Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. I miss you. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. I don't know. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Ooh. Ooh. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. call to order the March 10th, 2026 planning commission meeting. My name is Nicole Bennett. I'm chair of the commission. Welcome to everyone joining us here and online. A few reminders before we get started. Please wait to be recognized by the chair before speaking. Um, let's be courteous to each other, applicant, staff, and the public. And please, let's keep our comments constructive and focused on the cases we are discussing. Um, we start each meeting with an opportunity for the public to address us about an item not on the agenda. Is anyone here who wishes to comment on an item that's not on today's agenda? Okay, moving on. Um, we'll move to the consent agenda. We have one item on consent today. That's approval of our minutes from the February 24th planning commission meeting. Um, does anyone have any changes for the minutes? Okay. If not, um, I'll move to approve the minutes of our February 24th meeting. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? Thank you. That's unanimous. We'll now move to old business. We have one item under old business, Z3825 Trailwood Drive. We heard this item at our February 24th meeting and continued it so the applicant could consider additional conditions. I'll ask staff for an update on this item highlighting any changes since we last heard it. >> Um, good morning commission. My name is Jacob Hunt with planning and development services. Um, as you said, this is Z3825. One of the initial changes since this item was last heard is that there is a change to the zoning districts. And I thought that was changed. I'm sorry that it's not, but the request is to reszone 13.8 acres from R6 CU and R4. >> Jacob, I'm sorry. Could you move the mic closer to you? >> Yes. >> Um, from R six CU uh and R4 to RX3 CU and R10 CU. Um, apologies that the R10's not there. Uh, the R10 would be applying on the eastern side of Trailwood Drive for the site while the western side would be reszoned to RX3. Um, again, this is the general location of the site. The western side again would be the RX3. Eastern side would be R10, the side closest to Centennial Campus. Um there is a new set of conditions that have been proposed with this application since it was last heard. Um the first condition the intent of this uh it's long but the intent is that an area of flood plane um will not be smaller in size for future development than that approved with a previous site plan. So the idea is that the area of flood plane will remain the same between previous approved site plans and this project on this property that has flood plane on site. Um the second condition um is a requirement for a minimum of 50% building frontage along trail drive for the um western site, the RX3 site. and that's running from a point on the following uh attachment. And then finally, a requirement for a minimum of one street facing pedestrian entrance on Trailwood Drive. Um some of the conditions that were removed include the greenway connection um through the flood plane that was discussed um and that the others have been modified. Um this is the attachment that would go with those conditions um that lays out uh the location of the flood plane. Um staff has some concerns not with the intent of these conditions but with the enforcement uh not the ability to enforce them necessarily but the difficulty of understanding exactly what um this exhibit is saying. So um proposed zoning has changed as I said from um all RX3 to RX3 and R10CU. Uh that's reduced the maximum total units from 257 to 203 and has modified some of the setbacks on that R10 uh zoning parcel. Um the request is still inconsistent with low scale residential although R10 CU is consistent. So it brings it closer in line, but overall the application itself is still inconsistent. Um, no change to urban frontage. Um, and the comprehensive plan analysis has remained unchanged, inconsistent with the future land use map, consistent with the comprehensive plan. Um, again, some of the consistent policies we discussed last time include um, capitalizing on transit access, housing availability, and things like that. Um again inconsistent policies are um the future land use map and then infrastructure impacts to fire service. As I said uh the outstanding issues today um are the revised request and unsighted conditions need some clarification um as they would result in difficulty with enforcement um and then mitigations would be to continue to provide staff and work with us to address those concerns. Um, your deadline for action is April 25th and upcoming meetings of the 24th. >> And if approved, it would require a future land use map. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. We heard from um the applicant and the public at our last meeting, but could I see uh by show of hands if there's anyone here who wishes to speak on this item today? I see the applicant. Anyone else? anyone at all support or opposition. Okay, so that's one person and the applicant. I'll give uh without objection an additional three minutes per side. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Bennett, members of the commission. and Molly Stewart, Morning Star Law Group, here on behalf of the applicant. Um, I will not go through these changes uh that were that were made and that contrast with the current zoning. Um, you heard a fair bit of that from staff. Um, and and with three minutes, I'll focus on other topics. I will briefly note um there is no opposition to staff's additional comments. Uh, we had sort of reached agreement Wednesday of last week as far as the changes that needed to be made. There was concern about whether smaller also meant uh the the protected area couldn't move. I'm not sure why those were confusing, but there's been a request to to to change that as well as to be more clear about the exact area. Apparently, the attachment we discussed on Wednesday by Friday afternoon was not going to be sufficient. We don't oppose those changes. We just ran out of time to make them um and have them evaluated by the engineers. So, no, no real issue there. Um what I what I would like to uh focus on today, um I don't know if there's a representative here from Partners for Environmental Justice. I hope there is. Um because uh we understand a new letter was submitted uh from that that group. and I also had a conversation with the representative there. Um, I wanted to address the the three concerns uh that I have about that letter. Um, first that the letter mentions that the current zoning has fewer storm water protections than the earlier approved plan for the site. Um, this claim makes it sound as though a greater number of zoning conditions automatically means better storm water protection. Um, that's simply not the case. Uh in this case, for example, two examples actually, removing that greenway connection from the existing conditions today um will remove lots of required grading, cutting down of trees, and adding paved surfaces. Um it's actually better for storm water protection. Also, some of the old conditions aren't needed anymore. They're already built into the new proposal. For example, um in the existing conditions today, there is a a minimum protected area of the site. that minimum protected area was in place when the no-rise study that was approved um set a certain amount of fill that that was permitted. We have taken that fill that was developed under the existing regulations and set it as the floor for uh for the ceiling rather for the for the new um proposal so that uh we can only improve uh from that point. So it's all baked in. Um so we were able to take some of those standards out. Um, I will also note my second concern, which is that this letter um, consistent with my conversations um, with with representative um, doesn't say that the current zoning is in any way uh, better than that that's being proposed here. Um, what what I heard when asked this question, right, I I heard that there's opposition to the new zoning. So, I tried to get to the bottom of what is it about the new zoning that is somehow worse than the existing zoning? And the answer was um, that's not the position that's being taken here. Um, the idea is and the understanding is that under the current zoning, the property simply won't develop. And that's consistent with that first letter that you received. Sorry, checking time. Um, and and so, you know, being a longer term concern, storm water um can be addressed globally rather than opportunistically, one applicant at a time. The city has all the rights it needs in order to regulate that watershed in full. Thank you. >> Thank you. We'll excuse me. Now hear from the opposition. You also have three minutes. Hello everyone. Can't say it's great to be here again. Um, but I appreciate everyone's time. I'm John Totten. I live at 1132 Trailwood Drive and um uh you know I think this proposal continues to grow. I mean we've gone from an approved previously zoned R six uh for two of those properties um where we were going to have 40 town homes. We have since moved to additional property. We have up to I believe it's 256 potential units. Now, um the maximalist approach that the applicant is continuing to drive in the sensitive area is something that the neighborhood has concerns about. Um, we want this property to be developed, but we want it to be developed with some level of limits. We are still trying to understand the maximum even though we've seen 256, we don't understand if that includes bonuses uh for height. Um, so I think that we are constantly sort of behind the eightball here in terms of understanding like how a constant push for increased density on a sensitive area is going to benefit um, you know, the collective community. We have a lot of diversity in this area in terms of you know the R10 establishment across the street. we have the little you know the NCOD that is represented where most of the residents live um you know are surrounded by development so when there's a constant push to maximize insensitive areas right the whole topography of this area is very um you know is is very hilly um and uh you know the town home proposal Z2223 that was previously submitted and approved. Even that included cutting off the top of the hillside, clear cutting the entire property of anything outside of the flood plane zone. Um I I think we're just, you know, struggling to understand how a maximalist approach to developing something that is currently undeveloped is the right way to go. um uh especially when there's been good faith negotiations beforehand and I think the applicant's attorney has characterized us as being unwilling to negotiate. That is not true. Uh this process doesn't exactly allow for a lot of back and forth negotiation. It's like are you a for or against? Not are you for with changes or are you against unless changes are made. Um thanks again. Have a good one. >> Thank you. Bringing it back to the table. Commissioners, um, questions about the revised conditions for staff, the applicant. No questions. I guess um it sounded like the applicant was okay with with making changes, but I'm just curious why um the staff feels like that would be difficult to enforce. If I could get just a little bit more detail on that. >> I'll let our stormwater staff answer the stormwater concern and then I can go back to the frontage. Sally Hoy rally stormwater. Um so we we have actually multiple concerns with this condition. First of all, it is not an equivalent condition. Um if the uh applicant wish to show no impact to the flood plane, they could continue to commit to a no- rise. That is how we evaluate flood plane impacts. Looking at the footprint of disturbance could still result in flood plane impacts. So that's one piece. Also, we are concerned about the reference to the SPR and and a not highquality map. We think that if if they do indeed want to commit to an area that they limit the area they would disturb in the flood plane, that that's a thing. uh they could commit to that but then just list the area and that would be it much easier to regulate than having to refer back to a previous map. Also, we have a concern because we've seen other resoning conditions uh related to flood plane happen where uh a time lapse happens between when the conditions are made and when the development comes to fruition and in the meantime the maps change. So what could happen is that the flood plane limits could increase on this lot. And so then they could go from let's say under the the previous SPR they were impacting 5,000 square feet of the flood plane. If the flood plane limits change that same boundary could be 15,000 ft of impact to the flood plane. So that that's why we think that if if they want to do this based on area which again is not the same as no rise but if they want to do a condition based on area should be the amount of area impacted in the flood plane. >> Thank you. >> Where is Raleigh in the uh flood plane restudy cycle? How far out are we from new flood planes? >> We we are fairly far like we have not started a restudy. Okay. So, but we we have encountered the situation where uh flood plane related conditions from 20 years ago. >> Yeah, they can stay a long time. