Everyone, welcome to our January 13, 2026 planning commission meeting. Um, I am your vice chair, uh, Bert Fox. I will be standing in as chair today. Uh, Chair Bennett is absent and excused and Commissioner Barnett is also absent and excused. Uh we start every meeting with the opportunity for the public to speak on an item that is not contained on the agenda. Are there any members of the public who wish to speak on an item that is not on the agenda today? Okay, seeing none, I'm going to move on to our consent agenda. There are two items on the consent agenda today. I'm going to um address those independently. First one is approval of the minutes. Can we get a motion to approve the minutes? >> Motion to approve. >> And do we have a second? And those in favor? By show of hands. Any opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Okay. Moving on to the next item on the consent agenda, which is reasonzoning case Z2925. As this is on the consent agenda, uh this is this vote is not an approval of the case. itself. The recommended action is to request a 45day extension and provided this extension is granted by the commission, we will defer discussion to February 10th. Do I have a motion for a 45day extension and to defer the item to February 10th? >> Move to defer. >> Okay, Commissioner Uwell has offered a motion to defer the item. >> Second >> and a second from Commissioner O'Hver. Any additional discussion? By show of hands, those in support. Any opposed? That motion passes unanimously. >> Can anything be discussed related to that? >> We're going to discuss that item at our February 10th item uh February 10th meeting. >> Understand that, but the 45day extension, you know, is something that they get based on what my understanding is that the staff had said that this is consistent. The proposal was consistent, but there are several challenges to that. So, I don't believe that they should automatically get a 45day extension without discussion. >> May I ask the commission if they would like to grant two minutes for a member of the public to speak on this item as they are here attending this meeting? >> Um, I move to grant two minutes. Okay. >> Do we have a second? Okay. Those in support. Okay. Any opposed? N. That motion passes unanimously. Um, if you'd like to address at the podium, that would be very helpful. We're going to put two minutes on the timer. >> Hi, thank you. Um, my name is John Tatton. I'm a tenant that is immediately south of this uh proposed uh resoning. Um, the reason I'm here is because I live in an NCOD R2. The place next door to me is an R4. They're asking for R10. Um, this is despite what staff has produced. This, I believe, is completely inconsistent with the makeup of the existing um, establishments there. Right. This is a single family home community. um this is out of character to have a R10 property with potentially up to 40 or more units. Um that's one point. The other thing is that they reference the frequent transit area. The data that was used is not accurate. Um the from my understanding from the UDO, you got to be within a quarter mile of a frequent transit area. This is a third of a mile from a low frequency transit area. So that is another challenge I believe is worth um looking into. So not only is it not within the quarter mile um description, but it also um is not a frequent transit area. Um I also will like to ask about uh the R10 zoning. So we're going from proposing to go from an R2 to an R10 zoning when the majority of the neighborhood is under an R2 NCOD. So I'm un I'm I'm having a hard time understanding why SA staff has said that this is consistent and is allowing the developer additional time to put in additional conditions when you know that hasn't been you know the the R10 transition is kind of insane um to go from R2 to R10. Um, so I believe that those for those reasons this this view that the staff has that it's consistent is is incorrect and so to grant them a 40. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. I just want to let you know your comments are on the record and we'll consider them at the meeting where we um address this item. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Here we go. We're We need to diffuse the bomb. Okay. Um, moving on to new business. Uh, first item on the new business agenda is zoning case Z4025. Uh, we will start off with a presentation from staff. Good morning. Hyram Marziano uh long range planning. This is uh reszoning case Z4025. Uh this uh for 831 Wake Forest Road and 904 Mortic Drive. Uh the request is to reszone a combined total of 1.85 acres. Is it not showing up on the >> That's all right. >> Apologize. U this is a combined 1.85 acres to reszone from uh office mixed use 3 with uh neighborhood uh conservation overlay district to uh office mixed use for conditional use. Uh deadline for action would be March 14th. Uh zoning the area is predominantly residential. However, along the Wake Forest corridor and into downtown, you'll notice that it becomes more increasingly mixed use. Uh just an over uh oversight of how we're looking at everything here. This is across the street from the Mori Historic Park. Uh this is the Mori 2 uh neighborhood conservation overlay district. General view of the site. Uh street views. Uh that number two is around back from Mori. Uh number three is Mimosa Street uh across from the park or along the park. Uh just to summarize the conditions, uh they are requesting to prohibit several uses normally allowed in office mixed use. I have a condition um for archival documentation provisions related to the existing structure on site. Um they have a requirement to allow for the salvage of existing structure the existing structure prior to demol dem demolition so that someone could possibly come and take the structure and relocate it. Um prohibition on vinyl sighting on the any new construction with the exemption of trim and decorative elements. Um here we're looking at uh the changes. Maximum residential units go from 80 to about 132 based on our estimates. Uh there are um increases in office entitlement, some decreases in uh retail entitlement. Uh just general area, we're looking at a higher walk score than average, higher transportation score, higher bike. It's it's a generally welllocated area for pedestrian uh access. Uh Capitol Boulevard Route One uh bus service services this area. It is along a transit uh transit emphasis corridor um affordable analysis. There are no subsidized units included in the application demographic of the area. Some of the highlights some of the um more stringent highlights compared to our averages. Uh this is consistent with the future land use map. This area has a lot of office and residential mixed use. the the ox being the preferred zoning district for office and residential mixed use uh which is also again the existing zoning district. What we're looking at here is a height increase from three stories to four stories on the uh zoning. Uh it is inconsistent with our uh urban form map. There is no frontage designation uh applied for with this application. Uh so we have found it to be comprehensive uh generally consistent with the comprehensive plan uh compreh uh consistent with the future land use map inconsistent with the urban form map uh just some of the general policies that we are consistent with. We're talking about you know zoning for housing capitalizing on transit access being consistent with the future land use map. I will highlight uh two inconsistent policies again. One's the frontage another is conserving enhancing revas in our neighborhoods. They are requesting the removal of the NCOD district which would allow for greater area to be developed on the site. Uh setbacks for the front change and we're talking about uh greater height than what would be allowed uh 35 ft in the NCOD. We're talking possibly 68 ft with the reasonzoning. Uh there are no outstanding issues. Again, deadline for action is March 14th. And here's a few of your upcoming meetings that this can be discussed at. Um, and that's what I got for you. >> Thank you very much. Next, we'll hear from the applicant. The applicant and those in support have a total of 10 minutes to speak. >> Thank you. Good morning, Vice Chair Fox and members of the commission. My name is Walker Abbott and I'm with Parker Poe at 301 Fateville Street. I am joined by my colleague Jamie Schwedler and we are here on behalf of the applicant Carpenter Development and Elmwood Development. This resoning is a request to reszone two infill parcels positioned at the edge of downtown from OX3 with the NCOD to OX4 with conditions to add housing and walking distance to transit and neighborhood amenities. I'm joined by David Mer, Kate Charlotte, and Chip Dillard with the Carpenter and Elmwood team. And I'm going to let them introduce themselves and the vision for this project. Thanks, David Mer with Carpenter Development. We're a local firm, been in business almost 20 years. Um, started with sort of adaptive reuse, fun retail, and now doing some urban and fill projects like this. The owners of the funeral home, who are the sellers, um, are um, you know, decided to sell. They're passing most of the funeral home business off to their kids, but looked at their properties and decided this was the most valuable from a real estate standpoint and least valuable from a funeral home standpoint. And that's how we've gotten it under contract. Um, in addition to the couple neighborhood meetings, um, we did, um, about 20 coffees with neighbors, um, proposing our project, which is a four-story development, combination of town homes and hopefully either condos or apartments. Um, some concern from neighbors about the uh, increase from three to four stories from a few neighbors. Um but mostly um neighbors excited about the change from a funeral home um to more residential in the neighborhood. And then we also did some meetings with some housing leaders um in town who thought um this was a wasted opportunity. We should go a lot higher um and do something more. And we're not doing that because um we're trying to find a compromise um for what works for our development um for what works for the seller to get the price that they're hoping to get and also that doesn't cause too much friction with the neighbors. Um sort of some meat in the middle solution. Thanks. >> Thanks, David. Staff did a great job, but I'll quickly summarize the site. This is two parcels. 831 Wake Forest Road on the right side of your screen and then 904 Miki Drive on the left. It's just under two acres and as David said, it is currently serving as a funeral home. You can see the building on the right and then the surface parking lot in the back. Um it's currently zone office mixeduse three stories with the neighborhood conservation overlay district. Um the Ox3 was placed on the site with the 2016 remapping and the NCOD was placed on the site uh back in the9s when much of the surrounding area was single family um residential. The neighborhood conservation overlay district has various development restrictions um such as setbacks or lot size. Um it also limits height to two stories and 35 ft. The site is also in the Moriki Place Historic District. Um, the building on the 831 Wake Forest parcel is a contributing structure. It was built in 1920. It is not does not have a standalone historic designation. The original house was about 6,000 square ft and then the in 2000 an additional 6,000 ft² was added. You can see kind of the wings off the sides and then the back at the rear of the building. The comprehensive plan supports additional housing here. Um the future land use map is office and residential mixed use which quote is applied to frontage lots along major streets where lowdensity residential uses are no longer appropriate. The future the office and residential mixeduse encourages a mix of office and residential and office mixeduse ox is the closest corresponding zoning district. Four stories is recommended when near neighborhoods and that is also um underscored by table LU2 in the comprehensive plan which recommends four stories for edge areas which are edge areas which are areas within 150 ft of low to moderate density residential zoned at three stories which is exactly the case here. The urban form has two designations. It is in a frequent transit area and Wake Forest Road is a transit emphasis corridor. Both of these are indicative of where the city has planned transit investment and anticipates greater density. The site is also within two small area plans. Um you can see in the red stars indicate where the site is. It is in the blunt person street corridor plan as well as the Capitol Boulevard plan. And again, both of these are just indicative of where the city has planned transit investment um and transportation investments and shows this is a prime corridor uh for more families to live on. Taking this comprehensive plan, these comprehensive plan policies into account, we are requesting to reszone to office mixed use four stories with conditions and removing the neighborhood conservation overlay. The ox, that's an easy one. It's the same as the current zoning. It is recommended by the flume. Um the four stories again is specifically referenced in that office and residential mixeduse future land use map designation where heights are generally recommended to be four stories. And again that table LU2 specifically addresses um this situation where surrounding zoning is low density residential zoned at three stories um but having this kind of on that edge area uh recommends four stories to account for that transition. Like several other nearby cases, this case would remove the NCOD. Um, as you all are aware, the first NCODS were enacted in the early 1990s, and they were a zoning tool to quote, preserve and enhance the general quality and appearance of established neighborhoods. The more recent practice has been to remove some of these restrictions to allow a greater variety of housing types and make historically single family neighborhoods more accessible for more families. We have a few conditions. One prohibits uses that may not be compatible with the neighborhood. Um the second and third condition relate to the historic nature of the property. And then the last condition is a pro prohibition on vinyl sighting. Um we added that both to be more compatible with the neighborhood and also based on neighbor requests. Here's a closer look at those conditions. Again, that condition number two and number three. Um the second one hand would provide documentation of the existing historic building and then the third offers um for someone from the public or an organization to come in free of charge and salvage either all or part of the building. Um and that is after a pretty robust public notice process. Um we heard that feedback from RHTC staff and were able to add that in. Um, as uh staff may have mentioned, we are looking forward to a full and robust discussion at RHDC tomorrow. Um, this is one of the first cases, it's our understanding, one of the first cases to proceed under this new policy where we come to you all first and then go to RHDC tomorrow. So, we expect to have a full conversation on these historic conditions and the historic components of this request um at tomorrow's RHDC hearing. This request is consistent with several policies in the comprehensive plan as noted on page 11 of the staff report. We've also highlighted a few additional policies, but the the the crux of all of these policies and this request is that we are requesting to add one story of height um on this prime infill site located at the edge of downtown next to the Person Street commercial corridor near um various neighborhood amenities and um allowing additional housing, allowing more families the opportunity to live in this great part of the city um and in walking distance to transit, restaurants, shops, uh parks and amenities. So with that, I appreciate your time and we're happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you. Are there any other members of the public who wish to seek in support of this item? >> Please come forward. Sorry, I wasn't sure if I was going to speak, but um I decided to go ahead and get up here. My name is Dana Deon. I live at 408 Harding Street. Um a little bit more about me. I'm a Mori resident. Um I'm also on the Mickey's CAC leadership team and I work for Preservation Raleigh and I'm also on the historic resources and museums board. Um these organizations are not making public comments although we've had lots of discussion. These are my personal opinions. Um, I've been involved with this zoning case and had many conversations with various stakeholders about it. Um, and while I was at first strongly opposed to the demolition of the historic home and I questioned the removal of the property from the NCOD, after weighing all the various factors and um pushing for a few more conditions which have been discussed, I'm no longer opposed to this project moving forward. I wish that the home could be saved. Um, I know that the property will be sold and redeveloped, but after dealing over the years with other developers and the Mori community, um, I feel that our best option here is to work with Carpenter Development because I think they'll respect the neighborhood and build something that respects the proximity to the Mortic Historic Park as well. Um, I do hope that if the development starts going forward, they will allow the neighbors to see the sketches and have further input. And I'm also hoping that either moving or salvaging um a great deal of the historic home will take place. