um has been offered as part of this uh incentive from the state. So the recommended action for you tonight is following the hearing, make a determination that the incentive will increase the taxable property, employment, and business prospects of the city and authorize finalization and execution of an incentive agreement by appropriate city officials. Great. Thank you, Mr. Touchstone. Any questions for him before we open the hearing? Yes. Hi Kyle. Hello. As as always, you're not in front of us very often and so I feel like it's always helpful for the public to know there are lots of strings attached to this incentive and if for any reason the business does not fulfill the obligations they've committed to the they continue to pay their taxes in full. Is that right? That is correct. Uh thank you for that question, Council Member Patton. Um the business investment grant requires that the company um meet all of those minimum requirements. So the investment, the create all of the jobs, um meet that annual average salary and then the payment would start and they also have to meet all of their um have to pay all of their property taxes. So all of that has to be paid in full and then this is a portion basically um that is um granted to them. So yes. Okay. Any other questions? I will open the hearing and I will say that we have no one signed up in support or opposition. So I'm going to close the hearing and leave it to council to approval. Right. Second. Any other discussion? If not, all in favor? I I. All oppose? Nay. Thank you. Thank you. Right. Next we have uh street closing uh STC05203 uh Woodside Drive. And this was withdrawn. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. Next, we have street closing STC012025. Uh the Willow Street right ofway, and we have Amanda Jones from transportation. Uh good evening, madame mayor and council members. My name is Amanda Jones of transportation. Uh the proposed street closure we have today is Willow Street. Uh so it's the area indicated in red. It's just south of Khan Elementary in between two residents and the applicant is at 701 Edmond Street. So this closure area is approximately.16 acre. Willow Street was dedicated back in 1920 as part of the subdivision of WL Johnson and EB Crow. The applicant is requesting permission to close Willow Street right away without signature from the adjacent neighbor at 619 Edmond Street who does object and the applicant intends to put a new single family home on the parcel. If approved, staff recommends the city receive value consideration for the amount of $163,000 based on the appraised value of that rightaway. And lastly, as part of the city standards process, it's good to note that all property owners are to sign the plat that is being recorded. So that is can stated that is stated as a condition on all resolutions. Um this is a survey that the applicant got just to show you what they would be gaining. So it's um just under 22 feet for each property owner. Uh there is also a Duke easement that needs to be maintained and that's going to be 15 ft which you can see at the um bottom of the screen. Uh this is what it looks like today. Um so it is um it is an unpaved road. However, it is maintained by the city. Um so as early as April of this year, uh our street maintenance has gone out there and done some grading. And we do have three options today. Um, so if we were to or if you were to approve the council finds the closure is not detrimental to the public interest and or does not deprive any individual owning property in the vicinity of reasonable means of ingress and egress to their property. Um to deny council finds the closure detrimental to the public interest andor the owners in vicinity are vicinity are deprived of reasonable means of ingress and egress or you can refer to a committee and that is the end of my presentation. Okay questions just one question you mentioned one property owner did not sign correct but how many property owners are there in all and how many have signed? Um so there is uh three that needed to sign. So again the applicants at 701 um the uh at 619 Edmond Street they are the ones that did not sign and oppose the closure and Khan Elementary they had signed. Okay. Okay. Just so I can better understand this. So this is a public right of way correct owned by the city. Yes. And this applicant, they want to close the street. Well, it's a dead end, but it's a dead end street. Yes. Um, and are they also But they're also asking for the public right of way. There's a required Duke um easement that's required. Oh, okay. So, yeah. Can you just give me like a full like So you have two So you have one applicant on one side that um has requested the closure of that strip of land. Um the school system has signed off on it. The applicant has signed off on it and the other applicant has not signed off on it. Um the way our policies work, you needed all applicants to sign off on it. We sent this to transportation. transportation looked at it um and allowed and referred it back to council and council approved that this could move forward through the process. So that's why we're here tonight at a public hearing because council approved for it to move forward. So now the question before council tonight is do we treat this as a street closure and close it and what happens is every basically that property is going to be split in half between the other two applicants. kind does not they're they wouldn't get any of it. They're not requesting of it. And on their side of property is all wooded and and grown up. But that so the middle section is going to be split split in half between those two. Okay. And then likely another home will be built or I have no earthly idea. I mean when you're dealing with an easement, there's certain things you cannot build upon. So you can't build upon an easement. So that would limit the footprint of the property anyway. Okay. But those could be questions to ask the applicant. The applicant will speak to that, I assume. Okay. Thank you. You said the applicant's stated purpose is to build a different single family home right? Yeah. Um, this picture was just taken last week. So, the home uh was on the right. It's now demoed. Um, so they are looking to uh reconstruct a single family dwelling. All right. Um, I'm going to open the hearing. Uh, I have one person speaking in support and then one in opposition. Uh, Mr. Ryan Reid. Did I just hit buttons down here to advance slides? Let me play this. Got it. Cool. You guys ready? We're ready. All right. Um, I'm Ryan Reid. My wife and I own 701 Edmond Street. We've lived in the neighborhood since 2013 on Glasco Street. Um, we are here to talk about closing Willow Street. Um, and um, I'm just speaking on behalf of everybody that supports closing the street. Uh, one quick piece to note, until 2018, there were three acres at the north side of Willow Street that were privately owned. Um, and Willow Street access those three acres. It would have been landlocked without that. In 2018, Khan acquired those three acres, combined it back with their property, and now that entire property is accessed via Khan's main vehicle entrance. So, it took away the need for Willow Street, and it doesn't serve a public function today like it did back until 2000 or 2018. Uh, quick background, like they'd said, it's seldom m seldom maintained. You know, there's yard waste that's dumped at the end of it, it seems like, for a long time now. It's supported by us in Wake County. There's personal reasons we want it closed. happy to address and answer any of those, but I really want to focus on the statute today, which says there's two reasons you should close a street, right? That it's not contrary to public interest and that no property owner loses reasonable means of access to their property. So, I think we'll focus mostly on those and happy to answer questions about anything else. The first reason we think it's in the public best interest to close the street is enhanced school and community safety. So, back in 2018 when Khan acquired those three acres, they also completely tore down the school and they rebuilt it from the ground up. There were block perimeter guidelines that said Khan should have access from Willow Street at that time and um Wake County schools submitted a variance that was approved by Raleigh City Council in 2018 that said a few things about why they didn't want access from that street. It said multiple points of public access to or egress from the site is extremely difficult to staff to monitor and that connectivity from Willow Street would not only pose a safety hazard to school students but could create an opportunity to have unauthorized persons access a site without staff supervision. Fast forward to today, Wake County schools signed our petition to support closing the street. And in my research, I found that Khan's the only elementary school in Wake County out of 122 that has an unsecured unimproved public rightaway, a budding campus that's not used for school access. Our oldest son's a first grader at Khan. The first day of school was on Monday last week. Um there was a code yellow. First time it's happened for us. Unfortunate situation. We never like to see that as parents and it's scary. I took the time to walk around the campus and I saw police stationed at all of the known pedestrian entrances to Khan, the vehicle entrance, but nobody at Willow Street because it's not really known as an entrance, even though it backs right up through woods to the carpool lane of Khan. I think that, you know, if closing a street that serves no public function can make schools a tenth of 1% safer, then it's something we should do every day. Second reason it's in the public best interest is reducing municipal costs. Um, the city does pay for maintenance. Like Amanda said, there was a tree that fell on a few weeks ago. The city had to pay for remove. Um, there's also potential for increased county tax revenue with private ownership of the land. We don't think the city should bear responsibility for maintaining land that serves no active public function and that it's um, reduces a municipal burden to close it. There's also precedent of closing a similar street on the exact same plat that was dedicated in 1920. Edmond Street originally continued beyond Boundary Street shown on the left. It was closed in the 80s. I couldn't find exactly when it was, but it was combined back with those properties as well. So, same plat, same type of substrate that's been closed um for decades now, but was originally dedicated. The other part of the statute says that no neighbor or no property owner should lose reasonable access to their property. So, I want to take a minute to address what we know opposition from the neighbors at 619 Edmond Street. Primarily, they use this parking today. It functions more as a private space for them than public infrastructure. when they do use this as parking, they often violate parking laws with perpendicular parking, parking all over the street to um side by side, too close to the stop sign. They have been largely unresponsive when we try to talk about closing the street. But the one email we did get from them said, "Unfortunately, removing the easement would prevent us from maintaining our current parking setup, even with the proposed 22- foot property extension. In our mind, if they're lo using more than half of the street for parking, then it's not really used as a street. It's just for their private convenience. addressing the statute piece, right? They do gain if the streets closed 22 feet of additional width to their land. That would ensure that they are not deprived of any reasonable means of access now in the future to the front of their house, the back of their house, anywhere they want because they get that extra land. They also at a previous public comment session had stated that they maintain the street themselves today and have taken that burden off of the city. Um, that raises the questions, do they have the proper permits to do that? Do they have the proper insurance to do that? How do we know the work they're doing to the public street isn't affecting potential storm water runoff under our property or other things like that? Um the city staff had recommended that we pay $163,000 for the property if closed. Um we're not developers. We're not trying to, you know, subdivide this lot and build something that's aggressive that, you know, couldn't happen today and that is out of our means. It's also well beyond the value of any lot that's ever been sold in that area, even ones that were subdivided before. Um, so there's a couple reasons we would object to that. The statute establishes