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Sally, could I ask another question? Do you have a proposal that you feel like would work well? It sounds like maybe uh just abiding by a no study. >> That that is our that would be the equivalent to the previous condition. >> Mhm. If instead the applicant doesn't wish to do that, but does wish to do something based on area, we would recommend they define the area that was impacted in the the previous SPR and commit to impacting no more than that amount. >> Thank you. >> Other questions? >> I can just clarify the concern with the frontage. Um might be easier to show on the map. Um, simply it's just that there's not existing lot lines on the proposed example. And to establish what 50% from this line to the property edge would just require overlaying other maps to determine where that space was. So, um, the applicant has had their one bite at the apple in front of us. So, if they were to revise conditions, that would have to happen before council. So we have to um make a decision vote recommend approval denial approval with changes denial with changes but it it we need to vote on it today. >> So if there are no other questions or comments I'll entertain a motion. anyone? >> Well, I'm certainly not comfortable approving it as it is with the concerns from the from the city staff. Um, I really appreciate the removal of the greenway through the flood plane. I think that's a better condition than what they have right now. U, so I'd hate to lose that. Um, but I'm not sure what I would approval with any changes what those changes would be other than following the no rise flood plane. Um, I maybe we can talk about that for a second. >> So, you could make a motion to approve with the requested changes by staff. Yeah, >> you could make a motion to deny and say it's because these changes haven't been made and staff has these concerns. >> So either way, we can let council know that we have these concerns whether it's a vote for approval or denial. >> Yes, Commissioner May. >> Just so I'm clear, even if they make the changes, they're not necessarily enforceable. Is that correct? I think with the changes that um Sally was recommending, they could enforce those. They're concerned about the way the condition is currently written. So, if they make the changes, it would address the concerns about enforcability. >> Would anyone like to make a motion before I draft someone? Uh, is it appropriate at this point? I feel like we've done it before to ask the applicant. I think I think the hesitancy is there's a handful of us that are in favor of this reasoning, but have some concerns about the condition, but if the applicant's not willing to entertain those conditions, there's no >> I'm not certain. I think that will change people's minds about which way they lean. So, I guess that's is that appropriate. >> We have not closed the public hearing yet. So, you could ask that simple question, then bring it back to the table for commissioner discussion and then close the public hearing. >> So, yes, you can ask that. >> Okay. I'd like to ask the applicant if they'd be willing to entertain revising the conditions per staff's recommendations. >> Absolutely. Um, and I know that a couple of our commissioners weren't here to hear this part of the discussion, but um, we had some uh, inefficient communication last week where u, we sort of heard one thing on Wednesday, responded to that by adding the attachment um, by adding some language that was requested and then learned fairly late on Friday afternoon that that was not sufficient and we couldn't pull together the engineering team fast enough um, to to get that um, sorted out. So yes, um we we don't disagree um with what they're looking for. Um happy happy to add those things. I think we are basically on the same page with what needs to happen um with respect to that um frontage issue. I don't think we were clear that that was actually an issue. We're happy to define that another way and get to the same place as well. Um we think both of these are um really more about how we say it than than what we're saying. Happy to do that. >> That helps me. uh a good bit. Um I think that I would hate to miss this opportunity to have a better plan in place um just from an administrative uh snafu. It sounds like uh they're right on board with what we were hoping to hear uh from our last meeting. So um I would be willing and interested to make a motion. >> Okay. just commission makay. >> Okay. I guess I'm trying to understand how uh really never mind. I don't necessarily feel comfortable with this. I do still have questions about the flood plane issues and how enforceable those are once we get past us to city council. I mean, many things can be said here to us about what they're going to do, but the same way we voted in other cases to make sure that we're preserving environment and not putting residents in potential risk, I think should take precedence over developing in the area. >> I I I think that makes a lot of sense. Um, I think my understanding of this proposal is that it's better than what they what they can do by right right now. Um, especially with the greenway cutting through. Um, and so I kind of I think it's the best option in front of us. So anyway, with that, I'd move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement uh dated March 10th, 2026 contained in the agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. This recommendation also includes an amendment to the future land use map to the extent described in the adopted consistency statement. >> Do you want to add a note about them? >> Yeah, how would I say that? I haven't. Sorry, I'm kind of new at this part. I I think it would be sufficient just to say and planning commission would like to see the applicant during the council process adopt staff's recommended changes >> and the planning commission would like to see uh the applicant um during city council meeting adopt uh staff's recommendations. >> We have a motion. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion? >> Yes, Commissioner Haver. >> Not about the case. I know we're trying to do better about when we can make comments and not since my time is close to rolling off the planning commission. I just I just want to point out that I think a note to council I I think the idea of having one opportunity to make revisions makes sense because we were doing multiple multiple multiple revisions. But here's a situation where they get one shot at it. I feel like applicants rush to get in the next Friday and it's just this isn't the most efficient way to do it. So since I'm getting ready to roll off, I just want to make that comment and put it on record. Like I think we've gone too far one way and I think we need to put a little bit more not this particular applicant, but in general we just say, "Oh yeah, we'll see you next Friday." But the fact that you've got to have comments in by Friday and then there's a snafu and here we are on Tuesday. It's just it's not working. So I was just wanted to make that comment. staff agrees with you and we've been working on process changes. We had some in the previous omnibus that uh ended up not going forward, but we will be rebringing those to adjust the process. We agree with you the timing is it's just challenging for all parties. No, >> thank you. >> Awesome. Thanks. >> I didn't know if that was the right time to say that. >> That's fine. Okay. All right. >> All in favor? Okay. All opposed. That's three opposed. Commissioner Makaya, you've expressed why you were opposed. Commissioner Fox, I mean, I didn't mean to put you on the spot. You don't have to state why you're opposed. >> No, no, it uh it's actually for the same reason. Um the uh additional comment was tagged on to the motion. So, I believe that covers it. >> Okay. and same for me. So that was >> 6 to three >> 7 to three. Thank you and thank you all for attending. Next new business. Before we get started on new business, I want to explain some clarifications of our procedures. Um these are intended to make sure we hear from everyone. and the applicant, those in support, those in opposition, that commissioners have an opportunity to ask questions of everyone who has spoken and that we maintain a structured and orderly process. So, we'll receive a presentation from staff as we always do. Then, I will officially open the public hearing. Each side will have 10 minutes to speak. We'll begin with the applicants and those in support. We'll then hear from those in opposition. We'll reserve whatever time is left for each side. While the hearing is still open, I'll ask commissioners to ask any questions they have of staff, the applicant, and the public members who have commented. This won't be the time for comments, but rather questions from the commissioners. This is also the time we'll ask the applicant if they are willing to add or revise conditions. These questions will not count against the 10 minutes for each side. After we've asked our questions, we'll do one of two things. We'll bring the item back to the table and close the hearing for our discussion and vote or bring the item back to the table and leave the hearing open if we are deferring the case for additional information or changes to conditions. If the hearing is left open, whatever time is remaining for each side will carry over to the next meeting when the item is heard. Once the hearing is closed, there will be no more questions or public comments. Is that clear? All right, let's move forward. We'll try it out with our first new business item, reszoning Z1525, which is Auburn Nightdale Road and Battlebridge Road. We'll hear from staff. Good morning, Chair Bennett, members of the planning commission, Matthew Burns of Planning and Development. This is a request to reszone a 24 acre portion of uh from residential 4 to industrial mixeduse five stories with conditions. This portion and this uh underlying property is jointly owned by Wake County and the city of Raleigh. And your deadline for action is May 9th. So the greater property 7800 Battlebridge Road is a uh piece of satellite corporate limits and zoning to the west and southeast of that property uh is Wake County whereas to the northeast and southwest is zoned city of Raleigh and in our city limits. So this resoning site is part of the Ranley farm which consists of two properties just over 400 acres. Both parcels are jointly owned by the city of Raleigh and Wake County and subject to an interlocal agreement. But just to be clear, uh what is being resoned requested to be resoned is a 24 acre portion of the southern property. You can there's a zoomed in version. and the dotted line is the greater uh parcel. So both Randley properties are undeveloped and the site and the greater tract but uh rural residential uses and some agriculture and foresty forestry uses to the south. Here are some views of the site from Umbre Nightdale Road and Battlebridgeidge Road. And there are two proposed zoning conditions. The first would restrict maximum development intensities across use mixes and the second would exempt the site from the block perimeter requirements of the UDO. For a little bit more context about the Ranley farm, the properties were acquired in 2005 and uh they are subject to that interlocal agreement which governs the use and future planning on the site. properties were subdivided in 2007 and in 2024 the ILA was amended. And so that interlocal agreement really uh describes what can be done with e either property. So the northern tract is for exclusive use by the city of Raleigh and may be used for a regional fire training facility and the southern tract is for exclusive use by Wake County and could be used for a school and or an animal shelter which is what they are interested in building on that 24 acre portion. I'll note that the animal care outdoor use is within the commercial umbrella of the UDO and only permitted in three zoning districts including EX. And so upon resoning approval, Wake County would have to pursue a special use permit in order to uh develop the site for an animal shelter. So going from a residential four to an industrial mixeduse district would uh increase the maximum number of units that could be built on the property and it would result in an increase in entitlement for office, retail and industrial. Uh but again those are capped based on the proposed conditions. So, the site has a lower walk score than average, lower transit score than average, lower bike score than average, um, and below average access to jobs, and the site is not served by transit. So, the request would add to the housing supply, does not include subsidized units, does not permit a variety of housing types, would allow smaller units, and again is not served by transit. And the reason for not permitting a variety of housing is that the industrial mixed use district is quite restrictive as far as what types of buildings can be constructed. Area