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um next we'll hear from those in opposition. Uh those in opposition have a total of 10 minutes to speak. If you'd all if you'd all like to come uh down to the podium now. >> Thank you. >> Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for your service to the city of Raleigh. Uh my name is Chris Crew, 306 Elm Street. I've lived in historic Oakwood since before it was a historic district. Uh going on 51 years. Destruction of the 1918 Dorch House and removal of the neighborhood character overlay will be a loss and a detriment to the historic character of the capital city. Historic resources and vistas are important to Raleigh. Newcomers and visitors aren't flocking here to look at tower cranes and Disneyified town centers and cheaply and quickly built so-called luxury apartments. Since this case involves impacts on a historic structure and a historic park built around a very significant property, the second oldest remaining house in Raleigh, you shouldn't make a recommendation to the council without first considering the input of the historic development commission and the historic uh preservation community. The preservation community, which I have been a member of for 51 years, generally views this as another nibbling away at the edges of significant resources that are somewhat protected by historic overlays and neighborhood character overlays. in the city's 30-year comprehensive plan. Uh, you know, this plan was developed based on considerable input and as an update has already begun, we should forall significant changes to local zoning until the plan has been re-evaluated and revised based on significant and robust public input and consensus. The UDO describes how transitions between neighborhoods and more commercial areas should be handled. the application you're looking at uh suggest without illustration or further description that there's something wrong with the current transition that a project without a site plan will rectify. There's already guidance suggesting that three stories in the parking lot in question is plenty. And I' I'd advise you to walk the site yourself and try to visualize the impact of an as yet undescribed but large collection of fourstory structures will have on the viewshed of the modest historic homes and the grand old trees in the area. This is another attempt by the development community to solve problems with the business plan by setting aside the comprehensive plan. There's plenty of vacant and underused property already zoned for projects like this. And until those are built out, we should in no wise sacrifice what makes Raleigh great, its historic and material culture. Public trust requires that you recommend denial of this proposal. Thank you. >> Hello, I'm Shay Denning. Uh I live at 909 Morai Drive which is situated directly across uh so when you were looking at that parking lot what you don't see in those site drawings are the five original houses that run uh down the 900 block of Mori Drive there. Uh we bought our house in 2004 have lived there ever since. have made significant improvements to it and absolutely love our neighborhood. Um we live our house was built in 1951. Uh the other houses on that street were built at the same time. They are all modest residential um houses consistent with the entire character of Mori Drive. Um the notion of having a fourstory building across the street absolutely takes my breath away and not in a good way. Um, it makes me really sad. I'm a an avid gardener and all I can think about is the shadow over my property. Um, I I think what is maybe missing from the description of the proponents of this proposal is the understanding that that is a relatively large parcel and the part of it is I think it's two parcels actually. The part of it that is on Wake Forest Drive, Wake Forest Road is categorically different from the back half of it which faces our homes and that's where the parking lot currently sits. I completely agree that a funeral home is not the highest and best use of that property. don't love living across the street from a funeral home, but I'm really worried about feeling like the house I bought in 2004 is suddenly in an apartment complex. That um I I feel as though what's missing here is the notion of how this would change the character of Mory Drive. To the credit of the developers, they have met with me. They've talked to me. They've said, "Hey, we're we understand. We don't think we'll build four stories on the parking lot side, but that's just a plan and and not a binding promise. And I'm really worried that if the whole thing is reszoned to four stories, um our entire block of Mory will be carved off from the rest of the neighborhood and it it will be a change we can't come back from. So, thank you. >> My name is Dexter Tilllet. I'm at live at 905 Morai Drive right next to um Shay and I lived there since 2012. I'm born and raised in Raleigh. I love this city and I love my neighborhood. Uh the one thing I really would like to touch on is I feel like we've gotten to a point where the developers have taken all the risk away from their job. They're not closed on the property. They just have an offer in. They haven't put too much money into it and they refuse to put more money into the actual planning of the site. How many floor plans? Where where is it going to face? More towards Wake Forest, more towards Morai. Like we mentioned, there's two parcels on that lot. 831 Wake Forest and 9004 Morai. I have no problem with the redevelopment. I think the redevelopment would be awesome, but if we can't know how many more units a fourth story would add, like what it looks like, is it town homes, apartments, condos, they don't even know cuz they won't spend the money to do the floor plans, do the renderings, do the site plan. I think one condition or one compromise that we could do is have four stories on the 831 Wake Forest parcel and then the 904 parcel is three stories. That's a great compromise for the neighbors right across the street, but they can't tell us anything about that because they don't have the plan, the floor plans. They can't tell you if it's five units or 50 units going to be added because that fourth story. So, it's hard for the city and the residents and the neighbors to take on all this risk and all this unknown just to approve a fourth story. And we have no idea what that means, what that looks like. And so I just think we should take back some of the power and the controllables that we as neighbors and residents and taxpayers and elected people that are doing the planning commission to be able to make a educated decision on whether you should approve it or shouldn't approve it. Um you know spending $10,000 $15,000 do a site plan floor plans and stuff that's pennies in the bucket of what the the whole development will will make an income. So, I don't know why you guys have to take the blind uh route or why we have to take the blind route. I just I don't think it's too crazy to ask the developer to have a plan to be able to prove the plan. So, um I'm all for the development. I ain't one of those anti-development people or I don't want, you know, blah blah historical this sort. No, like it's Raleigh. I love Raleigh growing. It's awesome. But again, if we can't see what we're approving, why are we approving it? So, I would love to have four stories in the Wake Forest side because those are two completely different parcels. Wake Forest side, Clover Lane set the precedent. It's all that all makes sense. But 68 ft right across the street from like she mentions is six homes that we're just like we're chilling. We're having a good time. We're not we're not trying to mess with anything. 68 ft is going to be taking away sunlight, traffic, all the other stuff. And the public input form, if you look at it from like the website, not one thing is positive. Like there's been 30 responses on there and they're all negative. And David and them have talked to everyone and we do appreciate it. I love these guys. They're really, really good people, but everyone has said no. Everyone has said no. Four stories. Not the whole development. We like the development. four stories is way way too much. But again, maybe it adds 50 units. You know, maybe that's a good thing. That's more housing, but they can't tell you how many more units it's going to add. So, I really appreciate your time and thank you so much. And please, God, >> thank you, Mr. Tlet. Uh, are there any other members of the public who wish to speak in opposition? Seeing none, I'm going to pull it back to the table. um and ask commissioners if they have any questions for either the applicant or staff. Go ahead, Commissioner Neptune. >> Uh thank you, Madam Chair. Just one, uh I think quick question that comes up. I believe for the applicant, uh, if they could speak to, you know, this appears to be consistent with our comprehensive plan and our future land use map, but there's an inconsistency with the urban frontage, and I just wonder if the applicant could speak to, you know, why that inconsistency exists in this context. >> Yeah. Um, we did look at the frontage. I know that the urban form indicates a frontage should Let's get to the There we go. um that a frontage should be on the site. The site is somewhat unique in that it does face three public streets and so the frontage would apply to all of those streets. Um in our conversations with neighbors and with staff um both historic staff and the parks and recck staff. Um we've heard some concerns uh a from neighbors on Mimosa Street like you just heard. you know, looking at a frontage that would require a certain bill to trying to maintain some flexibility and kind of how that transition might look on Moriki Drive as well as on Mimosa Street. Um there's been some discussions about the parking on Mimosa and um the Moriki House across the street. And so the fear has been that if we were to add a frontage um that might impact some of those other discussions that are happening and then some of those other requests from neighbors and staff. So briefly, just for clarity, by not adopting an urban frontage, you're maintaining as much, I guess, flexibility as possible as you approach the site in its future development. >> Correct. And flexibility to respond to both neighbor concerns and parks and um or staff requests as well and the potential that those could conflict down the road. >> Thank you. And just briefly for the I guess good of the table and I mean I just want to express my appreciation for all of the neighbors and the residents who've come out to you speak about this resoning. Uh I know as we continue to grow and and develop and try to find that balance with our uh efforts to also preserve the character of our growing city. Uh there there's a constant tension in all of that. Uh but you know I think we have these comprehensive plans and the future land use maps as sort of a as a guide right as to how we anticipate uh a desired growth kind of moving forward. Uh and you know we appreciate maintaining um that uh th those those those well-informed plans and uh you know um guides for our future growth and development um to to to find the right balance you know I think is what I'm trying to say just briefly you know, I just and I I appreciate the fact that, you know, we've got folks here who are concerned about um about finding the right balance. That's all I'm trying to say. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Commissioner Neptune. I'm going to follow up on that question and then go I believe uh Commissioner Awell had his hand raised as well. Um had the applicant considered um condition to mimic a frontage which also might address some of the neighbor concerns? And do you mean on all of the streets or just a certain frontage? >> Uh just a certain however you would like to answer it. >> Um we again did talk about that um both the applicant team and then considering that we have a we have met with parks and wreck um back in December. We have a follow-up meeting with them again tomorrow again to kind of talk through some of the Mimosa Street um uh logistics and how that looks. Um so we have talked about it but again maintaining that ability to respond to um staff concerns as both the zoning process goes on but you know farther down the road during the site plan process. Um that is what we landed on in terms of frontage um ultimately seeing that it might be more beneficial to be able to respond to staff um versus adding the frontage. >> Thank you. Commissioner Altwell. >> Thank you Chair Fox. I'd like to also add that I'm pretty concerned about the frontage. And I I think the current applicant has good faith intentions, but this is a zoning and not a site plan. I'd really hate to see a parking garage front Wake Forest Road on this gateway into downtown. And without some sort of frontage, uh any of these any of these corridors could end up with a parking garage on the first floor up against the street. And so without some sort of consideration towards urban form, I'm going to have a hard time supporting this uh request. I'd also would like to maybe ask staff for some information about the NCOD attributes. What exactly are we getting rid of here? As well as the historic district. What are the contributing characteristics of the historic district and how does this property fit into it? Um, I'm happy to answer the NCOD uh information real quick. Um, currently it's a 15 foot front setback up to 25 foot max. So there's uh with uh without the NCOD, you're looking at a 5-ft uh allaround setback from the property lines. Uh again, the major component of this NCOD would be the height. Uh does limit to 35 ft. Um, so they'd be possibly restricting from the 35 ft going up to a maximum of 68 ft with a OX4. Uh, those being the primary elements that are dimensional required there. You know, different lot sizes, uh, things like that. But since we're not sub, I assume at this point there's no provision to subdivide the property. That doesn't come into play at this point. But there' be different lot size, minimums, maximums, there' be different dimensional standards for building setbacks, and then the height requirements. Um, as far as the national uh historic district standards, I'm not familiar with them. If Aaron has anything to add to that, I'll ask her to come up and answer that for you. >> Thank you. Good morning. Aaron Morton Pew, Planning and Development. I am one of the staff liaison to the RHDC and as you mentioned, they'll be hearing this case for the first time at our meeting tomorrow morning. Um, this property is located in the Moriki Place National Register Historic District. In Raleigh, there are two kinds of historic designations. There's local and federal. There's no state level option. So, the National Register is that federal designation. It's largely honorary. Um, so unless the applicants are taking federal funds, for instance, to pursue historic tax credits or some other type of project or undertaking, there's no additional requirements for design review or additional permitting that they would have to undergo. Um, technically this resoning does not affect that national register status. Uh, should the building be demolished, it is a contributing historic resource within that district. um if the state were to re-evaluate it, they would likely remove that parcel from the district. So, it's an effective ddesation um but they just don't have the resources to go and re-evaluate each time a a parcel is essentially removed um in terms of historic status. So, there's no local designation here that would provide additional restrictions or review. It's just that federal level honorary largely incentivized um designation And while you're up there, sorry, maybe a quick followup. Um, I'd also like to ask what was the uh logic or the thought process behind uh scheduling the historic committees meeting to occur before the planning commission? >> Yeah, I might ultimately let Binaman Matt speak to that. We're sort of re-evaluating the process, but largely um the RHDC doesn't review any resoning cases unless they