two criteria, just that the closure is not contrary to the public interest and that no property owner is deprived of reasonable means of access to their property. There's no language in the statute for a compensation provision. And we think that it's more designed to eliminate municipal burdens and not create revenue streams. The public interest standard can focus on street closures. um that are for the community benefit and not necessarily municipal compensation. While we do understand that compensation could be one part of the public interest standard for that statute in some cases, we believe that the standards met without compensation in this case and is more consistent with previous street closures that have happened before where compensation hasn't been acquired uh required. If you do require compensation, we have appra or concerns about how the appraisal was conducted. It values the street as one piece of land. Even though by statute it can only be split by two and only has two potential buyers, it values it as if as if it could be sold to the public. Um the comps used in the appraisal were 9 to 14 years old in completely different areas without the same zoning. Um and assumed that there was a larger development benefit available and there's not it's an NCOD that would limit the development um beyond what could be done today. there's not really a functional or development benefit beyond just a slightly bigger yard and maybe a different configuration for the home we would build. There's also a concern, you know, what if it was Wake County Schools who submitted the petition, who doesn't get any land from this and we were just a signer on the petition rather than being a signer on our petition, are you setting a standard and asking for compensation here that you couldn't close potentially problematic rightaways um without a need for compensation? So in conclusion, um we think all statutory requirements are not only not only met but also exceeded um the increased school and neighborhood safety along with reduced municipal costs ensure the closing is not contrary to the public best interest and it's actually in the public best interest. No landowner loses access to property that they would need um because they gained that. So if we look at the documented safety risks and the fiscal benefits for closing the street, it outweighs the private convenience and parking preferences of one private land owner. So, we'd ask you to vote to close Willow Street to increase safety, save resources, and improve the neighborhood. Happy to answer questions. Thank you so much. All right. Yep. Um, so if compensation is required, how would you proceed? Or it sounds like that's not something you want to proceed with. I think if there was a need for compensation, we'd be open for a discussion, but the $163,000 is well outside of our means for what we're doing. And I don't think the appraisal um took into the fact that it's surplus land that only has a couple buyers and that isn't on a standalone um property ability to be built, even if it's just one. And when you split it in half, right, two halves of a property don't equal a whole from a valuation perspective. that $163,000 is for the entire property. Um if there is a need for compensation could be in discussion, but I do think that the statutes are kind of met without the compensation need. Could I get a staff um just input on this? So with the compensation, I'm not sure um who would be the right person. Um how does this work? Is it only for the applicant to have to pay or does it get split? And what if they don't want to pay it? Well, we can't require the non-applicant to pay. So, it would be um a part of the applicant. And what if they don't want to pay or can't pay? That's a part of the condition of this closure. So, it would not be closed if they if we set a price and they can't meet it for this resolution. They would have to pay the compensation, but they're not forced. Like if if we were to approve this closure with a compensation requirement and they couldn't pay it, it would not be closed. Correct. We would have to go through the street closure again. Okay. Thank you. Uh councelor Silver. And if you can come back, I just need clarification. So two questions. If they're unable to pay, it's not a lean against their property. The condition is they have to actually pay the appraised value of 163,000. Correct. They would have to pay and then they could plat the um to do the survey for in order for them to get the rightway. And not to get in weeds about the appraisal, but I'm hearing there's an easement. What is the build? What is the lot buildable? I I don't know where the easement I was trying to look on the survey, but just trying to understand if it was its own lot. I'm just trying to understand the appraisal a little bit more. I don't know the comps in the surrounding area, but just, you know, want to know a little bit more about the appraisal process knowing there's an easement, not knowing exactly where it is. It's in the middle of the lot. So, uh, can you answer the question about the appraisal? Is you said it was before the closure was requested, so you're saying it's reasonably current. Kenneth Richie with transportation. So yes, that appraisal probably is has been done within the last 6 months. Um, as it relates to the the compensibility question, the so what staff did with the appraisal was just establish a value for the council to consider of the property itself. Now with the consideration of the closure, council could say, okay, the the mitigated maintenance things like that could equate to that value. I think it's just establishing what a value constant for consideration as it relates to it. Now, if the council should so choose that there that the public value is being met and that the private value is not going to outweigh the public, then no, there would not necessarily be a requirement for compensation in that regard. So, I think I just wanted to make sure we clarified that. We can go from zero to 163. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Councelor Lambert. Yeah. I just want to add I think somebody has signed up in opposition and I feel like before we continue to ask staff questions and deliberate we need to hear from them. Um so I just wanted to throw that out. Yep. There is somebody. All right. So uh we will hear from the opposition which is Andrea Miracle and you have eight minutes. Thanks for the time. Hi. Good evening. My name is Andrea Merkel. Um, thank you for letting me speak tonight. My family and I, we live at 619 Edmund, uh, which abuts the Willow Street right ofway. We purchased our home in 2006, continuing a long precedent of using Willow Street as the only vehicle access to our property. We rely on Willow Street every single day as our only safe and practical access to our home. For this reason, we are asking city council to vote against closing Willow Street. The petition submitted by the new property owners of 701 seeks to close Willow Street right ofway without our consent and with full knowledge of the significant impact it would have on our family. It claims Willow Street is a safety risk to elementary and that it is unmaintained. These claims are invalid. Wake County Public Schools signed the petition because the closure doesn't affect their property and they are unaware of the impact it would have on us. In reality, the school really doesn't have a stake in the matter. Um the claim that Willow is unmaintained is also misleading. Um we have maintained it maintained it ourselves. Um mowing, trimming, um and replenishing the gravel periodically when needed. Um the city hasn't really done much of anything. It did do the it did take down the tree um take away the tree the other day. Um but you know even just with all the things that we've done um Willow Street has remained safe and accessible uh because we've consistently taken responsibility for it. Um oh I don't know how to Okay, there we go. Um, North Carolina law is clear. Um, under the general statute 168-299, a right of way may be closed only if it is not needed for public use and is not contrary to public interest and if no property owner loses reasonable access. Um, that's the standard. Um, unfortunately, this closure will fail it. Um, as you can see in the image above, Willow Street runs between 619 and 701. 701 already has a driveway on Ed from Edmund. Um, and it has additional access to their property from Willow Street. We do not at 619. We don't have a driveway. The only way we can get to our property is by Willow Street. Um, so if Willow is closed, the portion that we would acquire would have to serve as our driveway. Um, but there's a problem. Um because um general access requirements um say that existing and proposed development must provide vehicular you know ingress and egress to and from a street or a budding site. Um parking must connect to a street um alley or easement and it must allow vehicles to enter and exit in a forward motion and driveways must follow the street design manual. Um, the street design manual requires a minimum of a 10-ft driveway with a 3 and 1/2 ft apron on either side, meaning that we would need a total of 17 ft um to make a UDO compliant driveway. Unfortunately, if you look at the map from above, this is from IMAPs um in the property surveys, ours and the one um that 701 recently got with the new proposed um property line. Um you can see that the cur the current curb and gutter, they extend um over 9 ft off of our property line, which takes up almost half of that 22 feet. and it does not give us the full 17 feet that we need to have a compliant driveway. So, I even contacted one of the engineering reviewers um at the city of Raleigh in the transportation department and he confirmed that the curb line would have to be relocated um in order to meet permit standards. So, that would mean removing the existing curb and gutter. Um, we've got large mature bushes that are right there on the corner. Um, and we'd have to do that all at our expense. The other fun little part of that is that there's a utility pole right there. So, depending on how much we would have to move from the curb and gutter, Duke may require us to move that utility pole. And then also, if you look at the other requirements, we may also have to move a storm drain. And all of that from my understanding falls on us. So without a driveway, we do not have access to our home. Um we'd be forced to rely on street parking. And with parents, you know, we're parents of young children. It rec it creates unsafe conditions every single day. And also it would cut off direct access for first responders if we had an emergency. So this is just another picture. It shows the frontage um of our street. So it shows you the utility pole that I was just talking about. Shows you where the current property line is, which is right at our the white fence line. Um that 22 ft. um and then the 17 that would be needed to meet the UDO requirements. So, the safety claims in the petition that point to the 2018 Wake County public school report from the renovation of Khan Elementary, um they actually found that because of there was such a severe grade change, it's like a 15 to 20 foot drop where there's a stream in between Willow Street and Khan Elementary. Um, and because of that, they couldn't create an access point because you you can't walk through there. Um, it's too steep. Um, so Willow Street is it is a dead end, but you can't go through the woods to get access to con very easily that way. You'd have to be very fit, quite honestly. Um, so the owners of 701, they purchased their lot fully aware of the Willow Street right ofway. Their motivation for closing Willow Street is not about safety or public benefit. It's more about enlarging their private envelope. The their the petitioners have misrepresented um the current and historic use of Willow. These inaccuracies overlook the real impact on neighboring properties and further emphasize that the request is driven by private benefit rather than community interest. It also conflicts with the residential infill capity stand compatibility standards which are intended to preserve the scale and consistency of established neighborhoods. So splitting Willow Street to enlarge 701's lot would allow a wider home out of step with the neighborhood character while placing undue hardship on us. This would it would allow one property to keep full benefit while depriving another of essential access, creating an unequal outcome. North Carolina law and Raleigh's own policies make it clear that such results are contrary to the public interest and incompatible with statutory statute requirements. Um for