residents are more likely to be minorities compared to the city average, less likely to be low-income, and the cost of rent has increased between 34 and 40% uh compared to the citywide average of 26. So this site has four future land use designations on it and the the requested industrial mixeduse district is inconsistent with community mixeduse, moderate scale residential, low-cale residential and public parks and open space. The request is consistent overall with urban form guidance. While there is no frontage proposed, the area is car dependent and an animal shelter is not necessarily representative of a typical mixeduse development where an urban fronted or where an urban frontage would be desired. So the request is consistent overall with comprehensive plan inconsistent with the future land use map and consistent with the urban form map. Consistent policies are related to large site development, commercial development impacts, community facilities, interjurisdictional coordination, uh the southeast special and some uh policies specific to the southeast special study area. So inconsistent policies are related to the future lane use map uh zoning and infrastructure and response time for fire and a southeast special study policy uh which speaks to reszoning of sites that are uh larger than 75 acres. If this request is approved, it will result in a future land use map amendment uh to change those four designations to public facilities. So that's what it would look like on the map. There are no outstanding issues and uh your deadline for action is May 9th. Please let me know if you have any questions. >> Thank you. >> I will now open the public hearing. Each side will have 10 minutes. We'll first hear from the applicant and those in support. All right. Good morning. Um, my name is Zach Pierce, landscape architect with CL Design. Really excited to bring this project forward to the of the commissioners. Uh, we will go over some of the introductions, existing zoning, kind of uh that need for the new animal center, examples of modern animal centers, and then some of those conceptual renderings. Uh, we have representatives here from Wake County. This is a Wake County facility. We have also representatives from R&D architects. The existing zoning like Matthew went through already uh is is as you see here, but we are focusing on that corner at Battlebridge Road and Auburn Nightdale. So, currently that R4 uh and that future land use map, yes, it was a community mixeduse, residential, public parks, but you can see that active red corner is really where we're focusing the reasonzoning effort. a predominantly open space right now. Uh really not a lot of wooded area at the corner here. There is an existing pond, but it has been been determined that it's not jurisdictional. Uh the project site, their road uh really is just two lane roads right now. There will be improvements as development comes out here, at least with road widening on our side of the Auburn Nightdale Road and a little bit of road widening on Battle Ridge Road just along our road frontage. But we acknowledge that the growth will uh will be seen along the both of these roads as Wake County continues to grow. We are just looking at approximately 24 acres right at the corner. Uh we did have the public the neighborhood meetings both neighborhood meetings and the first neighborhood meeting there was s some significant concerns about the industrial mixeduse zoning on the whole 110 acres about what could be all those allowable uses all industrial uh use. So we uh went back to the drawing board and kind of scaled it back down to the and worked with city staff as well to just focus it just on the area for the proposed animal center. the remaining would be R4. Uh and there so we just wanted to and then we presented that at the following neighborhood meeting. Uh and seemed to have answered some of their questions. So really some of that need for the animal center Wake County is is as we all know is growing. Uh this really with the population growth, there's more pets, more strays or more uh demand for services. Uh this original facility that was built in 1998 was for a much smaller community. So really we uh animal center sees thousands of animals every year. So right now there's limited space for intake, medical care, quarantine and option areas. Uh right now this overcrowding can create stress for the animals and staff. So with you'll see I show you some photos here. The modern animal center has a better disease control isolation areas and veterary care reduces the stress on the animals improving the adoption outcomes. Also strengthens the the county and city's ability to respond to emergencies, cruelty investigations, and disaster situations. The new facility will have more adoption space, foster coordination, and community programs. Uh these programs are help keep pets with families where whenever possible but also this facility will help uh strengthen partnerships between rescues, veterinarians and volunteers. The animal centers are a essential public service just like libraries, parks, public safety facilities. Uh this new animal center will continue that responsible pet ownership, education and humane care. Um we want to make sure that this facility where it lands right here is uh meeting the current and future needs uh for decades to come. So really we we feel this uh this this location is appropriate for long-term service of Wake County and all residents within Wake County as some municipalities bring the the animals to this facility including the city of Raleigh. So components of a modern we're just showing some this isn't exactly this is similar components of a modern animal center very different than sometimes what you may perceive as an animal center it has changed really welcoming a lot of light uh have outside exercise areas to reduce uh the stress on the dogs the dogs will not be kept outside at night they will be inside at night uh when uh they are in these some of the gathering areas there are staff outside. There are some uh dog kennel runs. Some of the the uh kennels do have some outside areas for those who are staying a little longer, but we do create uh a resilience surface with the turf, some shade, really a comfortable area to help reduce. They have the fans. So, really creating that lower stress environment to improve adopt uh the adoption rates and then also just the well-being of the animals. We have some important there'll be just going to be some separation between the kennels and the corridors really again increase the viewing but helps reduce some of the stress and some of the disease control for the animals. Uh food prep and medical prep areas are going to be enhanced. Uh surgery facilities will be greatly improved and the the opportunities to have the surgeries in this facility. Uh now we have other animal facilities have more of a small animal areas. We do have area for more of like a catio or some uh areas to meet with um right here for the cats as well as as the dogs. >> Okay. So, we will see uh an increase about um almost doubling the amount of dog kennels and significantly increase in the amount of cat condos as well. Uh a conceptual rendering. Some of the comments that we got for the second neighborhood meeting were we'd like to see some conceptual images. These were images that were presented to the Wake County Commissioners. So, this is all uh what we see. There will be three separate entrances for the public. This is an overall one looking uh really on the public side. And then the site plan, we are focused on that corner of Alurn Nightdale and Battlebridge Road. The to the north of the building is the community side and volunteers. We have a secure fenced and gated area in the back for uh animal services and maintenance and staff. Uh so that is back back of house. those uh the outdoor dog areas are focused on the back side which is uh which is lower than the road. The grade falls significantly from the roads down to the pond. Uh so we are situating some of those dog areas uh towards the back because it was that was some of the concerns as well. But we are focusing that uh away. Uh we are are looking at on-site storm water management and a walking trail that the volunteers can walk the dogs within a fenced in area. as well. Again, the animal center is walking dogs. Now, the volunteers are again to have that health and wellness of the of of the animals. Uh but here we're able to to have this on site on a safer piece when that than what they're dealing with right now. So, really focusing on that community aspect of this facility. Very important for the growth of the county uh and the residents. Um, but really excited to bring this forward to you and here to answer any questions you may have. I guess I can yield to the other. >> Thank you. We'll reserve 2 minutes 8 seconds. Next, we'll hear from the opposition. You have a total of 10 minutes. Okay. Seeing none, commissioners bring back to the table for questions. Commissioner Fox, >> thank you. Um, so as I understand it, the request is for an animal shelter, which is depicted in all of the imagery as being a large one-story building. Um, I'm wondering if someone could walk me through the rationale of the request for five stories. Yeah, we had um we had the five stories to reduce because when that has the industrial mix as a whole site, there was a potential for a school which would exceed uh the height sometimes with multitory. Uh so we we did have that. That was before we kind of shrunk it down uh for the facility that you're correct. This is a one-story facility. uh it is not proposed to any future expansion to go up but it was really whenever we were looking at a potential like the ILA says that would could have been a school so the higher bay multiple floors for that >> um additionally just while I have you there if I might um >> um there's also the request to remove the block perimeter standards can can you walk me through that one >> sure yeah we have the very important part of having the secure back area for the animal center. Uh so we wanted to make sure we we didn't have we wanted to have the public where they were the most safe and and appropriate on the north side of the building and we were focusing this reasonzoning on that tighter corner. uh any other future development through the R4 po portion uh of that um can can have uh that that that potential of the block perimeter. But this focused area, we wanted to be very intentional on where we had the public and where we had staff. >> Okay. Maybe it's a question for staff. What the block perimeter standards would uh how that would impact a development like this. I guess just walking through what the standard is. >> Good morning, Carter Robertson with transportation. Um, so yeah, uh, I think the block perimeter would come up more looking at the whole site included in the interlocal area. Um, and we have different standards based on what the zoning is. Um, the EIX would be a tighter block than uh R4 as it currently is. I believe it goes from about 8,000 to more like 3,000 ft as a total block. Um, we uh received this request. They supplied the um concept plan we're looking at here and a description of how uh access would be achieved absent of block perimeter. Um we found this to be satisfactory. Um also to note east of this pond there will be uh I I40 the extension running right along. So that kind of limits the block east of this site. Um if we're looking south at the rest of the site, we still believe that we could get a parallel facility to Auburn Nightdale um without this site being included in that. >> Thank you. Other questions? >> Yes, Commissioner Matay. >> I did have the same question as Commissioner Fox about the height. Um, and felt a bit uncomfortable about that, especially if that's not what they're looking for. >> So, just ahead of time, I would feel comfortable definitely supporting this as long as we had a condition to bring the height limit down from five stories. Is that something the applicant is willing to look at revising the height? >> Yes. >> Okay. Commissioner, >> could I just had a question for staff? Are there any other zoning categories that uh as far as you can see what's being proposed here that would work? >> Yeah. So um there are two animal care commercial uses in the UDO. There is animal care indoors and animal care outdoors. The indoor use is permitted in a wider variety of zoning districts, but it's still restricted. Uh animal care with an outdoor component is only allowed in agricultural productive, heavy industrial, and industrial mixed use. And I think there are three zoning districts that we don't see every day. Uh especially heavy industrial and agricultural productive. And but in order to have that outdoor component, the UDO pigeon holes you into one direction or another to uh to be able to do that use with a special use permit. So even if this was resoning approved, they would still need to go to the board of adjustment uh at a quasi judicial hearing to request that special use. So there are three categories that have outdoor use and this is the latter of those that you listed. >> Yes. So industrial