programming um that happens with Raleigh Arts. Uh feature that we're really excited about is on the left there. This this floating deck that wraps around the side of the building the uh the the gallery space will be able to spill out into that space and you know there's some wonderful views down the hillside uh you can take take advantage of. Really looking forward to that space. Uh so we'll get into the floor plan itself. You can see the lobby and reception area here and the gallery. This is that volume of space that you that you saw in the in the elevation. There's a centrallylo reception desk that you could circulate around and staff will really be able to help guide people to the different functions that are that are happening in the building whether it be the elevator or the you know all the different uses. On the left is the ceramics expansion that you saw in the elevation has two teaching classrooms and an open studio uh which will allow for teaching and and uh open studios to happen concurrently. something that's not currently uh possible. You see the fiber studio which is relocated from the second floor. Uh a much uh more it's much more space for that for that location. The painting studio is in the same location but uh we've got some more efficient storage and uh better furniture. So it's going to allow for more painters to be in this space. Moving to the basement floor. Uh, one of the biggest benefits from this design is that you'll now be able to get to it via an elevator. So, that's something that uh is not currently possible. And some of the circulation improvements really helped us to open up the size of the jewelry studio. So, that's a bigger space. And then you see the youth uh youth studio with the ceramics, a dedicated ceramic studio for the youth and and also an open studio. This location makes more sense. This is currently on the on the first floor. Uh because of its proximity to the open space that's on the outside, they can spill out and then obviously the the location to the to the playground. Uh this is a second floor where it's basically storage. Um so this will help open up some of the uses uh that are happening throughout the building. So the much much anticipated and functional space. So looking at the building sections here, you see the uh the lobby and the gallery that you you saw in the elevations to the right. You see the matching uh volume of space with the multi-purpose room. So those two two shapes really work work work well together. Um you see the painting studio up on the left and then the youth programming on the lower level. And then this uh image shows how the all three levels are really accessible uh via the um elevator. Okay. So, moving on to the site plan, you can see how the uh the design fits into the landscape. We tried to uh intentionally move the the wing of the ceramics as close as we could to the uh to the parking and to the to the drive there to really try to minimize the impact to the the woodlands. And so, you're seeing some of the the the landscape improvements there. Uh the accessible parking, the drop off, uh much needed, and the service access. Um we do have to uh carefully remove some trees in this area, but we are planning on in incorporating some green infrastructure uh in this in this um site plan as well. Moving on to the public art, we we uh we have Jim Gluchi as our public artist and we're really excited about having Jim on board. He has a strong interest in nature if you know his work and so it makes perfect sense in this setting. uh the the things that you the items that you see on the on the right there were from the March uh public engagement process where you can see that some of the offerings were uh on the building itself or standalone. So we're working on a hybrid of that in the uh coming up very shortly. will be able to have the public engage with the art itself through some uh art tiles that will be made uh available for the public to come in and actually contribute to that. So coming up in in the next month and the month after that later in this month and in June we'll have those opportunities to contribute to the art itself. So, our schedule is looking at summer and fall of this year. Uh, wrapping up that and then construction docs and permitting into the fall and spring of 26, bidding and contracts in the spring of summer of 26, and then construction in the summer of 26 going into the summer of 27. Uh, our recommendation is that you, uh, approve the schematic design as recommended by the, uh, parks board. And with that, I'll take questions. Right. Thank you, Councelor Silver. First, uh, the Shattoma Arts Center in Shelley Lake is such a gem in my district. I'm there a lot and so it's so exciting to see the evolution. Uh, Terry, I want to say hello. If everyone doesn't know, Terry and I work together at New York City Parks. So, I'm so glad you're here in Raleigh. We bumped it. I was going to address you as commissioner. I think you're It's okay. We'll make the transition. uh but very