these reasons I ask you to vote against closing your will street. Thank you very much. Um councelor Lambert Melton and then uh Mayor Protempfort. Um can I can someone from your office Karen answer? I have a question about the Thank you. This will be for staff. I I have a question about the standard that we're being asked to apply. Um my recollection from committee was different. Um the standard we're being asked now is to apply one whether it is not detrimental to the public and then two this ingress and egress. At committee, I believe our conversation focused on whether there's a public benefit, which I think is a key distinction between is this detrimental to the public or does it provide a public benefit. And my recollection from committee was the entire reason why we implemented other options for public benefit. One of them would have been compensation was is because we had to meet that threshold. But now we're being told a different standard, I think, and I think that's a a pretty big difference. So, can you help? What is the actual statutory standard for it? Sure. Brandon P city attorney's office. So I think at committee the discussion was staff in transportation did not know how to process an application that pursuant to their application process they could not advance it because it was inconsistent with the statute or inconsistent with their determination of how the city policy works on the comp plan. And so the two cases that stopped at the staff level it was because they couldn't find that there was a public benefit to the closure under the standards they were looking at under their review. The statutory standard is that it's not contrary to the public interest or it's not depriving property owners reasonable ingress and eress of their property. And it's both. It's an and or or it is an and. Okay. And so I think that's a little different. Um and I apologize for the folks involved in this case because this was like our first pass at trying to do something different because normally it would just get denied by staff and then maybe someone would come to city council during a public comment and ask us to take it up and that didn't seem like a good process. Um, and you know, I'm sympathetic to both arguments. I will say one point on the ingress, egress. There are plenty of homes that do not have driveways. Um, Boiling Heights, a lot of these more historic older neighborhoods, they don't have driveways. And so, I I think saying if this gets closed, we don't have vehicular access to our house. I I'm not sure that that meets the standard of no ingress or egress. I I I think of a property that would be literally stuck in the middle of surrounding properties with no access to to it. And so so that's a little bit different. That said, I'm very confused about this switching of not switching, but we've had a different discussion in committee than we're having today. In the public interest is much different than not detrimental to the public. And then it also sounds like the folks that are asking us to close it don't want to pay the money. And so I don't even know where that leaves us, but I feel like this may need to go back to committee or have another discussion about what is the standard, what are the options. Um because it sounds like it's a mess on both ends now. And um certainly was not our intent when we advanced this to public hearing. So I have a question for staff. Just jumping right in. Oh, she point The mayor looked at me. You're right. The mayor. You're right. I had stack. The mayor said go. I win. Ma'am, can you come back to the mic? Thank you. Ma'am yes. So, to um put a driveway in, do you have like any cost estimates of how much that would cost? And has anybody offered to compensate you for it? Um so, the the cost estimates um are thousands of dollars. Um we the problem is is that because we don't have the exact um like measurements that would you know for a permit like we can't have anything to submit then we can't get an exact cost. Um you know but we're looking at my husband would be better at this um who is over there. Um, come on down Hubby. Sorry. Um we Good evening, everyone. So, so far we have received some some estimates on the concrete work. We've also received some estimates on the curb and gutter. We've received estimates on the telephone pole relocation. Um, we've also had some soft costs related to other uh landscaping that'll have to just be removed. I'm not talking about beautifification, just bare bones in order to get everything moved out of the way. Um, so far we're in the range of about $30,000 to do the bare minimum. And has anybody offered to cover the cost of that? No. Okay. The the the name? No. Nope. So, I have a question. Okay. Um, this is actually for staff. I have one for you, but I'll go to staff first. Okay. Um, we just did a street closure in North Hills in which we didn't close all of it. Is that am I was that not am I not correct? So that was the case that was withdrawn earlier tonight. Right. But that case that was withdrawing still the idea in the proposal was to divide that in half. Correct. So I think there's a little bit of nuance difference between the two cases. uh one with with that Woodside case when you originally saw that one that street not had never been maintained by the city was never considered an open street. It was really a paper right ofway how it was being used access and other things. This one we do have this one identified as a street that was open as a street that the city has maintained and being cutting this one in half does essentially create an inconsistent non-compliant street. Okay. only asked because hearing from the neighbors, they're saying they're maintaining it and not the city. So, I'm confused. So, I mean, I think based off the records we've got from our maintenance staff, I guess dating back to I think April, Amanda, is that 2020? So, we do have records of city staff going out there from 2020 until now. Mhm. Okay. All right. I have good hearing. Um, okay. So that's So even though that other case was withdrawing, we were going to see a case right before this that was going to divide a street in half and keep part of it open and close part of it. Um can't talk at that point because it never happened because it was withdrawn. But to bring it to this case, um my question too to the applicant um not the applicant to the neighbors that were just up here. My my question to you is if this was cut in half based upon the property, would your vehicle be able to get on your property as is? Um, I mean, it would be tight, but it wouldn't be like a city compliant access point, right? Okay. Is I'm not even going to ask the next question. My attorneys are here. Never mind. Yeah. Okay. Councelor Silver, if this goes back to committee, I would certainly appreciate a conversation because to hear 0 to 163 is a it's a huge scale and don't know how you evaluate what is right. Should this go forward? So that's question number one. Should this go back to committee? The second one is I just want to be clear. This is no disrespect at all to Miss Merkel, but to understand um and and her husband uh if this is closed to understand what does the city require uh because right now at 22 ft a car is about 10 ft wide. I'm just trying to understand there is currently ample room for a car to get in and to get out. Uh, and then about the curb and utility pole. I just want to make sure from staff that I fully understand uh for uh for the Merkels to improve that property to make a compliant driveway. Are they required to do it or can I just leave it as is once that street is split? So, those are just questions I have just to understand because looking at the width of it, it seems adequate about the vehicles. I'm looking at Google Earth, the cars that are parked there. It seems that they're at least three or four times the width of what the vehicle is there. So, I'm just trying to place in reality if in fact it was closed 22 ft for each property owner and what are they mandated to improve a driveway or leave it just unimproved as is. So, those are questions if it goes to committee. Councelor Lambert Milton and then councelor Patton. Um, if this were to be approved, this is for staff. the applicants are paying would have to pay the 160 something, right? I don't know who I'm looking at you. I'm sorry because you presented I just need to the applicants would make the payment to the city pursuant to how it's currently on our agenda, but they're getting half of it. And so the folks who are here in opposition would get the other half and they don't pay for the other half. Is that how it works? that that's how so obviously with this total closure the the valuation that we've done is on the total 1.6 acres and you've got the basis of that would be from the applicant or some combination of petitioners typically you that's where having all those signatures and support I think can be is usually part of this consideration. Okay. So my question then is if the gentleman here we close it, he pays the amount. Is he getting the full thing or half of it? So the way that the closure and Brandon, I'm going to ask you to keep me honest here. The way the statute is, it splits it down the middle. So for the purpose of the closure, now between that point and when the plat is done, if there is some exchange of property that is done beyond that, this let me just make it simple. There was a question about how much will this driveway cost? and we heard $30,000. And there's a question of are you getting compensated for it? It seems to me if they pay for the full amount and only get half, then the folks who are getting the other half are getting half of the value of the property for free. Um, and then if they choose to put a driveway and they're paying for that. So, I I'm I'm working through that issue, but then the bigger problem I have is they don't want to pay the 160. So, it feels like this is a fool's errand to even consider this right now because it's not this doesn't feel ready for prime time. And I know we put it here on prime time, but I also think the discussion at committee was under different terms. And so the whole thing just does not feel ripe for a vote um right now. And I apologize for the folks who are here, but this is the first time we've done one of these. And so I think it's just we're working through the the issues. Councelor Patton and then councelor Harrison. Yeah. I think um when we well one thing I think we discussed in committee was that compensation could be considered as as a consideration of public benefit. I don't know that I remember that we decided that would be required. I do I think it's a reasonable question to call and um but certainly also understand how the people who have been proceeding through this this process this time might be like that's was not exactly what we signed up for. So I understand the sort of dissonance there. I also understand the dissonance between saying like there's 44t of space you pay for 22 feet of it. you get 22 feet for free and how that there's some unfairness there. I am also hearing that it would create an immense challenge for some some of the property owners and that the intention is to build a single family home where there already was a single family home. So, this isn't preventing the intended outcome. Um, so I if if it's the will of the council to take this back into committee to to hash these things out more fully, I think I'm I'm happy to do so. I think we could call this question here tonight, though. I mean, I think if it's not ready for prime time, make a motion. Great. Sorry. Happy to do it. Yes. With all that preamble, I also will say I don't necessarily agree with the Wake County Public Schools policy that children need to only approach their schools from the front. People who are coming into schools to do harm to our children are doing it through the front door. And this policies like this push kids onto Brookside Drive instead of walking through safer paths to their schools. So, um anyway, with all that said, I would um motion to deny the street closure. Second. All right. Any other discussion? Just wanted to add, is it possible if we did close the street, could we build affordable housing here? I'm just curious like what are the other options for the city? Is this is it only for the owners? Like only for the adjacent homeowners? I'm just curious how this works. Is I mean they have to both sign off on it and they're not right. So there's no other. So no matter what to close this road at some point, it has to come from the adjacent homeowners if they wanted. Well, we own it. So that's the other option. So the city could close this and use it for something else entirely. I'm just trying to understand the process. Too small. I'm Yeah, I'm not saying we will do this. So the street is only allowed one method under state law for closing a public rideway and that's the statute that Mr. Richie referred to that sets up by default that the property is divided down the center line to the property owners on either side. Okay. So it has to be split between them. Correct. Okay. Thank you. All right. So a motion has been made to deny um ST 012025 all those in who are you want to say something else? Yeah, I I thought it was going to committee. So, I'm wasn't prepared to vote yes or no, but the has been motioned and seconded. So, I will Okay. So, and remember because we're this is a vote to deny. If you vote yes, you are voting to deny. Okay. So, all in favor of the motion I I all opposed. Okay. So, that is a 53 vote to deny. All right. Thank you. Um, next we have petition annexation AX1825. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh, I'm Christopher Golden with Planning and Development. So, uh, we've got one annexation this evening. This is AX1825 at Zero Mid Pines Road. And you'll see here on this map u it'll look a bit familiar on the uh on the lines you see there that are diagonal. That is an annexation. and it came into the city with an improved subdivision. Uh came into the city on December 3rd, 2024. So these three parcels uh that are uh looking to be annexed or the owners are looking to annex tonight is.17 acres. They're very small uh tax parcels that are included into that larger site plan. Um these small parcels are intended to be landscape buffer and part of the rideway. So it is associated with that previous annexation case. Um the larger parcel that you see there was approved for uh 57 town homes. Uh so these u this sliver of land here which is about roughly 20 20 ft wide at its widest point uh is contigu or it's contiguous to a uh a satellite and inside the ETJ. So it is in it's zoned R six. It is in the uh Swift Creek land management plan. Um so the surrounding uses in this area residential and agriculture. So, I mentioned before it does have an improved site or subdivision plan on it and there are two plans in review. So, site permit review uh two site permit review plans on this property. Um you can see the site location there in Mid Pines Roads to the south of Trion Road which you'll be able to see in the zoom out. Um you can see the site location in the aerial there uh as this picture was taken. Um it's fairly treed lot um around some agricultural lands and you can see the zoom out where uh you can see Triion Road just to the north and Midpines Road uh moving south and you see those small little parcels uh next to that larger parcel. Um you have utilities that are located in Triion Road that larger parcel with plans for that one is to extend those utilities into this area. the these sliver properties actually won't hook up to utilities in their own right. Um since they are landscape plannings and uh right ofway um these will not be connected to water and sewer. Um you can see here the current zoning R six uh conditional use residential the largest site that was recently annexed in and you can see the future land use for this areas at rural residential some institutional to the south you've got some NC state land there and low-scale residential and you can see here clearly that's some within the Swift Creek wershed protection overlay district classified as new urban um I think that about covers it other than that you can see here uh there is a blue line stream part of the development plan has that at a 50-ft buffer and that's along the lines of the requirements of the wershed. You can see the site plan and topography here. No actual flood plane of note and you can see uh the photo of the site from the roadway uh currently treed. Uh combined acreage on this one of those three parcels is about.17 acres. Um I think that pretty much covers it. What questions can I answer for you all tonight? questions. How wide is this? Uh roughly 20 feet at its widest point. So they're they're uh they're pack parcels for Wake County that weren't included with the larger site, but they are included in the site plan. U so they're just strip buffer areas. I think uh if I believe that there is uh I thought the site plan was included in there, but it is included in the packet and its landscape buffer along a roadway that's going to access the site. So, okay. All right. If it's asked today, it'll be brought into the boundaries of council district 8. Always important to know. Okay. Um no questions. Then we have uh Isabelle Maddox uh signed up. So, I'll open the public hearing for AX1825. Good evening, Madame Mayor and members of council. Uh, this is a very uh what I hope is a very benign case. There's some slivers of property. It wasn't included in the original annexation because it we acquired these slivers from actually an adjacent cemetery and unfortunately the prop that property was tied up in a bankruptcy proceeding. So, we weren't able to conclude it in our annexation. Um, we have since acquired, we did acquire the properties and it's kind of a long convoluted story, but they're not in order to recombine these slivers. And so, we have one big development parcel which will be better for everyone going forward. We need to do this um annexation that will clean up a problem that we created by conveying the slivers prior to them being part of the the development parcel. We had to do it out of order because of the bankruptcy proceeding and contractual deadlines to close by December 31st. So long way of saying I've got a presentation. Again, there's no utilities that will be included in these slivers. they just, you know, make the site plan work because we need a little extra land. Uh we also agreed to provide the cemetery which now has no real physical good access. They will have a paved way to get to their cemetery. That was part of the arrangement that there we've test we've examined this and surveyed the property for graves and there's no graves on these particular slivers. Um so that's your site. This this will be a townhouse development. That's the overall site plan. And we're just coming right down here like that. Little slivers. Um so again, the larger portion annexed in December of 2024. We conveyed an unsubdivided and unreombed um slivers because we had to before December 34 1st of 2024. to get those back rolled into this development parcel, we need to have is annexed because the Wake County GIS won't put it all as one parcel until either we're annexed or we're not annexed. So, we've got the main tracks in the city and it shows on GIS, but these slivers show us separate tax parcels. So, it's really kind of um awkward. Um so, we like to clean it up. It cleans up the city and county data. It's very very minimal. Any questions? Okay. Thank you, Miss Maddox. Any questions? All right, we will close the hearing. Discussion. I'm prepared to make a motion. Um, I motion to approve the annexation petition. Um, let's see. With effective date, September 2nd, 2025. Second. All right. All in favor of the motion? I. All oppose? Nay. All right. That passes. Thank you. Next we have resoning Z7022 uh which is Glenwood Avenue Lake and Drive. Uh Hannah Recal from planning. Good evening Hannah Recal planning and development. So this is request um Z7022 a request to reszone three parcels that are um 6.85 85 acres. Um, and currently split zones between neighborhood mixed use three stories, conditional use, office mixed use three stories, R2 and conservation management. And the proposal is to um res rezone them a mix of uh commercial mixed use, five stories, conditional use, uh, R10 conditional use and conservation management. So, uh, this is a site located on the south side of Glenwood Avenue, um, north side of the Lake Anne neighborhood, um, like much of, um, Route 70, commercial, light industrial uses along, um, Glenn would have, and then, um, various, um, scales of, of residential, um, surrounding. Zooming in to the site, you can see kind of a irregular, um, shape. um undeveloped property, mostly forested um uh with a small frontage on on Glenwood Avenue and Lake Anne Drive. Uh some views of the site currently and there are a number of uh proposed zoning conditions um that are uh generally organized by the the district that they would apply to. So, the CX-5 portion um would have the following um no parking located between building and street. Um building facade within 35 ft of Glenwood Avenue. Uh retail area capped at 35,000 square ft. The number of dwelling units capped at 100. And then a number of commercial uses normally allowed in CX would be prohibited. These conditions apply uh just to the R10 uh portion. So, a cap on number of units at 12, a um setback from surrounding properties of 65 ft, and then um uh limiting the number of um stories containing dwelling units um in that portion of the site. Um there are a number of other conditions um that include a similar condition uh um capping the number of stories above ground stories off of Glennwood Avenue to three that contain dwelling units. Um the application of some landscape bus buffers along uh the south side of Winchester Drive. um and um uh granting the lake an HOA a sign easement um for the purposes of identifying the lake an neighborhood. Um there are a number of conditions uh that pertain to storm water control. Um so uh these include super silt fencing along the downhill perimeter. Um prior to any land disturbance, underground storm water control measure on u tract one. So that's the CX5 portion that would manage the 10year and 24-hour storm and an underground or above ground storm water control measure installed on track two. Um there's a condition that would require a third-party consultant to oversee storm water measures and receive questions and u complaints from the neighborhood. Um and uh the developer would be under this condition required to comply with the recommendations of that consultant. Um and then there uh is a condition um pertaining to a stormwater pipe installed um from the retention device on trackct one uh to the um lake and drive right ofway. Uh and then there's a condition that would um extend uh public water and sewer lines to a neighboring property up to the the site's property boundary. and then a condition pertaining to notice with regard um for any blasting that would be required for construction. Um just for visual on the site uh this is the CX-5 portion. The CM portion is roughly where it is currently here and then the rest is the R10 conditional use. So big picture existing for versus proposed. There's currently split zone between mixed use and residential and conservation management. The request is uh also to be split zoned. Um higher uh taller buildings would be allowed in the commercial mixeduse portion. The residential district they're requesting is a higher scale would allow more dwelling units, smaller lots. Um relatively small change across the uses. Um uh um as you can see here um the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan also consistent with the future land use map designations which are a mix of community mixuse and moderate scale residential and then the public parks and open space designation. See some um consistent policies here. There were no inconsistent policies found with the request. And then finally, the planning commission recommended approval in a split vote 5 to three uh with the opposing members um referencing discussion during plan commission about the enforcability of the proposed conditions. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you. Questions for Mr. Recall? Okay, I will open the public hearing and we have uh Isabelle Maddox signed up in support and no one in opposition. Good evening again. It's been it's been a while. Um I'm Isabelle Maddox representing the property owner here. And I'm here joined with my team tonight. Tom Worth, my co-consel. Um Tommy Craraven of Priest Craraven, our engineer. Chuck Walker, uh our land planner. Um, also here tonight is Joss Hansen who represents the HOA and we've worked very closely together to try to come up with a an arrangement that the Lake Anne HOA could support and I'm pleased to say that that I believe they do support this this resoning proposal. Um, Hannah did a good job of going through it and you can see the parcels there. There are rather odd shaped, but the interesting thing about this, we have a we have a couple of really important water bodies here. Um, we've got Turkey Creek coming down through here and then we got Lake Anne here. And so, a lot of our discussions with the HOA involved protection of Lake Anne. Lake Anne is owned by the Lake Anne HOA. uh which you know the Lake Anne neighborhood generally speaking is not in the city of Raleigh but they've had some difficult um issues in the past and so they've been they're super sensitive to damage to their lake. They've spent a lot of money uh remediating development issues that have been caused by for instance the townhouse development which is immediately um you know northwest of the site. Um challenges were that because of a long history with this property and the HOA, there was some law litigation in the background. There's some restrictive covenants that were very tight and we combined those with zoning restrictions on the property. It made the property almost impossible to develop. Um again, we're focused on the highly sensitive Turkey Creek and Lake Anne protection issues. Also, the the city is requiring a an extension of Winchester Drive. Uh you can see the line in red here would be the route of that. The the I think the Winchester ends about right here. And we we would be continuing that through our site which creates that parallel road to Glennwood Avenue uh which both NC do and the city insist on. So that that adds even more um impervious and more just disruption to the general area. Um so we've been working really hard with the neighborhood to try to come up with a solution that would would give them the protections they wanted and in order for them to release their covenants um and support this case and we would create some conditions that would would allow us to develop the property. Um there's our track one. There'll be a mixeduse building there. Uh our we envision ground floor retail of some sort with residential above. And then we have 12 town homes on track two. This green dark green area here. Track three will all be conservation management. So Hannah went through the conditions well enough. I won't go through those again. Um I will say that we we did agree to height limits. Um on track one, three occupied stories. Uh on track two, the townhouse is two occupied stories. And I know that certain council members and certain staff members have had a few concerns about our storm water condition. Um the I think the one that was most concerning was this appointment of a third party consultant. Um and we feel like that will we're not second-guessing the city's stormwater um department. We're not saying that they they don't do a good job. It's just this is an extra layer of protection to give the neighborhood. So, this is somebody who will have a pre-construction meeting with the neighborhood and with the city to say, "Here's what we're going to do and to so everybody understands." There'll also be a contact point that the neighborhood the neighbors can call and get an answer if they want to. If they see some, you know, problem, they can potentially get quicker results than going through the city. Um, and I feel like it'll it will not um hamper the city's enforcement, but it will help. it'll be an extra uh set of eyes to to look at this and and uh advise and they also if if if they don't think something's working properly there's a way for a mechanism in place that they can you know stop it. So, I think that historically in the many zoning cases I've worked on, if you can, you know, work with the neighbors as much as we have and get their buy in, then you've done the hardest work. Uh, I think we've done that here. Um, I I can go through more detail about these stormwater conditions. I've talked to probably most of the council members um and we've gone over this so I won't belabor the point at this point. Uh but just to conclude I think this is this resoning cleans up some regulatory restrictions for this site and allows for some development. It'll allow more housing units. It it'll add commercial opportunities which will be walkable for both new and old neighbors. Um, it will facilitate the extension of Winchester Drive as an important parallel road for Glennwood. Um, and it importantly will protect Turkey Creek and Lake Anne and the neighbors, you know, will be comforted that they have some, you know, their lake is going to be protected. We we also have a private agreement with the HOA and there'll be there's some financial arrangements between the developer and the HOA that will give them some extra protection. So, uh as I said, Mr. Hansen is here. He said he did not stand sign up to speak tonight, but I think he is here on behalf of the neighborhood if you'd like to hear from him or and if you have any questions, specifically engineering questions, uh Tommy Craraven's here and can feel those. Okay. Thank you. Uh questions for Miss Maddox. Yes, it's so good to see you. I know we've had many conversations over the summer. Uh and wanted to get in a second about the condition. Uh I first want to applaud you. It seems to be a long effort working with the community. And Mr. Hansen, I did read your letter I received before we came in this room. It was a very compelling letter. So, I'm understand why you did not testify. So, thank you for sending that. Um, I am inclined to support this case even though you and I had many discussions over the summer. Uh, it is consistent. Uh, it does remove certain covenants that allows this project to go forward. Uh, but I look very carefully at conditions and this is one I was troubled by. You know, you proactively stated this is not discrediting storm water staff. I believe if there's something wrong with our rules, let's fix the rules rather than doing a one-off. Uh, but I understand the long trajectory. I do have one question about the third party because this is a person that's going to be hired to monitor, but staff is going to have to monitor the monitor. And so, just so I understand, you and I had a conversation, there's a point in time when the third party monitor would cease their oversight because these conditions run with the land in perpetuity unless zoning is changed. Uh, I have a more detailed one. I know Hannah did a summary you did as well, but is there a point in time when the third party's job is done and we talked about is it post construction or is there ongoing monitoring going into the future? No, the the idea is that they will be involved pre-construction and during construction. They will be reporting I think it's initially every 30 days and then it goes to every 90 days. But once the construction is complete, we wouldn't envision them continuing in in any role. Is that in the condition? Because I want to be clear that it seems that there's a lot in this condition. Uh again in our notes it is quite extensive to know that there is a sunset uh on this. That's what I'm trying to get because that way at least staff would know they no longer have to monitor the monitor that now after construction everything's proceeding. That's the part I wanted to get clear on. I can't say that at the completion of construction of this project and what is this project because as you know I mean projects do change sometimes. Uh so there's not an express termination provision. So I think conceivably it could be any construction project would would revive it. Other questions? Yep. I just wanted to come on. I am u district representative for this case and I really appreciate all the work. I've spoken with both uh Josh I've spoken to some of the uh HOA members and um with the applicant and I do want to commend you on working what we ask from the development community. We ask you guys to work with the community to find out. I also want the resident you guys to hear me when I I understand your concern by being in the county. I know that you're not looking at staff going, "Oh, you're not going to do it." But there is a question by not being a member of the city there's well are they going to represent me? I get that concern and I really appreciate uh staff for or I'm sorry the development team and staff of course but the development team for hearing that and recognizing it and over these last over a decade uh having this conversation to the point where we can come in collaboration and in support of a project even though there I'm sure there are still concerns. I'm sure there are still issues, but knowing that development and adding more housing is very important to the city as well. Um, so I really just wanted to commend everyone on this. I think you guys have done a phenomenal job and and in communicating with us, you've also done a great job. So before unless there's anything else, uh, I'll be ready to motion. I will close the public hearing and if you want Okay. Yeah. I had a just a question for storm water staff because I was reading this condition. And I think it's 6 IV and it says um let's see um uh so the representative or the consultant shall prepare and submit to the city inspector and representative at least once every month during the first 90 days after an erosion control permit is issued and quarterly thereafter for any construction project. a report on the status and efficacy of construction of temporary and permanent storm water and sedimentation and erosion control facilities. So it looks like for any construction project there's a quarterly report. Um can you tell me how you interpret that or is does it seem like there's an end time or what does construction potentially entail? Quite Sally Huait Rally Stormwater. Uh quite frankly, staff is concerned about having to enforce this condition because it appears to be something that is really an agreement between the homeowners association and the applicant and that they could handle privately without it being a zoning condition by, you know, the applicant could grant the third party inspector access to the property. the third party inspector could report to the HOA and not involve the staff. This is placing burden on staff time with who already go out and inspect sites at least every two weeks to um be involved in that relationship. So we are not clear on when it would end. Can I comment on that? Yep. Yeah, that's fine. Um, well, I think when you the beginning of that sentence, it says after an erosion control permit is issued. So, I would think it would go along so long as that permit was opened. So, I think once that permit is closed, then the the obligation far as regular reporting would go away. But if there was a new, you know, another construction pro project down the road, I think it would revive. So if you have an erosion control permit, I think that's what would trigger the the third party consultant. So is that how you understand it, Sally? Like that it's when there's an open um sorry, erosion control permit? That that would make sense to us. Uh we wouldn't want to see it. We wouldn't want to be involved in this any outside of those parameters. Okay. And so are you saying that's how you interpret this statement that's in the condition now or that how you can interpret it? Yes, I think that's how we would interpret it unless we were getting complaints from the homeowners association that okay we were interpreting it incorrectly. Thank you councelor Silver. I mean that's very helpful for storm water. I can support it if I know I understand there are different phases but I want to make sure this condition does not run once construction's completed all phases. I want to be assured I don't know if the current language states it that this condition sunsets. And um I mean Isabelle, you could tell me you weren't 100% clear, but that would give me the satisfaction. We heard from staff, this is adding an additional burden. And if we're clear that after all the different phases, the mixeduse, the town homes, all the improvements that you have to make to the road, that construction is done, then the third party's job is completed and then it transfers over to the normal storm water operations about any storm water that flows on the site. I I would agree that that would be the way it would would work. Um, I can't tell you there's an express statement that says that in the condition because there's not. And I do think if you say 20 years from now they decided to tear down the building and start over and these conditions were still in place, I think you would still have that when they opened a new erosion control permit. I think you still have an argument that that's that revives and and and it probably should. So I I'm sorry if it's not as clear. Um but I but I think the the the theory that you we were operating on is that the Lake Anne wanted protection from a sto from a construction project period. That's what we've tried to tried to give them. So yes, I believe the work will be done once the once the development is completed, but you know, if for some reason they bulldoze some building and