Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Down. I love you. Oo. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Let me clear. Ooh. Hey. Hey. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey hey hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. I met you. Ooh. Hey. Hey. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. N. I'd like to call to order the February 24th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting. My name is Nicole Bennett. I'm chair of the commission at least for a couple more meetings. Um, welcome to everyone joining us in person and online. Uh, >> good morning. >> Good morning. A few reminders before we get started. Um, please raise your hand to be recognized by the chair before speaking. Um, let's be courteous to each other, applicant, staff, and the public. And let's keep our comments constructive and focused on the cases we are discussing. We start each meeting with an opportunity for members of the public to address us about items not on the agenda. Is there anyone here who wishes to discuss an item not on the agenda? Just state your name, please. You don't have to give your address. >> Good morning. My name is Carmen Wimberly Cawan. I live at 1321 Battery Drive. I'm here today to ask you to take a moment before each of your planning commission meetings and deliberations to consider. Consider not only the specific plan that's to come before you. Consider the impact on the whole of the city and the community. Not just what the impact analysis says. Not just whether the plan is good for that developer or family or business. Consider whether or not there are other implications citywide. Does it do good or bad to the physical space around it? Does it harm or help the communities one mile away? Will it help to save someone from flooding or create space for someone who couldn't live here now to do so? Have I considered whether or not this feeds the systems that have on purpose or unwittingly caused harm to others in the community? You hold part of the map to our future, to the future of our children and our grandchildren. Even though this is a volunteer position, it is a heavy one and it carries much weight. Historians like me will look back at what you have done and wonder if you pondered the whole of it. Thank you for your service. I have copies of this if anybody is interested. >> Thank you, Miss Cton. Is there anyone else here who wishes to discuss an item not on today's agenda? If not, we'll move into our meeting. I'm going to make a slight change to our agenda and move um the elections to the uh to the front of the agenda. We have some members who have to leave early and I want to make sure we don't lose quorum before we get to the elections process. Um so, typically we hold elections in June. Um, but because uh my service ends in March, we'll need to have elections early to determine a new chair and vice chair. Um, so that's why we're doing this now. Um, Bum, is there anything you'd like to say before we or Miss Ashton, I wanted to note that your recently adopted rules of procedure say that you will hold an election annually in June. And so while we are having an outof cycle election today to cover the the remainder of June 25 to June 26 or July 1 to you get it. Um we will need to have a second we will actually need to have an election in June in part because the rules of procedures say to serve a one-year term. Uh but you can certainly make the same choices today that you make then. It doesn't have to change just because there's an election. >> Thank you. So, our um my last meeting will be March 10th. >> So, our new officers will take their positions on our March 24th meeting. So, with that, I'll let Commissioner Bernett come and get seated. We're holding elections. Um we'll start with Chair Do we have nominations for chair? I'd like to nominate Commissioner Atwell. >> I'd like to second that. >> Did you um Commissioner Neptune? No. No. Okay. Any discussion? Any further nominations? All in favor of Commissioner Atwell for our chair? That's unanimous. Congratulations, Commissioner Otwell. >> Thank you, Chair Bennett. Um, turning to vice chair. Nominations for vice chair. >> I'd like to nominate Commissioner Cochran. >> Second that. >> Any further discussion? All in favor? >> Unanimous. Congratulations, Commissioner Cochran. >> Thank you. >> Our new officers as of March 24th will be your new chair, Commissioner Atwell, and Vice Chair Cochran. Getting back to our agenda, um we'll move to the consent agenda. We have one item on consent, approval of the minutes from our February 10th meeting. Does anyone have any comments regarding the minutes? I had a couple. Um, on item E3, resoning Z3125 North Blunt Street. Prior to the the motion recommending denial, there was a motion that didn't receive a second. That's not included in the minutes. Should it be? >> Yes, it should be. >> Okay. So, we just add that one. And then according to my notes on the same case, those opposed were commissioners Shelurn, Walters, Atwell, and Fox. The minutes say Shelurn, Walters, Atwell, and Cochran. I just want to consern confirm that it was Commissioner Fox and not Commissioner Cochran. Okay. So, just uh we just need to change Fox to Cochran. Is there any anything else? If not, then with those noted changes, I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Do I have a second? Thank you. All in favor? Thank you. That's unanimous. Next, we'll move to old business. We have two items under old business. The first is comprehensive plan amendment CP 125 Monroe Road. Um, this item was deferred at our last meeting. We did not receive a presentation from staff, so we'll hear from hear that from staff now. >> Good morning, Chair Bennett, members of the planning commission. Matthew Barrens with planning and development. This is the first and only comprehensive plan amendment of 2025. This is a privately initiated request to amend map T1, also known as the street plan, um to relocate a proposed two-lane undivided street, which straddles the shared property line um in West Raleigh. Your deadline for action is April 27th. So here you can see the existing uh proposed street alignment on the left as well as the proposed alignment. So this request if approved would move the proposed street alignment further east onto the neighboring property. Here is a zoomed out view of the site just showing the uh street plan existing and proposed connections and similarly an aerial showing the street plan in context of nearby development. The area surrounding this comprehensive plan amendment request is characterized by being a healthcare and hospital hub near UNCC Rex and various medical offices. So, the site outlined in red uh has that's 411 Mon Pond Road. It's a 1acre parcel with an existing uh structure dating to 1909. And to the east is a just about 4 acre parcel which has a Duke Health medical office on it which dates to 2005. And it's a little bit hard to see, but the dashed line, which represents the Avenue, two-lane undivided, that's proposed, straddles the shared property line between these two properties. This aerial just shows nearby development plans for the Rex Hospital expansion, uh, Mon Pond Medical Office, and various, uh, NC State and State of North Carolina projects to the south and west of the site. And now I'll invite my esteemed colleague Carter Robertson with transportation to speak a little bit to the proposed street and the significance of the street plan. >> Thank you, Matthew. Good morning. U my name is Carter Robertson with the transportation department. Just wanted to give you all some extra information about what the purpose of this street plan street is and what the context uh of the surrounding network is. So, as Matthew's already shown, there's currently a proposed Avenue two-lane undivided running right along the property line between the highlighted parcel in red and the neighboring medical office to the east. Um, just north of Mon Pond Road is uh Rex Hospital property. Um, a portion of that has already been developed uh on the eastern side as you may see with Hopeful Drive and Lake Drive being already developed. I'll um come back to this soon, but we're we're anticipating um the rest of that parcel to be developed at some point and that street network to be built out. Looking south of the property, um Duke Energy has two properties de immediately south of the property in question and North Carolina State has a large property um to the south. Both of these are potential barriers um for the buildout of this connection in the short to medium term. But as we're thinking about the uh street plan, we got to remember this is a long-term plan as we look um forward to the future. And that brings me to the purpose of this um dotted line that you see here. An avenue two-lane undivided is classified in our UDO as a mixeduse street. And the purpose of these type of streets um are to connect those mix of uses in a developing area. And so this uh dott line came from the Arena Blue Ridge small area plan um which directly calls for a more interconnected pedestrian and bike friendly um network. But as it stands today um this area is generally pretty car dependent. uh large blocks. Most of the traffic is going to be coming on Edwards Mill and Blue Ridge Road. Those are our bigger streets uh four and six lanes that are going to be connecting different um parts of the of the city. Um, so this proposed street isn't going to be a parallel alternative route to either of those, but as we expect this block to uh densify um more office and residential mixed use coming in, um we want to have interconnectivity to serve uh the new residents and um visitors that come here. Currently, the block it lays on is re very very large. um bordering Edwards Mill, Mon Pond, Blue Ridge, and going all the way down to uh Reedi Creek on the bottom just offscreen. Um if we build out the street plan as it's um proposed right now with the extension of Lake Boone Trail and the construction of the um comprehensive plan street in question, we'd have a much neater um block of about 4,700 ft. And so to get back to how things stand today, um as I mentioned, just north of the site, the Rex Hospital property has been developing over the past few years. Um it was subdivided in 2018. Um the portion to the east was already developed. From what we see on the site plans and some conversations we've had with the um property, the comprehensive plan street um they're building out will be right here a bit east of that um that dotted line. And so essentially what this request would do would move the comprehensive line to align more with what we're expecting from the property to the north. And with that, I'll I'll be available for questions. I'll turn it back over to my colleague Matthew to um close us out. >> Thank you, Carter. So this request is consistent with various policies in the comprehensive plan uh especially transportation related policies uh which speak to preserving the grid and eliminating gaps and staff did not identify any inconsistent policies with the request. However, I'll note that UDO section 10.2.2E 2E requires that proposed amendments to the comprehensive plan constitute a substantial benefit to the city as a whole and not solely for the benefit of a single property owner. So while this request is consistent overall with the comprehensive plan and the intent of the street plan, it does not necessarily provide a substantial public benefit to the city as a whole. Your deadline for action is April 27th and please let us know if you have any questions. >> Thank you, Mr. Burns. Um, the applicant and those in support now have a total of 10 minutes. >> Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the commission. Isabelle Maddox here today. I've been working with Megan Pond Investors to request this comp plan amendment. Um, as the staff pointed out, um, and and I want to tell you that when I brought this initially, my request was to either relocate the street or eliminate it. Um, we do not desire to put all the burden on the adjoining property owner. Um, they made me choose one or the other and I chose relocate just knowing the city doesn't like to let go of any of those dash lines. So, I I would be happy and I think it's appropriate really for either and I think our engineer will testify to that. So, um this this request just nicks a little piece of the frontage of our site right in here. It mostly goes on the adjoining site and what we propose if it's relocated would be this where this dash line is. As you can see, this road on the Rex site, the Rex Cancer Center is over here to the far right, but they've built out what looks like the beginnings of a road. It's not a dedicated public road and it's certainly not built to city public street standards. I don't know how wide exactly it is. Probably 30 40 feet. Um I think it would be maybe required to be 60 feet if it were a public street. But you see how it lines up really not with this property but with the one to the immediate east. Um, and you know to connect it to make it jig over to our site, it would be a really, you know, this street to kind of come all the way over here would really be an awkward connection. Um, this is a better view of it. You can see the aerial shows where this beginnings of the road is here. It lines up really well with the the drive aisle of the parking lot serving the property to our immediate east which which is the the site of a Duke medical practice. Uh it's not owned by Duke, but it's owned by other investors, but they lease to Duke. Um again though, we're not trying to insist that it go there or or even go anywhere. And when I importantly there's no real street to be connected to south of our of this property. Um we got as as Carter pointed out there are obstacles to a connection with major parcels owned by NC State or state of North Carolina and Duke Energy. um neither of whom is likely to come in and build a road for the city in in this location. Um you can see state of NC down here. Duke Energy owns this rightway, but also this property here and this um you know Duke Energy not necessarily the easiest to work with in terms of something like this. No offense to Duke, but they're one of those entities if you come up against good luck. Um so for this particular property, this is a property, my client's property. It's a small property. Um and they have tried and we have gone to the city transportation and said, "Give us some definition, some certainty about this street, what are they going to be required to do here?" Um and they say, "Well, we can't give you an answer." I begged for an answer. No answer. Um they said, "Submit a full-blown site plan and and and maybe you'll get an answer." Even then, I'm not sure we would get one. And that, you know, site plan is fully engineered site plan is an expensive proposition. These guys are not developers. They're investors. They're older and they're approaching retirement. Some of them whom are already retired. They really would like to sell their property. They've had a buyer or two that have been interested, but once they hit this roadblock, uh, they leave because they think, well, this is an expense and it might decimate this small property. I'm not interested. So, we can't we're frozen. We can't do anything with the property until this question is answered. And this is why we brought this comp plan amendment to try to try to answer this question, resolve this issue. Um, you know, if we are going to relocate, the property to the east is better suited. Uh, that's where the majority of the road already is located. And it's a parking lot and drive aisle, which this would that would connect to if you connect to the Rex Road. And interestingly, this property has two of these dash lines on the streets plan running through it. One over here and this one. And so, it seems to me you're not going to do roads in both places. Uh, it seems to me, let's pick up a location and and only put one road on that property, not have them burdened with potentially two roads. Now, I don't know. They're probably a long way from redeveloping, but I if it were me or my client, I would not think having two roads dashed in across my property would be a very fair situation. Um, and I'm going to have my engineer, Bill Pyber, come up and testify, and I think I'll get him to do this right now just to discuss he's evaluated this from an engineering standpoint. Bill, And you can figure out where you're is that >> that'll work. That'll work. >> Uh good morning all. Uh Bill Pyiver, professional engineer, been in the site development business for 40 years, I guess it is now. Uh in looking at the site, number one, Mon Pond Road was built prior to the comprehensive plans decision to run this this connector street. The utilities along Mon Pond Road have been there for years and there's going to be some direct impacts if the intersection is revised from what is shown now. There will be a fire hydrant removal. No big deal. $10,000, $12,000 that can be accomplished. There's also a lot of cables and so forth that will probably have to be relocated because they'll be in in public right away after this road is extended. And there's several backflow preventers and so forth on the adjacent property to our east that will have to be relocated because they would be in public right away if the road is extended. Uh the intersection itself right now the road coming off of the Rex property. >> I'm going to go go to that. >> Okay. Well, I'm going to let you run that. Uh it's a direct connection into the parking lot entrance for the uh existing medical building to revise that and relocate it to the west as the plan supposedly calls for. No problem with the Rex employee parking lot. That's pretty much at the same grade, easy access and so forth. The parking lot on the left drops down. It's about 10 ft below the intersection. Will have to be basically a large corner of that removed. Phil brought in the road relocated so that it adjust adjusts just a little bit into our property. And you got to remember the two-lane undivided road is a 66 foot right away. So that's more than 30 feet on either side of the center line of that street. So there was no thinking when the site plans were approved of this extension. I think the assumption was Rex Road, which we've seen on some maps, was intended to come straight across and go directly down the parking lot of the medical building, if the extension is ever built. So, it anything can be built if you've got enough money, but money is a problem and it seems like an unnecessary expense at this point in time. Thank you. >> I'll wait right here. >> Yeah. So, just to conclude, um only a small portion of this proposed street crosses our property line, 411 Min Pond. There's already Rex Road, but across the street, which would which should probably define the location of the proposed road, which really goes across the property to our east. Um it's unlikely this road ever gets built because of the properties owned by Duke Energy in the state of North Carolina to the south. Um, and you know, really basically fairness. It's unfair to hold this very small property hostage when we've tried to get an answer about what the requirements would be. Uh, and and have been unable to do so without doing this process. So that's why we bring it here. Again, we don't want to impose unfair burden on the adjoining property owner. It does seem to make more sense based on the alignment of the rec. We call it the Rex Road. That's not really there's no real name, but that's but anyway. So, thank you. be certainly available for any questions. >> Thank you, Miss Maddox. Is there anyone else who wants to speak in support of this? >> Okay, then we'll move to the opposition. You have a total of 10 minutes as well. >> Good morning. Lee Singleton, um part of the ownership of 4101 Min Pond Road. Uh we've been in contact with the city. We could support closing this but we cannot support the relocation of it. This is a cancer center that we built many years ago in which we have a certain amount of parking that's required for it and this is being used. The relocation and redevelopment of this would be very cost prohibitive because of the what we had to do. This is they have a linear reacure reactor in this building which they treat cancer patients with. I can agree with the uh with the proponents that what's behind it to the south would being in the Duke station and the state of North Carolina property that this this uh street would probably never be built. But if we were to have this more located on our property, I think that it would impact our property in such a way that this building could no longer service the cancer people that it currently services. and I'm glad to answer any questions or anything you may have about this. >> Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak in opposition? >> Okay. Thank you. >> I just one followup. Um >> um you had 30 seconds left, so >> Okay, that'll be enough. All I wanted to say is the the way the city builds its roads, the the current owner and operator of this site to our east is not going to be required to build this now while they're operating this thing. It would only happen if they redevelop their site. So, I don't think we're anything would happen to disturb their current use of the property. Thank you, Miss Maddox. Bringing it back to the table um for commissioner questions and comments. We've had lots of discussions about dotted lines, haven't we, Commissioner O'Hver? So, I'm looking forward to the discussion. Mr. Fox. >> Um, I think it's probably a question for staff and I kind of know the answer because I was on the other side of the table when this plan was adopted, but can you walk through like the the amount of analysis or engineering that is completed to determine the precise location of the dashed lines on the map? Good morning, Margaret Tartala, transportation. Um, so the Blueidge corridor study, which became the small area plan that these proposed street plans are from, is was adopted in 2011 or 2012. Um, I won't tell you what I or my team was doing at that time. We were certainly not working for the city. Um, so we can't speak directly to what went into this plan. But generally for planning efforts, there's no engineering done. Um, you're looking at the network and those connections. Um, again, it's a long range plan. There's a lot of work that goes into feasibility work to make sure that streets can be built. Um, you may have noticed that the proposed street connection to the north is where it is and then the road was built to the east of it because of when the engineering was done, right? It was determined that was the better location and that's how we do any type of construction like this. >> Okay. At the time that that plan was approved and functionally moved the dotted line there, there's no requirement to go back into the comp plan and like physically move it at that point. >> Yeah, that might be a more of a question for comp planning and how they update the comp plan with >> to answer that question. This is this is the process where a an additional property owner would come in and ask you to move that line. So there's no there's not usually a city initiated reallocation of streets just because engineering has decided a portion of the dotted line needs to be elsewhere. >> Okay. So it's it's essenti this is my interpretation. It's essentially cleaning up something that had been approved to the north to align it is is how I'm interpreting it because there's a false specificity to the location of the line. The line's just kind of like a vibe, like it's hereish, but then when you actually engineer it, it might be a little bit to the east or a little bit to the west based on topographical features, utilities, etc. Is that kind of an accurate statement? >> Um, I would say the in terms of the cleaning up part like um figuring out where the road can actually go, that is true. I would say there is a small section of road that's already been built to the south of this parcel. Um, we couldn't find any information on when or why it was built there, but it does line up with the existing proposed street. So, do we >> Thank you. right there. Um, it's hard to see in the aerial, but there is, it's not to city standard, but there is a small section of street there. And I don't say that to sway you in either direction. just that it's really complicated when we get small developments and are doing trying to build streets peace mill to make sure that everything lines up. >> Thank you. >> While you're up there, um I have a follow-up question. Is it a is it common or even uncommon? Does it happen that when a property goes in for a site review, it might be determined that this dotted line that's actually on the neighboring property should be on your property and then they require you at that time because you're doing the engineering and this is the best place for it. Like it's right over the line, but you go for your site plan and they say this is a better connection is on your property now, so you have to build this road. Does that ever happen? >> I don't believe so yet. I might ask for help from Daniel King who is our development review lead. >> Mr. King. >> Hey, good morning. Daniel King, transportation. Um, during the site planning process, uh, a lot of things get analyzed. A lot of engineering is done. The determination for where these complane roads go is often shifted slightly uh during those processes. That's not an uncommon thing. Sometimes that involves property lines, sometimes it doesn't. Um that's one of the reasons why this is so difficult for us to do anything with and give feedback on without a site plan. Uh part of that is that we have no idea whether this property would become part of a larger assemblage which would change how that analysis will be be done uh or if it would be developed individually. >> Other questions or comments? Commissioner Neptune. >> Thank you. Um there was a comment made by I think staff uh our colleague from planning and development I think during the presentation. So it's a question about a comment made in terms of our consideration of the amendment. Something that we're trying to weigh is whether or not the amendment that's being requested would benefit the entire city versus a single property or property owner. And I think I heard staff acknowledge that at least from a staff perspective, this change would not necessarily be to the benefit of the entire city. Is that correct? Did I I just want to make sure I heard that correctly. >> Yes, that's correct. So, the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and the street plan overall as it would maintain uh the overall connectivity in the area if it were relocated. However, there is a requirement in the UDO that amendments to the comprehensive plan provide a substantial public benefit. >> How is that determined? That's substantial public benefit. >> It would be a a staff determination. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Other questions or comments? >> Um, no, Miss Maddox, we we're we not right now, please. Thank you. Um, other questions or comments from commissioners? If you have a question for the applicant, then we can ask that. >> I have a quick followup. I apologize for bringing transportation up again. Could y'all remind me of the minimum block perimeter standards that would be applied if this site would be developed and what impact would that have um separate from the street plan? >> Yes. So, most of the properties on this block are OX. And so in our table, the maximum block perimeter for that would be I believe around 300 3,000 ft 4,000 ft. And so separate from the comprehensive plan street um they would then be subject to those requirements. Right now they're on an oversized block. We'd look to see what uh connections could be made, but then they would also be subject to the exemptions uh listed in the uh 8.3.2. Right now, um the comp plan street itself is not subject to those uh exemptions. So, a little bit a little bit different uh in our analysis um for additional streets. With the comp plan street, we're really just looking at um as was mentioned earlier, all the complicated site plan determinations, but then also what tier of development it would be. >> Did I see other questions, comments? >> You have one more. >> I have more comments. >> Go. >> Thank you. I'll just keep going, I guess. Um, I have I'm deeply uncomfortable shifting the burden from one private owner to another private owner against their consent regardless of the actual um eventual engineering on the ground. What it will say, I'd be much more inclined to recommend removal of this segment than I would be to recommend shifting it to neighboring property. Um, according to the rules and procedures of the planning commission, we have to respond to the request before us. >> Um, >> that is correct. I I would recommend that you vote on and you make a recommendation to council based on the application in front of you. However, if you want to send additional comments to council of additional considerations that you think would be helpful for them in their analysis, uh, you are free to do that as well in in the motion. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Commissioner. I Well, pretty much said my comments verbatim, so >> I'll Commissioner Havery, you have nothing to say. >> I have lots of comments, but let's just keep moving. >> Okay. Um, Commissioner Fox, >> I just I just wanted to just clarify if if no one's redeveloping, the line is has no impact to them. It just sits there in the plan. Okay. And at the time at which one of the two properties redevelops, >> that is the time when the alignment of road segment and the geometry of the intersection would be determined. >> This was kind of a followup to a question I think you had, which was at that time does it shift the onus onto one property owner or the other regardless of which one is coming in with the plan? I think it's kind of what you were asking just to reword it that I think this particular case illustrates very well the problem that we've identified numerous times with how we implement these dash lines. So, I I I I don't like to remove connectivity, but I'm I'm actually inclined to vote in favor of where I think you are trending on it. That sending a message to remove it actually almost makes more sense. or if it's a city initiated project and this the city very much wants to make a roadway connection and an extension like that's a that's a completely different conversation. Um this is unusual in my opinion. U I'm but again if it just sits there it's not actually that impactful other than I do know from other cases it is impactful when you're when you're trying to um when you're trying to secure financing because it it looks like an incumbrance on your property. >> Yep. So all that is to say this is a complicated one and I'm inclined I I would probably be more in favor of removing just that segment because the likelihood of that connection to the south is is extremely unlikely in my opinion. >> Thank you Commissioner Fox. >> Commissioner Haver. >> Sorry I couldn't help myself. Um, but that's why I didn't make comment because I knew someone would be more articulate than I would. I I agree with Miss Fox. Um, I've had issues with these dash lines for five and a half years. I've sat on planning commission. Um, I'm I'm okay to remove it. I I I agree it's going to sit there until there needs to be some engineering and the and the road's going to go where it needs to go depending on what sits there. I just want to point out that we just spent 40 minutes talking about that dash line and we have another dash line going right through the middle of the building. So, I just I'm I'm okay with with whichever way the commission wants to move with this. >> Thank you. Any other questions or comments? If not, then um I will entertain a motion. And we're we're we're considering moving the dash line, not removing it. So, this motion is for what's before us, which is to relocate the dash line to the adjacent property. Um, I I move that planning commission recommend denial of the request and request council instead consider removal of the segment. >> Have a motion. Do I have a second? >> I'll second it. >> Um, any further discussion? All in favor of recommending denial and asking council to consider removal. All opposed. That was 921. And Commissioner Bernett, would you like to express why you were opposed? I just don't uh personally I just don't don't personally like the the incumbrance of the property owner and I think it leaves a lot of uh gray matter in what the what the future what the future of the property can be plus with the incurred cost um of engineering and so on and so forth could could skyrocket. So I just don't like that portion of it. >> Okay. >> Yes, Commissioner May. This is the King Charles proposal where somebody wanted to put No, this is making pawn road. Oh okay. Okay. So, um that was 9 to1 in favor of denial with Commissioner Bernett opposed. Our second old business item is King Charles Road. We received presentations from staff and the applicant. We heard from the public at our February 10th meeting. I'll ask staff for an update highlighting changes since our last meeting. Okay. That's the top. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Good morning, commission members. Mesh Broad presenting on Z4925. Um the request for 319 South King Charles Road. Um this is uh since your last meeting the applicant has uh updated coni uh conditions specifically added to which I'll get to in a second but just a refresher uh the request is to reszone 69 acres from R4 with N with an NCOD specifically the King Charles South NCOD to R six with conditions. Um another look at the site and where it sits. Um and then two updated conditions. Um conditions one and two remain the same prohibiting the subdivision of the site. um into no more than four parcels in the future as well as uh limiting development to the detached house building type only. And then the two new uh revised conditions are capping building height at two stories which is similar to what exists in the NCOD today. And then um requiring a minimum setback of 25 ft from the primary street for principal buildings. I'll note that um the agenda packet reflects unsigned conditions that had 30 feet, but since then we've received signed conditions reducing it to 25 feet. Um a look at entitlement, it does not change. It remains the same at four parcels um because of the first two conditions. Um but uh changes to the front yard setback are reflected here with that 25 ft from the new condition. Um the request is still consistent with the future land use map. um urban form guidance um and consistency remains the same because the site is residential. It is not eligible for a frontage type. However, it is within a frequent transit area and within close proximity to a future BRT station area along Newurn. Um and the request is still consistent with the comprehensive plan overall a number of policies that speak to compact development infill compat compatibility and then also increasing housing um and access near uh f future frequent transit areas. And then inconsistent policies that were identified speak to um the requests removal of other housing variety types that could be introduced by going to R six. Um no outstanding issues remain and then your deadline for action is April 11th and the applicant is also here. >> Thank you. >> We've already received um a presentation from the applicant and heard from the public but um let me check. Is there anyone here who wishes to speak on this item? I see one. Is there anyone else? Two. I think there's three. >> Three. Okay. I will um Are there three people on one side? Are you all in uh opposition? >> Okay. So, we have one here to speak in support and two in opposition. Okay. So, um I'll give another three minutes per side if that's okay with the commission. I think I'm supposed to without objection I'll allow another three minutes per slide. >> Thank you everyone. Good morning. Um so oh here we go. Um to just revisit the revised conditions um the 25 ft minimum setback is likely going to be further due to infill compatibility. So we will due to infill standards be somewhat bound by the homes that are built existing. So I think there's already thanks to infill going to be some some compatibility there and twotory maximum height. Um I'm not sure why my numbers are backwards at three in one but that should be four. Uh we did that to make sure that u neighbors and everyone knows that we want to match the NCOD. I wanted to give you a brief update on neighbor feedback as well. Uh I I don't know that it was mentioned in our first meeting but there was one commenter online uh who lives in the Long View neighborhood and was in full support. Um, no comments opposed on the online engagement portal. Um, uh, in addition to the mailers that we sent out, I've I've made a list. I've been able to have 29 conversations with neighbors, uh, or including six who didn't reply to my calls or texts, but, uh, 23 conversations. Uh, 16 of those were positive. Five of them were neutral or they didn't really indicate one way or another. They kind of were just like, "Oh, yeah, nice project. Okay." So, I didn't count them as positive. And then two negative who who are here to speak. Um, and on one of those actually I just was able to hear about um on on Saturday, so I wanted to on Sunday, but I uh the neighbors who are all immediately bordering my property as well as the one across the street who would presumably be the most impacted have all expressed support. Um Jordan was here at the last meeting to express support vocally. Uh the other two neighbors have not been able to be here in person. However, I have text messages and things that show their support from them. Um uh Mr. Hassel is here today and uh he and I just met on Sunday. He came over to my house and he shared some concerns that I wanted to just give you guys feedback on our discussion. Uh there was a list of items here and you can see the property site is here in the bottom left where Sarah and I live. Uh here's Jordan's house, the new one. And here's Mr. Hassel who I had not met yet until Sunday. So I'm glad at the very least that this project has introduced us. um he came and uh gave my dog some treats and we talked about UNCC basketball and among other things he told me that uh his main two concerns were um his his own personal privacy which I'm very sensitive to and also the removal of the NCOD setting a precedent for future properties. So just want to touch very briefly on those two things. Um Mr. Hassel expressed that specifically this if there were to be a few homes built here it'd be this one in the back that would look down over his property. Uh, and after he left, I I wanted to go on IMAPs and make sure I researched that so I could be sensitive to any issues that would be caused. Um, the distance to his back corner of his property is about 250 ft on IMAPs. Um, obviously this is not uh exact where we would build it, but plus or minus maybe 10 or 15 feet. Uh, and there's the brand new home that Jordan just built, which is 4,800 ft in the middle. Uh, two-story home. Uh, and this on the back of it is a fourcar garage. So, I I respect the concerns about privacy. Uh, Mr. Hassel and I spoke about how my wife and I want to preserve as many of these hardwood trees as we can on the back of the property. And um I'll be brief. Lastly, just the removal of the NCOD precedent. This is the only property of or one of the only properties that's not in the historic overlay. And um lastly, just the math about how these three new lots added would change the NCOD compliance from 59.34 to 60. I misspoke last time I was here. I said it'd be about a half a percentage point. So, I just wanted to correct my own math and say it would increase the non-compliance by 1.1%. And I apologize for going over. Thank you. >> Thank you. U next the opposition has three minutes. Uh, good morning commissioners and staff. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I'm Charles Hassel Jr. I'm a native Tarheel and have been a Raleigh resident since 1968. Uh, I've resided at 334 Golf Course Drive since 1993. Um my lot is well the dimensions that Mr. Madigan mentioned are probably correct. Second floor of the if there were four houses, probably three of them would be looking right down into my backyard and into my bedroom window. That was my part of my concern. Uh I didn't um receive notice of the neighborhood meeting probably because of faulty mail which is a problem and has been for a long time but Mr. Madakin um kindly agreed to meet with me privately and answer questions. Uh and I couldn't attend the February 10th meeting for medical reasons, but I did view the video and um uh Mr. Madigan indicated that of the however many notices were sent out, only four or five neighbors attended the neighborhood meeting. Apparently, he has visited some of them privately since. Uh at the last meeting, it was mentioned it'd be nice to see more neighborhood input. So, we have my neighbors and I canvas our neighborhood and we obtained sign statements in opposition 7 for 10 separate people recommending denial of the request. We agreed on the wording, so some of them are identical. I I made sets of the um of the statements and handed them up. my printer broke down so I only had two sets but you can certainly look at them and we would ask that they be made part of the record. Um so a little history might be helpful here. How did this in NCOD come about? Uh I recall some of the circumstances although I don't have a file any longer. I it's been 20 years and so I probably destroyed it with others when I retired in 2013. Um uh Mr. Anastasiatus and I make a total of 12 people that have indicated uh opposition. Um in around 2000 I became aware of discussions about some changes in this in the Long View area. We heard about somehow that a group of apartments, multi- um uh unit apartments over near Annlow High School had somehow gotten through and been >> That's the three minutes. I'm sorry. >> Done. >> Yes. >> I'm sorry. I would prepared something that was going to last for 10. >> When the case is first heard, 10 minutes per side, but when the case is first heard, you get 10 minutes per side. So, since this is the second hearing where we've already had public comment, it's up to the commission. However, if it's the will of the commission, we can grant a couple extra minutes per side so we can finish hearing your comment. It won't be 10 minutes, but we can give you a couple extra minutes. >> I would like the will of commission to give him more s time if possible. >> Okay. So, we'll give you another two minutes and then we'll give the applicant an additional two minutes as well. >> Thank you. Um, well, there's no question that the the proposal for four uh two-story houses on a 69 acre lot is totally different in character from what exists. Um, almost all of the uh properties in our neighborhood are one-story ranch or split split level on spacious lots. Um at the time that the NCOD was was um adopted by this county the city you do have a minute city comprehensive plan >> you have you have a minute and 20 seconds >> I'm sorry amount of time >> the city comprehensive plan and the future land use map designated it as low density or low scale residential. That hasn't changed. Uh we don't believe that applicants have identified any policy suggesting the reasonleness of removing that NCOD. It existed for 20 years and they haven't shown that it's inconsistent with the applicable land use policy that's been unchanged. We think we should be able to rely on it. Failure to to remove if removing it risk undermining confidence in the city. Um, at at the fir at the se February 10th meeting, the applicant showed some photographs of some sample houses that might fit in within what he's talking about. I happened to notice that I looked and I happened to notice that these prop three of these properties are on the market for prices from 1.2 million to 1.45 million. So the fact that four houses in that range can be built on that lot suggests that there may be uh some commercial commercial um >> thank you sir for your comments. We appreciate them. If you >> our request is that you not recommend approval of this. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Um the applicant now has an additional two minutes if you wish to respond. You don't have to use it unless you you would like to respond. Yeah, certainly. Thank you, Mr. Hassel. Good to see you again. Thank you for giving him extra time as well since he wasn't able to meet and I also went over um about the market value of other properties. Um that was definitely accurate. Some of those properties were in Oakwood and Mori and I think that these homes being on the market in our neighborhood would be dictated by what buyers would pay in our neighborhood. I believe it it would be these sorts of homes in our neighborhood would be much more likely to be in the 700 to 900,000 range. And again, not that that matters at all. Uh but uh just I think that's a note worth worth noting. Um and then lastly, I think there was a comment by Mr. Hassel that this does not is inconsistent with low-scale residential. I believe staff presented that this is consistent with low-scale residential. Uh I'm very aware that it's not consistent with removing NCODS. That's why we're here. And I think that um you know my wife and I Sarah did a lot of work be after we had our initial chat with staff about how there would actually be a lot of support for things like town homes or higher density where she and I wanted to self-limit something that we feel comfortable um you know Carrie and Aaron and other neighbors who are here uh would feel comfortable living there because my wife and I also want to live at this property long term and so we've really narrowed it down to four homes and I know there's been some discussion about going lower than that uh and this is kind of a perhaps maybe we should started higher if it was going to be a process of going down lower, but we feel uh you know very very um comfortable with the type of homes we want to build, the size yards and the the way we can add more density along the the BRT line walking distance away in a way that um isn't a huge disruption to the neighborhood like other nearby developments are. Um so thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Bringing it back to the table. Um questions and comments from commissioners. Commissioner Fox, >> it's a question for staff. Um, can you remind me how the infill compatibility standards work for front yard setback? >> Yes. Um, I I'll have to look exactly which section in the UDO they're in, but after talking with uh like current planning staff or the development staff um for our team, it's based on properties that have been like plotted for 20 years. And so most of the properties around the site minus the one immediately to the rear which was redeveloped I I think a few years ago it would the front yard setbacks would be in comparison to those properties. So the majority of the sites around this specific site >> and is is to match or it's within a percentage? >> It's within a percentage I believe. Okay. I can double check. Thank you. >> Other questions or comments? Okay, Commissioner Hab, you're looking at me like, do you >> Yeah, there do you have a question or a comment? >> Okay, if there are no questions. Okay. Commissioner Omay, >> I'm just wondering how much uh community engagement has been done uh with I'm sorry, I'm catching a code, so I'm trying to scoot away from everybody, but I'm just wondering how community engagement has been done with the client and with the community about this project. the applicant um could go back to that page that you had put up that showed >> because last last time nobody was like other than Mr. >> Yeah, he had a I hope I'm not saying your name wrong. Uh he showed up to speak about the project but nobody else did and now we have more people showing up