mixuse is generally less uh intensive than heavy industrial permits uh many more uses than agricultural productive which typically has very limited uh res residential uses permitted. No industrial uses for the most part permitted. So, >> so this industrial misuse uh category is the most sensible in many >> I would say. So, it's probably the middle of the road between those two extremes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Other questions, Commissioner Cochran. >> So, this is a question for uh the applicant or the county, I guess. Um if we build this facility, are there other animal shelters that are going to be decommissioned as a result? Good morning. Uh I'm Patrick McHugh with Wake County Facilities Design and Construction. I'm project manager for the project. Uh currently we have not decided what we're going to do with the existing facility but the the intent is to fully move to the new facility with just unknown what we're going to do with the existing. >> Okay. And and I have a follow-up question that um of what I'm getting to. I think there are some biohazards associated with um the waste produced by these facilities. Is there measures in place to keep that um do improcess decontamination or will the other sites have to be remediated after they're vacated? >> Uh currently their process is they they physically remove the solid waste and put it into the landfill. Basically it's it's put in the trash and then they're just washing down the residuals through the drain. I'm not familiar with any biohazards. So that's it's not washing into like that adjacent pond is not gonna >> things are okay. That >> that was going to the sewer system. >> Okay, that's all my questions. Thank you, >> Commissioner O'H. >> Maybe I need another cup of coffee, but I'm questioning my directional acuity here. This is the northern tract, correct? >> No, it's this other one. Let me go back to uh me one more >> the top that's not north of the >> this is the north of battle bridge is the one that the city of Raleigh in that interlocal agreement is looking for higher training center >> so it's not the south of the site >> you are on the south side so the the Rley County is north and south >> all right I was not clear on that I guess my other question on that though is why was there sort of following up on commissioner Fox's question about dwelling units and office square footage. If the interlocal agreement says school or animal shelter, why is that in the zoning at all? I'm just a little bit whether it was a school or not, what does it have to do with dwelling units? >> Yeah. So the interlocal agreement speaks to uses that would be allowed uh on the property that has exclusive use by Wake County and the property that would have exclusive use by the city of Raleigh. Uh the original request as submitted would have reszoned the entire site, all 110 acres of it to industrial mixed use. And so those zoning conditions were um added and we did a lot of discussion internally and with um with Zach to bring the request down to to uh remove the TIA requirement since there would would have been a variety of improvements recommended by a TIA for the entire site that would unlikely were unlikely to have been built since only a small area of the property would have been developed for an animal center use. I can if you have questions. >> I mean, if I'm the only one that has any concern, I'm still confused, but I I love the animal shelter. I mean, we need it, but and I know it's just a graphic. This is has nothing to do with the reasonzoning, but hopefully y'all going to the county is going to plant something along that trail cuz I wouldn't walk my dog on that trail in the middle of summer, but I know it's just graphic representation, but >> Commissioner Fox. >> Yeah, I wanted to follow up on what you said, Commissioner O'Hver. It it feels as if the conditions as they're currently written are reflective of the larger parcel and perhaps we could rightsize those to the resoning that's in front of us. >> So the caps should be reflective of the 24 acre portion. Uh it's just that industrial mixuse five stories allows for pretty intensive development and a variety of uses as well. >> Well, there's the the height component, >> right? and the block perimeter. >> And I also wanted to be clear in the table that outlines the square footage of potential uh retail office number of units. Am I understanding correctly that the condition is that those are or those and are those additive? So the word or is used on one of the slides? Yeah. >> Yeah. So these different combinations of uses uh what what the condition is saying is that development would not exceed any of these or any of these individually. >> Okay. >> So 520 dwelling units for example or 190,000 square feet of office etc. >> Okay. But the intention is not to do any of those on this particular parcel. >> That's correct. >> Okay. So that was back to my comment of the right sizing the request to the parcel. Am I making sense? Apologies. >> Okay. >> Yeah, I did. I did want I'm sorry. >> Go ahead, Commissioner May. >> That was my concern also. Like we're look like we're asked to reszone a whole lot of land when the part that that we're discussing is a smaller portion of it. So, can we focus on reszoning that and leaving what it the rest of it as is or have those be two separate resoning cases and questions versus us saying yes to this shiny animal shelter while like letting something else come down the pipeline that we wouldn't want to see. There >> is that question for staff, the applicant. >> Can the reszoning be split? It sounds like you're saying just to cover the 24 acre >> piece. Just to be clear, this reszoning would only reszone the 24 acre portion of the site. So that's we're only talking about the piece that you're talking about. >> The remaining part of the site 80 or so acres uh which are represented by the dotted line would stay R4. Only the area closest to Auburn Nightdale and Battlebridge would be reszone. >> Okay. Does that address everybody's question >> on that? So if we approve this, the only thing that could be built there would be the animal shelter. Would we have to ask them to put some prohibitions of anything else in the future that could be built there? >> So, the way that it the conditions are worded right now, it is not limiting the use to just an animal shelter. Uh my understanding is the interlocal agreement between the county and the city says that the county can use this site for any governmental purpose. So, the county's intention is to do an animal shelter. Um but they wanted my understanding of the condition with all the different development intensities is in the event that does not happen they did want to give some limitation on the the max buildout of those but they may be able to offer some clarification on whether or not they would be willing to limit the intensities or the uses even further. I think I understand your concerns of being you're being presented with an animal shelter but the conditions don't reflect that. I think a lot of those conditions were related to the Chua TIA, but now that uh our transportation engineer has worked with the city and NCDOT, um a TIA is not required. Uh so I'm if I'm happy to kind of work with staff on limiting those or reducing that or amending it in a way that focuses on the use at hand. >> Thank you. >> Sorry, one more question. >> That's fine. I want to I mean ask of the commission. Um I know that we have like to do we're hearing from people that are for against this today. >> Yes. So okay I'll wait then. Never mind. Okay. Are there other questions from commissioners? Then it sounds like we're going to leave this open to allow the applicant to um revise conditions limiting use. Was there anyight >> and height? Were there other items that we wanted them to consider? Commissioner Hotwell, >> I would just like to state that I trust the county to build a good facility whether that not they decide to pursue an animal shelter. And if we meet the conditions for the height and the other restrictions, if they decide to put in a crisis center or whatever else the county likes to build, I I don't think I would object to that. So, I'm not very caught up on what the use is. >> Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. I will. Um, when would you like to Oh, I'm sorry. I just um I heard some conflicting message there. Some folks were concerned about use and Mr. Otwell was not. Is it specifically height? Can we just get specific feedback for the applicant and staff on what you were expecting? >> Yeah, I can I can just >> wait. She had her hand up first. >> I was just making a point of usage. Um I trust the county also. My thing is making sure that we prohibit any use outside of the things we would feel like are of community serving or community facing or benefit. That's my concern about wanting, you know, prohibitions put in. Not saying it has to be an animal shelter or something of that nature. But it I it does raise concerns that there's some things that they're requesting that now they're saying they don't need, but we're asking to vote on those. So, just wanting to make it more streamlined of what we're actually voting on. Okay, Commissioner Walters, >> I think I was just reflecting that um at least what I'm hearing from the commission is that we the the zoning and condition the proposed zoning and conditions don't reflect the the physical form of what we saw. And so I think just aligning those is helpful for us. But I uh generally agree with uh Commissioner Rowell. >> So are we asking the applicant to consider revisions limiting use and height? It sounds like there is a general will of the commission for them to consider prohibitions on certain types of uses and limiting height. We need to give clear direction so they come back with what we want to see. >> Yeah. And I would say like specifically what uses would would that be? >> I guess if we could instead of maybe directing them to specific uses up at the table, I guess if we could just have clarification on whether or not you want to see solely an animal shelter or are you willing to consider other uses as long as they serve a public purpose? Commissioner Makaya, >> I think I actually said that specifically like I'm okay. I don't The prohibitions is not saying that we don't trust the county, but just that whatever is built there is for public use and public good versus anything else being able to be built there or that doesn't necessarily serve perfect like a crisis shelter or an animal shelter or even if it's a women's shelter if it turns out to be a preschooler. You know what I'm saying? Something like that. But something that is public service facing versus anything else. >> Okay. Is that clear to the applicant? >> Uh we will we will definitely work with staff. I early on I think we did limit some of the neighbors did were concerned that it was going to be a wastewater treatment plant or anything other the heavy uses that were the industrial use. So, we'll we'll we'll revisit that list and kind of trim we we were looking at trimming some of those kind of the what they were considering more the scarier uses uh that they could be residing next to. >> Commissioner Fox. >> Yeah, I just wanted to clarify my earlier comment. Um I don't necessarily think that the uses need to be restricted. >> It was just what I was hearing was that was like a vestage like a leftover from when the resoning included the entire parcel. Um, so I I can imagine a scenario where all of those uses are that are listed serve a public purpose. So, >> okay, >> I would I would trust that an interlocal agreement would would cover any of those concerns that the city might have in terms of what the county put there. I I just want to clarify that piece. The and the the height component, it when you kind of back away and squint at this one, it looks a lot like spot zoning. And the the only mechanism I could kind of uh manipulate there was the height seemed very much out of place with future land use map and then also existing development pattern. >> Okay. >> So we >> Yeah. >> Okay. When would you like to come back? Would you like to bring this back to the meeting on the 24th in which case the revised conditions would be due this Friday? Is that correct? Or the next meeting >> 14th? >> I mean I seeing how the staff can work quickly. We us can work >> quickly. We want to keep us momentum moving. It's been a long time coming to here. Okay. >> So I'm ready to go. >> So then we will >> I don't want to overcommit staff on that retire. So I need to staff is up to any option. Uh yeah, we'd happy be to uh we would be happy to work with the county to get onside revisions by this Friday. >> Okay. >> And try and get on March 24th. >> Great. Ju >> just Yeah. And just to be clear, the city is also an an applicant on this request. >> Thank you. So we will leave the hearing open. The applicant will come back at our March 24th meeting with revised conditions. Um, the applicant has 2 minutes 8 seconds remaining. >> And um, >> thank you very much for your time. Of course, forward to seeing you in >> Thank you. Thank you very much. I did not