start it over, I think you would have that condition come back. Mayor Proton, uh, whoever from the city attorney's office is ready to come up and speak is who I want to hear from because as a lawyer, I would say there's a lot of uncertainty about this and so I don't know what the legal opinion is, but maybe there should be some some conversation around that because it's very vague to say, you know, 20 years from now, 5 years from now, who's responsible, who has to follow these conditions? I agree and lawyers. We talked about some of this um you know with with direction from council we can certainly tailor it. I mean we could sunset it after you know development's done but then what about redevelopment? So that's one issue. having a hard time reading these. But um my other concern just with the enforcability was that it requires this unknown person to do things and we can't tell an unknown person to do anything. Like we couldn't give a zoning violation to ABC storm water expert because they don't have a permit with the city. They're not a property owner. I I don't think this condition is ready for us to move forward. So I think folks need to I think we could probably make it so maybe we the developer causes the person to submit the report. I think there are some ways that we can fix this. Um but as written we can't I wouldn't suggest we move forward have some enforcability issues. I think we probably just need a little direction from the council and we can we can come up with something that would work. I think we say in there that the the applicant shall cause a third party consultant to be appointed. I didn't I'm trying to read these little council. Yeah, I was going to ask but I didn't see because obviously we're going to be holding this tonight. Um when looking this is there a way to tie it to the permit? So, as long as the permit is open, then there's a requirement there. But once that permit is closed, then it goes away. If you all I don't know the answer to that question. So, if y'all can get into that, if council is inclined to accept this condition, then we would ask that you hold this open to allow us to reward or or work on that condition further. I'm going to reopen because I had already closed the hearing. So, I'm reopening the public hearing. I had a question just on process uh city attorney's office. This um I guess maybe because I was working with lawyers here. Um how I I didn't realize that the city attorney's office would have an issue. So, how does that move forward? Is this the only place or have you guys been looking at it and knew that there was concern or was this the first time? I'm just a little confused. How come I didn't understand it was an issue? this exact version until they were signed and then they were signed and so I just didn't didn't weigh on in on this version. Council member Jones, when this was presented to us, it came up because it was a 53 split vote and there was some discussion on condition number six and the discomfort from staff. I think it came more from storm water, right, than it did well, they said staff and I assumed it was storm water. So that did surface. We didn't go deep into it, right? And I met with storm water. My concern was that I didn't hear about the legality portion of this part until like I I knew that that was the question, but we were working internally here. And I think from a process perspective, I knew to reach out to Stormwater because of that meeting. But how do I how do how do I moving forward make sure that before we get to this moment that I'm hearing from attorney's office? Cuz now I feel like I'm misguiding because I was like, "Okay, great, great, great." And now I'm like, "Wait, I didn't even realize the city attorney's office was going to have an issue with this. Didn't even realize that." Yes. This came up back in whenever the public hearing, you know, back in June, I think that there was some issue. Yeah, I remember raising the issue about the unbudsman and that whole thing. So, I think that's how this door kind of got cracked open a little bit, but I mean the the language says the developer will shall retain and compensate the third party consultant. Um, I I was just going to add that as a lawyer myself, sometimes this is an example of what happens when too many lawyers get involved, but the HOA has a lawyer as well who emailed us saying that they are fully in support so long as these conditions do not change. And so if we're holding this and the conditions are going to change, we're going to be sort of cracking that egg open again. Um, the enforcability piece in my opinion, I know our staff is I don't want to put our staff in a bad situation. So, and so if we're holding it to try to give clarity to our staff, I think that makes a lot of sense. But if we're holding it because the enforcability may not be that strong for the residents, they have a lawyer and their lawyer says he's fine with the conditions. And if it's the enforcability leaves it wide open for the applicant, well, that's the property owner. And so, if they're signing themselves up in perpetuity to monitor this site and that's what their lawyer is telling them to do, then then that's that. And so, you've got a lawyer here. The HOA has a lawyer. Then obviously we have our city lawyers. And so I'm looking really for our city lawyers. If you tell us this is going to put a huge burden on our staff and we need to hold this, then I would be inclined to hold it. If it's if that's not the direction, no one's here signed up a post. The lawyers in support of it, the applicants attorneys in support of it. A lot of work has gone into this. You know, best of luck to to to them. That that's kind of how I feel about it. All right. So with that, the city attorney's office. We would ask that you hold it so that we can clarify the condition so that everybody going forward is clear what is expected. We don't want exactly what you said which is there is some dispute. It is our staff is in the middle everybody have at it said two weeks but can I can I comment one thing we we do have this set of conditions which the HOA has agreed to and they have been pretty clear that they're not going to accept any change to the conditions. Um, I mean I can speak with but but but this is the thing. We can't box our staff in just based on the HOA not necessarily being flexible about or inflexible about conditions. I mean, that's not our role. Our role is to make sure that our staff is in a good position to see how this boxes the staff in. Well, but our city attorney's office is advising them that advising us that they want extra time to make sure everything is is clarified. I mean that's that's what our obligation is at this table. Yeah. They've had since like two three months. But I mean this got two other options. One is to deny vote to deny it. Approve if you prefer us to do that. I think the city attorney has requested to hold it open. I've held the thing open. So if we can sit on it um and bring it back two weeks we'd be ready to make a motion to do that or just hold it. Yes. if you would. Well, I don't want to be involved in this, so someone else could. I motion that we hold it open for two weeks to give the city attorney's office and the staff an opportunity to get clarification around the conditions and then we can come back and take our vote. Second. All right. Any other discussion? If not, all in favor of the motion, I I. All opposed. Thank you, council. Okay. So, that was a 62 vote. And so, mayor, when you reopen the hearing, there'll be a minute nine seconds left for those in support and eight minutes if anyone signs up in opposition. Okay. Thank you. All right. Next, we've got Z-5224 Triion Road. This is Yep. Reszoning Zu 5224. Uh requests to reszone three properties on Tryan Road together are just under 44 acres in size. Currently zoned R4 R10 with a special residential parking overlay district. Requesting a mix of R10 and RX4 conditional use districts keeping the overlay. The site is off of Tryan Road, which runs right here. Um, currently no structures on the site owned by the Raleigh Golf Association. Um, surrounded generally by residential. You can see um Renaissance Park uh area there for reference. So a set of conditions that would apply to um I should have mentioned the property um to be reszoned RX4 uh is this one here and then this other part parcel is R10 conditional use district. So zoning conditions that would apply to the RX4 piece um would prohibit um some uh residential land uses would cap the number of dwelling units um provide a um height limitation um within 100 feet of certain neighboring properties. Um it would um install a traffic signal on at Tryan Road and Fairway Drive uh if more than 100 units are are developed. That's um assuming uh NC do signs off on that. Um there would be a stub for future cross access provided uh to 1526 TR road and then a condition committing 2% of the dwelling units to be made affordable for households earning 60% of area median income. These is these are the zoning conditions that would apply to the R10 portion. So also prohibiting uh one one use boarding house capping the number of dwelling units and prohibiting the apartment building uh type. So existing versus proposed I see an increase in residential entitlement um portion of the RX4 portion of the site would allow up to four stories building height. And then RX does allow a small amount of commercial use uh if located at the corner of two public streets. Request is consistent with the comprehensive plan. It is inconsistent with the future land use map particularly the private open space and low-scale residential are requesting additional intensity than those both envision. Um some consistent policies triggered here. some inconsistent policies. Our future land use map consistency and then zoning and infrastructure impacts is cited uh because of a nearby road par drive is actually surrounded by an a separate parcel. So access to that road would require coordination um with with that neighborhood property owner. Planning commission voted unanimously to recommend approval. Um and as I mentioned, it is inconsistent with the future land use map. approval would amend the map um both of those areas to mediumcale residential. Happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you. Uh questions? Yes. Yeah, this might be for transportation. I know there was some mention in the staff report about concerns for um entrance and exit on Triion Road. Um, have those been addressed by NC DOT? Transportation staff can answer that question. Thanks. Good evening. Carter Robertson with transportation. Yes. And in our initial conversations with NC DOT, uh they did express some hesitancy and some concerns about providing some access in this area right here on the Tryion Road. Um it's my understanding that the application or the applicant has been working with NC DOT and they've been warming up to the idea. I think they may be able to speak more to where their current position is on this, but ultimately um since that is uh DOT maintain roadway, they'd need that permitting to get that access point right there. And so if there was not access on Trion Road, the development would need Fairway Drive, I assume, for all entrance and exit, right? Well, when it comes in for site plan, depending on how many uh units are developed, um if if more than 300 are developed, there will need to be three different access points that would be allowed under the proposed zoning. So, Fairway Drive would be an option. Um Trion Road and Bruce Circle, uh another one in there. And I expect the applicant will um go through their their plans for those access points. Could you also talk about the status of Fairway Drive just as a road, what it is like right now and any plans for improvement? Right. Uh right now it is unimproved with no curb and gutter. It is a city-maintained road. Um, our leadership in our department have had some preliminary conversations with the applicant about potential opportunities to bring Fairway up to standard, maybe get some sidewalk down to Tryion Road, but as of now, there are no conditions or formal development agreements at the table. Right now, uh, conversations have been high level seeing what we could do on fairway. Okay. Okay. And I my understanding is traffic calming is planned for fairway. Is that correct? Right. Um that was one of the traffic calming projects in this current bucket of projects. It's been advertised. Our staff is working with the um contractor right now to get that finalized. Um we hope to have that doomed by the end of September construction schedule and we'll make that known on the website. And what type of measures