to speak. So I'm just wondering initially or whatever how much community engagement was done about this project? Yeah, I I can't speak for Mr. Anastasia. Um, sorry, I don't know how to pronounce your last name, Christian, but um for me, it's just been uh anyone I have phone numbers, text messages for. I've reached out to people before they get their letters to say, "Hey, you're going to get a letter. If you have any questions, please let me know." My wife and I have a puppy, and if I don't walk her a few times a day, she will go crazy in my house, so I try to walk a lot. And anyone that I see out, we try to wave. We try to um chat with people. So, I'm not going around knocking on doors. I don't want to disturb people. However, I'm very much trying to be as transparent as I can. Uh, and so yeah, I could um also let them if other neighbors want to speak about what their conversations have been like, I can um let them walk the puppy. I have a cane corso, so I have to walk him because he's a moose. >> You had a slide that showed conversations you had had. That's And then there were how many neighborhood meetings as part of >> There's one one neighborhood meeting as required and then staff uh confirmed we would not need a second neighborhood meeting to do that. >> Were there any signs put around also? >> Yeah, there are the the signs have been put up on both. We're on a corner lot, so there actually two signs as well. And we we actually wanted to support a few candidates as well. So, we waited about a week before we put out any like county commissioner, city council signs to make sure that the reasonzoning signs didn't they weren't obscured or blocked in any way before we put out any sort of like political signs in our yard, of which there are two. And I made sure to space them pretty far away so there was no indication that there was any sort of lack of transparency with the the noticing to the neighborhood. Is there any way we can hear from the um community about whether or not they felt engaged? >> Um that would be reopening the public comment and we've closed the public comment. So what is your what's your question? Because I think they told us that they've spoken to the applicant. Okay. Can you repeat the question about >> um the public comment period is closed, sir. So now we're we're at the table. >> I'm sorry. I don't know what's happening. Um we're at the table now. So the public comment period is closed. So we don't ask questions from the She did, but it was not in order. So thank you. Are there any qu any further questions or comments from commissioners for staff or for the applicant? >> Commissioner O'Hver. >> Yes, ma'am. Can um can we follow up a little bit on the infield compatibility requirements? I know Miss Fox asked a question, but can I get a little bit better understanding about those requirements? Um, and I've had conversations with the applicant for just looking at GIS. Four lots does seem not necessarily I'm I'm I'm sensitive to the character and the of the neighborhood. Just physically I'm wondering how the infield compatibility requirements are going to impact this because four seems like a lot. Of course, across the street here at 317 South King Charles, there's two seems like there's two units on that single lot. So, I'm just trying to understand the impacts of the >> Yeah. >> the requirement. >> Um, so it's section 2.27 in the UDO if folks want to pull that up and read more. Um but for corner lots it's a comparative sample for three um lots and this is a corner lot and um I believe it's within 10% of the primary street back street setback for those sample uh lots. I'm not exactly sure um how that like which exactly like what the comparative sample is how that's chosen, but I'm assuming it's for that corner lot. It would be the three closest other single family detach duplexes near the site. >> Does that help clarify? >> That's the only requirement is just the adjacent units. There aren't additional setback requirements as part of the infill compatibility. >> Um no, not beyond like then what is required by the district. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> Um, Binham or um, Jennifer. Um, I'm always very sensitive to public comment and community engagement and I feel bad when we get out of order and we give an expectation to the public that we don't want to hear from them and that's certainly not the um, impression that I want to leave. Would you mind just going over please how our procedure works and once the public comment period is closed that we're no longer receiving comment. I just I feel bad and I don't want it to seem like I didn't want to hear from the gentlemen. >> Sure. So I I think I'd like to take a step back and talk more broadly about the reasonzoning process in general. So, uh, before an applicant, uh, can make a resoning request of the city, not only do they need to meet with staff, they need to hold a neighborhood meeting. So, that was completed for this request. After the request is filed, it's reviewed by staff and once it's filed, it's posted online in our engagement portal for community comment. Um and that uh information is also shared with folks. Is there a second meeting on this one? Um so so that they can participate online uh when we mail letters to give notice for the planning commission. Those letters uh include information about the online portal so that folks know what's ahead. There's posted notice on the sign in advance of the planning commission's first discussion and that mailed notice is also in advance of first discussion. So um before filing in person meeting held by the applicant during staff review online portal as well as you all receive many emails at all times during the process. Right. Um once planning commission review begins the emphasis is shifted towards inerson comment to the commission. Your uh legislative hearing as required by the unified development ordinance and regulated by your rules of procedure uh sets out 10 minutes per side for each request. So at your first discussion of this, you heard uh comments on both sides and then again today you added additional time to hear comments from both sides. You have received written statements today from Mr. Hassel. You've also been receiving some emails about this request. Um the process there has been thorough and very much in line with the city's expectations about how public comment would be received across the life of a resoning request. >> Thank you. >> And just one additional thought on process here up at the deis. Um once the public hearing is closed, we really should not be asking additional questions of members of the public. That hearing is closed. Um so to stay in line with our normal process, um when the hearing is open, that would be the appropriate time to ask questions of members of the public. >> Thank you for that. >> Are there any additional questions or comments um regarding this case? Yes, sir. Commissioner Walters. So if I remember correctly from the last last time we met and talked about this uh there was I think the primary focus was around the NCOD setback on King Charles and maintaining that with the information that we received today from staff about the infill requirements um kind of understanding that the we'll be within 10% of the consistent line of the adjacent neighbors I feel like that satisfies ides the concern that I had that was related to the 60 foot setback around the um NCOD and um as I look at the kind of growth patterns in this area and BRT and the really really I mean we were talking about dotted lines in the last case and and now we have a a buffer offset of this frequent transit area that comes so close to this property. I feel like the highest and best use of this property um fits very closely with the applicant what the applicant is proposing. >> Commissioner May, >> I don't think my concern was uh properly addressed in the last meeting. It wasn't setbacks, it was transitions. So my concern was that we're going to build something in a space where people don't have privacy. Privacy is important to me. As much as I think it's important to everybody on this commission, whether it's fences or trees, we don't want people looking our backyards into our windows. We are we all got our naughty bits that we doing. So I'm wondering if there is like what the transition from this property to the other properties especially if we're building a bunch of properties on on a small land is >> would staff like to address commissioner's um question about transition >> are you speaking specifically about landscaped so like >> landscape space all of that >> um so there are some might be helpful to show this um some requirements for let me pull up my slide and then I'll talk. Sorry. That's the wrong presentation. Okay. Um I pull this up just to show the requirements for like side street um and also like side lot setbacks. So there will be some like I guess like space between the future sites. And then in terms of like landscape buffering um there is 10% like TCA preservation or requirement for zoning districts. Um I think that's as specific as I can be. There are no like specific requirements for like landscape buffers. um in the R six district currently. >> Is there a possibility for landscape buffers? Because if we're building this in the space, is there a way that we can make sure that if this has to happen that neighbors have some sort of privacy trees or anything like that? Like the gentleman was stating, he can go in his backyard. They'll be looking in his backyard at some point. >> If the applicant adds any additional conditions, it'll have to happen before council. We only get one opportunity at the planning commission for the applicant to um change conditions. So, we're going to have to vote on the conditions before us today. We can make a recommendation that when it goes to council, council consider landscaping if we want to do that, but he would have to do that when it goes before council. >> Okay. But I I did say that at our last meeting. My concern was transition. So, is the can we at least ask the applicant is he willing to add Sure, we can ask the question of the applicant. >> Well, look, just as I said before, the public hearing's closed. So, um, as Chair Bennett has stated, you have to vote on the application in front of you. That motion could in could include additional requests that council consider it once the application moves up to the council level, but as of right now, your vote today is on the application in front of you and the conditions in front of you. I will add vote that the application as transitions and I will also show up to city council to make sure you do so because you have neighbors and nobody wants their neighbors peeping on them. >> Okay. Thank you for for that comment. Um Commissioner Cochran, Commissioner Atwell. Okay. Commissioner Uwell and then Commissioner Cochran would like Oh, wait. Do I see Commissioner Bernett's hand up? >> No. Yes or no? Okay. Okay. Just a reminder, too, we're still on old business. We have four new business. >> I'll make it quick. Um, >> at the last at the last meeting, I expressed concerns about removing this property from the NCOD for the sole purpose of not having to deal with the NCOD to do development. Um I I think with the the conditions that have been offered and the even more importantly the setback or excuse me the u infill requirements for transitions will require farther bigger setbacks than what's uh listed in the conditions and I think for small houses approximating the setback of what's around them will fit with the neighborhood a lot more than what's going to happen if we if this resoning is denied. and the lot is filled to capacity with a really really big house like what happened next door next door house might be have the setback but it doesn't fit the community character and that's what we'll get if we don't have the opportunity to build smaller houses so I'm I'm ready to support this >> other comments okay commissioner Cochran I will entertain a motion >> oh wait do you have a question okay >> Commissioner Cochran >> so Commissioner well summarized my feelings to that I felt the conditions that they came back with were in the spirit of complying with UD 1.1 protecting neighborhood identity and I'm prepared to make a motion. >> Motion second. >> Oh, she hasn't made the motion yet. >> Yes, but I'm ready to >> Can I? >> Yes, you can make your motion. Uh, I move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated February 24th, 2026 contained in the agenda materials and the recommendation. Oh, sorry. And to recommend approval of the zoning amendment for zoning case Z4925. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Uh, I just want to see conditions added to make sure we're protecting the property from his neighbors. >> Okay. Do you wish to add that to your motion? >> We can note that Commissioner Omai would like to recommend a buffer condition. However, my um recommendation thinks that the current zoning for R six is sufficient. So then I think what it sounds like unless we want a different motion then it sounds like commissioner's comment will be noted as part of her descent is okay unless there is a desire for an amendment to the motion. Okay, your motion stands. Commissioner Neptune second stands. Can we I'm sorry. I'm still understanding. Is there no space in the commission to have a motion to amend to have transitions added? >> But it will pass regardless of whether or not I say I want. Okay. >> Is there any further discussion? All in favor? All opposed. That's nine to one. And we'll note that Commissioner Omay wishes to see transitions and a landscape buffer. Is there anything else? Commissioner May, >> I I I don't necessarily like the precedence this sets in the community where it's at. And I would love to see buffers. I wish more people cared about what was going on in that area and made sure that the community was uh protected as much as they would want to be protected in their community. >> Thank you, Commissioner May. Moving to new business. Um, we have four items under new business. Our first item is resoning Z3625 Page Road. We'll hear from staff. >> Good morning, chair and commission. Uh, my name is Jacob Hunt with uh Raleigh Planning and Development. Um, for you today is resoning Z3625. Um this is uh 3651 and 3703 Page Road. The request is to reszone approximately a 1acre par property um from Durham County rural residential zoning to Raleigh um uh industrial mixeduse threetory zoning. Um deadline for action is April I believe 25th actually. Um so the zoning in this area is predominantly um like I said industrial mixed use. Uh and then to the west is Raleigh or sorry Durham County's rural residential zoning and to the south is Kerry office and research development zoning. This site six it's right at the corner of three municipalities. Um an aerial shot kind of shows you that difference. Um to the west we have long range plans from Durham County for mixeduse residential neighborhoods from Kerry to the south um industrial office and then this area is also institutional and office. Um to the south of this site is a beverage distribution company and to the east is a mixture of some light industrial warehouse uses. Um on the site on the ground today, um there are two detached dwelling units and you can see the site does not quite come all the way to um World Trade Boulevard. Um this is a general use resoning today, so there are no proposed conditions with the application. It would just fall under I3. Um, under the con existing zoning, um, there's really only, although two units on site, um, if it were to be redeveloped, only one unit would be possible to construct. Um, under the proposed resoning, there could be a maximum of 29 units, but EX has a number of restrictions on residential development. Um, it can only be on upper stories of mixeduse buildings. Um, setbacks would decrease from the rural residential nature of the site. today. Um, office, retail, and industrial uses would be uh much more permitted under an ex zoning than the existing residential rural. Um, this site has a lower walk score than average, lower transit score, lower bike score. Um, it does not have access to transit from this site and there are no sidewalks fronting on Page Road. Um there is a high proximity to jobs and so the cost between the site and accessing jobs is lower and thus a higher transportation cost index. Again no transit within walking distance of the site. Um this site although does not typically develop with intense residential uses would theoretically add to the housing supply. It does not include any subsidized units would pro does not permit a variety of housing types. Only um in a mixeduse building could there be any housing. Um but they would be possibly smaller units. Does not include smaller lots and again not walking distance of transit. Um this area is more likely to be racial minorities than the city average. Um and less likely to be low income. Um this request is consistent with the office research and development future land use map and with the surrounding zoning. Um there's no urban form designation for this site. Um staff finds this consistent with the comprehensive plan, the future land use map and the urban form map. Um those consistent policies include reinforcing the urban pattern. Um there's site is surrounded on most sides by ex zoning today. Um it would allow for retail uses in an area that could support the existing industrial and office space and um is an appropriate spot for the location of industrial areas due to their founding nature. Um this site um like many does have impacts that relate to fire response times. Um deadline for action is April 25th. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> The applicant and those in support have 10 minutes. >> Yeah. If if you want to >> note this is the beginning of the public hearing. So 10 minutes for each side. Good morning. How's everybody? Um, Chris Miller. Uh, I don't really have I I just want to open up for questions if you guys have any questions. Uh, the area is surrounded by other industrial uses and this is a kind of a weird area. It's a Morrisville address. Um, bordered by Kerry on the south with their expansion. uh you know it's in Durham County but it has to be annexed and then go into a reszoning from an RR standpoint into this EX-3. So um I think it fits the area and I fits uh what the density of of different development is in that area. So want to open up if you folks have any questions. >> We'll reserve your time. You have 9 minutes and 18 seconds left. We'll go to the other side and then if we have questions for you, you still have time to answer. >> Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Um, are there others here who wish to speak in support of this item? If not, we'll turn to the opposition. You also have a total of 10 minutes. >> Okay. No one for the opposition. So, do we have questions of the applicant that can utilize his remaining nine minutes? Yes, Commissioner Neptune. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Just uh I wanted to say thank you to the applicant for spending time with us at the commission this morning. So, thank you for being here. >> Other questions of the applicant? Commissioner >> Mayon, >> can you speak into your microphone, please? >> The inconsistencies of zoning and infrastructure impact. Can you explain that? >> No, no, not yet. That's staff. We're doing the applicant with his nine minutes left because then I'm going to close it and we'll bring affordable housing on the project that you're building. I'm working with a couple of developer developers to try to figure out what the best use of the property is. I haven't determined exactly what's going to go on the property yet. >> Are you willing? >> Am I willing to do Yes. >> For real? >> Yeah. Whatever whatever I'm directed to or whatever the the people I'm working with, they say the best use of the property is, I'm going to look at those opportunities. Are you going to look at the needs of the community around the property that you're developing and determine regardless of what they're saying? Will you look at the needs of the community around the property that you're developing and communicate with them to >> I think I'm doing that at this point to look at all the properties around there and see what the best use of this property is for the area. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Thank you, sir. >> All right. Thank you. >> Are there other questions for the applicant? Okay. Commissioner Makaya, you had a question for staff about inconsistent infrastructure. >> Yeah. What when they say there's an inconsistency in zoning infrastructure impacts, I get response time standards, there's inconsistency there, that is concerning to me to be honest. If something happens on the property, how can people respond? How does our first responders, our police, our fire department, our medics respond and have the ability to do so if they're not close to the property? Um whether there's affordability or not there. But what are we speaking about as far as zoning infrastructure impacts? >> Yeah. So the inconsistency around zoning infrastructure impacts and response time standards is due to um specific require or not requirements but um goals that the fire department has in mind for um responding to incidents at different locations. Um the issues with this today are a six minute or less travel time for the arrival of the second company and an eight minute or less travel time for the deployment of an initial full alarm assignment um for fire suppression incident. So it's really um not that they wouldn't arrive but they have goals that they would like to meet and this site does not fall within those um objectives. >> So what infrastructure >> uh uh impacts? Yeah, it's those fire response time standards. So, >> they all >> um Yes, that's that's the inconsistency all around is due to that uh response time standard. There's not an additional um zoning or infrastructure impact that's being considered for that inconsistency. >> Commission Jacob, could I Okay, >> I'm getting it. >> Uh you can go ahead. >> Yeah. Uh, Jacob, could I ask if that inconsistency is happening right now on site with the current condition? >> Uh, yes. It's related to distance from existing fire stations. So, this does not make that more inconsistent necessarily. >> Thank you. >> Commissioner um Oh, Haver, I'm sorry. >> You're good. Thank you. Uh, I don't I don't have any issues with the reasonzoning. I'm just I'm just curious our role in deciding annexation for the city. I mean, I guess we're looking at the zoning, but what's our role? Isn't that a council? >> It is. >> Yeah, that would be that would be a council decision. So, you all are only providing recommendation on the resoning. Yes. >> Commissioner Omay. And then Commissioner Fox, did you have a question? >> So, I understand that we're trying to annex this into Wake County or Raleigh. >> That's not what we're voting on. We're voting on the resoning and then council >> with the reszoning need of it. Is it to be reszoned because it said he said Durham County so is it to be reszoned into Raleigh? >> Yeah. So the city of Durham and the city of Raleigh have a shared annexation agreement that is renewed every uh 10 or so years. And there is a small portion of land in Durham County that has been mutually identified by Durham and Raleigh to be annexed into the city of Raleigh. It would be in Durham County, but in the city of Raleigh. There's similar situations between Orange and Durham counties, between Durham and Chapel Hill. The logic there is really about which way water flows and who is best able to provide water and sewer service. So this these parcels are in that area in Durham County which can best be served physically by City of Raleigh infrastructure. >> So that means City of Raleigh residents will be paying tax dollars to support this project unless it's annexed. >> I I don't understand your question. So, you're saying this is a Durham County project that's that they're here to the city of Raleigh to talk about annexation. >> The request in front of you today is a request for resoning. When the resoning is in front of council, they will be considering simultaneously a request for annexation into the city of Raleigh. >> Right. But does that mean that in the space that we're talking about right now where it's not in the city of Raleigh, we would vote potentially to reszone something that could cost Raleigh taxpayers. >> So the property can't be reszoned unless it's first annexed. Your review is in anticipation of council's consideration of both the annexation and resoning. The property owner would pay property tax that would be distributed to Raleigh. The um property, yes, Raleigh service would be provided to this property, but it would be paying tax to the city. >> They would be paying tax to us like Okay. So, just so I'm clear, I'm just making sure I understand before I vote because I I like to have make, you know, informed decisions. So, we're saying that if we vote on this project today, yay or nay, say yay, and it goes to city council, they're bringing to us a project that's not within the city limits that then would possibly cost city taxpayers money. But if it goes to city council and they say yay and approve the resoning, then Raleigh taxpayers aren't paying the taxes for what they're talking about. It would then go to Durham County. I just want to make sure that we're not supporting a project that's not in our county that we going to pay taxes for because I don't want to pay taxes for that. As Binham stated, the city council will be reviewing at the same time an annexation request, which will go first on the agenda and then a resoning request. If for some reason the annexation were not to be approved by council, the reasonzoning would not be approved. So your recommendation today to council is just on the resoning and you're not approving a project. Council won't be approving a project unless that annexation goes through. Once the annexation goes through, then as Binham stated, that project would be paying city tax dollars to pay for the city services being provided to it. >> Thank you. >> Are there additional questions or comments? >> You had a you had a question, didn't you? >> Uh, at the appropriate time, I'm just ready to make a motion. >> Okay, I'll entertain a motion. >> Okay. In regards to case Z3625, I move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated February 24th, 2026 contained in the agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. Do >> you have a second? >> Second. >> Well, we had a lot of seconds. I heard Neptune first, so I'll give it to Commissioner Neptune. Is there additional discussion um before we vote? Okay. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Moving to our next case. Um Z3825 Trailwood Drive. Your presentation from staff. >> Still me. Um still Jacob Hunt, still with Raleigh Planning and Development. Still good morning. Um this is resoning Z3825. um a reszoning of three sites along Trail Drive on both the west and east site side sorry of Trail Drive. The request is to reszone um about 14 acres um from our six residential six conditional use that's on the west side um and R4 residential 4 with a special residential parking overlay district two um residential mixeduse three stories with conditions. Um your deadline for action again is April 25th. Um the zoning in this area is predominantly a mix of R10 um office mixed use and residential 2. Um closest RX3 zoning is about 150 ft to the west of this site. Um I will note the R4 zoning to the south of the site on the west side was recently um recommended for approval um by this body. Um the aerial of the site, you can see a Centennial campus to the east. Um predominantly low-scale residential to the south on Trailwood Drive, um the Walnut Creek Greenway, and then there is um like I said, mixed use, um to the north along Avent Ferry Road. Um you can see the west side of the street from Trailwood here, um including the existing greenway that is on the northern portion of this site. And then this is the lot that is on the east side of Trailwood Drive. Um on the west side of Trailwood Drive, there's no existing um property, but on the east side or no existing um development, but on the east side, there is a single detached residential building. Um proposed conditions for the site include a connection to the existing Walnut Creek Greenway to any sidewalk network on the western portion of the site and um a requirement that any parking um shall not be prohibit permitted between a trail drive and a building or an apartment building I should say um with if that building is within 50 ft of trail drive. Um under the combined existing zoning today on the site, a maximum of 56 units could be constructed. Um under the proposed zoning, um we find that there's a possibility of 257 units. Um setbacks would be reduced under the proposed zoning from a mix of 20 to 40 um down to five and then 30 to 20 to between zero and six. Um transportation and energy analysis. Uh, this does have a higher walk score than average, lower bike score, um, but higher transportation, sorry, lower transportation costs, higher transportation cost index, um, and a higher proximity to jobs than average. Um, this site's served by a few both different bus services and lines. Um, both route 11 and 11L are maybe a quarter of a mile or so north of this site. Um, route 11 runs between um, West Trolley and downtown and Route 11L does a loop in West Trolley. Um, this site is also served by three Wolf Line bus service routes that run near and around um, State campus and those are open and usable by the public at large. Um, this request would add to the housing supply. It does not include any subsidized units. would pro permit a variety of housing types, would allow for smaller lots and units, and is is within walking distance of transit. Um, this site sits on the border between two uh census tracks, so that's why you have two numbers here. But, um, for both, uh, residents are less likely to be racial minorities and are more likely to be low income compared to the city average. Um this request is inconsistent with the low-scale residential designation which anticipates densities up to R10 along the um frequent transit designation of the urban form map. Um RX3 is only appropriate under the future land use when it fronts a frequent transit street. So that would be a ferry and this site does not have frontage on avent ferry. Um there is not a frontage design designation included with the S application. Um the frequent transit area does recommend a urban or urban limited frontage. Um staff finds that the application is consistent with the broader comprehensive plan although it is cons inconsistent with the future land use map. Um those consistent policies speak to cont compact development, um especially capitalizing on transit access, um providing a variety of housing, um infill compatibility, uh greenhouse gas reduction by um allowing for apartments and town homes, things like that, zoning for additional housing, and um transit infill as this is part of a frequent transit area. Um those inconsistent policies include the future land use map inconsistency and then again the zoning and infrastructure impacts related to fire response time standards. Uh your deadline for action is April 25th and as part of this application if approved um it would include a future land use map amendment which would um change this designation to moderate scale residential. Thank you. Thank you. The applicant and those in support have 10 minutes. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Bennett, commissioners. Molly Stewart, Morning Star Law Group, here on behalf of the applicant, Floresa LLC. I have with me uh some other members of the project team, Jason Meadows from RDU Consulting, as well as Daniel Watley from Withers Ravenel, both engineers on the project, as well as Travis Fluitt, a traffic engineer from Kimley Horn in case there are questions relating to traffic on Trailwood Drive. I'll begin with a quick uh additional orientation. The three uh parcels are outlined in yellow here. And this aerial just shows the general character of the area surrounding that intersection of Trailwood Drive and Avent Ferry Road. This is the zoning map. I will note I've left off the uh special residential parking overlay district because it covers the entire map that would be on your screen and doesn't add additional information. Um but you do see here that NCOD on trailwood nearby but not affecting the site. uh as well as uh the mix of zoning districts along avent ferry road. Uh and I've also included some photographs to start to give a feel for that character. Uh as as you heard uh this Z2925 immediately to the south of the site uh came before you at your very last meeting was unanimously recommended for R10 zoning. U making RX3 the requested district here that logical step between R10 zoning and the OX3 to the north. RX3 is not an uncommon district in this area. Again, no no overlays on this uh version of the map, just to highlight that. But RX3 is uh relatively common in the area. The entire site is within that frequent transit area u making it as urban as land gets outside of our downtown core, making this hole in the city's fabric all the more surprising. What you see on this map are a few things. The area in gray is the city of Raleigh and you see that backward L of the Trailwood area um in a lighter color. That means it is outside of the city. That is Wake County um still within the belt line um and primarily within the frequent transit area including this site. Um but uh an unusual location to have Wake County property. The city's street map does recommend a very urban street type which would start to be built out as projects are reszoned and redeveloped. Uh and you see here uh separate bike bike bike lanes and uh and sidewalks above the curb as well as street trees and a median andor turn lane in the center. Uh as as you heard there's a lot of infrastructure in this area. So the Wolf Line serving uh Avent Ferry immediately north as well as Go Raleigh lines. The Aan Ferry small area plan uh begins to acknowledge all of that transit as well as the existing greenway and knit that back together with some increased pedestrian infrastructure as well making a true urban transit corridor in this area. There is a need for housing in this area and it is not being produced under current policies along the Trailwood and Tanager area. So on this 113 acres um that we have heard defines the neighborhood uh since 2000 in this century seven new housing units have been produced. Uh unsurprisingly these are expensive units. They uh are on large lots. They are very well located, very conveniently located and served by quite a bit of urban infrastructure. Um so this result is unsurprising. This slide I have borrowed from city of Raleigh staff who presented this this month to the city council. Um highlighting that more housing uh improves rents, lowers rents um in the city and that Raleigh has been doing a very good job of that. Uh also affecting homelessness and you see that image there of uh the game of musical chairs where simply providing more chairs um eliminates those not finding one. A slight bit of background. This site uh does have a current and approved site plan uh that already exists on the site under its current R six zoning. That approved site plan appears here on the left side of your screen that shows 40 town homes. Uh and and you see how it relates to that floodway and flood plane that exists on 1000 Trailwood Drive, the northern parcel. This is all of course on the west side of Trailwood Drive. uh this approved site plan does not extend to that parcel to the on the east side. Um but this is what's what's here today. I want to take a slight detour to address uh a letter we're aware of that was submitted by the partners for environmental justice. Um there are some puzzling aspects to this letter and some very concerning aspects to this letter. I'll note that uh toward the beginning of the letter, it states, "Our reasonzoning committee has reviewed concept plans for the property and has concluded that the proposed resoning would likely result in negative impacts for Walnut Creek and nearby community members. I just want to be very clear, there is no concept plan for this property. We are not sure what was reviewed in connection with this letter uh or how these conclusions were drawn. um that simply doesn't exist. The plans that are out there are this approved plan under existing zoning today that you see on your screen. Perhaps that's what was reviewed, in which case obviously not relevant to this request to reszone the property. Um or potentially there were concept plans prior to this that have been superseded by this approved site plan. Um those are the plans we're aware of. We do not know what was reviewed to to reach the conclusions in that letter. Uh the letter further states that the change in zoning from RX to or from R six to RX3 um poses increased storm water impacts to Walnut Creek and flood risk for neighboring communities. Again, this a local flood study has been completed reviewed by city staff and approved in connection with this approved site plan under current zoning. That study indicates there would be no such increase under the site plan approved today. We're not aware of any way in which the proposed zoning would change that. Um, the way our storm water and our flood plane are regulated, it is a separate regulatory scheme, not dependent on whether you are zoned R six or RX3. We look forward to hearing what difference that would make. But the true focus of this letter is stated in its concluding paragraph, which states, "We do not believe this parcel," referring to 1000 Trailwood Drive can be developed in a sustainable way that can meet high standards for environmental protections. In short, the letter seeks to prevent development of a parcel. It does not address the reasonzoning request before you today. Um, obviously, as you see on your screen, uh, portions of the site, uh, can be developed today, portions cannot, uh, and that that won't change. Uh, so, so we just wanted to make sure that all of that is very clear. Um, what would change on development of this site is accessibility of trailwood by means other than a car. These highlighted parcels for the bottom of your screen are those Z29 parcels that were in at your very last meeting recommended for R10 zoning. Uh development of that site would require a new sidewalk and bike path along the front of that uh site, but it would not connect up to a Ferry Drive unless this site were to develop as well um and and finish that connection. I want to highlight on your screen uh at at the top of Trailwood Drive. There is a crosswalk uh right in front of the Ardan Apartments that are on the east side of Trailwood Drive. This is that crosswalk and you see that it connects directly to the greenway. Uh but if you did want to continue down Trailwood Drive on that side, there is nowhere to go. Uh whether you are a cyclist or pedestrian, it is quite challenging. And then looking due south on Trailwood, you see that that sidewalk that exists in front of the Ardan Apartments uh simply stops uh that would be continued um with our third parcel that is on that side of the street. um starting to open up Trailwood Drive uh to other forms of transportation to people who are not in a car and avoiding the situation of having a a vehicle only enclave here at this uh this inside the belt line location that is very well served by public transit. Um and with that uh I will close and reserve the remainder of my time to respond to any comments. Thank you. >> Thank you. Are there others who wish to speak in support of this item? Okay. The opposition now has a total of 10 minutes. >> Hello there. Good morning. Uh my name is John Totten. I live at 1132 Trailwood um within 500 feet of this development. I'm here on behalf of the Trailwood neighborhood to ask you to deny Z38 2025. Our attorney will address the technical reasoning or zoning issues. I want to focus on three things. Uh consistency with the comprehensive plan, the public interest, and the lack of credible development plan. First, comp plan consistency. The future land use map designates this area as low-scale residential. The applicant is seeking RX3 zoning with overlay district bonuses. While they've stated a goal publicly and on record um and in an article and and publication, uh they are asking for 150 residences um and three stories. The transit uh overlay district bonuses could allow four to five stories and over 200 units. that is not low-scale residential. Eight of the 12.5 or 13.8 acres, depending on uh whose information you're using, sit in a flood plan and are virtually unbuildable. This means concentrating 150 to 200 plus units on approximately five buildable acres in an environmentally sensitive area. This intensity is inconsistent with the uh frequent land use map designation and inappropriate for this site. Second, the public interest of our good faith efforts. This is the third time the neighborhood has negotiated in good faith with developers on these properties. First the two properties 1 and 1100 and now with 1017. In 2010 we supported a 13 home sustainable development it fell through. Most recently 2023 the same applicant Floresa LLC sought resoning under Z23 or 2020 or 2223. Um after extensive negotiations, we agreed to a plan that allowed for 40 town homes when they were originally asking for or limited to 56. Um so that came down to 40 uh and the and our zoning six uh or R six zoning with special conditions. Both planning commission and city council approved it. Floresa walked away from that. Uh we received little information in terms of explanation on this matter. Um uh given the history, it's clear the developer is ignoring previous negotiations and pushing towards maximum density. Each iteration increases the scale from 13 homes to 40 homes to now 100 to 200 plus uh units. This is not a plan that balances growth with the voices of long-term existing uh property owners. We support the development of this property as we clearly have three times. Uh we've proven that um um but we cannot support a proposal that lacks spec specifics on density and height especially when the majority of acreage sits in a flood plane. The transit overlay district bonuses mean we do not know if the units will be 150 or 200 plus. Uh the uh applicant had mentioned 257 units um as being the max. We don't know if it's going to be three stories or five. Uh third, the environmental impact. This site contains a mature sensitive oak forest that provides critical ecological value with almost 8 acres of 12.5 acres in a flood plane. The proposed scale uh would force massive density onto an appropriate approximately 5 acre buildable area requiring extensive clear cutting of this mature forest. The lack of meaningful tree conservation conditions and environmental protections is unacceptable for site um this sensitive. For these reasons, we ask you to deny the application under a fair and reasonable set of coni until a fair and reasonable set of conditions has been committed to by both parties. The neighborhood has negotiated in good faith three times. We need a developer willing to do the same. This is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan's low-scale residential designation and is not in the public interest. We respectfully ask that you deny Z28 2025. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. like to get your Back up. Yours back up, please. >> Oh, okay. Yeah, >> I'll take it from there. Thank you. Uh, my name is Ben I'm an attorney currently with Ragsdale Liot in Raleigh. I'm here on behalf of the Trailwood Drive neighbors um who were opposed to this. I would ask all who are here in the Trailwood Drive uh neighborhood community who are opposed to this to please raise your hand or stand if you're able. That's not everybody in the neighborhood, but that's a significant amount of people who came down here at 9:00 uh to meet at this meeting. They are very concerned about this. This property um ha h has been undeveloped uh for a long time because it's just a terrible piece of property to develop. It just is. And so they're making trying to make make chicken salad. Okay. And and that's what they're doing. They couldn't do it with 40 units. Uh but now they think they can do it with 257 units. Um they say the staff says it's uh consistent with the comprehensive plan. Um it is if you only limit that view to whether it increases housing or not. And that's a very low bar when you think of the comprehensive plan as something that's four, five, 600 pages. that has an enormous amount of policies that are there to protect neighborhoods like this one and nothing in there about the NCOD preservation and conserving the neighborhood identity. Nothing in the staff report about that. It increases housing and it's quote unquote close to transit. Nevertheless, it's inconsistent with urban form map. It's inconsistent with the future land use map. It is not located with the transit overlay district. It is apparently just barely located within a frequent transit area, but not the site is not located within a quarter mile of a bus stop. Third mile away, this development or whatever development they may propose might look really good if it was on Avent Ferry or Gorman, but it's not. That's where the infrastructure is for this project. It's not on Trailwood Drive. Treywood Drive is a like it or not, it's a rural undeveloped enclave, not undeveloped, lightly developed enclave at R2 uh and R4 for the predominant balance of it. Um this is shoehorning development in uh to make a project work for this developer because apparently it won't work with his prior resoning. That's not your fault. It's not my neighbor's fault. That's his fault. I'm just going to be flat out honest with you. This is a serious policy question because what you do impacts people in the way they live on that street. This should have been laughed out of the room when it came to staff in terms of consistency with the comprehensive plan. It's not even close. Other than the fact it adds more housing. If that's all you want, then just tell everybody noods and conservation of neighborhoods really doesn't matter so long as you can just put more housing. Meanwhile, there are sites for density along Newurn Avenue at Moore Square that would invite a developer to come down there and put more density where there's infrastructure in place to handle it, where housing is needed, where transportation is located to handle this type of density. It's not here. So, you know, I could get up here and but this is just a policy question. It's a high level issue. What are you going to do? I mean, if if he's going to lose money in developing 40 units based on the existing zoning, is that your problem? Is that the city's problem? It's not. It's the neighbor's problem. It's the public's problem. If you're going to suggest that this is something that you want to recommend to the city council, which I suggested you should not, again, staff says it's consistent with a comprehensive plan largely because it suggests there going to be more housing. Um, unfortunately, other than maybe a new sidewalk going out front, it's not going to help much in terms of uh transit. Um the RX3 zoning is not consistent with the future land use map based on the staff report because the location is not within a core transit area. Uh it's just it's not um this is not where this type of density should be going. You can you can look at uh I mean you could just look at this map. I mean, I if it were going to go along Avent Ferry or Gorman, u maybe you'd have a better argument if it weren't covered by a flood plane and a flood way, but it is. Basically, there's an increased unit yield here of some from 40 units now to I guess up to 257 here on this site. and it's just not consistent with the comprehensive plan just because it adds more housing. You could do that on Newurn Avenue across from Wake Med where there is a 5 acre site that allows up to 12 stories, urban frontage and allows density enhancements up to 18 stories. It's for sale right now for $12 million. He can go buy that property and build a gang buster pro project that will please everyone. This will please only him. and perhaps maybe the people that live there. It will irritate and bother every other person that lives on Trailwood Drive and we all know it. And for what? This is the policy question that's facing you. This is why one of the city council members is in here watching this and he we all need to look at this and we all need to remember that this this area has been undeveloped for a long time for a reason. It is a lowdensity enclave because it's located close to environmental resources that are critical to this community and it was developed low density in the very beginning and I would request for those reasons and everything you've heard that you recommend denial of this to city council. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, do you know how much time is left? Two minutes for would the applicant like to respond? >> Thank you. I appreciate that. I just want to make two quick clarifications. U based on what we just heard, uh we heard a statement that that only uh expanding housing policy supports this request. Um we we do see in the staff report in fact 16 different comprehensive plan policies that are supported by this request, not just expansion of housing. Um additionally, we heard that the neighbors have previously negotiated um what was previously approved. Um that would imply that neighbors at some point came to support a version of the project and spoke in support. That did not happen. neighbors continued to oppose uh the resoning of the site last time. Um but what did happen um was that changes were made to accommodate um what what we heard. And so although it came in initially with apartments being a a permitted uh building type uh in the course of of that opposition, the applicant last time actually took that off the table and and put in a zoning condition prohibiting the apartment building type, increasing risk to him. Um but making a very good faith effort to try and build what neighbors said was preferred to that. Um having gone very far down that road in good faith, gotten that approved site plan at great expense, great time invested um and found that it in fact would not be successful. We agree that is not uh anyone else's problem. However, uh it was a bet that was lost um and and a bet that was made in good faith to try to respond to neighbors concerns. Um increasing risk uh and and that has played out how it's played out. So, so yes, uh that that applicant is is back having to request something that can be built on the site. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Bringing it to the table. Um Commissioner Shelurn. >> So, I have no comments on the flood plane types of issues. As I understand it, storm water, all those sorts of things are governed by very extensive sets of regulations for which we as a commission are not responsible. Instead, my understanding that what we're to handle and address are zoning questions. And for that, I agree with the second attorney that this is a big policy question. And to me, the big policy question is, is there a harm to single family homeowners from having to share their neighborhood with those who would live in smaller, denser housing? And to me, the answer to that question is an emphatic, clear no. And so, when the time comes, I plan to vote in support of this proposal. >> Thank you, Commissioner Shelbert. Other questions? Commissioner Makay, >> I have two questions. One might be from staff. Uh a a question in a statement. One might be for staff. I would like to see a overlay uh map of the flood zone and the property that we're talking about reszoning. I saw the two next to each other, but I would like to see them laying over each other. And I'm asking for this because flood zoning is important to me as we uh notified in the last meeting. But I also have a statement Jacob, could you also turn on the twoft contour? >> Yes. >> Um, so the sites in question include uh these two sites on the west here, here, and then this site on the east. Can you point to the one in the flood zone? >> H >> Can you point to the one in the flood zone? >> Uh so the uh blue is the flood plane. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And then the pink area is the flood hazard area. >> Where is the uh this is overlaying the property that we're talking about? >> Yes. >> Okay. So that is concerning to me. The second comment though, uh I think this is something we should consider, right? Uh is is is is the owner adding affordability in this space? >> Is the client adding affordability in this space? >> Yeah, there there's not a condition addressing affordability under the existing zoning or the proposed zoning. >> Okay. So, they're going to build housing there. My statement is this. Yes, that's concerning. You lose support from me when you talk about how on Newurn Avenue they could build the same thing. You lose support from me when you talk about how on Newburn Avenue. You could build the same thing. You could build it anywhere. Why you using Univer Avenue as the example? Why does density have to be built there? Like you can't require and ask for fairness when you're trying to put inequity in another space. and saying you could build it over there. I ain't going to lie, that's my concern with the opposition. I agree. We don't need to build housing and flood zone areas. And we said that in district C off Newburn Avenue, but you you lose support from me when you come here and say, why not build it over there? You lose support from me when you said I was with you until you said why not build it over there? Cuz density needs to be everywhere. And equity even means taking equity. If we can't build it in other spaces, it means taking it from you. And if you sit here and tell me that it's okay to build this over there where I live in the community where we have uh vulnerable populations, why not build it there? You would have been better not saying that. You would have been better just saying this don't need to be here because this is a flood zone and we don't need to build things in a flood zone where people can be impacted by. You lose support from me when you say build it over there cuz density needs to be everywhere in the city. affordability, whether you putting it here. Housing needs to be everywhere in the city. Tall buildings don't ne need to just be on Newburn Avenue. You lose support for me when you say that cuz it makes me wonder about your intentions. I mean, real talk. I'm just being real. I don't know what everybody else going to say, but I'm be real. It makes me wonder about your intentions when you say build it over there. That that concerns me. We don't need to build anything in a flood zone. We don't need to build anything in the area where where people can be harmed by it. But you pointing out other property in another part of the city that the vulnerable the vulnerable population is and saying build it over there. There's pro there's there's land over there. No, there's land right here. There's land right here. We don't need to do it over there. If we could do it here, we don't need to put it in somewhere else across the street from a flood flood zone that we already approved it. We could do it here. We've already built enough stuff in Newurn Avenue. So, I do think that density needs to be in District D. I think we need to spread out the density in the city. I don't think that we need to be uh if we're not concerned about uh flood zone and things like that in other parts of the city, we don't need to be worried about it here. That's equity to me. That's equity. If we chose just the last minute, last meeting to build housing and increase density right across the street from a flood zone. And you telling me we we don't need to build this in your district. We need to build this in another district. That's crazy. We don't need to build in flood zones nowhere. We don't need to put any population at risk, especially the most vulnerable population. But what what I'm hearing you say is you cool for it to happen, just not in your neighborhood, and that concerns me. >> Thank you. Um, Commissioner May. Um, yeah, I have a couple questions and comment as well. I I think I understood what the speaker meant when he mentioned Newburn in terms of it being uh not rural like this area, but Commissioner May, I agree with what you said. The optics of that statement look bad. Um that concerned me as well. Um, yeah, I kind of agree with you. I was sort of with them, too. Um, looking at the comprehensive plan, let me let me stick to the comp plan. Um, the city wants to spread affordability. I know there's no subsidized h housing here. This isn't affordable housing um in terms of it being subsidized, but this form of housing is certainly more affordable than large single family homes. This is an area that lacks that type of housing. Newburn Avenue does not. We don't necessarily need to or want to consider concentrating affordable housing and more affordable types of housing in District C in southeast Raleigh, in Northeast Raleigh. We do need to spread it equitably across the city. We don't necessarily need to put it in flood zones, but if what I'm hearing is correct, and this is where my question is coming in for staff, there would be no development in the flood zone. Is that correct? Um, stormwater staff. Is anybody here? That's >> I'll let stormwater staff. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Morning. Sean Egleston, stormwater. Um, what's the question? >> Would there be any development in that pink or blue area? >> Um, the regulations for an undeveloped lot treat the flood plane more or less the same way as the floodway, which is no encroachment without an engineered um study showing no rise or a letter of map revision from FEMA. >> Okay. Um I while you're there, let me the uh the staff report noted that let me see the what's currently there. There are conditions currently on that property that are not being carried forward with this proposal. The storm water staff have concerns about that. Would those conditions somehow mitigate an impact on downstream flooding or Walnut Creek? >> I don't know that they're necessarily flood related. I think the existing conditions are um GS promoting the use of gsi is the main one. There's another one um about it included plane. Is that correct? >> Let's see. Requiring permeable pavement for any area of fill in the flood plane used for vehicular surface. >> Yep. >> Okay. So that's the gsi condition you were talking about >> and the one requiring either bio retention or permeable pavement I think is another one. So, the storm water staff have a concern that the proposed what's being proposed today would negatively affect Walnut Creek because that seems to be the gist of what we received from Partners for Environmental Justice. They were concerned about the impacts on Walnut Creek. >> It would require use of certain type of uh storm water control measure. Uh without the condition, there's any number of other measures that could be used. Um okay. I think you know there's other comprehensive plan policies about the use of gsi green storm water infrastructure. Um >> okay so there are conditions that the applicant could add to address. Okay. >> It would be more water quality related than flood plane maybe. >> Okay. Okay. Um I'm just trying to make sure I get all mine. I think affordable storm water. I think um yes I think you've answered my questions. If I have more, I I'll I'll I'll ask them later. But I I I do I do I did have an issue with that New Burn Avenue comment that Yeah, that bothered me. Um, Commissioner O'Hver, >> can I just follow up? I didn't see I was curious about the existing conditions as well. I didn't see those in the staff report. Where >> that's a condition that's on the property now that's not being carried forward. page 15. Look at the bottom of page 15. >> Thank you. >> Mhm. >> Um, Commissioner Neptune. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. >> I I just I wanted to briefly acknowledge and thank the residents from uh along Trailwood for being with us this morning uh during the commission hearing. Uh I think it's a question for staff. Again, as you know, members of the commission, our kind of first task is to, you know, affirm whether or not the resoning is aligned with the comprehensive plan and future land use. And then, of course, the public good question. And I think, you know, this is aligned with the comprehensive plan, but there's uh, you know, a disconnect with our future land use map. And I So, again, I I think look to staff. If I'm reading this correctly from the report, typically RX3 would have been consistent with low-skll residential, but in this scenario, it is considered not to be because it's technically not within a I guess core transit area. >> Um though it is fairly close to a ferry, >> but it's I guess just outside technically. >> Um I guess if you could clarify that. So I want to make sure I'm reading that correctly and understanding that. Yeah, I I would say I3 or sorry, RX3 is typically not consistent. It is only consistent when it is in a core transit area which requires frontage or location within a mixeduse district. >> Thank you, >> Commissioner Atwell. >> Yes. Thank you, Chair Bennett. I think this kind of housing is appropriate on this corridor, this level of density. Um, a ferry carries our most well-traveled transit route on the bus line and uh it from prior experience it's busy and those buses are packed. I think this is uh investing in transit and investing in the Avent corridor plan. I do have concerns about the flood plane. Um, normally I I feel like the storm water regulations are stringent and I'm happy to rely on those from the city, but I think Walnut Creek is a particularly sensitive uh stream network. And it's true that the there would be some kind of process required, engineering process to prove that you're not raising the flood level when you build that building. and you go through FEMA and there's a whole process and they'll send you a letter that says you're now technically out of the flood plane. So there is there is the opportunity for the applicant or for the developer to actually develop in the in the pink part. I'm pretty sure the blue part in our map is completely off limits in the city of Raleigh. Um in addition, there are also other kinds of disturbances that are allowed in the flood plane. So, while you can't build a building straight off the bat, please correct me if I'm wrong, um there could be utility easements and parking areas and green space areas that could require significant disturbance of the area uh during construction and that's often the most vulnerable time for these rivers is when that's when all the sedimentation and runoff occurs. Uh it would be good to see some stronger commitments to protecting the flood plane, especially within the Walnut Creek area. And also the uh the frontage issue. I hadn't considered it till it came up today and I should have given it prior consideration, but I I recognize that this can't the site can't maintain a frontage for the entire request due to the flood plane. But I would also like to see a little bit more commitment to direct pedestrian access and keeping the parking off the street regardless of how far the setback is for the buildings. >> Okay. So, you would like to see some additional conditions to protect Walnut Creek and for pedestrian >> access. Okay. Uh, Commissioner Walters, >> just a a point of clarification as I think you made some really good points there um that I agree with, uh, some of these concerns. you know, um, when I think about this project, um, well, first, there's an approved plan here, right, that already show that we saw in, uh, Miss Stewart's presentation that showed how the the interface between the development and this flood plane. And I think um, the reality of that is you couldn't do any more than what's shown there. Um, and I think that, you know, as I imagine this next this resoning, it would probably be in the same it would have to be in that same footprint of those town homes. Um, you know, one of the things I saw in that plan was a greenway connection that went right through the flood plane and the wetland. Um, and it didn't really make much sense to me why there would be a greenway connection that went through the wetland and the flood plane when you have an on street connection to the greenway that would be accessible not just for the people that were on this property but for everyone in the neighborhood. So, um, yeah, that was a puzzling uh thing to see on the already approved plan. I would almost wish that that wasn't I don't know if that's there because of a condition. uh you couldn't find a condition about that greenway, but it's kind of a strange thing to put in the middle of uh to cut through the middle of a wetland um for private access. Um so some of the other thoughts I had here is, you know, I I actually really like the mix of density uh in in this neighborhood. I think bringing a mix of density brings a mix of incomes which brings a mix of uh perspectives and people to to a neighborhood that uh you know honestly is really close to downtown Raleigh. Um this is not far from downtown. It's uh as you said on a busy wellused bus route both Wolf Line and City of Raleigh. Um so I think that the the use that's being proposed in this resoning makes a lot of sense to me. Um, I also appreciate that people that would live there would be more people that lived directly adjacent to public green open space and got to use that resource and I think that is just as meaningful as access to buses, right? Um, uh, that's a public health issue in my mind that is is improved here for for many for more people. So, I'm in support of it in that sense. I do uh I do have concerns about the construction proximity to the flood planes. I I tend to rely on the existing legal structure that we have for this uh although I know that it's not always properly enforced at the state level. Um that's something that's a bit outside of our uh purview for this commission. Um, you know, I I loved the condition about increased gsi uh that was on the previous plan. Uh, I think that makes sense to keep uh because of the proximity to u the green space and and that being a goal for the city at large. So, I'd certainly be in support of that. Um the the Trailwood neighbors uh when they talked in their in their time talked about supporting previous projects. Um and there was some debate about whether they did or didn't support them. Uh but to me when I see I'm going to take their word that they supported the town home development that uh in in my understanding would take up the same amount of space uh from a um footprint size and impact to the flood plane as what's being proposed in this resoning. And so um there is concern about environmental sustainability from the opposition, but I don't see that this is what's being proposed is having any bigger impact than what they said they supported previously. Um so I was wondering about that as as I thought through this case. So I think those are all my comments. Thank you. We can ask staff um would what's being proposed have a bigger impact than what's already approved from a flood storm water standpoint? >> Um I don't I don't know that the type of use changes. It would you know be more related to impervious surface placed on a lot in the amount. So if it's within that same footprint, then the impact essentially is the same as what's already approved. >> It would be. >> Thank you. >> Other questions or comments? Do we want to vote on this today? Do we want to ask the applicant if they would consider additional conditions? I see lots of grabbing for the microphone. Atwell O'Hay. Wow, look at that. All the O's. Otwell. >> Ohver. I >> I would like to hear from the applicant whether they would be willing to consider additional considerations. >> Oh, Haver. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I I have a few questions. Um, thank you for pointing out the condition on the storm water on page 15. I was more looking for all of the conditions that currently exist. I did not see that. >> Oh. >> In the staff report. What uh do we have a list of the existing conditions that are currently on the site now? Is that on page six of our report? Am I looking at correctly? >> No, that's what's proposed, I think. >> Oh, what am I looking at? Page two. Is this is this >> Commissioner Haver is asking about the conditions that go with the approved site plan the previous resoning? >> Yeah. I and these are the existing conditions on the western portion the the R six portion. >> So the first condition limits residential number of residential units. The second condition requires a privately maintained multi-use path to make the greenway connection. Um, sets aside a minimum undisturbed protected area. Uh, building foot uh building setback from adjacent lot to the um south. I believe >> that they own,00. >> Mhm. Yep. uh some planting requirements on the south side there as well. Some storm water uh control measures specifying uh the requirement of gsi. Um can >> you scroll down a little bit? >> Trying to keep up with six. >> Yeah, that was six. And then uh seven, if there is fill permitted in the existing flood plane requires permeable pavement. They have prohibited the this is remember this is the this is what's approved on the site now uh prohibits the apartment building type um and says that dwelling units located with any any other building type would be uh vertically separated by a party wall that dwelling units cannot be stacked so can't be flats. um some screening for any rooftop space that might be constructed. Uh and then some requirements around uh parking design of parking. >> Thank you. Um what are the so the the two parcels to the south um reszone to R10. What are those setbacks on that parcel? What does the R10 require on those two parcels to the south that are adjacent to the 1100? Lots of people are looking. >> What's that? >> I said lots of people are looking. I can >> trying to find it. >> Yep. So, for the apartment building type in the R10 zoning district. So, it's still currently zoned R4. The city council has not approved the res. So, once it gets to R10, >> the you're looking for the sideyard setback. The setback will be between the two properties as they're developed or set back from the street. >> The between the two properties, >> right? So your side lot is five feet. >> Okay. And this proposes 0 to six feet. >> That would be the that's the difference between the R10 and the RX. So when you get to RX, it's 0 to 10 and the R the R10 district is 5T. >> Okay. Thank you. Um >> I agree. I was afraid Mr. Otwell wasn't going to bring up the no frontage and he was going to rely on me to do it. So I'm glad he did that. Um, so on two of the consistent policies we just talked about, well, we talked about one that can can you explain how the infield compatibility is working on this as a consistent policy compared to the Well, we don't have to compare it to the last case. I'm just in my mind I'm going through our discussion in the last case. I'm curious at how it applies to this particular parcel. >> Yeah, let me pull up the language of that policy real quick. consistent policies. I'm just curious how affecting this. So, uh, that policy, uh, land use, uh, 8.12 discussed, uh, vacant lots and infill sites within existing neighborhoods, um, and how they should be developed consistently with the design elements of adjacent structures, including height, setbacks, and massing. Um, looking to the, uh, east of this site, we have the Ardan apartment complex, um, which would be a similar development type. um heights of three stories is consistent with um the R4 zoning near this site. Um and then