expect that one to take this long. So, um, attorney, did we do everything we needed to do? Okay, great. >> Yes, you're good. Thank you. >> Our second new business item, resoning Z3925 319 Hec Street. We'll hear from staff. Good morning, Commission Mitra Chesh Baron, presenting on Z3925. This is a request to reszone just over half an acre at 319 Hex Street. Um, current zoning on the site is R10 with the Newburn Edon NCOD and the request is to reszone the site to RX4 with conditions and then your deadline for action is May 9th. zoning in the area is predominantly residential um with a few instances of lower intensity mixed use districts like R six or sorry RX and NX. Here's a look at the site and where it sits and surrounding uses. Um the site is directly across from Oakwood Historic Cemetery um which is just north um under the environmental parks and open space label and then norththeast of the site is St. Augustine's University. Um outside of that um the area is predominantly uh residential um comprised of single family detached homes and then some smaller um apartment buildings, town houses as well. Um and then just south of the site um some institutional and office uses as you move closer to Newburn Avenue. Here's where the site sits in relation to the NCOD it's within. Um it's on the edge and um this NCOD sits between Oakwood Historic District west of the site and then also um some mapped to area which corresponds to the Newburn um future BRT route which is just south. Um we'll look at the site today and uh surrounding development. Um currently on the site is a smaller apartment building um that was built roughly in the 70s um and has 12 units. I'll note that today it is vacant and not in use. Um, and there's also a surface parking lot on the site as well. A few looks at the site and its frontage. Um, the first is moving uh east um kind of like away from downtown. You can start to see the small apartment building that exists today. Um, limited pedestrian facilities on this portion of Oakwood. Um, and then also some limited bicycle facilities as well. And then the second image kind of shows you a bit more of that small apartment building um and its intersection with Hex Street. The applicant has proposed three conditions currently. Uh the first is prohibiting the cemetery use. The second um speaks to frontage. I'll just go ahead and note that the language here mimics um the urban limited frontage and requires that um 50% of the property frontage for Oakwood um Avenue will have um front principal building facades within 20 ft of public rightway. And then that same kind of idea for 25% of property frontage along other public rights away. And then the third condition prohibits vape and tobacco shops as a sole use um or a sole like shop. The UDO doesn't include vape and tobacco use as a specific use. So it can't be prohibited outright. Um other retailers could sell these goods. It just couldn't be the sole revenue for a shop or a retail space. Um here's a look at the difference between uh entitlement between existing and proposed zoning. an estimated 10 units under existing zoning and then up to 52 under proposed. Um and then the difference in setbacks as well. Generally reductions in uh setback requirements moving to R moving into RX. Um the NCOD does have some front uh additional setback requirements or different setback requirements than the base R10 zoning district. That comes into play for the front. There's a minimum uh of 10 and a max of 25 ft for front yard setback. And then for side lot lines, a minimum of zero feet um set back when a building is 10 feet from another building. I'll also note that the NCD has some height uh limit limits as well to 35 ft. And then here's another look. Um this is just to show the uh commercial entitlement that can come from the request. NRX commercial uses are limited, but this site would be eligible for that. It's located at the corner of two public streets, so 4,000 square feet could be incorporated. um as a ground floor use in an apartment building. Overall, the uh the site is uh in an area that is more walkable and bikable and better served by transit than other areas in the city. Um residents in this area experience lower transportation costs um and have high proximity to jobs. The site's just um outside of downtown Raleigh and about a mile east of the Person Street area. Um the site is served by several GO Raleigh bus routes all within walking distance of the site. um and then also is within the uh future BRT transit area for um Newburn Avenue. The request does not include any subsidized units, but it does add to the overall housing supply would permit a variety of housing types um uh in smaller units on smaller lots um and it's in an area well served by transit. Generally, residents in this area are less likely to be people of color and um less likely to be low income. and then rents in this area have increased greater than the citywide average. Overall, the request is consistent with the future land use map designation of moderate scale residential. This is supported because of the site's proximity and like location within a BRT transit area. The request is also consistent with the urban form. It's within a frequent transit area and again within a BRT transit area and just outside of a transit station planned buffer area. Um the these would generally recommend an urban frontage be included. As I mentioned before, that's not included with the request specifically, but the second condition does mimic what an urban frontage or urban limited frontage would do. The request is also consistent with the comprehensive plan overall. A variety of consistent policies here that speak to compact development, capitalizing on transit access, increasing um housing variety and opportunity, near future BRT um areas, and um kind of growing around transit. And then uh that's that area plan there. Two inconsistent policies were identified and these supposed speak to fire response time service standards. Uh, no outstanding issues for the case and then your deadline for action is May 9th. The applicant is also here. Thank you. I'll now open the public hearing. The applicant and those in support have 10 minutes. Good morning, Chair Bennett and commissioners. Just for the record again, Molly Stewart, Morning Star Law Group, here on behalf of the applicant, 319 Hex Street LLC, but we do have Stuart Cullin in here with us today in case there are any questions for the applicant directly. Um, I will actually skip over several slides that Miss Ashderon covered very well. Um, that's our vacant site today, built in 1973. I'll pause here. You did already see that this site exists on the very eastern edge of this NCOD. Um, you did hear that the building was constructed in the early '7s. That was 1973. Uh, the NCOD came in in 1992. Um, so this nearly 20-year-old building um in in the configuration that it's in today with the surface parking lot um was in existence at that time and uh and always non-compliant with that NCOD. And I will jump forward here to look at some of that surrounding zoning. This version of the map doesn't have those overlays on it. Um, but just to highlight that moving east from the site, you do encounter that mixeduse zoning on the south side of Oakwood Avenue being uh the the three-story designation and then the sevenstory designation on the north side there at St. Augustine's. Um but bringing in the TOD and of course also being within the frequent transit area, those properties to the east um with the three-story zoning can actually develop um with with greater height using the height bonus that's available under both of those designations. These are the requirements of the Newburn Edon NCOD. Um, and I'll note that that minimum lot size in particular, 4,000 square feet, uh, that that is a a typical R10 uh, lot size average. Um, and and so that is a size that that permits, you know, sort of a large single family house in in a very urban context, but still a large single family house um, would not be out of place on a lot like that one. Um, I will also just note that looking back at Oakwood Avenue, Oakwood Avenue is something different. Um, between the TOD to the east and the uh, historic overlay district farther to the west, there are three full blocks and most of a fourth block that are in this NCOD. Um, within the NCOD in fronting on Oakwood Avenue, there are uh, 18 parcels, 19 if you include this one. Um, of those 18 other parcels, eight of them comply with that minimum lot size of the NCOD. So that NCOD uh never really described the character of the Oakwood Avenue frontage of this district. Finally, so looking at that urban form map which you you already saw, I won't go into depth on that, but I will note uh that that this is one of the ways that a site can get a height bonus. Um as you saw to the east there is also the TOD which has its own height bonus. Um, in this case, uh, if we had if we were requesting three-story zoning, uh, there would be a height bonus available. Uh, as we're requesting four-story zoning, that height bonus is not available. Um, so it actually has a lower cap than the three-story zoning to the east. Um, given the height bonus that's available there. Um, I do want to give a little bit more background on um, on what happened with this particular request as it was originally filed as a as an RX3 zoning request. Um we held our our neighborhood meetings uh under that request. Uh but what has happened um since then, two things happened since then to change the request to RX4. Uh one being that there was actually a fire in the existing apartment building. So at our very first neighborhood meeting, we were presenting uh an idea that that building would be renovated uh and then some town homes added for the remainder of the site. Um with the fire in the building, it is no longer commercially reasonable to renovate that building. Um, so the idea is that it would that would not happen. Um, we also heard at our first neighborhood meeting some concerns about parking. Um, if that park surface parking lot were to be re redeveloped. Um, so where where would those those cars go? Uh, and so the idea was that, you know, with the building coming down and with four-story zoning, not only would it reduce our maximum height possible with the bonus, um, but it would permit an additional story to to have parking underneath um, and and resolve those neighbor concerns. So, um, with those changes, uh, we actually, like I said, that kind of came in after our second neighborhood meeting. So, we went ahead and just held a third voluntary neighborhood meeting, um, to make sure that this was clear and that no one felt like, uh, the game had changed since the neighborhood meeting. So, that meeting was held last week. Um, we had two attendees who expressed no concerns. Um, but this idea, um, was shared, um, during through the normal notice process in the letter as well as at that meeting. With that, I just wanted to highlight some of the surrounding zoning. You see the the site here at the bottom um in this area. And looking down Oakwood Avenue, we have some newer housing over here. These are some of those non-conforming lots that I mentioned. Um those couldn't be built under the NCOD. Um other than having a non-conforming lot today, we've got, you know, some apartment types over here, new town homes in this area. Uh lots going, oh no, I'm not able to erase again. Not sure what happened to that function. in the upper right. >> Upper right corner. >> Upper right. No. Well, there we go. Thank you. Uh >> we hand erase. Oh dear. >> Is there another way to do this? >> The clear. >> Oh, thank you. Excellent. Okay. Um to to back up the view a little bit. Um now the site is over here on the the right side. I've lost my tool again. Um so so we have that. We also have an existing uh commercial node here at Tarbor. Um and some different building types. We have the Tarbor Community Center soon to be redeveloped and and we start to see a more commercial character as well there. And then now looking to the northeast uh now you see St. Augustine and the different building types um in that area as well. So it's it's a very mixed diverse neighborhood um with lots of building types. Obviously, Oakwood Avenue being something uh a little bit special and different compared to the bulk of the neighborhood. Um for that reason, um we feel that this request for RX4 zoning uh would would help to reduce the height cap that exists to the east. um start to step down toward the NCOD itself and and really start to rehabilitate a site that was never a comfortable fit within that NCOD and sort of uh you know sort of got reached out and and grabbed um since it was since that building was built 53 years ago. um in order to provide you know an increased housing in this area within the frequent transit area within this uh dynamic and architecturally diverse corridor um we feel this request is reasonable and in the public interest and request your support and are excited to answer any questions that you have. Thank you. >> Thank you. Are there others who wish to speak in support of this item? Okay, then we're reserving three minutes and five seconds. The opposition now has 10 minutes. >> Please state your name for the record. >> Sure. >> Hi. Uh, I'm Katie Long. I'm new to this process, so you'll have to steer me along here with anything I can do to help. Um, I am within 500 ft of the proposed site. Um, I'm four houses down. I'm going on seven years of living in that wonderful neighborhood. Um, I'm here on behalf of myself, uh, my six-year-old daughter who I'm raising there. Um, neighbors who may share my sentiment, and perhaps those who are maybe too busy to even know that this change is here and just have the presumption that where they live will continue to be residential first and foremost. Um, I just want to make it clear I support the LLC at 319 Hex Street. Um, theirs and the related LLC's have done a lot of really great development in our block and surrounding. So, I don't have a a concern with the developer as an entity. Um, I don't have a concern with a three or maybe even fourstory building going there to house more residential units. Um, but I don't support the inclusion of the retail on the ground floor. Um, and honestly until the the helpful opener to begin with, I did not realize that it would be up to 52 units as opposed to like 10. Um, the community the values that I come here with are community. Um, I care about neighbors, volunteering at the school, being part of garden club and raising money for grant programs to support organizations safety. Um, and home is a respit. Uh so that's the perspective I bring here. Um I don't oppose change. It is hard. Um but as an example on the back side of our block you were seeing a lot of pictures of grass on the backside. Uh but that is the cottages of Idol Wild under construction. 