would be installed there? Five speed cushions from Trion up to Carolina Pines. Five speed cushions between Trion and Carolina Pines. Thank you. Other questions? All right. So, we will open the public hearing for C 5224. We have uh two folks signed up in support. Toby Coleman, Ryan Summerwell, and one in opposition. To reset the clock. All right. Uh good evening, mayor, members of council. Toby Coleman uh with Smith Anderson here on behalf of uh the applicant. Um, and in particular, I'm here on behalf of Dominium. They're uh nationwide affordable housing developer um who is uh has brought this reszoning forward to facilitate affordable housing on the property that's zoned RX4. Um Hannah did a good job of expl outlining the uh zoning conditions. I think a couple things I just want to underline. Um these are as you can see two different sort of zoning areas. Um the area in blue is where the apartments would go. Um the uh purple area which is referred to often by our team as the hook. It's like the 14th through 16th hole perhaps um on uh the RGA course currently um would be zoned R10. Um what happened there uh was we had initially proposed zoning at RX4. We heard from the neighbors in Renaissance Park that they had concerns about density. Um, so we downzoned it to R10, uh, with a limit of 175 units. Um, as you can see there, it's rough, that's roughly about eight units an acre, which is consistent actually with the Renaissance Park density. Um, and it's lower density than the greens at the existing apartments that it surrounds. Um, it's more or less consistent actually with an R six density. Um it's a little bit d allows a little bit more density um for single family homes than R six but a little less density than uh for town homes than R six. Um one other things I'll note is because it is consistent with R six we would argue that uh the hook portion actually is consistent with moderate scale residential designation um which is pretty much everything that surrounds it. Um wanted just to note that one of the reasons one of the conditions we have for the uh for what I'll call the apartment block the area zone RX4 was a height limit along Bruce Circle. The reason we did that was because the intervening road Bruce Circle um basically created an area where there weren't neighborhood transitions that were other would otherwise be applied by the code. So, we wanted to put those in just to ensure that everybody, all of our neighbors on Bruce Circle had um consistent height restrictions in that area. Um, as has already been noted, we are looking at uh we've been working with the city for uh probably four or five months now to try to uh come up with a public private partnership to do some improvements on Fairway Drive. This would all be off-site improvements. A lot of the discussion to date has focused on basically that area from Triion Road up to that uh intersection, the uh access area for the development for the apartments. Um and looking at doing a sidewalk and curb and gutter uh along that stretch of road that would all be off-site improvements. And so a lot of the discussion has been around how if you know if we did that, you know, would there be a way for the city to uh participate that either with fee waiverss or other things? We've been working through all the uh issues there. And with that, I'll hand it over to Ryan Summerwell Dominion. Good evening, council. Appreciate you listening to our speech this evening. As uh Toby mentioned, you know, Dominium has been specializing in the development and ownership of affordable housing for nearly 50 years. Uh we feel that through years of trial and error we are one of the most experienced developers, owners, operators and managers of this specific type of housing uh across the country. Um the site plan that you just previously saw that is a 370 unit proposed apartment community of which 100% of those units would be set aside at 60% of area median income. I think some other you know notions for Dominium as a team. We are a vertically integrated company. Um you know we have an internal contractor and architecture services team that focuses primarily on the quality control of the communities that we design and develop. Uh we consider ourselves you know the antithesis of your call it market rate or merchant builder. We pride ourselves on being part of the community. Our intention is to own and operate this community for the long term. You know, typically 15 to 30 years, if not longer. Um, and so as part of that, we also manage every single community that we operate. The the goal of that and really um the intent is to have a an alignment of values and interests at the site. We don't view our property management portion portion of our community as profit driven. uh we spend the time to put in the necessary capital improvements, put in the the amount of quality and and repairs needed to ensure that the communities that we own and and operate are at a quality that's consistent with us uh nationwide. So, um happy to answer any additional questions about this community and this proposed uh development. Like Toby mentioned, we've we've had, you know, multiple neighborhood meetings. Uh we engaged with planning planning commission. We've been engaged with uh city staff as it relates to a public private partnership of some aspect because you know given our intent and desire and our commitment to this area and to being an owner and operator we do want to see the improvement of Tryon Road. We do want to be a part of that benefit to get it to the level of quality that would require ongoing maintenance. So um again appreciate the time. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Uh, any questions for Mr. Summerwell? Yeah. Um, could you just speak to the fact that the conditions mention 2% of the units being 60% AMI, but you intend to build 100% of the units at 60% AMI. Correct. The the intent there was to provide a minimum just to ensure that um, you know, the community itself and the land that we are reszoning has an affordability component. That being said, us as the developer, we have the full intent to develop this and and set aside these units at the affordability restriction. I think the key component there was the 2% minimum affordability applies to our specific the the nonhook piece of the property as part of the reasonzoning. And I would just note that Dominium is a contract purchaser. So a lot of the reason for the 2% versus say 100% is that um is to many is that the property owner which is Raleigh Golf Association didn't necessarily would be saddled with a 100% affordable uh commitment if you know in the unlikely event that this thing fell apart. Thank you. Okay. Uh we also have um Mr. Jean Cobb in opposition. So we will ask Mr. Cop. Yes. Here. Good evening. My name is Jean Cahob. I'm represent this evening Delta Sigmafi uh road chapter alumni corporation board which is the owner of that property at 1526 Tron Road. U I live and work formerly worked in u uh in West Trolley in the old part of Meredith subdivision. So, uh, Christina is our rep. So, and I suppose, uh Stormian and Jonathan also. Um, I'm a retired civil engineer. I've helped design many uh, development projects in the Triangle area over the last 50 years. We're we're in a little bit of dilemma tonight. We don't really like to uh oppose this development, but we feel like it uh it will impair our property if it's not properly protected, particularly with a buffer on our along our western border. And we want to help you understand that if we can. uh we submitted a written statement through your portal and I hope that you that you receive that and I believe you have since it's showing on our screen but I do have hard copies here if anyone would want a hard copy Uh we are we've submitted the written statement that kind of describes our process of our tenants at the neighborhood meetings and the and the planning commission meetings and Dominion's representatives uh made a presentation at each of those and and uh included a preliminary site plan which I I believe is not required and has not legally binded binding for reasoning but uh and we noticed a couple of things. Uh, one was uh the uh they did did include a cross access to the back of our property which uh we would just ask that that be added as a condition and it has been I I note so we're pleased with that. uh the we've come to uh I guess a a point of uh uh of not having agreement on the easement uh and to I say to Dominion uh credit we've had some mishaps on our timing on several proposal they had asked for our recommendation we've had that batted back and forth forth and uh but at the end of the day at our last public hearing our our understanding was that they we're not in agreement to provide one that it wasn't required by you the UDO and uh uh it did not fit their proposal it did not fit their plan so we're at that loggerhead and would like to resolve that uh and have that edited as a condition if if we can. And what does that matter to us? Well, we have a unique nature of our house relative to the other fraternities at state. We're naturally buffered by the golf course which um we have been called a palace in the pines as a source of pride for our brotherhood. And we we've uh been in the pos uh process of uh trying to renovate that old property and we've commissioned a number of studies uh prior to this proposal reszoning and have spent some time and money in doing that. Uh it called for a $2 million uh capital uh in funding uh solicitation project and we uh had actually pled about 800 of our brothers and found that that might be feasible for us. But that was uh and then then we commissioned planning staff to uh go through the preliminary planning for our uh proposed improvements and including as a first step the uh getting a going through the historic properties people and getting a a certificate of appropriateness which we finally uh were able to obtain this summer. So we've had all that prior to this reszoning. So now we we uh uh are at uh at impass on just uh we feel like we're we'll be compromised a bit in proceeding. Now we we looked at a couple of flaws I think in the application. When is it the his and in the in the spot it calls for historic properties. The notation is N slash A and we just say we're in the middle of all that and we're we're a historic property and we've uh in in the uh in our reference material we have a historic report that was done in 99 and it it's interesting read if you have it might take the time it it um outlines the development that was proposed then back in the 30s for the Carolina Pines Resort uh complex and which unfortunately the timing was bad and it went bankrupt but uh our our house was cut out as a that seven acres as a separate property which we acquired in 5 1957 have maintained ever since as a fraternity house. So, uh I uh we want to emphasize that we've maintain that site pretty much as it was in that report that was done 25 years ago which noted that it was pretty much in the same shape that it was originally. Uh our our conclusion was is that we feel like we're are a little bit compromised in continuing to maintain our property there as a fraternity house and as a historic property if we're if we cannot be somehow clearly buffered from the development proposed in the resoning this resoning. So our question is will you help us or will you notice? We thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Uh questions for Mr. Cobb. Yes. Yeah. Couple questions for you. Um you mentioned that something about egress on the back side of your property. Can you speak to that because I see Park Drive goes directly along your property from the front to the back. Um the uh that's a an an odd situation. The property along Parrive on both sides is owned by the the apartment develop development in the back of the property. Okay. So, uh, and we do have a, uh, access easement 30 foot wide at a spot 400 ft from the from the front kind of entrance and we have not chosen to develop that as of now. We have tried to uh we we've uh tried to have the prop the apartment owners move that easement a little further up toward the TR road and have been refused. So, uh that hopefully will be part of our uh capital improvement project when we when we get to that point of of in time. But it also means that uh all this property that you're looking at at on that hook track has no access to par drive. Uh that's a that's a some something of a flaw and would it is going to require identified in your report from your staff that it it will require a access agreement to the proper apartment properties in the back there. Okay. So access agreement similar to what you do or