setbacks um >> so it's relying on the Ardan >> in in in some ways. Yes. >> Okay. And then um Mr. had mentioned about the transit that I noticed that also that is a consistent policy. He um suggested that it was not consistent. Can you can you help me understand the the discrepancy there on um capitalizing LU4.7 capitalizing on transit access? Yeah, so this site is um within depending on where you are on the site uh quarter of a mile to almost less than a tenth of a mile from existing bus service on a Perry. Um there's bus service both on the north and southern side, depends on which way you're heading. Um, and multiple buses use that stop 1111L and the Wolf Line. >> Great. Thank you. Um, so I would be interested if the applicant would be willing to look at the frontage, storm water. One of my issues is setbacks. Always that zero foot setback just concerns me. So I think there could be some room there to give a little bit. Um, I think those are my comments. >> Okay. Thank you, Commissioner May. >> I don't even remember what I was going to say, so never mind. >> Okay. Well, if you think of it, let me know. Um, so then the question is to the applicant, would you consider um looking at conditions regarding storm water setback, frontage, pedestrian access? Did I get them all? Commissioner Omay, did you >> I did want to ask the applicant if you all have met with the storm water and environmental committees to talk about whatever the impact might be by building in this area >> with the partners for environmental justice. Is that the question? >> That one and storm water >> and storm water staff. Okay. So um so I can say that that we have not and this the reasons for that are um as you heard during the initial presentation um there are not differences between the two zoning districts um with respect to that regulation. So, we were actually very recently surprised to see that there was a letter from Partners for Environmental Justice. Um, and uh, also having been through for two of the three parcels a recent site plan review process, um, our engineers have worked very closely um, with staff on those issues. So, have a very deep understanding from staff about how those regulations apply and again not not changing um, ex other than those conditions which which I can address as well. So, I'm sorry you said yes, you would be willing to consider >> all of those that list of conditions. So, so yeah. Um, so I want to take those one at a time. The ones that that I heard are um regarding the stronger commitments on the flood plane, which sounds like are primarily around um green storm water infrastructure. Um certainly something that we can look at and I can tell you that the reason that that came out um was because that existing approved site plan was submitted before the updates to the storm water manual. Um so it faced uh somewhat lower standards uh meaning that that uh that additional treatment um would have made a difference at that time and I invite my engineers to correct me if I say this wrong but my understanding is that that's no longer true. So the outcome would not change based on the method used. Um which is why that came out. Um given that if there's still interest, we can certainly go back and talk about methods to be applied. Okay, I see that there is interest. Um we will certainly look at that. Um also the sort of frontage like conditions uh regarding parking location and pedestrian access. Um I I will I will say that the reason for the condition that we have regarding parking location was to start to try and get at that um without you know we we obviously could have housing very far from Trailwood and we don't want to prevent parking from being on that side of housing that's very far from the road right so we don't we want to make sure that all parking is on the west side of all buildings um even if there's sort of buildings in the rear of the site I guess is is the point so so we were trying to um say that for buildings next to Trailwood it would not have parking along trailwood if that makes any sense. Anyway, so that was the goal. We will certainly be happy to look at that as well as to talk about pedestrian access. They'll probably obviously would already be required to put that sidewalk and bike lane along the street. So, um probably not um much of a of an issue there. Um the we heard a request to perhaps remove the greenway connection. Um probably that does make sense given that we would be building that same connection up on the road to an existing uh greenway access point. Um and yes, it would have uh less impact on the flood plane as well, which is that as you saw in the approved site plan, that's really the only significant impact on that flood plane. So definitely happy to look at that. Um and as far as side setback, I think that's also something that we can look at. Uh, I can say that our existing zoning conditions on that point were very strongly driven um by the previous neighbor to the south who opposed the previous reszoning um and wanted to make sure that that single family house was uh protected and had additional buffers and plantings um as you saw that um that resident has since sold to the developer that you saw at your last meeting. Um so that's why that went away. Um but I I don't think there's any major issue with a a more standard type of setback. So we can look at all of those questions for sure. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> So would you be interested in coming back to our next meeting >> or do you need additional time to develop those? >> Great question. Let me check in with my engineers. See >> because if you the conditions would be due Bum help me out >> this Friday. >> Okay. We think we can do that. >> Okay. So then um I saw your hand. Yes. >> Thank you. And let me say our next case is timesensitive. Is that correct? That is correct. That's the one that we have to move on today. So it's 11:34. >> Yeah. I don't know if you got my text or not. >> I did. I did. We'll still have >> um I have a quick question. Um the I noticed that 11:01 Trailwood, which is directly east of uh 1000, is owned by the state, which I found interesting. Is that part of Centennial Campus or I don't know who. So, it was donated to the state some years ago. Our understanding is that there's no particular plan for that property. Um, it's just it's just sitting there. >> Thank you. >> Sure. Commissioner, >> I'll make it very very clear. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> Um, is there any way to mitigate removing greenway access? Is that something y'all can consider? >> Mitigate removal of greenway access. So, so there is greenway access on Trailwood Drive and we would be required to build a pedestrian and bike connection that would would connect to it. So, we wouldn't be losing access. We'd be connecting in a different way with less disturbance. >> Yeah. The request was to remove it from going through the flood plane. >> Okay. And and the next time they come back, opposition and and for will have opportunity to talk. >> Well, it's up to the commission to determine that because the public hearing is >> we're done now from here. Y Okay. Um, okay. Is that everything? Well, then this case will be deferred to our March 10th meeting. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Thank you all. And thank you to members of the public who sat through all of that. Um, I want to check and make sure we're not going to lose quorum. I know Commissioner O'Hver has to leave at 11:45. Does anybody else need to leave, let's say, within the next 30 minutes? >> Okay. Okay, great. Then our next case is resoning Z4525 Trailwood Drive. We'll hear from staff. >> Picking back up. Um, as you said, this is um reszoning case Z4525. Um, the request is for three uh separate parcels, 1415, 1507 Trailwood Drive and Zero Crump Road. Um the request is to reszone about 8 acres from R2 um with the neighborhood conservation overlay district and R4 that doesn't currently have the conservation overlay district to R10 conditional um none of which would retain the neighborhood conservation overlay district. Deadline for action is the 25th. Uh zoning in this area is um mostly R10 with uh limited R4 and um there is existing R10 zoning um west of Trailwood about 375 ft from this site. Um to the east is Centennial Campus. Um just to the east of the site, Centennial Campus, the middle school. Further than that, uh the golf course. Um to the west is an apartment complex under moderate scale residential future land use designation. Um otherwise it's primarily low-scale residential. Um you can see looking to the at the site from the north and the south um there are um I believe two total um detached homes on this uh assemblage. Uh the proposed conditions retain um a number from the existing neighborhood conservation overlay district. Um just turning those into conditions. Um that includes a minimum lot size, minimum lot frontage. Um the building setbacks and the side setbacks are all carried over from the conservation district. Um, this application puts a limit of 156 units on the property and requires that the affordability um on average is 60 is for residents making 60% or less of Raleigh's um AMI. Um, so this looks at the existing versus proposed zoning. Um, existing units could be up to 36. The proposal has 156 cap on those units. Um and then you can see the front edges and side setbacks um are retained from the um NCOD. The rear setback is decreased slightly. Um this site does have a lower walk score than average, lower bike score um and high proximities to jobs, so a lower cost index for transportation. Um, this site does have um access to Route 11, which we discussed earlier, but by heading south of the site, and it's um about a half a mile or so um away from this site's southern border. Um this does add to the housing supply. It does include um subsidized or required to be affordable units. Um permits a variety of housing types still. Um smaller units would be allowed and then walking distance of transit. Um area residents are less likely to be racial minorities, more likely to be low income. Um this is inconsistent with the low-scale residential designation. R10 is only consistent um when it is within a frequent transit area. Um the site falls out of any frequent transit area. Um there's no urban form designation for this site. Um staff finds this consistent with the comprehensive plan um but inconsistent with the future land use map um for many of the reasons that were discussed earlier um but including those that address housing cost and um affordability but this would be a compact infill development. Um it retains buffering and setback requirements from the existing NCOD. Um it is um zoning for housing. So it would permit more affordable housing in a area of Raleigh designated for more affordable housing. Um inconsistent policies include that future land use map inconsistency and zoning infrastructure impacts. Um that's going back to the fire response time standards. Again, your deadline for action is the 25th. Um and if approved, the future land use map would be modified to include moderate scale residential on this site. Thank you. >> Thank you. The applicant and those in response have a total of 10 minutes. >> Thank you again, Molly Stewart. Morning Star Law Group. here on behalf of LDG Development, the applicant in this case. We have with us in the room today, Landon Cox from LDG Development, as well as Ryan Fischer from Kimley Horn, civil engineer, and Rhynold Stevenson, DM DRMP, traffic engineer on the site, um, who has looked at Trailwood Drive. Oh, let me make this larger. I'm not sure how to make that larger. All right, I give up. Thank you. It keeps disappearing when I try and do that. Thank you. All right, so uh this current zoning map again leaves off all of the overlays just so you can see those underlying districts and to highlight that R10 is a very typical uh zoning designation in this neighborhood. Um we have heard uh that there is opposition to this request as being inconsistent with the low density character of the area. This may be true only by using a very narrow definition of the area um that that intentionally excludes immediate neighbors in the surrounding community. um including both ends of Trailwood Drive itself. Uh as well as uh this site immediately behind many of the Trailwood Drive and Tanager Street homes um that is about 350 ft from this site. Uh has been built out as apartments for decades and that's what that looks like. You see Trailwood Drive over there on the right hand side of your screen. You saw a version of this map in the previous case, but what you didn't see at that time um was uh that this NCOD overlay uh that appears on this map. Uh this uh NCOD is the only NCOD that is located both inside the belt line and outside the city of Raleigh in Wake County. A quick bit of history on Trailwood Drive. Uh we see that uh that northern stretch of Trailwood Drive was platted in 1952 at a time that this area was more than a mile and a half outside the city of Raleigh. So truly platted as the rural um area that it was. And on the southern end of Trailwood as well as Tanager. Uh this was platted in 1955. Uh still well outside the city at that time. Again, both of these maps show uh that very little has changed uh in the intervening approximately 73 years. As you already heard, big investments have been made since that time in uh existing and planned transportation. Uh here you actually see the master plan for Centennial Campus. This is the zoning for Centennial Campus. Um very much like a planned development. Uh the zoning uh shows that a 10-ft multi-use path is planned to connect to that southern end of Trailwood Drive, so closer to the to the site. um and then knitting it back in with the campus and from there to the farmers market in Dicks Park. This slide shows more of the transportation infrastructure existing in the area. Uh the site is highlighted there outlined in yellow. The purple lines that you see on Trailwood Drive uh show where existing sidewalks are today. Uh they begin at Tanager Street. Tanager Street is approximately 600 ft from the site. uh the red squares that you see those are existing bus stops as well. So you see that uh a large part of the area is uh served by sidewalks, bus stops and then of course you see that future multi-use path going into campus as well. Uh of course we see the frequent transit area and uh this this site lies within a small gap along Trailwood most of Trailwood being in the frequent transit area not this site. Um but given the required street section here, that urban street section, it would start to fill in uh some of that gap between the frequent transit area. The city has already told us that there is a need for greater affordability in this location. Uh this map, the city's affordable housing location policy map exists in part because affordability has long been excluded from areas consisting of expensive homes on large lots uh under the guise of maintaining character. um this is what gets excluded. Uh it's it's simply not possible to build affordable housing um on those lot sizes with that uh size and shape. So, you know, we're all aware of the exclusionary history of these large lot minimums um that allow no room for affordability. This proposal seeks to answer the city's call for affordability um by providing that affordability for no less than 30 years uh at no more than 60% of area median income. Uh these are two of the proposed zoning conditions, but there are four others. And here's the comparison with the Trailwood NCOD requirements. Um we have heard from neighbors that the NCOD is of prime importance and that removing it from this site uh or from two of the three parcels that comprise the site um would in fact uh tear it out from the neighborhood. Uh although it is residential use that is proposed here. Um, so what we have done is to respond by looking at those five requirements, four of them have been included in the zoning conditions. So not only have they been carried over where they exist, they have been expanded to the third parcel. Um, so all four of those um have actually grown in their scope and in what they cover. Um, so that is what that that NCOD is doing today. There is that fifth requirement around height. The Trailwood NCOD caps height at 2 and a half stories uh and 30 ft from finished grade. um that is not a height that allows on in today's housing market for affordability. Um and for that reason we have had to remove it. Um now the requested R10 district does limit uh the site to three stories at 45 ft. Um so that is the the difference here but you know the the applicant has worked very hard to maintain um these these requirements. Um, and I'll just finish up by by noting that we did see um some input that you've received um regarding the importance of NCODS to protect the neighborhood. Um, so obviously the applicant has done their best to respond uh to that concern. Uh, and note that this overlay is silent as to housing type and housing density. It simply isn't isn't affecting that. It it's not what it is here to do. So when we talk about using NCODS to protect character, it protects what it says it protects. Um we obviously know how to um control density and and other aspects. That is not what this NCOD is doing. Um we have also heard without evidence that this small change in NCOD requirements will quote destroy the value of other homes uh in the area. Um this would be surprising given the dramatic increase of land value on this site um which tends to lift up uh values around it. Um, we have also heard that city policy states that we should strengthen the defining visual qualities of Raleigh's neighborhoods. I just want to highlight that Trailwood is a Wake County neighborhood, not a Raleigh neighborhood. Um, and we have, finally, we've heard that tearing down the two existing homes on the site will quote do nothing but stuff money in the pocket of a developer. This is particularly concerning to me um why we would consider providing convenient and affordable housing to up to 156 new families to be doing nothing. Thank you. And our team is available for questions. >> Thank you, Molly. >> Thank you. >> Is there anyone else here who wishes to speak in support of this item? >> Then the opposition now has 10 minutes. All right. Okay. My name is Jimmy Soml. I'm a representative for Trailwood Community. I have lived on Trailwood Drive since 1977 when my wife and I were lucky enough to buy a lot and build almost 50 years ago. Our community was started with professors from NC State. It was a farm that was brought and divided. Single family homes were put on these lots with the intention of being close to the university and be able to raise our families in this area. Our neighborhood is like a refreshing drive in the country and lots of trees. Our houses are set back from the road with not many of them seen from the road. We did not buy or build as starter homes to move on to someplace else. And most of the area we live we bought to live and die here. This is our road. This is our trailwood drive. In 1999 our community was asked by the city of Raleigh if we wanted to protect our community. We said yes. This was area was placed under the Trailwood Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District. The intent of this district as stated on your own website is to preserve and enhance the general quality and appearance of established neighborhoods by regulating built environmental characteristics such as lot size, frontage, uh building setback, building heights. The city protected this area in a detailed and comprehensive planning process through lowdensity zoning and NCOD. It is not appropriate or considerate of the residents to just throw all this out the window to create more density where more density was never previously programmed to occur under the existing zoning map. the comprehensive plan or the future land maps use. What did our community do wrong? Why are we here today? Did we do something wrong? The developer should not be able to change our NCOD. We have people buying lots in our neighborhood to turn a fast buck and not suffer the consequences of the changes to our middle and low income uh middle and high income density. apartment buildings in the middle of large lots with single family housing is completely out of character for this neighborhood. If the city removes the NCD protection that are in place to prevent this very type of extreme disruption in the community development pattern along Trailwood corridor, then residents can no longer rely on the NCOD in the future to protect their reasonable investments backed expectations including zoning overlay protection that help to preserve the value of property in our neighborhood. If the NCOD is removed and the property reszone for more density property, our speculators, speculators and developers will be in the neighborhood buying houses and things for higher density development. Everything if the I lost my lady here develop our land will be reduced to what developers will agree to pay for assemblage value which is not the highest and best use of this property as zoned R3 and R4 with NCOD overlay. This is contrary to the future land use map which was called for the subject properties to be developed as low density residential. Will the planning commission and city council continue to reject the protection afforded by 21 NCODs in Raleigh? How can people moving into Raleigh be able to trust that the planning commission and city council will abide by the past decisions that they have made? Our Trailwood community is opposed to this drastic change to our character of our community and firmly but respectfully request that you deny reszoning request. This video was taken a camera on the hood of my truck driving down the road in the summertime when school was not in. So that's why you don't see any traffic on the road and everything. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you >> again. My name is Ben and I'm with Ragsdale Liot now until the end of this week. Um, and then I'm opening up the Law Firm again. So, just so you know, it'll be a different firm next time I'm here. Um, we're not pitting people against each other here. We're talking about land use policy and there are enough R10 RX3 zoning districts in all council districts to find uh places to develop this kind of thing. Uh the reference previously to Newurn Avenue was just because there's a very clearly good opportunity there, but there's those opportunities in all council districts. This is not about pitting people against each other. It's about respecting um the existing zoning code, which is your land land use policy. That is your land use policy. And your land use policy now tells you that this is to be protected. Policy UD 1.1 protecting neighborhood identity. Use neighborhood conservation overlay districts to retain the character of Raleigh's existing neighborhoods and strengthen the sense of visual order and stability. Look at that video and the visual stability and order that's there. It's different than other highly dense areas. It just is. And that's not because of who people live there or anything else. And what happens is is you get one zoning case, then you get another zoning case, and then you get another zoning case, and you have three of them that are here that were here before you in the last what, 3 weeks, two weeks. And one of the zoning cases was here on the same property was here two years before that. Three years before that. This is a land grab and people are looking to tear this place up and put a lot of density there. And yeah, it could accommodate more density, but your existing land use policy says that's not where this is supposed to go for any number of reasons. The city came to these people 1999, 27 years ago, and said, "Hey, why don't we protect this area? It's kind of special." And if you don't do that now, if you don't do that now, what you're doing is you're telling these people, "Sell because your property will be reduced to assemblage value. And if you're the last person standing and last person to sell, you got one buyer. So you're hurting people by doing this. You're hurting their property values. You're hurting their reasonable investmentbacked expectations. And yeah, it does go into the pocket of a developer. I I don't mind that. It happens all the time in every district, and that's fine. But it comes to the significant detriment of people who reasonably relied on your land use policy that you have right now that says they can't build this here. And you have policies in the comprehensive plan UD 1.1 protecting neighborhood identity. Policy HP 4.5 support for neighborhoods support neighborhood efforts to pursue uh uh to to make use of zoning overlay districts. the neighborhood conservation overlay district and they just can't apparently they can't rely on NCOD's to protect themselves anymore. This is a policy question. Again, we can have arguments over um over who's who and what's what and where's where, but there's enough existing capacity or an existing land use map uh zoning code, zoning map to accommodate all of the future growth we have in all different parts of the city. It's just from a policy standpoint. 