18 new affordable homes going there. Used to be grass. Used to be beautiful trees now clearcut. So there's a lot of balance, a lot of give and take we're already doing as homeowners there. Um but however perfectly executed the buildout is um the very nature of a business takes customers and that means traffic and that means noise. None of which they or we will have control once over once it's in place. Um you know I think about all that we've done to work hard. There's a beautiful serene cemetery across the street from us. We've worked so hard uh to keep the serenity and safety. Um actually I think back to the day the fire was mentioned on that site. I was one of the people that called in a suspicious person that that was approaching that lot right before it happened. So, I am a very vocal supporter of community and want to see it succeed. Um, you know, it seems like I'm just saying no. Again, it's just to the retail portion. Um, and I do believe that retail is important for the area, but the spot that was highlighted at Oakwood and Tarboro um that has a stretch of retail there really is a wonderful spot for that to take place. Um, so I appreciate everybody listening uh to my perspective as someone who lives there uh supports it and wants to see it thrive um and the LLC uh thriving in its build um just maybe under uh slightly different conditions at that site. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Long. Are there others who wish to speak in support? Hi, my name is Octavia Rainey and I'm here to say that I have lived in College Park for 70 years and I have some objections. Number one, the young lady who presented, she forgot to call it ID Wild. It's very important that you call that neighborhood. It was formed in 1891. And I have big objection to that because when you don't call ID wild's name, you don't know where you at or what you're talking about. And ID Wild is a black neighborhood. And I resent that. I resent. Number two, you keep talking about facing Oakwood. You know what? Oakwood is just a street name. That's all it is. But that's out of it. It was founded in 1891. Number two, I take exception to you talking about the transit. The only bus that come close to ID while is number 10. The other ones don't count. So that's incorrect to me. It don't count. It's just number 10. Number three, I have huge objections to changing the NC DO. I do. This is not the first rodeo about that NC do by Stewart. He did that on New Avenue. And I just don't understand that. Why are we back here at this today? I don't understand that. Last but not least, I don't think you need re retail right there at that spot. You have retail on Tabber Road which is located in Ottawa to the planning commission. I am sick and tired when these plans comes up to y'all in the black community. You don't call them by name. There's something wrong with that picture because when you call it by name, you get a different perspective. But when you just said Oakwood, what does that really mean? I don't know. Do we need to change the street name to a black name to begin to put the focus of where it should be? Something is wrong with this picture. I came this morning to voice my opinion. Now, I don't live within that 500 block, so I didn't get to notice. But if I had lived within that block, within that area, I would have been there front and center, and I would have brought other neighbors to that meeting. So, I'm really confused at where y'all are going, what y'all are doing. But I tell you one thing, when you don't call the name of a neighborhood, people don't come out because they don't know what you are talking about. And to the young lady who spoke before me, I think more people would have came out if they had known cuz I would have came out and brought 25 others with me to give input on this process. This meeting need to be redone so we can have the opportunity to give our opinions. But changing NC do absolutely not. We've been through this before. We have and I don't understand it. I'm really lost. Number two, it is not on a transit route. The only thing that run there is number 10. So that other stuff, you can just take that out. Just take it out. take it out now. But I am concerned again when you don't call the black neighborhood by their founding name 1891 out of wild. It's ridiculous to me. And I'm sick of this. I'm just sick of it because I think when you do that, you downplay the black community. You act like it don't exist and then you erase it. And y'all are part of that. And you shouldn't be a part of that. Anything you do should be about enhancing, not erasing. There's something wrong with this today. And I'm asking that we have another meeting. And this time I'm coming because I have concerns. Ottawa and College Park have always been very, very close neighborhoods. And I have always spoke up for Ottawa and College Park since 1973. So I'm not new at this game. I'm a old clown. I am old, but I just think that as I get older and older in my age, because I'm 70 years old, I'm sick of this. And if we don't claim our neighborhoods, if we don't protect our neighborhoods, they're going to be gone in less than 20 years from now. They're going to be gone. They're going to vanish. And you won't even recognize it's out of wild anymore. So, I'm just saying from my perspective, I would like to have another community meeting to have the opportunity to invite people out to hear Steuart's presentation because it won't f only two people showed up. What kind of input is that? It's no input. And I take exception. I'm just sorry, but this is how I feel. I'm 70 years old. That's how I feel. That's what I stand for. I'm 70 and I've been in this neighborhood fighting since 1973. Thank you, Miss Rainey. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak in opposition to this item? Okay, there we have a minute 14 seconds remaining on the clock for the opposition. Um, I'm going to bring it back to the table for commissioner questions. These are questions for staff, the applicant, or um the two members of the public who have spoken. Any questions? Commissioner Makay. Um I'm wondering if the I I do also agree that uh I think that mixed use there is concerning to me. Retail use in the in this residential area is concerning to me. There is space for that. and it does shift the landscape and the character of the neighborhood especially around the um around Idaho and the Oakwood Cemetery. And I'm wondering if the applicant would be can they explain and and only when there is not even there's not even a prohibition of vape shops or anything just can't be the sole use of the space. I'm wondering the applicant is willing for this to be a residential space instead of a space that's residential and retail if that is what the community's concern is. one and two, would the applicant be be willing to have another community meeting? >> Um the applicant like to answer um those questions again that this doesn't count against the time. >> Thank you. Appreciate those comments, Commissioner Makay. Um so there there's been a diversity of opinions about the retail. there is immediately to the east there's zoning the same zoning the RX um that would permit that as well going all the way down Oakwood Avenue. Um so we've heard some interest in in having it. We've also heard opposition. Um it's not uh crucial to the site. So it's something that um certainly you know if it's the will of the commission we could um look at look at removing that that use. Um it was thought that it would perhaps be a benefit. I think as all of you know in the RX district, it's a very limited amount of retail um which is designed to keep the the residential character of the neighborhood um and not to you know sort of attract people from you know far and wide to the area. Um so thinking that you know that is what the district was designed to do thought it could be more of a benefit to residents um than sort of a detriment to them. Um that said, it's I'm not aware of any location in the city that has RX zoning and has a commercial use. Um they tend not to drive uh the kind of support that the retail needs. Um so given the unlikelihood of it anyway, um it's something that we're certainly open to re-examining. Um but really weren't sure coming in here um how that how that would be received or if it might be considered a benefit that it would be an option. I mean, to me, it just seems like for the for the character of the neighborhood and those that live in the in the community, retail use might not be the best thing that makes them feel most comfortable. And nor does it to me fit the face of the neighborhood. And if it's not that big of a deal and it's, you know, the commission is cool with that, especially since they're adding housing supply, I think that that would be something I would like to see you all consider. >> You had a second question. Um, oh, would you also be willing, you all also be willing to host more community engagement meetings so you can get more engagement from community and their perspective since it wasn't a a large turnout at >> I have to ask the applicant about that. We we did hold the third voluntary meeting. Um, we can we can talk about that. Um, and I could perhaps come back on that one. Um, I I would say most likely obviously we're all here at the table now and listening. Um, so that's something that we can react to here in real time. Um but yeah, like I said, we'll we'll talk about that one. Um in any event, uh yeah, and I did want to make one clarification on that tobacco vape use that was mentioned. Um it wasn't prohibited only as a sole use. It was prohibited as a um principal um business that that a retail would be in. So, so, you know, their their principal business, even if they may have other things, that would also be prohibited. So, it's not that they're only a vape and tobacco shop necessarily. >> Thank you for that clarification, >> Commissioner Walters. So, I'm thinking about the type of retail that might go in a a space like this. Um, it's a pretty small site. Uh, your average coffee shop is like,500 square foot to 3,000 square foot footprint. Um, what kind of scale of retail are you thinking about? You know, I'm just thinking about smallcale retail. It makes me think of places like Brookside or uh you know small commercial destinations or the one right down the street here that are almost amenity for the neighborhood. Uh creates a more walkable condition um adds active nodes to the neighborhood provides a resource. So, you know, there are different types of retail and scales of retail, and I'm just trying to kind of narrow in to help my imagination of what might be here because, you know, I'm thinking coffee shop, corner store, those those might be great for the the local neighborhood. >> Yeah, thank thank you for that. Um, and I would say by comparison with Brookside, anything here would be much smaller than a Brookside type situation. But, um, but yeah, the the RX district, residential mixed use, right there in its name, right? It is a residential character district designed to only have those kind of supportive um commercial uses and not be a destination. Uh, so so yes, it is absolutely designed for residents and it it really couldn't be more than that. >> Thank you, >> Commissioner. Um, Bernette, I'm sorry. >> Um, hi Molly. Um, my question is, um, taking into consideration the, um, the young lady, uh, who came up in opposition with the six-year-old daughter regarding