don't I'm confused. you do or don't have an access agreement of a part drive. They don't have They don't have one. Okay. Um Okay. And then the other thing is I know you say you're applying for historic designation. Um but the other property is separate. So I don't see unless staff or someone knows something. I don't I don't see the conflict there. Okay. Sir. Yeah. Yeah, I just have a few items I want to bring up. Um, so what I'm hearing, I think the main request was a 65- ft wooded buffer between your property in this resoning case. Correct. Yes. And so in my experience with cases, that's um pretty big number. We don't usually have that kind of separation between properties. Would staff though speak to what is required in terms of the property line separation, any vegetation? Um sometimes there are conditions added for vegetation. So this is to staff what would be required. So taking a look at the zoning map again um to jog my memory. Um between mixed use and residential districts, neighborhood transitions apply. Uh in this case though the the property question is right here also has mixed use zoning. Um so that is not a requirement that would be um triggered um under mixed use zoning on this parcel. Um so in short um we're looking at setbacks. Setbacks. And what are the setbacks? I'd have to Yeah. Sorry. Um okay. So, I just want to note that that's been a request made to have some kind of vegetative buffer. Um, that could be a potential condition to add. I will say I would like to hold this case for two weeks. Um, and primarily because of the hook and some of these transportation questions. Um, there were a number of residents who live on the southeast side here of the property in Renaissance Park who were not able to be at the public hearing today because they got confused by the notice. The notice went out for this public hearing. It was supposed to be 100 pm, but then obviously we're hearing it at 7. My intention was that it would be at 7 so that neighbors could attend and there were a lot of interested neighbors and we received a number of emails from them today. Um, I had a a good conversation with one of the neighbors and with Toby just before this meeting and the hook is just still an uh area of contention and you know I'm very uh excited about the affordable housing opportunity here. I think that's a great opportunity, but the hook, from what I understand, there's no plan at the moment to develop it. And so, if that could be reduced or removed from this resoning case, um it would certainly um make me feel a little bit better about the number of units that are coming online here given the potential transportation issues. I know at the end of the day, the developer team has to figure that out. So, you won't be able to build what you can't get in and out of the property. Um, but given the state of Fairway Drive, I just think there's a number of questions there. Um, so that would be my suggestion. And I know within two weeks, um, it would be up to the applicant team to provide any new conditions by this Friday, Toby, is that sound reasonable or would you all want more time? That's reasonable. We'd be happy to uh try to work with both council and and the neighbors to to see what we can do. We are limited to some extent just just to put all the cards on the table. Dominium is not does not have the quote unquote hook under contract. So the its purchase contract what it says is you are required to try to reszone this property. And so we have not we are not we're contractually obligated to continue to move this forward um unless the uh unless the Raleigh Golf Association says no you can drop it. Um Dominium doesn't have any plans for it but um we have been working with the Raleigh Golf Association to do so uh because it's their belief that they would like it done altogether. Thank you. Y just to clarify um your client is under contract for all of it including the hook. There's just no development plans for the hook. No. So the Okay. So they're sort of on the hook to reszone the hook even though they're only purchasing a portion of it. That's very well said. All right. Thank you. Um I I if I if I could I'd just like to note um a couple things. Um one is is that obviously we while we have had some unique um access issues for the uh for the portion that have apartments. We do think there's multiple accesses on the on the east side. There's multiple streets on the I'm sorry, the west side. Um and as transportation reported, we have been making progress with DOT. Um they initially said, "No way, no how are you accessing Trion. They're now starting to modify that. So we we feel very encouraged about that." We did hear a lot at the neighborhood meetings about the desire for a light at uh Fairway and for improvements. So that's why we've been working very hard on that. Um we have tried to work with uh Mr. Cobb and his fraternity um uh regarding their their request. We did make we did honor their request and put in a condition for cross access um just to make that explicit as they asked. Frankly, the reason we didn't grant their request for a buffer is um it's a fraternity house next to apartments and it's zoned ox and you know I I'm not making any assumptions about about fraternities. Um but I did go to college so you know I I you know we just we sort of looked at that and we said well that's one one area we're not not going to give a buffer. I'll just add one thing. I was in a fraternity in college. Our house was not over here. I did go to NC State though. I I will say I do think what makes maybe their home a little unique is it is a historic property and it has been there a very long time. And so if there is any flexibility on providing them some sort of vegetation. I think that would be would go a long way to some goodwill to your client's uh future neighbors. We'll take we'll take a look at it. I'd also add that the new residents might enjoy separation from the fraternity. Yeah. Well, and and I mean certainly we we would we are sensitive to that. Okay. Do I need to make a motion to hold it? Okay, that'll be my motion to hold it for two weeks and then come back for our September, let's see 16th meeting and all right, that will be a daytime meeting. Yeah, best we can do. Uh motion and a second. All in favor of the motion I. All oppose? Nay. Right. So that passes. Appreciate it. All right, we have two more items this evening. TC1 1124 pedestrian passages. Good evening, mayor and council. Justin Hermeta with planning and development. Uh this text change TC1 112024 is uh being brought forward by staff in sustainability, transportation and planning and development. As background the uh the goal here really is to implement some portions of the community climate action plan. Um specifically some goals and action items related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, uh reducing vehicle miles traveled, and improving safety and comfort for pedestrians and bikers. So to that end, there's three uh components to the text change. The first is uh hoping to provide safer crosswalks by reducing the distance uh pedestrians have to cross uh and encouraging uh motorists to slow down as they approach intersections. Uh there are some design specifications intended to improve safety on pedestrian passages. And finally, some language that would um incentivize the construction of more pedestrian passages uh with new development. So, with regards to crosswalk safety, um you can see here this uh what this ordinance would implement is the um curbout curb extensions or ballouts that would kind of narrow the distance that a pedestrian uh has to uh travel to cross an intersection. Also kind of encourages motorists to slow as they approach those intersections. Um you can see in the graphic there how the um visibility sight lines are enhanced for both the pedestrian and the and the motorist in these scenarios. Couple images of these in practice. Finally the uh actual UDO street sections how they would be amended. You can see that um crosswalk distance being uh intersection distance, excuse me, reduced to to 20 ft. Uh this is the neighborhood yield street, but uh these rules would apply to uh a handful of of street sections, any that allow for on street parking. With regard to pedestrian passage design, um the intent here is to signal pedestrian priority. So um through the construction of a pedestrian passage when it intersects with an internal access drive, i.e. a surface parking lot um or drive aisle. Uh the paving material um either would have to continue across the drive aisle or parking lot or the height would have to be raised um of the access drive to meet the height of the passage through the intersection. In the scenario where the um passage is parallel to the the parking area um again either the pedestrian passage would have to be raised above the grade of the parking lot or um if at the same grade some type of permanent physical separation would be required ballerts etc. Finally, to incentivize the construction of pedestrian passage passages, um this text amendment would expand uh current allowance that permits a block perimeter to be extended by 50% when pedestrian passages are included. This text change would um increase that 50% up to 100. Um so in the hopes of kind of uh creating more pedestrian passages uh and improving the uh pedestrian network over time. The one exception here is that uh if a street is mapped on the comprehensive plan, the the passage could not be used in place of that. It would still have to be constructed. That concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Do I have questions? Councelor Patton, kind of adjacent. Hi, Justin. Hi. Uh we already did this one before, right? And we're having to redo it because of state legislation. No. No. No. Okay. think of something else. You may have seen it when it came through to authorize um like some of the concepts, but the actual ordinance hasn't been adopted yet. Okay. I'm thinking of Okay. Any other questions? Okay. I will open the hearing for TC1 1124 and I have no one signed up for or against closing the hearing. Yes. I move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated September 2nd, 2025 containing the agenda materials and to approve the zoning text amendment. Second. Any other discussion? All in favor of the motion? I all oppose. Nay. Thank you. Thank you. And the next one is TC225. Yep. These are uh just a couple of um pretty straightforward changes to the storm water ordinance to reflect some updates in state law. So, there's uh two pieces to this amendment. Um the first relates to the construction of one or two unit dwellings on parcels that are greater than 1 acre in size. Uh there were some rules adopted in May of 2023 that kind of um inadvertently had the unintended consequences of requiring for full storm water regulation compliance um when these one or two unit dwellings were being constructed on these lots. And so what this text change would do would um uh match some language in the state administrative code um and apply the full storm water requirements not on uh parcels of 1 acre or greater but only when land disturbance reaches 1 acre or more. The second piece then is just an update to the definition of builtupon area to match um or to um comply with state law that was passed last year. Um that ordinance or that state law is already in effect. My understanding is storm water staff is already applying it. Um this would just update the UDO to match that state law. And you can see the changes here. um changing the definition of builtupon area to um you can see how um decks and gravel would no longer count as built upon area. Artificial turf would no longer count so long as it's placed on a on top of a pvious surface. Just a question is artificial turf so it's permeable. Uh that's by definition it would be so long as whatever it's placed on top of also allows water to to flow through it. So again, just just two changes to update the UDO to reflect state law. Um, happy to answer any questions. More importantly, storm water staff is here to answer questions you might have that are of a technical nature. Thank you. Questions? All right, I will open the public hearing for TC 225. We have no one signed up for or against. Closing the hearing. You I'm ready with the motion if we I know that's what I was think. I thought he might. Okay, go ahead. I move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated September 2nd, 2025 containing the agenda materials and to approve the zoning text amendment. Right. Motion and a second. All in favor of the motion I. All oppose, nay. Motion passes. Thank you. And we are adjourned. 407. Heat. [Music] Hey, heat. Hey, heat.