talented uh uh staff person New York City parks and we met for the first time at the recycling center off of Durant Road and that's when I knew that I guess we both knew we both moved here. So anyway, thank you for the presentation. I'm just delighted uh for what's here. Uh it is an amazing addition. That building is loved to death. That park is loved to death. So I'm glad this parks bond people see exactly the value and importance. And so unless there are any comments or questions, I I cannot wait to make a motion to proceed. But thank you, Terry, so much for this. Go ahead. Um, well, I was just going to say we uh took a tour of this during the parks bond. You we were looking at all the bond projects and just the beehive of activity in this building, the amount of utilization, and as you said, pretty well worn. Uh, so this this is an incredible refresh of this area. the and the art and everything is just amazing. So, um, if you make the motion, I'll second it. Uh, I make a motion that we approve the schematic design for the STMA Arts Center as recommended by the Parks, Recreation, and Greenway Advisory Board. Second. Thank you. Any other conversation or All right. All in favor of the motion, I I. All opposed. Thank you so much. All right. Next uh we have the various committees and there is nothing in economic development. Um anybody growth of natural resources uh councelor Harrison do you want to Yeah, we have a meeting uh this month May 27th at 400 pm we have three items related to trees. Okay. And then uh councelor Branch for the safe, vibrant, healthy community committee. I had a couple of items I just wanted to read in, but I will go ahead. No, go ahead. Okay. Go ahead. All right. So, we already here have listed that we on March 18th uh uh recommended a discussion of commercial and residential use. And then um councelor Jones had also added the commercial trash. I have additional language just to better clarify some of these. Uh, so I would like to add on to council member Jones's request for an item to be brought to safe, vibrant, healthy community committee sometime in May regarding the intersection of hospitality districts and residential use areas. I am interested in hearing from the following uh city departments, agencies on how we can take a holistic approach to how we deal with the intersection of nightlife and our residential neighborhoods. And those departments would be the planning department, the Raleigh Police Department, the Raleigh Fire Department, the city attorney's office, and the office of special events. And I am interested in learning not just about like a noise ordinance, but also lighting signs traffic public behavior in our nightlife areas, and how we can be more mindful of residents and other businesses in these areas. Yeah, that's fine. I I think from conversations I know I had with staff, that was the intent. Um but now it's clearer and the meeting will be on the 27th at 11:30 here in the chamber. Thank you. Um since we're talking about that and u I just had one other item uh that I've talked to you about about wanting to refer. We've had digital signage. I know the previous council dealt with this. I also have noted that there is digital signage uh in the general assembly. There are bills floating around including in House Bill 765. So um I would love to talk about this in this committee but I would also recommend that uh given the amount of general uh assembly activity here that we wait until August uh to to have that discussion and I have also conveyed uh with Emily Lapel policy analyst a number of questions um around that. So she can share that. Um yeah, in our conversation we talked about it. Definitely look for probably August 26 um be the time where we can address that issue. Thank you. All right. And then we have the transportation and transit. Yeah. And transportation and transit met last month. Um there was some staff was looking for some direction on how we might alter our uh citizen initiated street closure process. They brought us to sort of case studies and asked for um our interest in policy updates which uh so the committee gave some uh direction and then staff will return that to the committee at our committee meeting on May 29th. Hold sorry May 22nd uh 3 to 5 in council chambers. So that item remains pending in committee. Okay. And I think that covers the committees. Um, next I will start with the report from the mayor, city council, and I'll start with Mayor Prom Fort. Uh, first I want to say thank you to the staff that worked on the um resolution for the interchange renaming for Conan Morgan. Had a great celebration of that um last week and a few of our city staff members were able to attend that event as well. So, thank you for everybody who um participated with that second this weekend and Stephen's going to get me. Um I I was able to attend the um adult recess event and do a proclamation on behalf of the city. Um it's a wonderful event and um for folks in here who have kids, this is an event. It's no kids