27 years ago, this place was identified at a place that it shouldn't be as dense as other places, whether you like it or not, whether it's in the city or it's in an enclave or not. And so, we're here talking about these people who live in your community that they have a reasonable investmentbacked expectation that this would not change. And if you want to change it, then just tell them and tell everybody that the NCOD's just don't matter anymore. And it doesn't matter whether it's in uh the King Charles neighborhood, doesn't matter if it's in this neighborhood or in any other uh historic overlay district or others. Just tell them it doesn't matter and that when somebody comes in to reszone, it's just not going to be a consideration for you. just be honest with them because I because these that that's what they're going to look at is is they don't have much choice but to potentially consider selling out for the money they can get at when it's when it's better to make money uh as being the first person sells the last policy UD 5.4 24 neighborhood character and identity strengthen the defining qualities of Raleigh neighborhoods relating to scale of infill development to existing neighborhood context. What is the existing neighborhood context that that policy UD 5.4 neighborhood character and identity this is not about pitting people against other people or other parts of the of the city. there are high density or higher density areas in all districts in this in this city. That's not what we're here to do. We're here to talk about policy in a reasoned, understandable fashion. These people have uh uh my my folks who are here have concerns and we're here telling you that you should recommend denial of this to city council because it is not in keeping with important policies of the comprehensive plan that protect Raleigh neighborhoods. Pardon me. >> Thank you, Mr. Um, bringing it back to the table. I have some thoughts. Um, first of all, let me say, and Commissioner Shelurn, I'll kick it to you because I knew you were going to have thoughts on this one, too. But um uh Miss Stewart didn't say it when she was up here, but there is a funding application deadline for this case. They're applying for uh tax credits. We have to vote it out today so it can go before council so it can meet that deadline. If we hold it, it's automatically a denial. Not saying we can't, but just know the impact of that. If there are conditions that we would like to see added, we can certainly include that in a motion to go to council whether we recommend approval or denial. But there is not an option to hold the case here at our table unless we want to deny the case. And I don't think any of us here want to do that. So we need to try to aim towards voting it out. Whether it's a recommendation for denial or approval, we need to move it out to council. As I listened to the the comments, particularly the comments from Mr. it reminded me of why we've had so many conversations at this table about NCOD's. >> Um I didn't disagree with what he said. There is an expectation. We have this NCOD. We want to prot it says we're going to protect these characteristics. So neighbors do expect that that NCOD is going to be upheld. On the other hand, we have policies and goals and guidelines for equitable development for more affordable housing for varieties of housing and oftentimes the NCOD's limit that so we have to weigh at this table. Do we want to protect neighborhood identity? Whatever that means. We have to What does that mean? You don't want to put an industrial park, I guess, besides someone's home, but are we protecting certain classes of people? I mean, let's just call it what it is. Are we protecting classes of people? Are we protecting exclusivity? I have nothing against rural character. I grew up in the country, probably more country than any of you have ever seen. >> And I love it. I love going back home. I love the rural roads. The the the camera, the video was like, "Yeah, that's nice." When I moved to Raleigh over 30 years ago, there were a lot of areas that looked like that. Not so much anymore. But I have to understand the context of where I live. I can't expect Bertie County off of Leville Road anymore. >> There are some areas of Leville that are still rural, but every single day they're building town houses, apartment communities. So when people say, "Do you want that next to you?" It's going up next to me. Am I opposed to it? No. Because I want people to be able to live. You can't say I can't say I don't mean to sound like I'm lecturing, but I can't say out of one side of my mouth, affordability is such a problem in Raleigh. I can't afford to live here. I want to be able to live here. And then say, oops, I want to protect my single family income 5,000 square foot home. I mean, if you do, that's your right. But then you're saying you don't want people who can't afford that living in your neighborhood. That's what's going through my mind when I'm weighing these cases. And we saw the affordable housing location map. The city has said these are areas where we need to see more affordable housing to equitably dist distribute it. Perhaps in the comprehensive plan update that's coming. We'll see policies that make it easier to do that because we are running into those conflicts now with NCODS and it's inconsistent with this and inconsistent with that. My guess is with the comprehensive plan that's coming out, it's going to be easier to develop this housing and we'll see less of these conflicts. So, I apologize for taking up time. I know it's late and we need to move this one out, but I just I needed to say that because yeah, we we are thinking about protecting identity, protecting character, but I have to ask myself, what is it that I'm protecting and who is it that I'm excluding? And are apartment dwellers, which I was one for most of my adulthood, so bad? I mean, I you hear about how people love their the yards and the greenway and access to transit and their peace and tranquility. Well, when I lived in an apartment, I loved that, too. >> I wasn't throwing parties every night. I wasn't throwing trash over the balcony. I was going to work every day. I had kids. I was just like them. I just couldn't afford the house they were in. But let me say one more thing. When I was growing up and and I said I grew up in a rural area, very very very poor part of the state, but a beautiful part of the state. We were always told we were disadvantaged because we were povertystricken, but what was going to help us was to be exposed to those who had more than we did. So if which I don't necessarily agree with but if mixing incomes improves your experience and helps people who have less than you and maybe offers different perspectives and everybody becomes friends and we have people from all different backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses living together. Isn't that what we want? I'll stop there, Commissioner Shelurn. >> So, yeah, basically, Ditto, um, the comments that I made at the earlier presentation of denser housing not being a harmful use is what you, as I understood you to be saying basically much more eloquently. Um, I'll also add that to your point about the deadline as the author of it that you're talking about for applying for tax credits, it is very real. So, we do need to act today. Um, that the research does not support that adding affordable rental reduces property values. And if there were a way to do it, I'd be happy to vote to get rid of all the NCODs all across the city immediately. That'd be great. Thank you, Commissioner Shelurn, Commissioner Walters, Commissioner Bernett, Commissioner May, Commissioner Atwell. >> I'll be brief. >> Remember that order. >> Did we miss our opportunity to ask questions of the applicant? >> You brought it back to the table. So, yes, at this point. Yeah. Well, uh, one of the questions I was going to ask is there's, uh, we heard from the Trailwood neighborhood, but, uh, there's a big adjacency to NC State, um, here. And one, I think that's great. It's a, there's a middle school right there. So, adding density around a middle school provides opportunity, uh, for those folks with children to have walking access to a middle school. The fact that NC State isn't here saying we don't want this uh says something to me uh because that is uh really low density kind of un uh uh land with not many eyes on it. I walk there a lot um live very close by. Um and I I feel like it says something to me that they're not here saying well wait a second this is in conflict with what we're with our space here. So, I um I was going to just ask if they've been involved. I assume that they have been involved. Um I think what you said is a really great point. I grew up in a really rural area as well. I love that view. Um but it it doesn't make sense for what we're trying to do with the city right now. Um it's a it's a strange situation that I think is beautiful and I would Yeah, I I love it. Um, you know, when this NC COD was made 25 years ago, the city had different priorities, the city looked different, and cities change to serve their residents, uh, the people that are here now. And I think that it's our job to make the best decision we can as a commission and um, I really appreciate what you had to say about that. >> Thank you, Commissioner Bernett. Uh, additionally uh definitely uh eloquently stated, uh, what you, uh, shared about growing up, um, for me as a resident of, uh, of of Raleigh and a product of public housing, um, you know, I wonder if certain things have a shelf life. And for me, if I'm looking at this slide that says, you know, the new housing since 2000, you know, 113 acres or seven units, and for me, that's like quite substantial. Um, it's also kind of exclusionary. And to your point, where the city is going, where the city has been, I think a lot of things look different in the city. And I think a lot of the shelf life on city leadership, uh, city stewards, stakeholders, all that stuff has had a shelf life and it's evolving. Um, as someone who grew up in apartments in Southeast Raleigh and then moved to uh, Halifax Court, I remember how it was growing up there in the vicinity of homes, but seeing people with homes made me want to strive to have one one day. And then we moved to uh, Long View. I was that now a person in a home. But I think like just having being on those different sides of the tracks um you know people do have good intentions and I don't think that in a neighborhood of this this scale and this size I don't think that you know the the unit size will detract from the character um the value I mean because some there are some really really nice homes in that neighborhood and maybe you know some of those folks that will be moving in you know if this if this uh goes if this is approved by council we'll see that as an inspiration just kind of take the to the next level collectively. I just don't think putting out someone else's candle, you know, diminishes your flame at all. So, I just wanted to share that. >> Thank you, Commissioner Bernett. Commissioner Atwell, >> I think I think was it May then Hotwell? I'm sorry. My O's ran together. Commissioner May and then Commissioner Atwell. >> I did not grow up in the country. I'm from Chicago. I'm >> from the west side. But moving down here uh moving to North Carolina introduced me and it changed my life to in a lot of ways. And I don't think that we have enough space across the city where people can have access to each other and build community. you know, uh, I can say it directly, like I said last time, density needs to be everywhere. But that's because introducing people to different cultures and people and areas expands their livelihood. And I can't say who I would be if I didn't move to North Carolina. Shout out to Pines and Ashton, you know, of Newurn Avenue and went to Enlow and uh became who I am. I wouldn't be who I am if I didn't move to North Carolina. So, I want to say that my family didn't. I mean, I have a home now, but my family didn't have the money to afford that. And that's why I'm so passionate about saying that density needs to be everywhere because intersectionality is everywhere and community is everywhere and sometimes we don't want the thing that we need. And um as much as I love seeing that rule, I love the country. Like I'm I'm from country city people. My family come from Mississippi and Louisiana. So we country city folks, you know, and I love being in the country. I love going out to visit my friends, my family and Mississippi and such and going my my family in in in in in Jacksonville and being in country areas or rural areas or roadified areas they have a lot of trees and at the same time the city is growing and we can't deny that and we can't force all the growth in a specific area of the city unfortunately. Um, yeah, I felt some sort of way about being like, it could be all going on Newurn Avenue because it does need to spread out. Like we now more than ever, I think we need to build community and um if we got to push this today, if it's affordable housing being placed there, and that's what they're saying. And unless there's other conditions that we can say we want to add to the space, like we can't we can't decimate a space while preserving another space. >> Well said. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Atwell, >> thank you, Chair Bennett. Um, I've been familiar with this area for quite a long time. I've sometimes have gone out of my way since college to drive down Trailwood. It's beautiful. Like it it's a really wonderful neighborhood. And I understand why everybody is here. I would be fighting to preserve it, too. I will note that this area feels rural, but one thing that you don't get in the countryside is NCOD's that limit what your neighbors can build on the houses. That's a that's a suburban thing. Um, and this area is changing. So, uh, I in general believe that no neighborhood should be a mean from change. Our city is changing and we should all bear the brunt. Uh, no neighborhood should be subject to catastrophic change, changing overnight, having towers put next door. And I think this strikes a really nice balance. It allows for some much needed affordable housing. And the only thing we're taking away from this NCOD is allowing the buildings to be 15 ft higher. It's a really minimal change to the NCOD and the setbacks and the lot sizes are going to remain the same. Um, I think this is a this is an easy call for me and I'm ready to make a motion whenever everybody's ready. >> Thank you. Um, other com comments or questions? >> Okay, Commissioner Atwell or >> Yeah, let me Commissioner Shelburn, would you like to make this motion? You're so passionate about affordable housing. >> I would, but I haven't learned the secret language of this. It's I know it's I know I should be able to, but if Yeah. So I I so I appreciate the opportunity. I'm going to have to pass because we don't have time for >> Commission. Well, if you have it up then >> I'll take the second maybe because I never get a chance to second because y'all are all too quick with that. >> I move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated February 24th, 2026 contained in the agenda materials. >> And to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. This recommendation also includes an amendment to the future land use map to the extent described in the adopted consistency statement. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Commissioner Shelver. Any further discussion? All in favor? >> Any opposed? That's unanimous. Thank you all. Um, it is 12:15. Um, do we need to move the next case or do you want to see if people can stay? >> It's really up to you. You could choose to stay and hear that item or you can defer to our next meeting on March 10. Okay. Uh, commissioners, who needs to leave? What? Just one. Okay, we'll still have quorum then. If you're fine, then we'll get through this last item. So, um, and is the applicant still here? Okay. Excellent. Our final new business item is resoning Z4725 Crest Road. We'll hear from staff. Good afternoon. Um, Hyram Marziano, Planning Development. I'm here for rezoning Z4725. This is at 1523 Crest Road. Um, the request is reszone the 2.66 66 acres from RX3 with uh SRPOD to RX7 ULCU. Uh your deadline for action will be April 25th. As you can see from the zoning map, um this property does span from Crest Road to Varsity Drive. Uh the area around it is predominantly residential to the west, but you've got some office mixeduse across the street and then Centennial Campus to your southeast. Just a quick overview. NCSU the uh has their apartments and then Centennial Campus. We've got Mission Valley Shopping Center. Then we've got several residential developments to the west. Um this is inverted uh the other way of the map. You couldn't see the the buildings for the tree canopy. Uh so north and south on this map. Uh there's an existing 83 uh unit apartment complex on the site uh built in, I believe in the 70s. Uh just some various views of the existing site. I will tell you that right there at number three, if you drive your car down that hill, you will scrape. So don't do that. Um they've proposed several conditions. Uh you have draft conditions in your packet, but since then the sign conditions changed number two. So, while prohibiting uh uses allowed in the RDX district, then number two um was rewritten to still limit uh height within 80 ft uh uh to 80 ft within 35 ft of Crest Road. Um and then how it's measured. That's just slightly changed to be more in line with how staff recommended the language be written. Um limits the number of dwelling units to 260. Uh uh and then there's a fourth condition that is about affordability. uh getting a donation towards the city's affordable housing program. Um a 90-day written notice for uh tenants uh for their lease to be terminated and then assistance for relocation. And then also a number five provision uh condition which allows for electric uh electric assist bicycle storage and charging areas on the property. 15 in the condition. Um just quick look at the uh entitlement and setbacks. Uh you can see here with the existing setbacks we're looking at five foot front side um that with the UL frontage you'd be looking at 0 foot to 20 um and 0 to six remains the same. Uh checks our boxes for transportation energy analysis. Uh this is a highly accessed transit corridor. On the um right side you've got uh go Raleigh maps. Um it's located within the route 11 and route 12 um and 11. Um on that um smaller map is Wolf Line routes. Uh so this area being near NC State and being off of Avent Ferry um it is highly a very uh active transit corridor. uh with our affordability analysis. Um it doesn't check the box for including subsidized units, but I will note it does again put that donation to the city's affordable housing program. Um but clicks all the other boxes. Uh significant statistics in this area. Uh more likely to be racial minorities as compared to the city average. Uh more likely to be low income compared to the city average. uh it is not consistent with the future land use map uh being that this area is medium scale. But I will state this inconsistency comes solely from the height of seven. Uh the the comprehensive plan would look at more of a RX5 instead of seven. However, with that affordability analysis or affordability donation, the limit on residential units, we feel that some of the the conditions mitigate part of that. Um it's in a area that there's existing RX7 nearby um adjacent property included and higher scale residential across the street. So all the uses would still remain the same from RXRX. It's just that height variance is what's causing the inconsistency with the flume. Um it meets our uh consistency with the urban form map with the urban limited frontage. So overall comprehensive plan consistency inconsistent flume consistent urban form u handful of policies we're talking density translations capitalizing on transit access compact development um student oriented housing zoning for housing frontage and then a few area plans from the aventia a aent ferry area plan um consistency uh again inconsistent flume and some response times from the fire department. Um, deadline for action is the 25th of April. Here's your upcoming meetings. And staff is recommending that if approved, this would become a higher scale residential area, which is actually more in line with the transit corridor and the development of the adjacent properties. >> Thank you. The applicant and those in support have 10 minutes. Thank you. >> That's all right. No, that's Oh, I'm sorry. >> Good afternoon, chair and planning commission members. My name is Beth Tos. I'm an attorney with Fox Rothschild. Um I'm actually stepping in for Timberly Sutherland who was here for most of the morning. Um but uh her grandfather passed away and she had to leave to get to the funeral. Um so um we are are here as staff has said uh in regard to the redevelopment of the Centennial Lofts which is a primarily a student focused project developed in the 70s uh on a this property between Crest and Varsity Drive. Um, this area is largely a student area. There are a variety of housing types and styles in this area that cater uh primarily to students. And it's just across the street from Centenn Centennial Campus. Uh, their apartments and condos as well as um uh the the sorority and fraternity houses in in in the Greek area. Um there this is an area where there is much needed housing to support the campus. It it's as you have heard from staff walkable, bikable, and transit friendly. It's within the frequent transit area close to the future western BRT line. It's served by both Go Raleigh and Wolf Lines today. Um adjacent and nearby properties have already be been reszoned to the RX7 with the urban limited frontage. Um we have uh been in communication with the West CAC. Uh we have hosted two community meetings. Uh we only had one attendee. um just a a neighbor in the Ivy Commons community who was just curious what was going on. Um we have heard no opposition to our proposal. Um we've worked hard to provide zoning conditions that identify public benefits. Um you know, most notably, of course, the contribution to the affordable housing fund in the amount of $115,000, but in addition, uh notices to tenants whose leases are terminated early, as well as some relocation assistance under certain conditions. Um, we have also included um a height condition that we worked very closely with your uh with the attorney's office, with your uh legal staff uh to to tweak up to the very last minute. Um, and uh finally, a provision for um electric bike storage and charging which was recommended by the the West um given the rising use of that type of transportation particularly by students in this area. So, um, our our team is here. Uh, we have Ryan Cohen with Peerless Development and Shawn Michaels with Client Design. We're available to answer any questions you have. We would appreciate your support for this proposal. Thank you. >> Thank you. Is there anyone else here who wishes to speak in support of this item? Those in opposition have 10 minutes. Okay, seeing no opposition, then we'll bring it back to the table for commissioner questions and comments. Commissioner May, do I see your hand? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Mr. Otwell. >> Thank you, M. Toss. You mentioned that this is a student centered housing. It's been a while since I lived in this area, but I I seem to remember there being a large Hispanic population in these >> ask these questions. I'm sorry, Miss Ash. I mean, she has time left on the clock, but Um, I would suggest you reopen the public hearing. >> Okay. >> Yeah, >> maybe we don't close it until the time is expired or how >> that could be done or you know, yeah, once every all the time is expired, then you could say, you know, we're closing the public hearing now and we're bringing it back just for commissioner comments. >> Okay, >> that would probably be a good way to go forward. >> Ask your question. So, we'll reopen the public hearing. You don't happen to know the demographics of the particular uh apartments as they stand now, do you? >> I I do not. My that was my impression that it's primarily student focused, but I haven't I don't have access to the rent rolls or any particular details about particular existing tenants. >> So, uh the conditions that were offered, I think, are very meaningful, especially when we're removing lowcost housing for uh replacement. I especially liked the uh condition to provide uh00 >> yeah the 2500 >> assist >> relocation assistance. Um I I think that all looks really good. I like the urban general urban limited frontage. Uh >> I was going to ask you where the electric bike condition came from because that's new to me and I liked it a lot. But uh you answered that already. So I'm I'm ready to vote for this when the time is here. >> Okay. Um, Commissioner Oh, >> okay. >> So, one of my ma major concerns is the loss of affordable housing, especially in a in a college area. And I get that you're saying 115,000 to the affordable housing fund, but that's a penny to be if we're going to be honest. You know what I'm saying? It might be the most you all can offer. May maybe not. Maybe if y'all could offer more, but $115,000 to the affordable housing fund when we're losing affordable housing for college students because I remember from being a college student. Um, are there any college students in here? But we all used to be. So, who felt like you could live off campus? Raise your hand. You felt like you could live off Miss K. Put your hand down. That was a long time talking about who felt like they could who felt like they could live off campus in the last 20 years or so. like, you know, and if we're removing that, my concern is where do where do NC State college students go? And what I know is even my mom lived on Centennial campus, though she wasn't a college student at NC State, but it was affordable, even if it was a studio. So my concern is the loss of naturally occurring affordability to build something that college students can't live in or people who might live in that area can't afford. Um I appreciate the the donation to the affordable housing fund, but I would much more prefer uh some subsidy to make sure that if it's by NC State, you know, that people can live there and not we we don't start displacing college students. Like already we've been talking all day about displacing everybody else. But I would I would be concerned about displacing college students and their inability to have affordable housing because of the people who need it. I feel like they're one of the top two who need it the most. Um there's no opposition. My concern is that there has been lack of engagement like college students like you can't engage the same way by putting out yard signs. Um so you have a couple of questions in there and and let me first say um what we are proposing is student focused housing. So so this is intended to be housing for students that that go to NC State. Um that's the goal here. Um the there are existing roughly 80 units and this would allow for 260 as a maximum. So many more units available for the housing the housing of of students. Um in terms of engagement um we we worked hard um to engage the community. Um we we followed the process in terms of of posting signs. We reached out to NC State. We met with their real estate team. We reached out to the West CAC and attended their meetings. Um and of course we hosted the two required community meetings. So we we made a real effort um you know to be engaged with the community. Um you know it's true that we only had one attendee at our at our neighborhood meeting but there was a lot of discussion uh at at the West CC meeting. So it it it you know we we did our best in in terms of that engagement and and think overall that this meets the objectives of your comprehensive plan by providing more housing in this area focused on the students and an ancillary you know additional significant contribution which after discussions with the CACC we did increase uh you know adding an additional $15,000 from our initial proposal. Yeah, I was done. Can I add also if uh how much are you all going to charge for the apartments? So, no rent has been set yet. You know, it it is likely two or three years before these are actually constructed. And so, the marketplace at that time uh you know, will will dictate uh rents. >> When are y'all planning on kicking people out? Um, you know, obviously they are planning on redeveloping the site. You know, there will be a review of leases and and I don't know what leases exist. I I don't know whether people will uh be able to move at the natural expiration of their lease or whether there will be a termination required, but we do have those additional commitments with regard to notice and relocation assistance. Is there a possibility for a condition if they're offering $2,500 for relocation? We know like a a onebedroom cost 16 a month, right? Like in in most places. Is there an opportunity for a condition where students who live there can possibly have some sort of voucher, subsidized living, whatever for however long when y'all reopen because they have to relocate. >> Could we have the attorney answer that? Can we have a condition for vouchers for students? No, I would vouchers with respect to making units affordable. Yes, I would not recommend. We don't have a policy in place for that. And before we would start going down that path, I would want to get input from our housing and community development folks about what that would look like. And I would be hesitant to to start having applicants offer those types of conditions with not knowing the effect that that would have. >> Okay. Thank you. >> But if it was possible, would you all be willing to >> I I I think there is some complexities with regard to to voucher programs that would cause some some legal concerns. Um and so that's why we chose this route with those additional uh commitments. >> I don't mean for any student. I just mean for the people who were living there. It >> it's there there's a legal process associated that with that that that I don't fully understand but know to be very complicated. Um and and so that's that's the reason that we have not offered that and lots of folks don't because of the complications with that process. >> Would you be willing to research it? And I I do want to add to the city of Raleigh does have u statutory preeemption on doing rent control type regulations. So again, not getting into too much detail on this, but there there would be a concern that we would be entering into like a rent control territory with that. So again, I would just proceed with caution in recommending that type of condition. >> Thank you, >> Commissioner Neptune. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to acknowledge briefly that uh you know, number one, within the last 20 odd years, I myself did go to college here in the triangle and did have the opportunity to move off campus at some point and I was grateful to be able to do so. I obviously respect and appreciate, you know, our dialogue as a commission with regard to what we can do as a city to further invest and see uh affordable housing, stock and supply, you know, grow. Uh and I know and I appreciate that related to that uh conversation around housing is a desire to see more housing altogether. So for instance, I could envision in this scenario and something I appreciate about this particular I guess resoning in the applicant here is that you know you could see uh I guess upwards of 200 plus units potentially um developed created uh for students to move into uh and it's in a context where you know I'm certainly very close to many colleagues across the university. I mean there is a housing shortage just for our students on campus you know so and so all this to say I could envision a scenario where all of a sudden there are now 200 more units for the students who you know have a range of incomes or families I should say who have a range of incomes uh now have an opportunity to move into these units freeing up other spaces uh and I think that it's just it's worth acknowledging that I certainly just as a you know as a participant in this conversation appreciate that um as a part of this resoning and this application. >> Commissioner Walters, >> I'd just like to echo some of those statements. I work at NC State. I lived very close to this area and um I'm familiar very familiar with uh the student housing uh supply and demand relationships. There uh is not enough student housing right now on campus and around campus. and it's uh and it is um driving up costs as supply and demand does. Um so when I see this kind of density close to campus right next to several bus lines, I think it's a great opportunity for students. I also think that it can provide um opportunities for more than students. And um so uh with with those considerations and the conditions that you've provided that I think are really adequate and address some of the concerns that I had um I'm I'm ready to support this uh when the time comes. >> Thank you, Commissioner Walters. I'll just add briefly that I've also heard as part of other projects I've worked on when I go to workshops, I I hear students talking about um the lack of housing. And something that's I guess relatively new for me because I went to college a long time ago when we were guaranteed four years of housing. It's not guaranteed anymore. I know my daughter just graduated from UNCC and they were only guaranteed uh freshman and sophomore and so she moved off campus um much to all of our chagrin. I had to I was paying I was subsidizing her rent. Um I was her rent voucher. So, but I mean it, you know, it's students are are being forced to move off campus now to wherever they can live because as I understand the NC State is only guaranteed the first year. So, um they need housing. Um and I appreciate the conditions that that you've added. I too, Commissioner Omay, hate to see naturally occurring affordable housing going away and people being displaced, especially if they can't move back into what's being built. Um, but I like seeing what's built. I don't I would love to see some sort of policies that the city might have to preserve naturally occurring affordable housing or something to do with people who are displaced, maybe giving them some sort of priority, but I don't think we're there yet. I wish we could be. Um, but given all of that, I I I I support this. Um yes ma'am. >> Can I just add um we're losing student housing with this. We're not gating student housing with this project. >> I guess it's how you look at it. If they're saying they're building student housing, then we're getting >> But they don't they're not saying how much. and and you and you subsidizing your your your child's housing, >> but it was student housing where she was it was a student focused complex. >> But this ain't that >> I think she said it is. >> I think it is. >> It is. Yes. >> But if we're not >> I don't think making it student housing restricts the rent. >> No, no, I don't mean that. But I'm saying if we don't know how much they're going to charge for rent for the space, we can't say that once the people that live there currently that are students move out that they could afford to even move back in, you know, and that I think that's my concern. My concern is that we're we're building things and we've already approved enough and city council, like I said last time, has approved enough to fit the housing market. She's saying they don't even know when they're going to start building this. So, we don't know when they're going to kick people out. And then between the kicking people out in the build and the completion, we don't know what that time frame is. They can start, if we can approve this, they go to city council, they can kick people out in two months and not build until next year and give people $2,500. And where's that going to send you? It's the same thing as the housing that we're facing now. People are trying to buy your house for the amount that you paid for it, maybe $100,000 more. And how you going to find another house for that when houses are $500 to 600 to $800,000? So my concern, my concern is this being what's there being demolished, us approving this, they're saying is student housing, but not saying how much it's going to cost. We don't know how much students can pay for the housing because kids are broke and nowadays parents are even more broke. And yeah, it's gonna add to the housing supply, but it ain't going to add to the student housing supply. It's not going to add to the affordability. They're not saying affordable. >> What would you propose? Are you >> I would like to see if we could conditions that mean that $2500 voucher you're going to give people when you kick them out could be a placeholder for them to move back in. I don't know if we can do that or not. But >> I don't think >> we can't we can't say we can't say that this is yeah it's adding to like I said it's adding to the housing supply but we've already approved enough housing to meet the housing supply and exceed it for the city truthfully we can't control when people build what they build and we don't she said she don't know when they're going to build what they're going to build. So, I'm saying us telling students they got to move out of housing and then they got to find other housing creates a burden for them and their families. And then we don't know if that then means that they can't they can't move back in here because they're they're probably not going to have enough money to live here. So, where are they going to go? And then we're talking about housing supply around a campus. Like I think we need to be a little gent more we talk about it in in vulnerable communities. I believe that college communities are vulnerable communities because you have people who are from out of state paying instate tuition, out of state tuition that cost them even more money. They can't they're only afforded one year of housing at NC State and after that they got to figure it out for themselves in this location where people we're setting a precedence. Maybe this is this is not far from where my mother lived. She wasn't a college student. Well, she was, but she was a non-traditional college student at the time, but she was able to afford a studio home. But then how does that impact like where are we thinking about how all of this impacts like what's the rip what's the butterfly effect of what of this? >> I hear you. I just don't know what we can do with the zoning condition that addresses all that. >> Understandable, >> Commissioner Bernett. And then it's 12:42. Um we we we gota >> my only comment was just um I think this is the first time that we're hearing the case and so it's a little early I think just to expect the applicant to be able to kind like have all those numbers together because if they're just starting like the development process there's pre-dev there's cost or side plan there's all these things all these people that they have yet to like have so they can't really produce a a number um to to give us at this time I was just I just wanted to throw that out there because I don't think it's like facitiously they don't want to but in the when you're in real estate development that that information is just not available to you yet cuz you're literally still going through this process and a lot of you know floating balls. That's all. >> Can we push it? >> Why would we if better answer like this is a college area >> if it's the will of the commission to defer it? We certainly can defer it, but I would recommend against deferring if they can't add a condition to address what you're saying. and our attorney is saying that's legally questionable. Um, so I don't want to hold them up just for the sake of holding them up. If we're ready to move, maybe city council can can address those issues because those are really council type issues anyway to talk about naturally occurring affordable housing and how do you preserve it? >> What's the will of the commission? It's not not my will. Yeah. >> But thy will. >> Oh my goodness. Yeah, >> Commissioner Walters, you >> I would like to move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated February 24th, 2026 contained in the agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. This recommend recommendation also includes an amendment to the future land use map to the extent described in the adopted consistency statement. >> Second. >> Have a motion. We have a second. Do we have any further discussion? One quick thing commission. >> Um, I'm fully supported this. I would suggest that you might uh offer language support in your conditions if it's necessary to existing residents when you go to council, but I'll vote for the u >> that's a good idea. >> Translations. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um, and I'll just add real quick that the apartments that are there can be demolished today. >> Yeah. and the people being displaced wouldn't get any of what's being offered right now. So, I mean, they could be kicked out, as you say, and whatever can be built there now could be built there, and they're just sent on their way with no notice, with nothing to the affordable housing fund, and without the $2,500 relocation assistance. So at least with this resoning if they are if they have to when they have to relocate they get these benefits that would not be offered to them if the buildings are demolished today. >> Yeah. >> With that >> all in favor? >> All opposed. That's unanimous. Thank you. >> Thank you. That was our last um >> new business item. I think this is the longest planning commission meeting that I have been a part of. Thank you all for staying. Thank you to the applicant and the the public downtown south. Those were committee of the whole meetings. Yeah. >> And we were virtual so we can take breaks. Um but what we're not done though >> we have the report of the members and the report of the assistant director for for my report. All I I want to say uh Commissioner Cochran reached out and expressed interest in being our representative for the Nash Square. >> Um the Yes. So um if I would like to nominate her to be our representative because no one else expressed interest. >> Second. >> Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. So, Binham, Commissioner Cochran will be our representative. Um, that's really all I have. Thank you all for your willingness to stay late. Report of the members. Commissioner Atwell, >> it looks like there's nothing on the text change committee meeting for March 18th. So, until we hear further, we will assume that nothing's >> Please hold that date. I believe there may be an item. >> Okay. So, we will please hold that date. talk about school regul regulation standards. >> Oo, that'd be fun. >> That's a privately initiated text change. >> So, I think that would be Nick and Brian and Jessica, I think. >> Yeah, we'll I I'll reach out to y'all and we'll hold the date. And uh that's it for text change committee. Personally, thank you for the trust y'all are putting in me. I intend to do my best to serve faithfully and efficiently and look forward to working with all y'all. Commissioner Neptune. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh just briefly want wanted to acknowledge that I had an opportunity to attend a uh community conversation on housing and homelessness with our housing uh and community services director uh Emma Sutton and it was a very well attended program at a place at the table. Great conversation and just really um I mean frankly proud of the work that the city is doing to address um you know affordable housing, attainable housing and those who are unhoused. And then secondly, just real quick on Nash Square, would like to invite and encourage everyone uh to attend and participate in a Nash Square public realm plan kickoff party and open house this Thursday the 26th from 5:30 until 8:00 at Whiskey Kitchen. Whiskey Kitchen. 5:30 to 8:00. All are welcome. We will have food and beverage to share. Okay, number one. And then number two, you get to come through and meet the uh park planning team, the landscape architects involved, the folks who are uh interested in preserving the trees, of course, um and and so much more. So, it'll be a good time. We'll love to see all of you there this Thursday, the 26th at Nash uh the Nash Square public realm plan kickoff party at Whiskey Kitchen 5:30. >> Thank you. And I that was that this Thursday we had been told to hold for uh committee of the whole. I will assume there will be no cow, so we're good. Commissioner Bernett. >> Um, congratulations to Dwight. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. And, um, no reports from me. >> Great. Glad your email is now working. Um, >> Commissioner Walters. >> Uh, no report for me. Yeah. >> Commissioner Omay. >> Yes. You know, I like to give a report every meeting. >> Right ahead. >> And it's the last Black History Day. This is my black history hair. And I want to ask Miss Carmen to come up and give us a black history fact about Raleigh. >> I would like to yield my time >> at this point. Attorney on >> Mr. Black, just give us a black history fact about the city of Raleigh. >> Um, let me see. About your family. >> Oh, okay. Well, we can do that one. I know some of them. Um, and I know a chunk of y'all, too. So, thank you for um asking me to come do this. So, the Wimberly family moved here in 1906. My greatgrandfather was pastor at Martin Street Baptist Church. Um, and he was responsible for having the parsonage built on Martin Street. Then my um grandfather had a drugstore here uh that is defunct now, but it was at the corner of Cabaris and Swain Street um from 1935 until he died in 1977. And my father had a drugstore at the corner of Blunt and Lenor Street. That is now the Wimberly building at Shaw University. Um and um let me see that was all men. My mother was um the last black female and the first elected originally to the Raleigh City School Board that merged with the first that became part of the first merged Wake County Board in 197374 around in there. That's all I know. >> And I would like to give a shout out to the great Carter G. Woodson who started Black History Month. I mean, week that turned into Black History Month where we sit right now making sure we represent our ancestors every day at least 28 29 days in a leap year but 365 in our hearts. 366 in a leap year. >> Thank you. Um and thank you Carmen. We appreciate you. Commissioner Shelurn. >> No report. >> Report of the assistant director. >> I don't have anything additional to what was published in the agenda. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you to staff. Um with that, we're adjourned.