traffic, regarding, um, just general, I guess, a just a spike in just activity in the area. Would would the applicant be would the applicant consider some type of I don't know what like I don't know we what we can ask of the applicant but to like mitigate like the speed and and so on and so forth. Maybe that's even not of the applicant but my concern is like speed people driving through super fast. I already know people drive really fast down Oakwood anyway. Um but something along those lines just to to to mitigate speed whether temporary speed bumps is is there anything like the applicant could bring to the table on that? >> Great question. Um so I know that the city has undertaken extensive efforts to slow Oakwood Avenue. Um and it it is actually much slower than it was uh even recently uh today. So that that has happened. Um I don't know that this site can overall control the speed of Oakwood Avenue. Um but as far as you know an increase in uh people we think this is a site you know being here in the frequent transit area very close to the actual station area even um where you don't know of a place that would make more sense um to to bring the people um and and to do it with less traffic. Right. This is this is one of the few locations in the city where one can expand that density and to provide options other than a car um for those people to get around. Um so we think this is one of the locations that would actually reduce that and even you know for example if you um push housing further down Oakwood Avenue now they're even more likely to drive down Oakwood Avenue right so I think just keeping as close as we can keep people to activity centers will reduce that kind of um traffic concern >> other questions commissioner Haver >> yes ma'am thank you I have questions for staff initially But Miss Stewart, I'll have some questions for you as well. >> Um, before my question though, I would just like to make a general comment to to thank staff for all the hard work that they put into these cases. And it's a lot of information. There's um sometimes it gets emotional. Um, but staff is working to do their best to bring the information forward. So, I just want to thank them before I ask my question. Um, what is the difference between the height limitations in R10 to RX4? Um, so, uh, NRX or sorry, R10, um, would allow up to three stories normally as a base district, um, with height up to, um, I believe it's 45 feet, but I was pulling up the UDO. Um, but because it's within the NCOD, that is capped to 35 feet. Um, and then under RX, it would go up to four stories, which I believe is 68 feet. >> Um, and then you said this would um be considered moderate scale versus medium scale. Is that what you had mentioned? So, it's currently medium scale residential. >> It's currently moderate scale. So moderate is less intense in our comprehensive plan than medium. >> Okay. Um so I have a couple of questions for the applicant. Um I think I live in this neighborhood. Um I think retail can be great. I do know in some other cases appreci I mean I appreciate the limitation to vape shop etc. But I know in other cases we've asked the applicant if they'd be willing to consider other types of uses, check cashing, etc. So I would like to see if the applicant one would be willing to at least just considering expanding that since there's some concern about the type of retail for the neighborhood. We've done that before. My second question is would the applicant and I think Miss Stewart will not be surprised at this. I'm fairly consistent on it. There are existing residents residences adjacent to the site. They've been there for a while. Um I think asking for an a a fourstory building. I think yeah, sometimes single family homes can be equal to three. I'm I'm okay with four stories. Um but I wouldn't be okay with a fourstory unit 0T next to my single family residence. So, I'd like to ask the applicant if there's some consideration to find a balance between what the current system the current zoning requires versus what the proposed zoning allows. And I will just say if if there's not um other than that, I'm fully in support of this reszoning. But if there's not an ability to consider something in between that to uh at least consider the adjacent residential homeowners, I I probably won't be able to support this particular case even though I'm in favor of the project. >> Thank you for that. So to start with your first question about expanding the types of retail uses that might be prohibited, um certainly a conversation that we can have. We addressed the the one that we heard that was a particular concern. Um, are there others in particular? I I think you mentioned one. Sorry. >> I mean, I put the the onus on you. You're a good attorney. There's been many reasonzoning cases that we've passed where we've uh approved additional restrictions. The one that comes to mind is check cashing. I don't remember what the other ones are, but I do know that we've had conversations around that and I do think expanding that list somewhat could be beneficial. >> Okay. And we will work with staff on that. as you as I think you know that um once you get sort of below the level of a listed use in the code to things that are types of retail for example um it gets tricky from their enforcement perspective and that's why the the tobacco language reads exactly as it does that was a suggestion so we will work with them on sort of what what's possible here um I think that's that's not an issue I will note that under the current zoning the side setbacks are uh zero zero feet um however um the >> So, I'm going to need staff to confirm that. It says side lot line is five feet in our in our material. So, is it >> zero um has a requirement for it. So, yeah, we we can certainly ask them, but I in in either case, I can say that the um RX4 zoning would bring in the zone A of the neighborhood transition when you're next to an R district. Um what that would require is uh at minimum a 10-ft uh buffer that if you do the 10-ft version has a wall and is very heavily landscaped. Um so it's a very intensive transition um between those uses. Uh and there are other options that are wider for example >> that's A10 the A10 buffer. >> Uh it's not called that in the neighborhood transitions. It's the zone A and so it's got three options under it. Yeah. Again, I'll I'll sort of leave that up to you all. We can talk about it offline, too, so you don't show up and be surprised by my comments, but I don't know that the A10 buffer would necessarily be appropriate here either. I just think there's a way to fit it in there into the character and the scale of the neighborhood. Again, I'm in favor of it. I'm in favor of the retail. I I just, you know, a big wall and a bunch of heavy landscaping between me and my neighbor is not very neighborly. Again, I live in the neighborhood, so this is just me personally. I I don't hear any of the other commissioners uh sort of following up on me. So, you know, again, this is just uh my view of this particular case >> and that's just the way the UDO works. That's not specific to this reasonzoning um and not something that we could take away through this process. Um that is what you know the city has decided is appropriate between those two districts. >> Good. Let me um I have a question then. uh for Miss Rainey and Miss Long. Um your opposition, at least part of your opposition was about the the mixed use. Um and we're talking about asking the applicant about limiting uses. Are you okay with certain uses like a coffee shop or are you opposed to all mixed use? Do you just want it to be solely residential? I want to make sure we're addressing your concern and the applicant doesn't come back with something revised that you still don't like. We can hear from both of you, please. >> I am opposed to residential period >> to residential mean. >> I mean, excuse me. I am opposed to the retail. Excuse me. I am opposed to the retail alto together. And I want to say at the DMV, I thought they was planning on putting a grocery store at the DMV on Newurn Avenue. That's what I thought. That's what I thought. So second, you have a retail on Tarbor Road. So why I I don't understand the change. I I just don't understand the change. And that that retail use have no business in the residential area. None whatsoever. And as a matter of fact, if I am correct on this, at the corner of ID Wild and Edon, that is a retail use. So, I don't understand how we get over here to Hex Street and a retail use when you have a vacant parcel of land at the corner of Ottawa and Edton right there. That is a retail use. That's what it used to be. So I I really don't understand it. So we don't know what that use is going to be, but that was a retail use at the corner of East Lane Street and Ottawa, right at the corner where the mini park is, that was a retail use cuz a store was there. And before the store, it was a flower shop. So, I don't support this on Hex Street at all. I'm not in support of it. I think it just need to be residential. That's what I support. >> Thank you, Miss Rainey. >> Think similar sentiment from me. I think it's you don't know until something comes there all the things you should have thought of and then it will have been a foregone com um conclusion at that point. So um certainly a no to retail would be the safest and purely in support of residential. Um also from the perspective of uh traffic calming uh that was probably my first foray into anything related to ci civic involvement is when the city's neighborhood uh traffic management program um started their design phases. I I uh was involved in that from um 2021 to 2023 reviewing um so on Oakwood starting at the west side at Lynen which is uh where the cemetery is going all the way eastbound down Oakwood um past this property in question all the way to Raleigh Boulevard. Um all of the traffic uh circles or roundabouts there uh the speed humps, the speed bumps, um all of those were something that I talked to people about and looked to get um support for. So, um I do think we're doing best as we can already with what the city already implemented. It has slowed things down. People blow the stop sign at heck already. Um still, but overall, I think we've done as best as we can. I'd hate to take that step back and try to bring more people there. I think it's also important there is a bike lane there, but there are no sidewalks. So, um if if we're imagining people are going to walk, they're going to be walking at risk. Um, and if we're bringing anybody uh that's going to be driving, it's putting people who are already trying to walk there at risk. >> Thank you, Commissioner May. >> Um, I just wanted to reiterate to the point of >> we're still asking questions. So, you have a question or comment comment later. >> I'll wait. >> Okay. I'll make sure you get it in, but we just >> Hi, just wanted to offer a point of clarification. Um just in terms of commercial entitlement in RX um just want to reiterate it is only permitted 4,000 square feet um as a ground floor use in apartment building types. So that's the first thing and then in terms of um some of the uses that you had mentioned those are already restricted in RX district specifically vehicle related things um vehicle fuel sales check cashing and payday loans and there's also some limits on hours of operation um for retail or commercial NRX. >> That's helpful. Thank you. >> Yeah. And then um one last note for uh setback requirements. What's in the staff report is just reflects what like the base R10 zoning district is. So my apologies for that, but the slide had the correct um setback requirements which I can pull back up. >> You're good. >> Perfect. Thanks. >> Other questions? And we we have three more items just so you know. So, we I I don't want to rush through anything, but it already looks like we're going to continue this if the um applicant is considering revising conditions. So, if we can let them know anything else we want them to consider um so we can move on to our next item. Are there any other questions? Okay. Then um Miss Stewart, would you like to continue this to our March 24th meeting? In which case, um revised conditions would be due by this Friday. Yes, we can absolutely do it by this Friday because uh we are going to prohibit retail. >> Oh, well, okay. All righty then. So, we will continue case um Z 3925 until our March 24th meeting. Yes, Commissioner May. I'm sorry. I said I was going to let you provide your comment. I apologize. >> No problem. I want to make a very quick comment just clarifying something that Miss Octavia Rainey was saying that we kind of glazed over when she talked about the Idol Wow district and IDW village and the importance of saying the name of the community. Um we've seen a lot of different changes that has ra uh erased history of uh black and brown people in the city of Raleigh and sometimes that comes with reszoning and replanning and not preserving neighborhoods. And Oakwood is a community that is strongly preserved. It is historic. And even right now, while we're debating this, it's on the edge of Oakwood. And we work hard to protect that. I think what Miss Rainey is