involved. So, you get an opportunity to go back and do recess like you did in school. Uh jump rope, you know, do a bunch of activities, but no children. music and, you know, a lot of adults having a great time. Um, it's over, it was being held at, uh, Fred Fletcher Park this year and they had over 9,000 people RSVP for it. Um, I was over there twice during the day and I imagine they probably had closer to 15,000 people in and out. And imagine Fred Fletcher Park, how small it is, how constrained it is. And so, Stephen, I think you and I need to chat with the organizers and think about a different venue for next year because parking and bathrooms and everything was it was cramped, but it was great. And they had folks that came in from all over the country. So, there are people from Texas and Florida and other places because adults really need recess. Um, and clearly they won't do it in other states and so we're doing it in North Carolina and folks flock to the event. But it was wonderful, but we just need to look at moving it next year. No report. Um, all right. So, good stuff that we did through our consent agenda today. We accepted a donation from the Raleigh Police Foundation for four electric motorcycles for the greenway unit. Uh, we also authorized the manager to extend the lease of the RPD facilities on Crosslink Road. Uh, we updated the contract with the builders of the training lodge at Durant Nature Preserve so that it can serve as park offices and approved a bid that will install 4,000 3,425 linear feet of storm water pipe at 11 locations. So, those are all very good things for our community. Um, also wanted to celebrate the extension of route the route two to Lafayette Village. The route two was the falls of the news road um route and then announced that my office hours are my next office hours are June 5th from 6:00 to 8 location TBD. U I my report is I just want to say how thankful I am to go to the inner city visit. Uh great learning experience for many of us. Uh a lot of creative things that Kansas City is doing. I was struck by the street car and how they found a way to fund it and build it. Uh but a great sports city. Uh the big takeaway is how much Kansas City residents love Kansas City. It was just uh astounding to see, but it was a great visit. Uh in terms of my one comment, and again, city manager, I don't know the best way to follow up on this. We've been hearing a lot uh about the storm water manual regulations that went into effect last fall. The mayor and I went to one event at uh the homebuilders and they were very vocal about the complexity, the cost, the inconsistency uh in terms of interpretation of applying these new rules. And so uh whatever we can do to kind of follow up to understand what was put in place. Uh there are opportunities to put a select group that we can engage that are expressing some concerns. Uh but our understanding is this was adopted by this council in October. the theory, the goals were right to lessen the burden on homeowners, but there seemed to have been some unintended uh implications and consequences. And so, if we could take a look and fine-tune it, these are people specifically from the industry. They're expressing some concerns about addressing some of the new rules. Again, we believe the goal intent is right. That was the goal. But I think in terms of practice, they're just uncovering some issues. uh and we'd like to find a way of addressing uh some of those issues that they've raised. Okay, I can do that. Um I wanted to bring up well uh first just if this is public servant week uh I will I will also just thank the staff. I was at uh the League of Cities uh in Greenville uh this week and they had a rolling carousel of particularly uh those cities that had volunteered out west um to help in the uh sort of ravaged areas uh from Hurricane Hela and they had the Raleigh Water Department, Raleigh Fire Department, Raleigh Police Department and I'm sure there are others uh from from this city but that those pictures and and seeing public servants from across the state who rallied to help their their colleagues was really moving and uh just appreciate all the work that everyone in this city does uh um to make it such a obviously resounding um sort of community success and uh having gone to Kansas City, we all have a superiority complex here in Raleigh that um Kansas City is great. Many many redeeming things and a great city. Uh but it I think we all appreciate uh Raleigh, North Carolina. Um so uh I had just had uh two brief issues. Uh appreciate the active adult program including things like the the adult recess. I did want to ask staff if they could um come back and just talk about some of the uh travel um sort of policies there um related to active adult And then uh the second issue and this is the uh memorial auditorium and maybe councelor Mitchell you might want to add more but I was going to ask staff um to go back and see about uh planting and trying to find some additional uh dollars for something that would