are in historic areas, either local or federal areas. Um, and when they have in the past reviewed those applications, we were finding with some frequency that they were being asked to review applications that weren't yet complete or were revised conditions were in draft form being considered but not yet signed and binding. Uh, because all of those deadlines are tied to your meeting schedule. Uh so they were trying to make recommendations based on what was not necessarily a complete product. Um so we've adjusted when that comes to the RHDC so that they can be making recommendations based on a fuller consideration of the conditions and the actual requests that will move forward. >> Thank you. >> Any additional questions or comments from commissioners? Commissioner O'Her. >> Thank you, Chair Fox. Um, I would just like to articulate I agree about the frontage. I think Commissioner Fox has a a good suggestion and looking at applying some conditions that would essentially meet the frontage requirements at least along Wake Forest Road. Totally understand the parking at Mimosa and across from the Miki House. I think that is important for the Mortic house. So, I think there are some ways to put some conditions in the plan that would mimic that where appropriate. Um, I I agree and I I I think the western parcel I I would like a three height consideration, threetory consideration, height there across from single family homes. David, I know you've been in here before. Most folks have been in here before. I'm pretty consistent about that when we're looking at developing across from single family homes where there can you know there's generally some asurances when you purchase those whenever they are. So I certainly understand the pressures of development the costs of land the cost of construction have gone up. So I would just like to ask that there is a consideration there and look to put a condition along along Micki Drive. I think that's all I have. >> Thank you Commissioner O'Hver. Uh question for the applicant. I'm getting the sense from the commission that we might um choose to defer this item until after you've had the opportunity to meet again with parks and wreck and to have your RHDC meeting. Um our upcoming upcoming meetings are January 27 and February 10. Um would you be able to meet a deadline for the January 27 or would you prefer to move to a February 10? Yes, we could meet the deadline for January 27th. >> Thank you. >> So, I'm going to ask for a motion from the commission if we'd like to defer this item to January 27th. >> So, move second. >> Excellent. Thank you so much. Uh by show of hands, those in support of deferring the item to January 27 meeting and any opposed. Okay, that motion passes unanimously. >> Thank you. >> Moving on to the next item on our new business agenda. We have resoning case Z1425 on South New Hope Road. We will start out with a presentation from staff. All right. Uh, good morning, chair, members of the planning commission. I'm Matthew Clim with uh planning and development here to walk you through a request uh Z1425. This is a text change to existing resoning conditions. Um so the request is to reszone about uh 58 1.5 acres from commercial mixed use with the fivetory building height limit and zoning conditions to commercial mixed use with a fivetory height limit and zoning conditions. So what is changing here is the text of the zoning conditions. This is a text change to zoning conditions. Your uh deadline for action is March 14th. So you can see the zoning of the property here uh CX-5. Uh it is surrounded by residential 10 conditional use zoning um to the north, east, and south. Uh the property is along New Hope Road. Uh and a corner touches Rock Corey Road there to the southwest of the site. Um the site under request is currently undeveloped. You can see it here in the middle of the the screen. Um, properties developed north, east, south, and west. Um, containing some town home developments and detached uh developments as well. Uh, this is part of the larger Oldtown development area um that is uh currently developing with additional phases of residential use. Um there is also uh to the south some uh apartment units or excuse me apartment developments as well along Kzer Street. Uh so a view of the site from South New Hope Road. You can see this is the undeveloped portion of the site. Another view from Anamosa Street which is internal to Oldtown. You can see some of the new townhouse construction on the left side of the screen there. Again, looking between a couple rows of town houses into the undeveloped resoning site. Another view from Arcosa Drive. So, on to zoning conditions. Um highlighted the changes here. So, uh there are a list of prohibited uses in the existing zoning. Medical is prohibited. They have added medical as a permitted use here. Um, so that's a new use that can be developed under the requested zoning. The residential development shall be limited to the attached house, townhouse, and apartment building types. So, removes the mixeduse building type from the potential mix. Um, non-residential uses shall be limited to 285,000 square ft. Under existing zoning, 360,000 square feet are permitted. So, it's a reduction. um 285,000 square feet for scale. Uh down the street from this uh site is the Battlebridge shopping center. All of the commercial space in that shopping center is about 93,000 square ft. So the remaining 285,000 square feet in this case is about 2.7 times the amount of retail of the Battlebridge Shopping Center if that's helpful. Um condition four attempts to kind of phase and sequence how development might occur under the new zoning. So once 75,000 square ft of non-residential square footage is developed. So uh a building or a couple of buildings totaling 75,000 ft that could be uh commercial space, retail space, restaurants, the like. Once any development cumulatively gets to 75,000 ft², no more commercial space is permitted until the applicants bring forward a plan for review that contains a grocery store. Um, that's that's what condition number four says. So, it's attempting to phase non-commercial development of the site. Condition number five limits uh the property at 2231 South New Hope Road to nine buildings and 75,000 square feet exclusively uh for restaurant uses. So um 2231 South New Hope, I'll go back to our map. Is this property here? So, that particular piece of property in the resoning request is limited to 75,000 or sorry, let me get back. Yeah, 75,000 square ft uh and nine buildings containing exclusively restaurants. Building heights are limited to four stories. So, the zoning district will otherwise permit a five-story building. This condition says uh building heights are limited to four stories within residential properties along Anamosa, Andesign and Arosi which are uh and Animosa and I believe this is our COSEP but we can verify that um with the applicant's presentation. So again, some buildings step step down uh to adjacent residential uses. Uh all required shade trees uh are required to be planted with a minimum caliber of three and a half inches. So you know a moderately matured tree, not some a sapling. That's a request or a zoning condition. Buildings containing bar, nightclub, tavern, lounge cannot be located within 250 ft of residential properties in that same list uh animosa and arosi. So um if a bar, nightclub or tavern is established on the site, it has to be further away from those properties. Um, another key change here, uh, the resoning states that no more than 450 residential units can be built until a plan containing a grocery store is submitted, at which point 600 total can be built. So, the total residential entitlement of the existing zoning is 450. What they're requesting is to increase that by 200 units to a maximum of 250. And this zoning condition number nine is another one of those conditions that's attempting to phase development here. So it's saying if approved 450 units could be built and no more units can be built until there's a site plan with a grocery store. Once that occurs 200 more units can be built. That's what this this zoning condition does. So there's two that have some phasing uh and and then there's um other zoning conditions as well. So just to capture all of that in one table, building height max under existing and proposed zoning is five stories. The acreage is 50 58 acres. Maximum units under existing zoning is 450. Proposed 650. resident or excuse me, retail entitlement goes down from 360 to 285,000. So there's a lower walk score, transit score and bike score here compared to the city average. Lower job proximity as well. Um it's farther from the city center and other large employment centers. Lower transportation cost index. What that means is that um because there's a low transportation cost index, folks that live in a area with those characteristics spend more money on transportation. So longer driving trips to get to the work, to the grocery store, to other places means you spend more time in your car, which means you spend more money on your transportation costs. So there's a lower transportation cost index here than the city average. Um this is the existing transit route on Route Corey Road in blue. You can see the stops there. There was one um at the uh entrance to the Oldtown development to the south off of Kzer Street. Kzer Kaiser. Um the request would add 200 units to the potential development entitlement. So increasing supply. There are no subsidized units um outlined in the zoning conditions. again permitting a variety of housing types, smaller units compared to um you know a residential or lower density um development type or pattern um smaller lots and uh within walking distance of transit. There's a higher demographic index here compared to the city. So 68 for the site compared to the citywide uh percentage of 37. It's a higher percentage of low-income population compared to the city as well. Uh and con comparatively rent has increased at a rate of about 34% um which is which is higher than the city average of 25 and a half. So request is consistent with the future land use map. Um much of the permitted uses are not changing. Again they're adding one use to the list of permitted changes which is office use. That is consistent with what is called for in the community mixeduse future land use designation. What's changing here is some of the commercial entitlement is going down and some of the residential entitlement is going up. That that is the big change that's occurring. It's inconsistent with the urban form map. Um you can see that the site comes to a point just here on Rock Corey Road which uh is identified as a transit emphasis corridor. So the plan would recommend or suggest u an urban frontage or treatment um in that area or for the property rather. So consistent with the future land use map, consistent with the plan overall and consistent with the urban form map. Um again uh a more compact development pattern by increasing some of the residential entitlement there. managing commercial development impacts by reducing building heights adjacent to uh those residential streets outlined in the zoning conditions and also by requiring bars, taverns, lounges, nightclubs to be um further from those residential properties as well. So, uh zoning and infrastructure impacts, time response standards. This is in uh relation to the uh fire service response standards that we're aware of and then also uh frontage. So, no um outstanding issues. Apologize on the screen here. Your um deadline for action is March 14th, not February 7th. Uh happy to answer any questions. Um also, the applicants are here to represent um the case as well. >> Thank you. Next, we will hear from the applicant. The applicant and those in support have a total of 10 minutes to speak. Good morning, vice chair, members of the commission. My name is Amy Kraut. I'm an attorney at Smith Anderson, 150 Fatville Street in Raleigh. I'm here on behalf of one of the property owners OT Retail East and I'm with uh representatives our of our development team to help answer your questions. Uh these three parcels have a long history as part of this old town development. Um this is a text change to existing zoning conditions that were adopted in 2019 to help facilitate the development of these three parcels that have honestly sat vacant for many years. Um we always like to thank staff. They've worked really hard on us on the amended zoning conditions to make sure we're capturing that phase development the way that we wanted to and they've provided a good overview of the changes to the zoning conditions. So my presentation is really to give you context around why we're asking for these changes. So one of the big um conversations for this site for many years has been the development of a higherend ger on the site. Um you can see the kind of site is outlined in red on the screen. And while there are some grocery stores, there's not a kind of diversity of options in terms of grocery stores nearby. What we've found um is additional residential density attracts higherend grocerers. So that what the property owners have found over the past couple years is to get the higherend grocerers on the site. They're looking for kind of just diverse types of residential units um and also increase density right on near the property. So we've made changes to the residential requirements to help secure a commitment for a grocery store on the site. Condition two allows a mix of residential um building types and bedroom counts. And then primarily condition 9 increases that unit count from 450 to 650. But based on feedback from the neighbors and council member branch, we've only tied that additional 200 units um to the development of a grocery store. So the way the condition is written is um 450 units are allowed as already is on the site. Um, if you want to go up to 650, it can only receive ASR approval if ASR approval has been received for a grocery store as well. Um, we've had some interest in the site for a grocery store. Our clients are committed to putting a grocery store on the site. They want that. Um, but there hasn't been a commitment yet. Um, and grocerers look for these high growth areas. So, this additional density will really help enhance the site and help us secure a commitment. for the commercial development. Our really goal here is to kind of what we're going to call right size the zoning here. We're reducing the commercial from 360 um,000 ft to 285 um commercial development would be located primarily on the corner of New Hope and Rock Corey. Um, so this was never intended to be a big box development and I think staff did a great job of pointing that out of some of the smaller neighborhood services type developments. big box is that 360,000 square feet that wasn't really attended here, but as we do with zoning conditions, and I'm assuming what happened in 2019 to give maximum flexibility, um 360 was put, 285 is more in line with what's actually contemplated for the site. And you can see we've kind of given an example of what that looks like on the screen where you have a grocery store, maybe a couple um other retailers in line with the grocery store, and a couple of out parcels. So, that's really what was always intended for this site. We're just kind of right sizing it it down. Um, we've also kept condition four, which limits again that phasing. You only get 75,000 square feet of non-residential uses if you want to go over that. Um, ASR approval for a grocery store is needed. And we added U medical back in as a permitted use to kind of give flexibility for what's allowed on the site. Other changes to the zoning conditions. Um we updated zoning conditions six and eight for clarity that the setback and height requirements apply to the development along that yellow line there. Um some of the references there were a little bit outdated which is why there's a little bit more red line text. We've updated them. Um just as the old town subdivision to the south and east has continued to grow. We also increased um the setback for bars, taverns, and lounges from two to 250 feet. And we've said any building within 150 feet is four stories completely. Originally, it was contemplated to be a step back even within a building. We've limited it to just four stories. Um, in terms of general building setbacks, um, this these properties would be subject to any neighborhood transitions that are already in the UDO. I think one of the important things to note here is both the staff report and our own independent traffic um, trip count shows a decreased um, traffic impact. Table one shows what the approved uses on the site are currently. uh it's about 21,627 for a daily traffic and table two is what these proposed uses would result in and it decreases to about 20,951. So overall um you know I know traffic is a concern with increased residential density with this mix of uses we're actually kind of reducing the overall traffic impact. As Taff noted, um this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan. And while it might not technically be consistent with the urban format because there's no frontage along that piece of rock quarry, that's only about 50 feet of um along the property line. Um so we we would say overall I think it's consistent. Um, again, we think our requests are overall consistent with the goals of this site and are really meant to activate this site. It's sat vacant for a long time. The original conditions were adopted in 2019 precoid. This has allowed us to we've met with neighbors. We've heard their concerns. We've met with council member Branch. I think the big concern with increasing the residential density, there is a general concern with increased residential density, but we've done our best to tie it to the development of the grocery store. So, it's not increasing residential density for density sake. It's really to attract that higherend ger to this areas um that everybody would would like. We're happy to answer any other questions. Um otherwise, we ask that you recommend approval of this request. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, we will move on. Uh, well, we have a little bit of extra time. Is there anyone else who would like to speak in support of this item? Moving on to those who wish to speak in opposition. If you could come forward to the podium, uh, you have a shared uh, 10 minutes to speak. Okay. Uh, good morning uh, commission. My name is Dev Mashalla. I live at uh 5026 Kota Street and I'm speaking on um behalf of the residents of the Oldtown community. Over the past several months, our neighborhood has held multiple meetings focused spec uh specifically on this resoning. And each of these have uh drawn um on average about 50 to 60 households. and uh your current um your uh public in uh input forum currently has roughly 45 households um comments on there as well as giant stack of letters from um our neighbors and our residents. And I wanted to start there just to emphasize that this is really about um a neighborhood coming together and understanding the cons understanding you know the the qualms with this resoning not just more of an emotional response. we've actually taken the time to, you know, you know, look at this with a with a fine tooth comb. Um, we're not opposed to new development, but what we're asking for is that the growth is realistic, um, enforceable and equitable, particularly in a part of Raleigh that is historically underserved while also absorbing significant impacts. Um, and with that context, I want to actually talk about what's changing in this request. The current proposal um asks for an increase in the residential units from 450 to 650 units and also removes the two-bedroom cap that is currently present in the zoning conditions. And that combination matters because it doesn't just add units. It increases the population intensity. And more residents per unit will mean more vehicles, more strain on our roads, more you know, more strain on schools, utilities, emergency services, and policing generally. And what's missing from what's missing is that this increase also aligns with a real with um with real demand in the specific area because within a short distance we have we have at least three other reasonzonings that are that also account for residential um for residential use as well. So, we are already increasing the population density very close to the Oldtown community. Um, that would hopefully attract some of the, you know, as um the applicants have said, hopefully would attract some of this, um, you know, higherend grocery stores and whatnot. Um but um at the city level currently Raleigh's uh vacancy rate has been hovering at around 12% which is considerably higher than the healthy range of 5 to 8% that most housing experts um that most housing experts give. So really the concern isn't housing in its abstract. just concentrating hundreds of additional units in an area where the absorption is already lacking and without and this is done without really updated studies or guaranteed community benefits to offset that impact. And that's why um the res why that's why a lot of us in the residents have believe believe that a 500 unit cap with enforceable bedroom limits would represent a reasonable and balanced compromise um to what is being proposed. And this would um bring me on to the equity impacts of where this growth is being placed. Oldtown currently sits in what has long been recognized as a food desert. And residents regularly have to, you know, leave and go far distances just to access just to access any sort of basic necessity. And this really has led to a decrease in our in quality of life. We do appreciate that, you know, there's a that there is a grocery store condition in our in the current requ in the current uh zoning conditions, but as written, that condition allows for most of the residential units to be built before the grocery store is even required to submit a site plan. This only would exacerbate our current standing as a food desert and only just overall just make the situation worse for even higher number of people that are trying to move into the oldtown community. In an under resource in underresourced communities like ours, sequencing matters and we've seen housing delivered first while uh promised amenities come a lot later or honestly not at all. If a grocery store is truly essential to the vision of this project, it needs to be secured and under construction before the residential development begins, not treated as a future possibility that could be taken away. That same issue also applies to the broader mixeduse commitment. This site was originally approved as mixed use to bring services and employment and economic opportunity to southeast Raleigh, not just the additional housing. Without a uh as it currently stands, we have a maximum cap for commercial development, but we have no minimum set in place. And without a minimum commercial requirement, there's no assurance that those benefits will materialize. In a community that's again been very historically overlooked, commercial space isn't just about retail opportunities. It's about jobs. It's about small business opportunities. Reinvestment just overall bringing more value to the community and to the, you know, to Raleigh as a whole. And a mixed use designation should should deliver on all fronts, not just on the on just not on the residential side. And that also has to be looked at in the um in the scope of public safety concerns. Over the past year, Oldtown has very rapidly dropped in its safe in its safety rating to an F. This has most of the incidents that we've dealt with are property related issues to the point where me where many residents of Oldtown, myself included, have spent countless hours working with the police to where we're on a firstname basis with the police. Um, and we've just we've continued to see the same levels of crime waves, sometimes even escalating in condition as more people have moved into the Oldtown um or into Oldtown or just a general area as a whole. And like research uh consistently shows that like prolonged vacancy, rapid turnovers, which is many which is many times the case especially in you know rental units and just absentee ownership correlate with increased crime and reduced perceptions of safety. Against that backdrop, accelerating large scale residential development without any sort of meaningful buffering would increase that risk rather than reducing it. So that's why we also would like a mandatory 50-ft landscape buffers and why we feel that they're essential. It's not just aesthetic. It's a practical tool to help us ensure our safety, our privacy, and our neighborhood stability that we've worked for several years to try and um bring up. And finally, like none of this exists in isolation, especially in context of traffic. the traffic studies that are being used to re-evaluate um the zoning rely on a lot of outdated uh data that don't seem to account for the other reasonings that are currently happening up and down South New Hope or across Rock Quarry or even Pool Road for that matter. And um I can speak for myself and several others that area of that section of South New Hope near an um South New Hope and Anamosa and South New Hope and Rock Hory is a hot zone for traffic accidents that happen far too frequently and it just becomes very congested. Looking at this project by itself just underestimates its real impact. Before any approval is granted, there needs to be an updated traffic study that uses more recent data and accounts for the cumulative development impacts. So, to finish off, Oldtown residents are not trying to stop growth. We're just asking that Southeast Raleigh be paired with enforceable commitments, realistic planning assumptions, and equity um driven decision-m. Absent from those protections, we do ask that this resoning is denied as it's written. Thank you for your time. >> Good morning, chair and commissioners. Uh my name is Zana Baladina. I'm speaking on behalf of the many residents of Oldtown. Like they've said, we've met multiple times to review this application um and all the changes. We believe that um it falls short of being sustainable for Southeast Raleigh in this area. Um, we're again emphasizing we're not opposed to this development, but we're asking for reasonable conditions for the the livability of an already underresourced area. Um, I will skip on how the 450 to 650 will affect us, but it is a 44% jump in housing units and it removes a two two-bedroom cap. That does put a strain on our schools. It puts a strain on our roads, our public safety. Um, so we are asking the commission to cap at 500 units, a 10% increase over the original entitlement. Um, we also do want to thank the applicant for taking into consideration that we all need a grocery store really badly there and they have put it in after their second meeting with us. It is a deeply needed amenity, but we do want the language to be not as vague as it currently is. We do want a grocery store to be committed, permitted, and under construction before residential construction begins. Otherwise, the risk remains that the residential will be built and the commercial will not. I'm sorry I'm speeding through this. I only have one minute. And then in regards to the proposed cap of 280,000 square feet of commercial space, it is acceptable to the neighbors as long as it's a minimum um floor also included, we ask that the conditions be revised to establish 180,000 square feet as a foot as the minimum and 285 as a maximum allowed commercial. This ensures the project remains true to its mixed use designation and actually brings in services and jobs to the area, not just housing. Additionally, we really do need the 50 ft buffers. I understand that the UDO has its own rules. Um, but we are concerned about the real increase in public. >> Thank you. >> If you'd like to finish your sentence, you can go ahead. >> I don't even remember it anymore. Sorry. >> That's okay. >> But here are the letters from our res. >> Thank you very much. I'm going to pull it back to the table as I pass these around for folks to look at. Um, are there any questions or comments from commissioners? Commissioner Makayatt, uh, this development is basically on the corner from my house again like Z125. Uh, my concerns with this development are similar to that devel that resoning that this is a flood zone. This is across the It is Z1125. And this this is right across the street. Am I confused? >> It's across the street, but it's not in the flood zone. >> It's a flood zone. And it's across the street from a swamp in marsh land. I live there, so I know what it is, whether the city says it or not or designates it or not. The con concern for me is developing in an area that is a flood zone. putting residents there. The same concern for Z1125, putting residents in a flood zone, putting residents in a space that could be endanger them is a concern to me for this development. As much as we need a grocery store, if it's not fully put in the conditions that we're going to get that there, even if it is there, imagine I mean, is it going to be a one way in, one way out like some other areas? I want to know more about what you all are planning to put there and how you're planning to condition it so that it does suit residential needs but does not harm the residents. It is across the street as much as you know from the swamp acreages of swamp land and across the street on New Hope from sewage piping. So in the summer and spring, it does smell like poop to be playing. And to add more housing there adds more density and increase to that. Um to the public safety issue, I did have somebody knock on my personal door at 1:00 in the morning on Rock Corey demanding to be let into my house having a manic situation. So we do have sit like in these situations on Rockore, you do have a planning commissioner who encounters issues themselves that the residents encounter. I'm not uh disconnected from it. I literally have had situations happen at my house, people showing up to my house because of the area that we live in and adding more of that to that is concerning to me. The fact that New Hope is a two-lane road and Rock Corey where you're talking about going is a two-lane road does add stress to the traffic and residential impact to the area. That is a concern to me. It's also a concern to me that we're saying across the street is a flood zone, but over there is not. Literally a street separating it. So, what conditions are you all willing to put in to make sure that residents are safe that if there is a flood that it doesn't become a biohazard since it is across from a swamp? Like my my concern is what's going to happen with the area. As much as I think often times people come here and they they try to issue a magic bullet affordable affordable housing a grocery store to get the reszoning that they want for the property that they're trying to resone but I don't believe it's our or city council's job to reszone area to make it more convenient for developers. I think that we need to focus on what residents need and a grocery store. Yes, we need it. But we do have a food line that is about a mile or two up the road up up uh Rock Corey towards Barwell. And we do have a food line that's a mile or two up Rock Corey towards downtown. Um and one on Pool Road, which is closer to the one that's on Rock Corey. So my concern is yes, it's a food desert in the sense that there's not a grocery store within a mile, but a lot of people live in a space where there's not a grocery store within a mile, but I'm making sure that we don't run into any environmental hazards or hazards that we put residents in placing things in spaces just to make sure that we can reszone them. So that is my concern. >> Thank you. I appreciate your comments. I'd like to follow up on one of them and give the applicant the opportunity to respond um specifically regarding traffic concerns. Um has any um investigation been done into any of the traffic concerns that have been um discussed today? >> Sure. I can bring our traffic engineer up to talk about that. He is the one that conducted that traffic trip generation study. Um that does show a reduced impact. I would just note without a grocery store committed uh or kind of a multifamily developer committed to developing this site, you know, a TIA wasn't required for this reasonzoning, but any future development, you know, would likely trigger potentially more traffic impro like studies and improvements through the ASR and SPR process. So, we do recognize um that traffic is a consideration, but just in terms of what's condition permitted now to what will be, you know, permitted if this resoning goes through, it does represent a a general decrease in traffic. But I will bring up our traffic engineer to answer any specific questions you have. >> Uh Jeff Hook, Timman's group. Um, yeah, I'm I'd be happy to answer any additional questions, but basically, just to summarize or reiterate, the traffic study will need to be completed. All the issues that were were discussed will will be taken into account where they're going to have to look at the additional growth. Uh, it'll need to follow both city uh standards and NCDOT standards before it'll get approved. Obviously, um 2019, I guess, was the original. We weren't we didn't do the original study, but uh um uh we probably would be working on the update, but but we did do the updated uh trip gen and it does show a decrease in in overall daily traffic. Um so and and and a fairly significant decrease in PM peak hour trips. It's a slight it's about even on AM peak hour trips. So, but yeah, that will be um a study will be done at some point. >> Thank you. I appreciate the comment. Are there any followup or questions regarding that? Commissioner Neptune, >> just a a follow-up question with regard to the flood zone. Uh, could staff speak to because I guess I I feel like I'm reading in the application that it's not in a flood zone, but is there something that I'm missing with regard to the nature of the the context of the site? I don't have a map of the flood zone exactly, but I can show you here. And again, just to be clear about what I'm referencing, there's a storm water section within our materials and you know on the flood zone or flooding downstream or you know any other any other items. It doesn't appear to be the site in immediate proximity to a flood zone. >> No. So generally the trying to draw with my new tool here. Sorry. And while you're, you know, looking for this, I do want to express my appreciation for just, you know, u our fellow commissioner raising that as a potential concern with regard to the development of the site. >> Yeah, I tried to draw kind of where the creek is here, but go ahead. >> Thanks, Matt. Yeah, this uh this area being reszoned does not have flood zone on the property. The flood zone is across New Hope, >> correct? >> It's across >> It's across >> It's across New Hope. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Just for my own clarity. Thank you. >> Thank you. It's very I have a >> Commissioner McCome, please. >> To that end, we can't say environmentally as we see unless we're denying envir climate change. We can't say environmentally that across the street is a flood zone and literally right across the street is not. This is directly across the street from where we're saying is a flood zone, from where where there is a sewage pipe, from where we did uh deny reszoning because of those conditions and because of feeling like we're putting residents in an area, the vulnerable of us in an area that is that is could be compromised. So, we don't know what can happen in the future in this area. it. This development specifically is across the street from acreages of swamp land and across the street from there from acreages of marsh land. Already in the spring and summer, like I said, it smells like poop. My home is there. I live there. I know this area that you're referring to. I'm from southeast Raleigh. I completely understand the impact of this development. As much as we want things in the area, we have to be mindful about where we place them, right? So, if it floods and this is a commercial land that maybe doesn't have a grocery store, but say it has a gas station, it becomes a biohazard if it then floods next to a swamp land. So, as much as we want to say, oh, well, you're going to put affordable housing or you're going to put a grocery store and it's a food desert, like every every acreage of land in Raleigh can't be reszoned and developed. So, my concern is is that is my true concern, the impact. And we're talking about, like I said again, public safety. Since I bought my house four years ago, I've had multiple incidents of people showing up to my home, banging on my door, like literally having to defend myself, you know what I'm saying, from residents. And my concern is the and then I don't know if we can say that it's going to decrease traffic. It's a two-lane road. So more development if we're being comprehensive about what we're considering in development up New Hope up Rock Corey the other way. We've we've we've approved a lot of development in this area in a two-mile radius. So we can't say it's going to decrease traffic. We can't say it's going to uh you know increase public safety. We we don't know. And that that truly is my personal concern as much as my concern as a planning commissioner. >> Thank you so much for your comments. Um it would help me uh Mr. If you could pull up the chart you had that um There we go. That helps me. Um so just to be clear, the existing zoning allows 450 units and 360,000 square ft of retail currently. So if someone submitted a site plan tomorrow that met those requirements, that could be built. >> Correct. Okay. So, what we're really trying to do is assess the change, the delta between the existing zoning and the proposed zoning. Um, my specific question is in regard to uh residential units. Um, this is going to be a UDO quiz, so I'll talk slow because you're going to likely need to look it up. Um there is there are requirements with multif family development um regarding uh amenity or open space. Um so my assumption is with the increase in units there's a proportional increase in the requirements for amenity space or open space. I believe that the open space requirement for amenity area is based on the size of a site that comes in. It's 10% amenity space. So, it's not a direct it's not a linear relation between amenity space and units. We can double check that. Um, if I may, uh, to Commissioner Umakay's, um points the just to clarify, like there's nothing on the site there today, right? It's undeveloped. So, it's producing zero trips. So, any development is going to increase car trips. But um what the analysis shows and what the applicant was discussing was the change in what could be built today under the existing zoning compared to the change of what could be built under the proposed zoning shows that at maximum buildout in each of those scenarios that the the proposed zoning would produce fewer trips. And it's likely because of the reduction of retail entitlement from 360,000 square feet to 285,000 square feet. Retail generates more car trips than residential, right? You have a grocery store that tons of people come and visit every day or or a restaurant and the like. So comparing existing and proposed zoning development under the proposed zoning is likely to produce less daily trips which is also consistent with staff's um analysis and in the staff report as well. I hope that's helpful. >> Um I'd like to follow up if I may um unless Commissioner Oaya you had a response. Um, I'd like to ask the applicant if they have considered some proportional increase in amenity or open space due to the increase in the number of units. >> What did you say? So I think at this point given that we don't have a multi-unit family developer kind of interested or a firm commitment for a grocery store. We haven't considered that as a zoning condition at this point just kind of increase flexibility and main consistent and um maintain consistency with the UDO. Um but we can kind of take that into account moving forward. Thank you, Commissioner. >> I do have a question. Have you all met with Have you all met with storm water or any of the other departments to talk about how this may impact environmentally the area >> because it as much as it's not >> quoted a flood zone is right across the street from it. So, we can't say that it's not impacted by flooding if it's literally right across the street. Hi, Sally Hoy, Rally Stormwater. Uh, we have not specifically met with the applicant about this. However, uh, we did not do that because we felt like this reszoning case did not change the environmental impacts from the base zoning. Um, in terms of changing the entitlement of housing, um, that the what was already, uh, what is already allowed under the base zoning would have the a similar impact. Do we know when it was approved for the zoning that it has currently? >> I believe they said uh 2019 >> 2019 >> 2019. >> So a lot has changed since 2019. You know we've the co era has changed everything and we know that environment is changing consistently. So I am hoping that the the client does >> there is actually each department does a write up in the staff report. So you can see their assessment of the project in that staff report as it currently stands. So that might be helpful. >> Well what she's saying the stormwater lady I'm sorry I'm sorry I don't want to call you stormware lady. What's your name? >> Sally. >> Missy. >> Sally. So Sally is saying that they did not assess that because they went off of what was already precedent from 2019. So I'm asking if there's an opportunity for the client and storm word to meet to to assess what's happening what could possibly happen now. We we actually did assess it and what and our assessment showed that the impacts to in in terms of environmental issues would not change from with this current resoning um because it's already uh because of the level of development that it is already zoned for under the base the the existing zoning. Um so yeah, >> does the zoning that uh proposed zoning change that we're considering right now substantially increase the allowed amount of impervious on the site? >> Um because this site is a large site, we only have impervious thresholds for very small sites. So under a half acre or under an acre depending on their use. So given the size of this site, there is no explicit impervious limit. It's they they develop an impervious limit through their calculation. So whatever they um provide mitigation for as part of their development is how much impervious they're allowed to have. >> So they're mitigating the impervious that that's associated with this. Yes, they they would be subject to our regular storm water rules, which looks at the um the rate of storm water coming off to address flooding and and that sort of thing, the quality of the storm water. They'd have to do erosion control. They may also be required to do, and I haven't uh looked at this yet, they might have to do some smallcale flood studies for the um if there's a tributary with more than 5 acres of drainage area on their site to make sure that anything built on the site wasn't in a flooding area. >> I would like to invite commissioners. I well I want to I would like for us to push this to our next meeting >> and in that space I would like to invite any commissioners that's willing to meet me at my house and walk to this site in Z125 to see what's around the area because oftent times we're approving things we don't see the whole picture from the presentations. So any commissioners that want to have a walking lunch with me and see the site and see the areas around the site so that we can make an informed opinion, I would I would like to suggest that. >> Excellent. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um I generally do a little tour quickly um the weekend before meetings just to >> get some eggs, too. I got chickens, girl. >> Just so Oh. Oh. Well, then on that case, I'll go I'll go again. Okay. Um, and then, um, I acknowledge I mentioned something and members of the public may not be, uh, privy or aware to what I'm discussing. So, whenever you have an agenda item that you can find online for all of our cases, um, we do have attachments in there and there's a section called trade review. And in this particular case, the trade review starts around page 13. So, um you can go through and see what each individual department has assessed um regarding to the individual resoning case. Um uh I am acknowledging that we are uh going to defer this item. Um I'd like to um um make a recommendation uh that the applicant consider the um increase in the uh residential um component. um that that might um come with a commensurate um increase or a change to how you consider amenity or open space. Um also acknowledging that might take into account some of the comments we heard from members of the public regarding um a buffer. I would um take that to meet the definition of an amenity or or uh open space requirement. Um there are any other additional comments commissioners would like to make? I'd like to pull the applicant up just to um request quickly. Uh we have our next meeting which is on January 27 and then there's a meeting after that on February 10th. Is there a preference of the applicant in when they would be able to uh have the appropriate meetings and make those changes? >> I think our preference would be the January 27th meeting to make those changes. >> Okay. Okay. So, uh, before the applicant, um, gets down, if there are any additional items people would like to bring to the applicant's attention for consideration prior to the January 27 meeting. >> Commissioner Cochran. So, my questions are regarding the um, opposition comments about the limit to the number of bedrooms per unit. Is that um a condition or written into any of these um zoning types or like I would just like some clarity there to understand are we really limiting these to two-bedroom units. >> So the original conditions in 2019 included a twounit bedroom cap and in the revised conditions we've removed that two-bedroom unit cap and that you know is really essential I think for the flexibility of development. That's a pretty tight limit when you just limit apartments to to two bedrooms. So, we've removed that cap moving forward. >> Commissioner Cochran, >> I have some additional questions. >> Sure. >> So, am I understanding correctly that the community is asking you to keep that cap? >> I think not necessarily. I think my understanding of their request was to limit the total number of residential units down from 650 to 500 was their request. Thank you for clarifying that. Um, Commissioner Walters, did you have another question or >> I'd just love to hear uh again from the the public opposition about the unit cap or or the units why what the kind of clarity uh or intention is some clarity on the intention of this units on the units of the of the house. >> Um, without opposition um I can bring up uh the community member who spoke regarding bedroom count. if you want to have a minute to just provide a little bit more clarity around your comment. >> Hi, thank you again. Um, so our reasoning around the community was that we already have 750 town houses. We have 550 single family, 55 plus just down, not even just down the road, we have another couple hundred from Dr. Horton a couple of there's another townhouse community coming right behind us on Barwell. There's just a lot going on and now you're increasing 200 more houses with no bedroom cap. We're going from like a three people h like apartment to like now eight people apartments and that just brings so much density. You can't leave Oldtown between three and five and turn left. Like you just can't. And so this is just going to make it even worse. >> Thank you for your comment. Your question Mr. Schelurn. Uh, just a comment. I'm still reasonably new to this activity and I suppose I should have known that there was such a thing as a two-bedroom limit, but as a housing professional, I'm kind of appalled that that's even there that for multiple reasons. And so, I think that limit needs to go citywide. There's no excuse for it being in place anywhere. And it for fair housing reasons, for market response reasons, it's it's a bad policy. and so we need to get rid of it wherever we can. >> I I tend to agree with you. Uh generally it makes it very challenging for families to rent units when there's only two bedrooms. Um but I will allow um a minute um to the applicant if they would like to respond to that um comment or any additional information you'd like to provide. I think we share your um feelings about the original two-bedroom cap that was in the 2019 and it's part of the reason that we removed it. In terms of the additional density, again, it's really to attract that higherend ger to this site. You know, the development in the surrounding area has been developing, but a grocery store isn't there, and we still haven't been able to secure the commitment to it. So, the reason for the additional 200 unit request is to just make it more attractive for a higherend ger to come to the site. >> Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Oay, and then I saw Commissioner Neptune. >> I just want to make one more comment. Sure. >> Um, sometimes our conditions are put in place for good reason. And every part of the city is not the same. And especially in this area where we literally this development is across the street from acreages of swamp and marsh land. That may be why and uh involved with uh water sanitation. That may be why this was put in at the city council meeting. Um, Councilman Branch mentioned that right across the street with Z125 that the city council has consistently wanted that to be nonresidential because of the condition. And this is right across the street. This is not up the road. It is literally right across the street from Z125, which we denied. So, I understand that it makes it a little more difficult for housing and developers with a twocap limit, but it's put there for a reason. So if we have uh 650 units, that is a thousand extra people processing their their poop in an area that other areas don't experience and having to deal and smell with that. And I'm I'm using the word poop literally and and saying it intentionally cuz I go out on my back porch for my moaning cup of tea and take a deep breath in the spring or