be a little more eco-friendly for that design. Um in front of Memorial Auditorium we're using ARPA dollars for the handicap drop off. I think we all support that um handicap accessibility, but um I was just hoping for more plans. Yeah. Uh the city manager and I had a conversation about this. I probably would welcome maybe a sit down uh with uh with uh Carrie just painter just to go through some options if that's possible. I know it's gone out uh to bid uh just to see if there's an opportunity we can whether it's additional planting or some mitigation. I would appreciate that opportunity if it could be done soon because I don't know when these bids are due back. Absolutely. So, within the next week, we will try to get something on your calendar and the mayor's calendar as well to kind of walk through some of those options. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. I just have a few things. Our next community meeting will be on May 14th, Wednesday, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Lac Cusini Italian Restaurant off of Pleasant Valley Road. Uh the second is our Decoding Democracy Book Club will meet on May 10th from 9:30 to 11:30 at Oberlin Regional Library. We are reading about ethics and government and you're welcome to join the conversation by signing up at christinai.com and that's f uh the four. And then lastly, I wanted to just mention um I went and saw John Stewart at uh Mandandy uh at the performing arts center and they had this um the line was really really long and I was like, "Oh my gracious." And I messaged Carrie and I was like, "Oh my god, what's going on?" And it was this new thing that I never heard about where there are bags that you put your phone into so that they lock and you can't use them during during the day. And it struck me because on the Kansas City trip, I was speaking to uh Chris Hagerty, the chair of the Wake County School Board, and that's actually an option that they're talking about for schools is to put them into bags and they would have access to it, but they would be um uh released if needed if there's an emergency and all that. And so I just wanted to highlight that as some things that we're trying, you know, I know the school system, especially those of us with children in that school system, them losing phones is a little bit terrifying at all times, but I got to experience it here uh right here at the performing arts center. And I think it's a really amazing option. Um that makes us focus. It was really good to not look at my phone at all during the performance and really focus on that. And so hopefully if there's a way to uplift that um that possibility with our school system, I just thought I would raise that at the table to say it was a really really unique option. So thank you. Um first of all again staff, thank you for all of your hard work and everything that you do. Um today is also I believe teacher appreciation day. Um so I'm married to a teacher. So u I know the importance of teachers but also none of us would be where we are now if it wasn't for a teacher at some level who pushed us who looked at us and said hey I believe in you. So again to all of our teachers at all levels from preschool all the way to higher academics first of all thank you. Um I will go ahead and say this early. I feel like um one of our former council members but to all the mothers I wish you an early happy mother's day um this weekend. Please take some time um enjoy yourself um and just you know take some time for yourself cuz us kids sometimes can be a little taxing. Um also um to all our graduates that are coming out that are graduating. Um again enjoy, celebrate, have a good time. Um myself I will actually be celebrating 25 years this coming weekend at the best university in the world, North Carolina ENT State University. Um, so I definitely um um want to enjoy everyone that's celebrating milestones of when you've graduated. Um, just, you know, remember those days, but we can't live them. Um, let's just remember them. Um, I also want to highlight a meeting I went to on yesterday um with our RHDC um members as well as she's a member, but also she's Miss Rainey. um she does her own thing, but the meeting was about supporting black churches and a grant opportunity and they're going to continue to meet with them and definitely whatever support our community and our staff can provide to making sure we preserve our history. But one thing I wanted to highlight coming out of that meeting is if they can also connect with that Raleigh City Museum because they talked about preserving their history and when we talked about um Top Green, the African-American Cultural Center and and working that it's not just about South Park or downtown, but it's about all of Raleigh and and honing the history. So, the sooner we can have conversations, I think the better place it will be in. Um, and two last things. Um, just this past week, I noticed our great North Carolina Department of Transportation working and doing repaving. Um, but sometimes when they're doing repaving, we're not sure what they're doing until it's done. Um, thank I want to thank our staff. Um, I reached out. Thank you, Paul, for sharing the information of the work they're doing on Pool Road. Um, if we can continue to try to um have our communication departments and not just DOT, but other departments of the state when they're doing work helping educate and inform our residents as a source of point of information, especially when the work they're doing is going to change the way a road is going to operate and the way the a road is going to work. I mean, if it's simply just, you know, putting lipstick on the road, um, see, I didn't use the other word. Um, then we'll go for it. But sometimes these changes are impactful and the better we communicate to our neighbors and our residents, the better. And lastly, speaking of communication, May 21st at 6:30 p.m., I'll have the next District C meeting at Top Green Community Center. Um, again, it's May 21st. We're not on the same date this time. um is going to be at Top Green at 6:30 p.m. And this is just my standard regular meeting, but if any staff wants to come, feel free. All right. I just want to say a happy bike month. Um it was nice to know that transportation is a high priority for folks with our community survey. Um we still have some uh improvements to go when it comes to getting around by anything besides a car in this city. So, if you are wanting to figure out how to ride a bike, there are so many events this month. Um, I know tomorrow there's events for kids. So, uh, riding to school, there's a kids bike rodeo at Chavis Park. Um, I believe on Saturday there's a learn to ride event at Lake Lynn Park. Um, there's going to be a bike to work day that is uh, next uh, Thursday on the 15th. And at the end of the month, if you just want to ride in style all over the city, I highly recommend. It's on the 30th, Critical Mass, and that starts at NC State's bell tower. It is a ton of fun. Um, so get out there. I hope to see you riding alongside me. Um, I will not be hosting a District D meeting in May. We had some schedule conflicts, but our next meeting will be Saturday, June 7th at 9:30 a.m. at the Poland Park Community Center. And I'm going to focus on uh the city's proposed budget which we will be uh getting soon and that'll be available to the public to review. And as always, I really appreciate resident input. Thank you. Okay, that brings us to the nominations. Good afternoon. First, we have Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission. Two regular vacancies. Both of those nominees, Ethan Gallagher and Amy Nuabike, received seven votes, so would be appointed. Next is design re review commission. Two alternate vacancies. Cara Blue received seven votes. Rachel Derodorian Bodne received six, so both would be appointed. Fair Housing Hearing Board, one regular vacancy. Quanto Manique Edwards received seven votes, so would be appointed. And um last under appointment, Hispanic and immigrant affairs board one alternate vacancy for your professional member category. Um council member Harrison nominated Pedro Pedro Crumpisher. I'm sorry if I mispronounced that. So that will be returning on your next ballot. Under nominations, arts commission one regular vacancy resignation has been received from David Moore. So that will be coming back on your next ballot. Next is Centennial Authority. Two regular vacancies. Terms of two members, Bill Mullins and Tia McLuren are expiring soon. Mr. Mullins has indicated he does not wish to be considered for reappoint. And um we have reached out to Miss McLuren, however, have not received a response. So, both of those um vacancies are coming back on your next ballot for consideration. Can I make a nomination now? Sure. uh Latia uh Mcrimman, also known as LT Mcrimman. She's currently on the planning commission. All right, that'll be coming back on your next ballot. Can I also make an a nomination for John Harden? H A R D I N. Thank you for doing all our nominations. Uh Kristen Hess and then I also Jim Bailey uh has expressed interest in serving uh BELY with the NC Hospitality Association and then um Terrell has also um um said so we've got a wealth of folks. Oh, and uh David Knight uh former counselor is also interested in serving. So I'm just going to go ahead and get all those names out on the table. um and appreciate so many talented people wanting to serve. So, we'll have uh to navigate some of that. Did you get everything? I believe so. And I I might have to get some confirmation on spelling later, but that's six. One, two, three, four, five, six different nominations. Okay. Uh next is Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau. Two regular vacancies. Terms of two members are expiring. Um neither are eligible for reappoint. However, um the bureau is recommending the extension of um Sherat Nagaraj's term by one year and um recommending the appointment of Max Houseworth to replace Jay Mahan and all that correspondence was