summer and I smell everybody's poop that's in the area. Barwell road had the same issue. That whole lane is an issue. So residential units in an area that already is stressed and maxed out could cause more residential stress. And I think that we need to be considerate of the livelihood and the and the uh just the the well-being of residents in that area. As much as we want a grocery store, we have not had one in the area. And this resoning does not guarantee that we will have a higherend one. All across the area in that space is Food Lion. Us reszoning this area does not guarantee that we'll get a Lidle or a Harris ter we're definitely not getting a Wegman's or Trader Joe's, you know. So, we can reszone it and approve it, but it doesn't mean we're going to get what we're resoning and approving. And adding more residential space to something we've already disproved right across the street is just a little concerning to me. So, once again, I do I invite everybody to come. Let's have a walking tour to see the area so we can make so we can make informed decision. >> Excellent. Again, I appreciate your comments. I'd just like to also uh be cognizant uh we don't want to have a a quorum at any walking tour. >> Come separate days. >> You can schedule an hour or 30 minutes with me. >> Okay. Excellent. Um with that final comment on the case, what I'm going to do is I will make a motion to defer this item to January 27 to give the applicant additional time to address some of the concerns that they heard today. Um do I have a second? Commissioner Cochran with a second. And by show of hands, those in support of the deferral of this item to the 27. Okay. Any opposed? Okay. That motion passes 62. Excellent. Thank you very much. Uh now we're going to move on to the last item in new business for the day. That is resoning case Z3725 on Avent Ferry Road. Uh we will start out with a presentation from staff. Good morning commission members. My name is Mr. Baron and I'll be presenting today on Z3725. The request is for 17 parcels along avent ferry, Broadwell Drive, Sher and Stefast Court, as well as Chapel Drive. The request is to reszone just under nine acres from R10, RX3, and CM or conservation management all with the SRPOD or special residential parking overlay district to RX4 with conditions maintaining the SRPOD. And your deadline for action is March 14th. zoning in the area is predominantly residential with R10 immediately abuing the site and then RX3 a little further out. There are a few instances of CM um on the site there's a little pocket and then as well as um that blue just south of the site um and that kind of maps existing floodway and NCAT's that exists on NC's campus as well as Lake Johnson southwest of the site. Here's a look at future land use map designations around the site. Just to the north we have medium scale residential um which is where that R10 and RX3 zoning exists as well as institutional and office. This follows uh NC State uh Centennial campus which is just southeast of the site as well as again that environmental parks and open space uh designation which um follows uh kind of going towards Lake Johnson. And then here's another look at the site and the surrounding area. Like I said, the site is comprised of 17 parcels. Um on the site currently are around 15 structures um with around an estimate of 59 units. Um mostly uh duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, so multif family um buildings somewhat arranged in a college court style. Um yeah, and then one more look at the site a little bit more zoomed out. Again, you can see NC State Centennial Campus um east of the site and then uh kind of going towards Lake Johnson west of the site. And then here's a few looks at the frontages uh for the site across um the different streets that are included with the request. Avent Ferry, Broadwell Drive, as well as um Chapel Drive to the east and the west. As you can see, limited pedestrian facilities. And then I think it was noted no bicycle infrastructure exists like on these portions of the street uh adjacent to the site immediately. The applicant has proposed three conditions currently um for the request. The first is prohibiting the cemetery and parking facility use. The second is in the event that the development comes in as a tier three site plan. Um there will be no service parking between the building and avent ferry uh and Chapel Drive. So no parking between a fairy and chapel drive and the building or service parking. And then as well as each uh principal building fronting chapel should or chapel drive should have at least one entrance facing the street uh with direct pedestrian connection to the building uh between the building and um pedestrian infrastructure on chapel. And then the third and final condition is requiring the property owner to give at least 120day notice to tenants in any residential buildings before demolition of any residential buildings. Here's a look at existing and proposed entitlement. Um I have both the conventional and FTDO option which is what's included in the staff report. Um for existing zoning it's just for R10 and RX3. Um there's no uh like unit development allowed in CM but um the total for the existing is 332 units and that jumps up to 392 under the uh RX4 zoning. Uh you can see the differences in the setback requirements for the apartment building type. There are uh limits on commercial uses in RX. Uh it's 4,000 ft and that's reflected in that table. And then the FDDDO option, uh, generally higher unit counts because they do allow for in our 10 smaller lot sizes or minimum lot sizes as well as additional stories, an additional story uh up to five stories uh in RX. And then the same uh limits apply for the uh commercial use. In terms of transportation and energy, the site is more walkable and bikable than the other areas in the city. On average, residents in this area have better access to transit um and lower transportation costs on average um as well as they have a higher proximity to jobs. Um the site is directly served by two Go Raleigh routes, Route 11 and Route 12. Um but it is also within a 5 to 10 minute walk of other uh transit options as well. In terms of afford affordability, there are no subsidized units included with the request, but the request does add to the overall housing supply. Um, it provides a variety of housing types to be built on the site on smaller uh units on smaller lots. And the site again is within walking distance of transit and is close to several employment centers. It's nearby Gorman Street, Western Boulevard, um, and easy access to downtown and NC State. In terms of demographic and land use, there's a lower percentage of people of color that live in this area and residents in this area are more likely to be low income. Um, median gross rent in this area has risen significantly more than the city average at 65 nearly 66% compared to 25 and a half%. Overall, the request is consistent with the future land use map designation of office and residential mixeduse. Um, the site does have urban form guidance. Uh the entire site is within a frequent transit area and then a ferry itself is designated as a transe emphasis corridor and an urban thoroughfare. All of this calls for um the site is mapped for higher levels of transit service and al also recommends like multimodal um infrastructure buildouts along a ferry. Um no frontage was included with the request but condition number two does mimic what would be recommended for a frontage. So, urban general, urban limited um no parking between the building and the street and also direct pedestrian access satisfies that frontage requirement. Overall, the request is also consistent with the comprehensive plan. There are a number of policies that help with consistency. Most of these are related to compact development, zoning map consistency, um increasing access to transit, density near transit lines, um and existing amenities and infrastructure and uh infield compat compatibility. And then a few more related to student oriented housing because the site is within close proximity to NC State as well as zoning for housing. And then there are a few um area specific policies that are relevant. um the site is within the aventia area plan and these consistent policies speak to um multimodal access and connection and improving that. Uh two inconsistent policies were identified. These are related to one of the fire service response time standards not being met. There are no outstanding issues with the request. Your deadline for action is March 14th and those are your upcoming uh PC dates. I'm happy to answer any questions and the applicant is also here. >> Excellent. Thank you. Next, we will hear from the applicant. Uh the applicant and those in support will have a total of 10 minutes to speak. >> Good morning, uh Vice Chair Fox and members of the commission. I'm Jamie Schwedler with Parker Poe 3 on Fateville Street. um here with my colleague Ashley Terzis as well as our team um working on this exciting infill project to provide more student housing in an area uh that is very close in proximity to NC State Centennial campus. Um we're joined by Corey Boxin as well as uh Craig Smith uh with Kennedy Wilson formerly known as Toll Brothers Apartment Living as well as Michael Vampirin and Nate Bowin with McAdams here on um civil and land planning and transportation questions. Um this is approximately a 9 acre 17 parcel assemblage just off of Avent Ferry Road as you can see on your screen and Chapel Drive. We're adjacent to Centennial Campus which is the large kind of blue overlay that you see wrapping around uh the south and and eastern portions of the site less than a mile from the main campus but of course very close in proximity to the Centennial. As was mentioned this is currently split zoned um R10, RX and CM partially uh legacy districts. And so what we're trying to do is look at the comprehensive plan policies, the small uh area plan, and bring those in line with a more contemporary proposal to add more housing. The future land use map and urban format both support um additional density here. The office and residential mixeduse designation is for areas with frontage along major streets where lowdensity residential uses are no longer appropriate, which really describes this area as a T. And a mix of residential and office uses are encouraged. four stories is consistent with the height guidance for that or OM near neighborhoods and the urban form has a combination of transit emphasis um policies that support additional growth here. Um it's the future a transit area on the urban form. Avent ferry is an urban thoroughare and a transit emphasis corridor. So, we've added conditions that mimic frontage um and allow us to increase that development in areas where you want to place more people along transit emphasis corridors um but do it in a way that makes sense for some of the site constraints I'll show you on the site in just a second. Um with that in mind and and working with staff and neighbors, we've developed the zoning conditions that you see on your screen, prohibiting cemeteries and parking as a prohibited as a principal use a frontage condition um as Mitro described mimicking the urban limited frontage. there's a significant um environmental constraint that prevents us from putting an actual frontage designation, but we've pulled those elements forward uh that we can meet and included those in the park in the um conditions that you see um number two. So that includes the surface parking prohibition as well as the direct um pedestrian access that you've seen requested in other cases and we're able to accommodate here. Um, in addition, we've agreed to uh offer an existing tenant notification period that mimics another case that was approved in this vicinity Z 2024 um last year. And that just recognizes that in some cases where there's existing tenants, having that extended notice period u would be appropriate um beyond what state law would otherwise provide. This is the um site constraint and the environmental constraint I mentioned earlier. There's a jurisdictional stream and wetlands that run diagonally across the intersection from Chapel and Avent there on the top uh right hand side of your screen down into other portions of the site. So where you would normally be able to put an actual frontage along Avent or Chapel, we cannot meet that frontage requirement of putting a building on the corner or the build to that we would otherwise be required with any of the frontage combinations that would go along avent road. And so that's why we ended up adding those elements of the streetscape or excuse me the the frontage that we could um and worked heavily with staff on that and appreciate their collaboration there. Um there is a pedestrian infrastructure guidance along this area. Um the Chapel Drive and Broadwell Drive frontages will be brought up to the current standards with the development of this plan um at site plan meeting the UDO requirements and that would include the sidewalks and street trees connection to pedestrian infrastructure. There's also an Aventy streetscape plan that'll control improvements along Avent Ferry Road. Most of that has been built out as those areas are built out. So, there aren't additional midblock crossings um that we would be offering with this case, but in coordination with DOT, they would not support additional crossings because of so much of this has been built out. Um and though that might sound contrary um to kind of regular uh terms, sometimes additional crossings in the wrong place can actually be more dangerous than than um a limited amount of crossings. And so we'll continue to work with staff as we go through site plan um to offer the right minimums um there. With that, this case is consistent with um an overwhelming number of policies. Meter did a great job of summar summarizing those and in the staff report. Um I would just like to note that although the only policy that we're really inconsistent with deals with fire and um infrastructure, those are usually more concerns that you see in the outskirts of town where we're talking about extending infrastructure. This particular site is with a mile and a half of three different fire stations. It's an infill site and so it's a matter of time where that personnel and infrastructure will catch up. Um with this investment, we think we can help the city get even closer to that. Um so we're consistent with the uh comprehensive plan, consistent with u the future land use map and have a higher than average walk score, which is wonderful to see in this area of town and happy to add more student housing. Happy to answer your questions and thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Are there any members of the public who wish to speak in support of this item? Seeing none, uh are there any members of the public who wish to speak in opposition to this item? >> Okay, seeing none, I'm going to pull it back to the table and we'll start with questions and comments from commissioners. Commissioner Otwell. >> Thank you, Chair Fox. I'll get back to my favorite topic and talk about frontages again. Um I I disagree with the assessment that the conditions mimic the urban frontages. I appreciate the constraints on Avent Ferry and I get that. But I think perhaps the most important part of an urban frontage is requiring active uses on the first floor. Otherwise, you can get parking decks fronting Chappelle Drive um or fronting a Ferry with a door to the building and access to the road under the current conditions. um without some sort of active ground use floor condition, at least along Chappelle Drive, I don't think that this really uh I don't think that this mimics the frontage requirement well enough to pass that uh with regards to consistency. Uh for the rest of it, I think that pretty exciting and hope that we can get something here moving forward. >> Excellent. Would the applicant like to respond to the comments regarding the frontage? Hello, I'm Michael Vampern, I'm a landscape architect and land planner. Um, yes, the intent was for Aaven Ferry is a mixeduse street type and so that environmental stream feature would otherwise prohibit building placement. Um, Chapel Drive is a residential street typology. So, it actually transitions from a mixeduse down to kind of adjacent residential and to further south. So, we didn't feel it was appropriate to apply especially in urban frontage along a residential street type. Um, so we recognize that a build two would be associated with all frontage types, but an urban frontage from that transition to being a residential, it's a neighborhood street. We didn't feel like that urban front was the most appropriate frontage type. >> Can I follow up? So, >> yeah. >> Would it be possible under these conditions to uh place a parking garage along Chappelle Drive