included in your agenda materials. I would move to um extend Sherat's term for one year and to appoint Matt's houseworth. Second. All in favor of that motion. I all oppose. Nay. Right. Next is Parks Recreation Greenway Advisory Board. Three regular vacancies here. Terms of two members, Gregory Ethridge and Douglas Johnson are expiring soon. Both wish to be considered for reappointment. Um per council's direction did include attendance information regarding Mr. Ethridge. And additionally, resignation has been received from Hugh Fuller. Um and also per council's or it would also be appropriate for the council to provide guidance on contin continuing the use of the temporary ad hoc nominating committee of the parks board. Um and we can relay that information to them. would move to uh reappoint Gregory Ethridge and Douglas Johnston and ask the committee, the ad hoc committee to send us uh at least one name before I guess they need a chance to meet and confirm, but so before June 3rd. Well, I know there's been some conversation about the process of the nominating committee and whether we're actually getting an opportunity to get some diverse diversity with candidates. um because I'm not so sure that the nominating committee is being um purposely submitting diversity or names of diverse candidates when they submit. So I I think that's something we have to give some consideration to. Let me um echo the mayor prom's concern. Uh parks is very broad parks and recreation. In this case we have parks, recreation and cultural resources. Uh there's recreation for youth. There's active sports. There's passive passive sports. there's the environment and so I do agree similar to the planning commission I think we should give guidance so we make sure that all of the diversity that the parks department offers from from from adult programming to children programming across the board we just want to make sure as we bring people on this board advisory board that it reflects the diversity of all the offerings of our parks recreation arts and cultural resources can I just add something make things seem more complicated I'm going to go ahead and nominate someone. His name is Steven McInness. He's expressed interest repeatedly. Uh he's a 23-year-old um former NC State student and is involved with a Triangle Rowing Club. So, I think that provides a unique perspective. So, I'd like to just have that nomination pending. Um and then my recollection on these uh ad hoc nominating committees is that the uh standing committee that the mayor uh had been putting together for the uh boards and commissions was going to look at this and try to provide some uniformity and make a holistic recommendation. So I'd like to wait until that work is done. But on this particular issue, I'd like to go ahead and nominate um Mr. McGinness. Okay. Uh do we need a second for the nomination? I'm fine if it rolls to the ballot for next meeting. And then go ahead. Well, I'll just add like I also remember that the task force is supposed to be addressing this. I want to be careful that we're not I feel like somehow the parks board nominating committee has been the punching bag, but later in this agenda, the RHDC will be submitting us names to us that uh often are just approved with no thought and I would argue is a much less diverse body. The last time the parks board provided us names, they also submitted backup materials that that um offered why they thought those members were the right nominees. And they spoke to um usage differences, uh location in this across the city and demographic diversity that those recommendations brought to the the board. So I would say we need to be thoughtful and consistent in our own deliberations. we either like nominating committees alto together or we don't like them altogether and we ourselves need to be consistent in that. So that's just my two cents and we will um assistant city manager Evan Raleigh that is part of the work that they are bringing back to the committee. Uh we discussed it but we have not yet gotten recommendations. So just to clarify are we going to vote now on these two to be reappointed? Yes. Okay. Um and so we had a motion. Do we get a second to councelor second? Okay. I need to not I might need to modify the motion. So I'll just change it to move to reappoint Gregory Eridge and Douglas Johnson. Okay. And then we have a second from councelor Harrison. Any other discussion? All in favor of the motion. I I. All oppose? Nay. Okay. So those two are reappointed. And we have then no clarification for them at the moment except that you've nominated somebody. So they do not need to um at this point hustle for if they've got a name they can send it to. I'm fine with but um you know I've got my nominee pending and that'll be on the ballot next time. Okay. Next. And can I add just one other thing? There's a whole list of the last time that they nominated or that they put forth they put forth a bunch of names. So there's still names on that that didn't get placed um that from the