up on the sidewalk? >> It would be. Yes. >> Okay. I think that's inappropriate in the neighborhood as well. So, >> has the applicant considered additional conditions to restrict uh structured parking? >> We we would certainly defer to the current UDO has parking garage um architectural screening requirements, but >> yeah, >> I was just going to say the the UDO has parking deck screening requirements, including being screened by active uses such as apartments. Um there would be apartments on the ground floor, so this would be an apartment project. Um and so >> aware of the UDO requirement for active uses in without a frontage. Could you clarify which UDO provision that is or maybe staff could >> parking deck screening? It's in chapter 7 um in the landscaping section. It's like the last one that was a text amendment that the council approved in 2022. Um changing and the commission may remember that changing the parking deck um screening requirements. >> Commissioner O'Hver. Uh, Commissioner. Well, um, it sounds like the applicant is talking about parking deck screening. You're asking about the allowable use, correct? Okay. I'm I'm in agreement with Commissioner Hotwell about potential parking deck fronting on Chappelle Street. So, I'll give the applicant a moment to respond to that. I noticed the um condition is um pretty particular in the location of surface parking. I was uh wondering if there was any contemplation of including something regarding structured >> Fox. May I follow up? I think I I think I found the provision here in chapter 7 and it allows for either screening or an active use. And I appreciate the intent of the screening. It's much more attractive than a concrete parking deck, but I think the purpose is not prohibitive. It's to encourage actual active uses along the street. So, even a pretty parking deck is a dead block. >> Um, and this is our most busy bus corridor in the city. By far beats most of the go triangle routes. >> Would the applicant like to respond? I don't I don't think the machine wants me to. Um we're we're happy to consider that further and if it's the majority's position that they'd like us to take more time, we're happy to consider it. I don't want to forecast that that's going to mean we are going to add a restriction. I just think it deserves some additional examination. This case has been um through several neighborhood meetings and we've worked to incorporate those things already. So, um, we're sat we were satisfied with how that was that discussion was going, but if it's the majority of the will, we'll, uh, we'll we would like to request to continue this over to the 27th if there's still room. Um, and take that into consideration without, uh, any promises. >> Thank you. There any additional comments? Commissioner Mai, >> I have a question for my own edification. Without subsid sub subsidizing housing, is it going to be affordable for students? I know that's something that is in the document and maybe you know I'm newer also so I'm wondering how that is actually going to help student housing if it's not subsidized >> if anybody >> is your question about uh market demands and affordability large um I don't know if staff or the applicant would be able to answer that however I will allow them the opportunity to talk about supply and demand if they should choose. >> Um the policies that were identified um are related to the request would add to the overall housing supply in the area in the city at large which would whether or not these are like explicitly affordable. It would still like add to the overall housing supply which in turn would in theory like help reduce greater supply. then there's like more options for people to either like live in a different area or another apartment, but it generally that helps with affordability because there's greater supply and greater options for people to live in other places. So, this request doesn't include anything specifically for student housing. I can let the applicant speak to that, but that's generally what the policies speak to. what it did look like in the presentation that they were highlighting students ha student housing as a benefit for this project and I do understand that more demand meeting supply would hopefully trickle down to allowing housing to be more affordable but I'm wondering if they're highlighting student housing if there's a possibility for it to be affordable for students I I'll touch on um I don't know if it was in there specifically but there was a policy for student housing and that policy just speaks to adding available options for student housing because it's in close proximity to NC State. So, that's what that policy speaks to, but I'll let them touch on if it will like what their plans are for student affordability. >> Same because in some parts of the city, one-bedroom small housing is like $1,600 and that's a heavy lift for a student uh because they're broke. So, I'm wondering if this is going to help. I'm just asking. >> Yeah. No, we do we don't have subsized units or restrictions on the case and that's not going to be a part of what we're offering. What we are offering is the additional um supply in line with what the comprehensive plan instructs because it's so close to NC State and the more product we can put closer to the campus where students can bike and walk and you're seeing that reflected in the walk stores might not have a restriction on the actual um AMI for for example, but does have a meaningful reduction in their cost of living and being able to get to school without having to have a car using transit and things like that. Thank you. Uh without objection, I'm going to recommend that we um defer this case to our January 27 meeting. I'll motion as such. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay. And by show of hands, those in support of deferral of this item to the 27th. Any opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay, moving back to the remainder of our agenda on other business. We have an update on planning commission rules of procedure. >> Thank you. And apologies for my voice. I'm struggling with laryngitis. So if at any point here you can't hear me, just raise your hand. And my volume is not at normal levels. So um and thank you vice chair and commission. Uh we're happy today to present to you some updates to your rules of procedure. Um, as you all know, the planning commission does have a separate set of rules that they use, almost like bylaws, uh, to conduct their normal business. Uh, the last time that your rules were updated were in 2021, 2022. The reason we're bringing this to you today is on July 1st, council uh, made the decision to kind of uh, create a uniform template for their rules across city boards. Um the city has about 27 advisory boards now and each board had their own set of rules and so from an administrative perspective, staff perspective, it became a little unwieldy and so council recommended and adopted a template for all of those boards and commissions to use to kind of create that uniformity across every single board. One thing that staff in my office uh worked on was using that template but still understanding your unique status as the planning commission for the city of Raleigh. You along with board of adjustment and a few of the other boards and commissions are unique in the sense that you are statutoily authorized by the North Carolina general statutes. um you have a very specific statutory role in reviewing comp plan amendments and reszonings and a few other things that are highlighted in the statutes. Um the UDO further defined your role uh with respect to what your your daily responsibilities are when you come into this into these chambers. Um so with that in mind, we took that template, but we did have to make some modifications specific to your roles and responsibilities. Um, I did want I'm not going to go line by line through this with you because that would take forever and I know you probably have other things to do today. Um, but we did want to highlight a few items for you. Um, we are making some recommended changes to your existing rules while we're in this process. Um, just to conform more to your current roles and responsibilities. Over the years, the UDO has changed and planning commission's role has changed along with that. Um, back in the day, uh, planning commission was more involved with what we would call the quasi judicial site planning process. That's no longer a role of planning commission. Um, so some of the things I'm going to talk about today are just highlighting changes to the UDO as we've gone through the years and and make these current rules more in line with what your your existing responsibilities are. Um, also just one more thing before I dive into the recommended changes that we're proposing today. Um, I did want to highlight for you that um, as I mentioned, you guys are a a statutoily authorized board. So, we have gone through particularly on section I'm sorry, article one, section two and listed out your duties and responsibilities as defined by the statutes and also the UDO. that was not in the original rules and we thought this was a really good opportunity to to state that upfront and make it make it very clear like you guys are statutory authorized and and this is the rules. Um also to note for you um 160D in the North Carolina general statutes that does allow council to assign other responsibilities to you as as we move along in time. So, if if that were to happen, this would the your bylaws would be changed as well to update um any additional responsibilities that council assigns to you. So, just to kind of go through your current roles and responsibilities, you obviously res review reszoning requests. That's probably the bulk of your work. Um you'll also take a look at any comprehensive plan amendments that may be coming through. Uh city staff right now is working on a very huge undertaking of updating the comprehensive plan. And so once that is um to a point where it it's available for for your review and input, you'll be reviewing that um text uh text changes to the UDO and text changes to existing zoning cases. Uh you'll also, as I mentioned back in the day, you all did have some quasi judicial site planning review. Some of those old plans still exist and occasionally they'll come back and ask for an amendment. if planning commission had weighed in on those back in the day, you would be weighing in the on those again in the future for any amendments to those just to keep that review process consistent. And then we also have streetscape plans and custom signage plans. Streetscape plans come in every once in a while. They're not common. Um and then custom signage plans is a new opportunity for um property owners to get enhanced signage. um you do review those according to the UDO, but I don't think the city has had one processed yet. So that's that's a maybe up and cominging thing that you'll be looking at later on in the future. Um article 1 section three, this is a new um update again to your rules uh to address your existing roles and responsibilities. As I mentioned, you guys are a unique body in that you are statutoily and UDO authorized and your roles are defined by statute and by the UDO. other boards and commissions in the city, they don't have that benefit of of the statute specifically defining what you're supposed to be doing. So, you you'll notice a lot of um other boards and commissions with the city will come in annually to council and they'll present a proposed work plan, you know, to give council an understanding of what that board is intending to do for the year. to take the load off of you all since you already are you have so many duties and responsibilities. We've just put in your rules that your work plan is what is defined by the statute in the UDO because I think you all would agree you have enough on your plates. You don't need to be adding to it. Just to let you, as I mentioned before, if council wanted you to review something in particular, um which has happened in the past that you know, they maybe refer something down to planning commission for a for a little bit more study, um that doesn't happen often, but um that is still preserved in here in the event that council wanted to assign you some additional review responsibility. And then the only other change I wanted to highlight for you um is over on article 4 under your committees and and I meant to say this earlier, the majority of your existing rules have just been moved over to this new template. So as you look through you'll see a lot of the old rules are still in here. They just may be in different sections. But um the last change I did want to highlight and this goes back to the conversation about what you you all used to review with the site plans and you just don't do that anymore. Um you used to have more committees in place. You still have them. Um but there's two in particular that were specifically tailored to your site plan review responsibilities and one was the infrastructure and mobility committee and also the strategic plan committee. Those committees were intended for when you were reviewing site plans. If you needed to, you know, def refer something over to committee for, you know, further evaluation, you would use those two committees for that. Um staff's recommendation is that we um eliminate those committees because you don't have those rules or those roles and responsibilities anymore with respect to site planning. If there was something um that needed further study, our recommendation is that just go to cow. Um that seems like a very good place to send something and then the full commission will have an opportunity to review it. Um also too if council wanted you all to study something further and they wanted to refer something to planning commission cow also in our recommendation would be a great place for that to go. Um, so we we would like to recommend that you leave. I mean, obviously cow is a UDO um a UDO thing. You uh cow uh reviews double inconsistency type reasoning requests. >> Oh, committee of the whole. Sorry. >> We have a new member today. Sorry. Committee of the whole. >> Apologies. Oh yes. Um yeah, committee of the whole. Um there in your existing rules, there are certain things that automatically get sent to to committee of the whole. uh one we call them the double inconsistent reason resoning requests where they are inconsistent with the future land use map and also inconsistent with the comp plan overall. So those things will go to cow just by the nature of being doubly inconsistent. There is a thought that they need more review. Um so those will go to cow. Every planning commissioner sits on cow. Um and then the second one is your um other standing committee where we're we're recommending you keep because it's UDO required um that these things get referred uh is your text change committee. So anytime there's a check a text change amendment to the UDO that goes to the text change committee um for additional review comment and then that committee will come back and report back to the full planning commission. Um I already talked to Chair Bennett. One thing that um we'll recommend is staff as well given that we're um condensing and combining your committees into just two instead of four. Um, everyone sits on cow, but not every planning commissioner sits on text change. And Commissioner Bennett had or Chair Bennett had expressed that there probably should be a turnover every year for text change committee with planning commissioners just so everybody will get an opportunity um to sit on that committee and understand the work of that committee. Um, so that that if if that is okay with everyone, that's probably the process that we'll be recommending going forward. But those were the big um kind of I don't want to say big ticket items. They're kind of just housekeeping in nature and it's just reflecting what you all currently do. But we did want to highlight those changes for you just because they are different from your current um bylaws. But with that, we can answer any questions you have. >> Sure. Um Commissioner Bennett had sent me a question. She just wanted a little bit of clarification regarding the um procedure during the meeting of hearing public comment. And I just wanted to clarify it. It looks much the same as it looks right now. There's 10 minutes for both sides. Um, should we go two minutes per speaker on that 10 minutes or people can choose to consolidate their time? >> That is correct. The rules are staying the same. So, it'll be 10 minutes per side. Um, speakers have the opportunity uh to donate their time to one speaker. You'll see that a lot with the neighborhood reps that come in and they'll all the neighbors will kind of donate their time to that one person to speak for the neighborhood. So yes, that is staying the same. >> Excellent. Are there any additional questions or comments from commissioners? >> Go ahead. >> Thank you, Chair Bennett. Um for for my own curiosity, uh when the board of adjustment changed to change from the appearance commission and I seem to remember there being some authority regarding the sign special sign packages turned taken from planning commission and moved over to the board of adjustment. um what's the dividing line between that and what's in our current list of uh authorities. >> So if I'm remembering our wise friend David York from back in the day when this was coming through um board like design review commission and plan is a planning commission. So a lot of times we will like um duties and responsibilities to be reflected between both just in the event council said at some point in time design review commission we're going to take this from you and we're going to move it back to planning commission. So if I remember correctly speaking with David York is that that text change was going through the thought process was that you would have mirrored responsibilities to design review commission but the way that it's in the UDO currently is it's assigned to them but it could very well come back to you at some point in time. >> Okay. Um as a as a personal aside, it doesn't seem like we enforce our sign rules the way we once did in Raleigh looking at all the temporary signage I see popping up everywhere. But um there's a there was a a clause later down in the committees that says that there's certain people would be assigned to committees, but that any commissioner may participate in any committee meeting at their discretion. Uh does participate include voting? >> No, it would not include voting, but we have had in the past if a commissioner is particularly interested in a topic, they're more than welcome to come. They're more than welcome to um voice an opinion during the meeting. they just would not be part of the voting process. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Commissioner O'H did you have a question for Commissioner Walters? >> I was just curious um item five under section two uh about the kind of uh rare cases where we would need to sit as a quasi judicial body. Is that a possibility for the planning commission? >> So council would have to reassign those duties. um they are able to assign you uh things pursuant to the statute. As of right now, the way the UDO is written, um you do not have any quasi judicial responsibilities, but that could don't want to ever say never. So, as of right now it's >> we're not forecasting. >> We're not forecasting that. Yes. >> Oh, it's it's section two item five. It's the >> article >> section organization. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. And everything listed under section two, those are what we would consider legislative responsibilities as of right now. Even custom signage plans are viewed more like streetscape plans and that's a legislative review. >> That's for that's for the major modifications to previously. >> That Oh, yes. >> They come It's so rare. I can remember one maybe in the last league. >> It's been a while. >> I remember one for the village district. >> That's the only one I can recall. >> What's the signage thing? >> So, we would have the authority to review those historic development plans in a non-quasi judicial manner. >> It would most likely be probably a recommendation to council. Yeah, I would I would I would say at this point in time it probably would not be quasi judicial, but we would have to analyze the request when it came in to see what they're asking, then we would we would let you know the the procedure. But yes, >> any additional questions? Commissioner O'Her, >> can I just add nobody who's developing anything now is going to want to come to you for some obscure one-off review process when they can move through administrative review. >> Yeah. >> By staff. That's that it would be a very very rare situation where development would choose that path for approval. >> Makes sense. >> Almost zero. >> Highly unlikely. >> Highly highly highly unlikely. >> Commissioner O'H did you have a question? >> Is there an opportunity on um the two committees for the TCC or the you know um text change? And I'm guilty of this of not being able to attend those evening meetings and us having to >> have an alternate >> or can we increase the number of members since where there's only committee of the whole to try to help keep a quorum more often. And again, I'm probably the most guilty one of that. So, >> so right now TCC has five. Is that correct? >> I believe. >> And what do we need for quorum? >> It's three. >> Yeah. So if we increase numbers then we would increase quorum. >> Oh. Oh. So we're just >> we could alternate but if we could add alternates we would have an option to fill those spots. >> Oh. Oh. Oh >> that's what we did for design review. >> Oh okay. >> Anyway something to consider. Um on the sign regulations, Commissioner Well, as part of the appearance commission 10 years ago, probably um there was a subcommittee about sign regulations and that they're never enforced. It's only it's only as much as you enforce. I drive around town all all the time looking at signs that don't meet and we spent months working on these sign regulations. So, side note. Um, and then I'm just curious, I don't think it's under this, but why did we decide to not require um public participants to provide their address? We used to do we when we used to say, "Please approach the podium and provide your address." About a month or two ago, Chair Bennett said, "Please approach the podium. You do not need to provide address." I'm not asking to get people's address. I don't care where they live and maybe that's the reason. I'm just curious cuz I've been on commission for 5 and a half years and we've always said please provide your address. So, I'm just out of pure curiosity. >> I believe that was a a decision that was made at the council meeting. Um, as to the reasoning, I'm don't I don't know. I'm happy. We we can find out, but I believe that >> privacy be my guess. >> That that would be my guess. Yes. Some some privacy concern there. They have not been asking for addresses for a number of years now and largely in response to concerns about personal privacy, personal information. >> Yeah, >> that makes sense. >> Yes. >> It's just it is >> it is interesting when someone from argument about >> and we have Cara McDonald, city attorney here. She might be able to >> Good morning. >> Not sure my mic is up. Oh yeah. Uh yes. Uh part of the reason that uh we start we stopped publicly asking is from a safety standpoint. It is still a public record and when people sign up they do indicate their address but there was a concern that the public watching this they then see as uh commissioner uh mentioned earlier they end up seeing someone's address those type of things. >> That makes sense. There's no limit on asking people where they're from when they're speaking. Right. >> Sure. I think if a lot of times you will you will know a group maybe is an unincorporated area or in Kerry or Garner and I think if you want to generally ask them, you know, do you live within the corporate limits of the city of Raleigh? >> Yeah. Or as you've heard people say uh today and again I point back to Commissioner May, I live within 50 feet. I live within whatever you do hear a lot of people when they come up to speak indicate they live in close proximity to the site. >> Thank you. Just want to check in. Is there um action required of us today? >> Yes, if we could have a motion and a vote to approve if if you all are are okay with this draft and then that will go to council and be presented to council. Is there any additional thought about alternate so that we can keep the quorum? And I'm happy to approve if we just put that idea forward to council, but I think that could be helpful. I just hadn't really >> I'd be interested in in making that recommendation to council as well so we could keep quorum. >> Yes. Apologies if we were talking about privacy for a minute and I got distracted. I was looking and your existing rules do not define the number me like the membership number for your text change committee and it does not define um how many alternates. So I think that is really at your discretion here. So if you want to go ahead and and make a change I think that would be fine to do that. It does not need to be stated in the rules. It could just be a >> So under the new one it's going to be article four um sorry section five. I'll just advocate advocate for alternates as a solution. Uh we did that on the design review commission and it really helped us meet quorum uh to be able to kind of tag in alternates. >> I'd recommend doing that. I'm I believe that's likely something we could vote on separately. Is that what I'm hearing? >> Absolutely. Yes. >> And we might um there's probably still an inclination of us holding a retreat. That might be a really good discussion topic at the retreat to determine uh what those precise numbers are. Okay. All right. Um so as it stands um this current draft with the notion that we will address that outstanding issue of the um alternates at perhaps our planning commission retreat. I would like to make a motion to um approve this and send it forward to council uh for for their adoption. Is there a second? >> Second. Second from Commissioner Omay. She beat you. I'm sorry. >> I beat you. >> You beat She beat you. Um, by show of hands, those in support and any opposed. Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Just I would like to offer some context about process the um revision across all boards and commissions to bylaws and rules of procedure is being led by the department of community engagement. So, this piece of action from you will not appear on report of planning commission, but will come forward to city council as a uh presentation item from the department of community engagement. And I will let Chair Bennett know when we expect that and the event she would like to be there for that or any of you would like to be there. But just understand that your uh rules of procedure will come forward with probably two or three other boards at once uh for review by the council. and I don't I don't know when that will be. Uh I can let you know when I have information from community engagement. >> Thank you for that. Uh next item is report of the chair. As your substitute chair, I have no report today. Um so I will um I know generally we go to report of members, but first I'd actually like to recommend a report of the assistant director. um specific to the report currently has all of those committees still listed and so I'm guessing in subsequent reports of the assistant director those would fall off. >> That is exactly right. >> Okay. Just wanted to say that out loud for everyone for all of us. >> I know I know Fox one less chart for me. Um >> two less chart >> two less. Oh you are you are singing. Okay. Um however um there is a committee of the whole which had been is on the calendar for January 25th and I noticed there are no items pending. Would you like us to hold that still? Should there be an item for referral or we are >> we are not going to have >> we are not going to have committee of the whole in January. You heard it here. Um so our next meeting would be in February. >> No. >> Let's look. >> Just not happening. Cal's not happening in January. >> Cal is not happening in January. >> Whatever day you think it might be, period. >> Right. >> Yes. So, uh, tune in, uh, next meeting when we when we perhaps >> discuss the February meeting and what item might be on that agenda. Okay. Um, I'm going to, unless Bum, you had anything else, I'm going to go down through a port of members. Okay. Um, so no other report other than that. So, please take the committee of the whole for January off of your calendar um and stay tuned for uh what is in store in February. Commissioner, >> thank you, Chair Fox. The text change committee is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. on January 21st, and there are currently no items pending. Unless I hear otherwise, I'd like the text change committee members to keep that open just in case something pops onto our calendar. So, I'll keep you posted on that. uh as my role as the liaison with the uh storm water committee smac >> smack they I haven't gotten the the acronym pronunciation right um meet monthly or nominally monthly to discuss issues that are of common interest between the two commissions and we had a meeting last week uh discussed a little bit about this new hope project. Um the storm water commission did not see any uh glaring issues with the resoning that we were looking at and a general consideration was they'd like to have a discussion about uh some of the more effective and popular uh mitigations that they're seeing and we're working with staff and the storm water commission to determine the best way to bring that in front of the commission and I'll keep you all posted on that. >> Thank you. We can just go down the line. >> No report for me. Thanks. >> Awesome. Thank you, Madam Chair. Great work today. Uh stepping in for Chair Bennett. Uh briefly, I would like to acknowledge that uh for the good of the commission, I'll be having another cup of coffee before coming in to the commission meetings. I know I fumbled a comment earlier today on the balance of our work in preserving and growing and developing the city together. Uh so I appreciate your patience with me. You know, I make every effort not to be an embarrassment to this commission as I was taught by my mother. And so, on that note, I'd like to extend uh a welcome to our newest member of the commission, Adam Walters. Please. Yeah. Round of applause to Adam, landscape architect, uh teaching the future at NC State University. >> You're going to let me introduce myself? >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's it's a big deal that we got this young man over here. >> I enjoy the commentary. Okay. >> I'm just saying um grateful to be back with all of you. Happy New Year. I had a chance to see a handful of commissioners over the break. It was great to see you out and about in our community, but uh it's great to be back at the table with all of you. Thank you, >> Commissioner Waver. >> There are lots of fun comments. I could follow up with them, but no, no comment. Yes. Today I want to celebrate the Soros of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated for our founders day 113 years of service, sisterhood and scholarship. And it is important because we are also Delta Sigma Theta has a connection to Raleigh, North Carolina. One of our 22 founders, Jimmy Bug Middleton, is actually from Raleigh and is buried here. She started a mobile library program back in the 19 early 1900s, not my 1900s, but earlier than me. Um, that helped spread literacy across the city and did a whole lot for the community and also helped charter the Raleigh alumni chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, which I came into the organization through. So, I want to give a hearty happy founders day to my fellow soror of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated. Thank you for that. Um, Mr. Walters, how do you follow up on that? Yeah, I was going to say at your first meeting. >> I love learning. I love learning new things. Uh, it's a one reason I'm happy to be here on the planning commission, but thank you for sharing that. Uh, I didn't know anything about what you just talked about. Always learning. Uh, I'm I'm happy to be a part of the planning commission. Thank you for that welcome. Um I I know some of you but uh for those of you who don't know me um I am a landscape architect and arborist. I am following in the footsteps of uh commissioner O'H. Uh I I spent six years on the appearance commission then uh what that trans transition to design review commission while I was on um and am now happy to be here on the planning commission. I also work at NC State uh and I help run a real estate interdisciplinary real estate development program there. Um so the the topics uh themes and concerns of this commission are uh you know in my heart and mind uh daily glad to be serving. >> Thank you. Welcome. >> Commissioner Shelbert, >> no report, but I think we should congratulate Emila Sutton's team at the Department of Housing. They are the apparently the first local government housing department to win an innovation award from the center for integrative health for the unsheltered um unsheltered um response pilot. >> So that's just thank you brand new thing that just happened recently. >> Well well do congratulations to them. >> Um if there is nothing else for the good of the order seeing nothing that concludes our meeting for today. Thank you. Right. Heat. I'm Bill Mley and this is what I do.