parks board. So there I don't know if in this scenario that would roll over. So I mean I guess we can leave that for discussion but the last um time we did a batch there were names that did not make it. Yeah. So this is a we staff looks at this as an entirely new vacancy. So if surely if council wanted to go back and carry over any names that would be their prerogative and they can make nominations from that. Um but we would need kind of specific guidance on that if you wanted to bring over any of those names. Awesome. Thank you. Um next is planning commission terms of two members Lat Mcrimman and Reeves Peeler expiring soon. Both wish to be considered for reappointment. Again, per council's direction, additional information was included in the agenda materials for Miss uh McCrimman regarding attendance. And um Mayor Cowell has nominated Mark Shelburn and Nick Neptune. I'll move to reappoint Reeves Peeler. Second. Okay. Any other conversation? All in favor of that motion? Um I I. All opposed? Nay. Nay. All right. So, I'll move for the Mark Shelurn uh appointment. Second. So, all in favor of that motion? I I I. All opposed. Okay. Opposed was two. Okay. And then um I would move um approval of Nick Neptune. Second. Any other discussion? All in favor of uh Nick Neptune. I I All opposed. Okay. So that's unanimous. Okay. So we have um we have appointed two members to replace the two outgoing members. Two new members. Okay. And lastly is Raleigh Historic Development Commission. Six regular vacancies. Um attendance information reappointment desire was consolidated into in one table in the agenda materials. Um there's just one member here that additional attendance information was included on. Um so you have Jonathan Anderson, um David Cirner, Melissa Todd, and Lauren Woodard seeking reappoint. Um and then the commission is recommending the appointment of Reverend Jimmy Gibbs and Ian Dunn to replace outgoing members Shannon Johnson and Katie Pate. Um again, full correspondents from the commission who does is one of the boards that has a um an authorized nominated committee is was included in the agenda materials. So I would move to reappoint Jonathan Anderson, David Cirner, Melissa Todd, and Lauren Woodard. And then I'd ask that the other two be rolled over to the next ballot. Second. Yeah. Um thank you. Uh all in favor of that motion. I I All oppose. And that gives us some time to um that's another nominating committee uh kind of point, but we'll look uh further at that. And that's everything. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh next we have the report of the city attorney. No report. Okay. And then the city clerk. Good afternoon, mayor and council. Uh, and your agenda materials included draft minutes from your um, April 15th meeting. Move for approval. Second. Uh, all in favor of that motion. I I. All opposed? Nay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have a question for the clerk. Yep. Um, board docs replacement. Where are we? We're getting a new board. Uh, let's let's uh refresh a little. So um in uh the prior fiscal year pro funding was allocated to replace the software for the agenda management uh and and meeting management system. Uh we went through the uh procurement RFP process towards the end of 2024. We made a selection of a vendor that um and the project team has been working since early part of this year. Um and we are looking at um doing a uh the first round of using the new software on the July 1st meeting. Okay. And sorry if I caught you off guard, but while I was working here, I was having issues with it. So it jumped to first of all. We we have also been having issues with it. uh some some random some uh ongoing. Um so again a reminder the reason we're uh going on to a new system away from boards is because the the vendor that supports or provides boards is no longer going to invest in that platform. So moving on to something else. It's called escribe and uh we have a project team has been working diligently uh we have weekly meetings. So we're targeting July one to have our first go round with that. All right. Thank you. Thank you, madam. All right. Thank you. Uh, so next we have a motion uh to enter into close session pursuant to general statute 143318.11 A3 to consult with the city attorney in in order to preserve attorney client privilege and to consider and give instruction regarding the handling and or settlement of a potential claim in the following matters. the city of Raleigh versus Kirby LLC and the city of Raleigh versus 10F3301 Atlantic Avenue, Raleigh NC LLC. So moved. Uh all in favor of the motion I. All oppose. So we will go into close session. Do I need to gabble to go into close session? Just do it. I would just stop the thing. Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Down. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Oh hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] Oh, [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. 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