trying to say is that what Miss Rainey is saying is that it's important for all people across the city who grow up in a certain area that understand those those areas by a certain name can understand what's going on in those areas, especially if they live close to them. And making sure that we're culturally sensitive, which is important. and planning and any other measures that we're taking in this city to call this area by its name. And even if we just need a a moment of historical context before we jump into whatever decisions we're making can also add to the informative nature of our decisions. So what she's saying is making sure that residents understand if something going is going on on Oakwood and heck they may not instantly understand that this is the IDW neighborhood they grew up in and these are more changes happening. same as we closed South Street for the red hat, which also is a historic area for black people in this city. It seems like the areas that we're choosing to target to make major difference and changes in is changing the face and landscape culturally of this neighborhood in this city. And that is important. And I think I just wanted to clarify and make sure that everybody understood what she was saying and how important that point that she was making is. >> Thank you, Commissioner May. Um, our next new business item is Z4325 6309 Lichford Road. We'll hear from staff. >> Good morning. Hiro Marziano, Plan and Development. And this is resoning Z4325 um located 6309 Lichford Road uh just north of the southern intersection of John'sdale uh road and Lichford Litchford Roads uh loop intersection. It connects it two places. Just want to make it clear we're at the southern side of that intersection. Um this is a request to reszone uh 3.79 acres from R4 to R10 CU. Uh deadline for action will be May 9th. Uh zoning in this area is predominantly residential. Uh however, there is some commercial and industrial located south and eastward of this site. Uh as you can see from this kind of zoomed out, we are pretty much adjacent to Milbrook High School to the west. Some industrial sectors further east. U some newer commercial and moderate scale residential uh south and east of here. and then some older moderate scale and then the surrounding area here is low-scale residential. Milbrook Exchange Park is also right there. Uh just a closer zoom up the site, you can see it's um got an older structure on the property. Uh here's that structure. Number one would be from Lichford Road. Number two would be the appearance from Johnsdale Road. Uh, I will note that I didn't take better angles of this, but you can see that there's no improvements along the street network on either road. Uh, the applicants proposed several conditions in your packet. You have one version from the draft conditions. After some staff comments, they amended the last one, but uh, to run through those real quick. They're, uh, recommending to prohibit the boarding house as a use, the apartment building type, which is allowed in the R10 district. um some photographic documentation similar to what we've done in the past with a few other places for the structure on site. It does qualify to be I think at least looked at um nationally and limits the principal dwelling units to 54 on the site. The fifth condition um was about erosion control measures and um with storm water staff comments they've changed it from double seal to a product called super seal. So that's the the difference from what's in your packet to to what's been signed. Um as you can see current zoning would allow for 32 units proposed zoning and they through conditions are restricted to 54. I've used townhouse as a comparable example between the two uh districts for your setbacks. uh this area regardless. I pointed out the infrastructure before because this does have a higher walk score based on the utility we use. Again, there is no improvements on the road for sidewalks. Um it has an average transit score for this area, an average bike score. Um good transportation costs and it is located approximately uh pretty well to some jobs. Uh Triangle Town Link uh Route 25 here uh is the closest route that serves this area. is approximately a quarter mile south. Um, however, again, it's not really considered to be walkable within walking distance of transit without those utilities uh um infrastructure in place. So, we consider it to be kind of average walking distance for transit. Uh does not include subsidized units, does add to the housing supply, permits a variety of housing types, smaller units are allowed, and smaller lot sizes than the city's average. Um only significant uh demographic as related to the averages of the city would be that the the as we've seen plenty of times the cost of living is or cost of rent has increased considerably. Um it is not consistent with the future land use map. Uh the area is lowcale residential. You'll note that the public facilities there to the west that's the school property. Uh there is moderate scale uh across the street, some public parks and open space and some community mixed use in the area. Uh but R10 strictly speaking without any enhancements of like frequent transit or something like that isn't generally consistent with low-scale residential. Uh there's no urban form designation for this site and being residential and one wouldn't be applied to it regardless. So overall we do believe it is consistent with the comprehensive plans uh visions, goals, policies. Um however inconsistent with the future land use map. Uh some of those policies uh speak to um housing middle uh missing middle housing reinforcing or urban pattern uh zoning infrastructure impacts the infrastructure for um water sewers available housing variety um zoning for housing. And so it's a lot of uh housing compatibility and and again inconsistent would be strict definition of the future land use map. Uh your upcoming uh meetings 24th, April 14th and April 28th. Deadline for action would be uh May 9th. If um this uh is approved uh ultimately uh a flume amendment would be necessary um to take it from low scale residential to moderate scale residential. >> Thank you. I'll now open the public hearing. The applicant and those in support have 10 minutes. Hey, good morning. Uh, Chair Bennett, uh, members of the planning commission, Toby Coleman with Smith Anderson, uh, here on behalf of the property owner, Lichford Point LLC. Um, with with me today, uh, is a member of the ownership group, Blair Therapington, as well as Jason Meadows, who's been sort of serving as a engineering consultant. um on this project. Um so, you know, this is a a fairly unique site. Um you know, it's about 3.8 acres uh located uh on Lichford Road, which is a four-lane road and has, you know, good walkability to Mil Brook High, Milbrook Exchange. Um and this resoning is really to take a look at, you know, what what could be built here? You know, could it be denser in sort of a a neighborhood friendly way? You've got some apartments. You got about 240 apartments across the street and then just just to the south just south of Johnsdale there's about 82 apartments. Um you have a I will also note you know we do have a number of of neighbors here uh just from the neighborhood meetings I've seen them I' I've seen them here this morning. Um and they raised a number of concerns that we've been trying to work work through. Um you know the biggest one we heard sort of at the outset was are you going to build apartments here? Um we have put in a condition that says no apartment building type. Um and you know a lot of the concerns you know the neighbors had a number of concerns related to that. Um but um you know part of part of it was just that they'd been they'd had number of problems with some of the apartments other apartment projects and then concerns which I'll talk a little bit more about uh around um traffic on Johnsdale Road which is uh this street right here. Uh it's the uh sort of a a residential street. Um this neighborhood uh was built before, just as background, this neighborhood uh that surrounds the site uh was built in the 60s before this part of the city was part of the city. And so it was all built to county standards. And so part of the underlying issue here is we've got an old Wake County development with, you know, sort of a narrower street, um culverts, no sidewalks. And so there's there's sort of various issues going on with the traffic. Um I always forget how to do that. See, there we go. Anyway, um one of the other concerns we heard was about density um and uh a concern particularly that if we're doing R10, it's currently zoned R4. Um they're concerned about just sort of being overwhelmed by the project. Um to try to address that concern, we went to the city and basically said, "Can you can you run your computer calculation on what would be the number of units that you could develop under R six?" Um this is what the city popped out and as you can see, um the max number of residential units that the city calculated under R six zoning was 54. That's how we came up with our zoning condition that limits the number of units at the site to 54. Um, basically what we're trying to do is uh we're proposing R10 zoning to provide some flexibility in terms of basically how you arrange the homes. Um, but we wanted as much as possible recognizing that this recognizing the flum uh designation of low density residential which recommends R2, R4 or R six. We wanted to make the R10 zoning as consistent with R six as as possible. Um and so we we have put you know no apartments and then this limit on on the number of units which is effectively a density limit. Um we've taken a look at um took a look at some of the other you know we wanted to just make sure and we did talk with um the neighbors about this. Um you know we took a look at sort of basically are there other differences in R six and R10 that we could address and generally they're about the same. There's some minor differences when you dig really way down deep, but generally, you know, it's the same minimum watt width if you're talking about town homes, um, which is really where you would get the density. Um, uh, you know, same street and rear setbacks, same minimum building separation, same building height. And so, you know, while we're happy to consider other things, you know, just wanted to give you guys a sense on sort of what we've been thinking through in R six versus R10. One of the big issues that is harder for us to address and that we have not addressed in our conditions yet is concerns the the neighborhoods very reasonable concerns about traffic. So, there is an existing traffic problem on John's Gail Road and I'm sure you're going to hear hear from the neighbors if you haven't already heard in in some written communications. As I understand it, or you know, I understand a little bit, you know, we've we I've been out there, but you know, I haven't lived there. As I understand from the people that live there, a big issue is is that Milbrook High uses Johnsdale Road as one of its access points. Um it's so bad and we heard so many complaints that we actually reached out to Wake County Public Schools and the principal of Milbrook and said this is a real problem for this neighborhood. We're hearing concerns about safety. We're hearing concerns about you know waiting having to wait too long to get out. Is there anything that can be done? And the answer was respectfully no. Um they basically said no, we need this we need this entrance otherwise it gums up our other entrances. So sorry. Um, it's frustrating the um, again, I'll let the residents speak for themselves, but when I when we mentioned this at the second neighborhood meeting, the the neighbors did not seem particularly surprised by that response. I think they've been dealing with with those sort of issues. Um, the the solution that the neighbors asked us to consider related to traffic, you know, their big concern is either cut through traffic as they've expressed it, you know, having a road that cuts through that would create even more issues. Um, in particular, they're concerned about cars going onto Johnsdale. Um, and asked us to consider a zoning condition that would prohibit vehicular traffic onto Johnsdale except for emergency vehicles. Um, we have not offered that yet and we're not in a position to offer that at least today. Uh, we have reached out to the Department of Transportation to get an understanding on whether this site would get access to Lichford given that it also has access onto Johnsdale. um we haven't gotten we haven't gotten an answer yet. Um and then obviously we also need to talk with uh city transportation about it. So we didn't want to offer that zoning condition absent having that additional information. So, um, I say that all because if if this is a if you guys decide that you'd like to see some changes, um, um, you know, we we would like to make sure that, you know, if we get if we get asked to come back that we have sufficient time to have those conversations and close that loop. Um I will note though that you know just this is just the uh transportation estimate um that uh was in our report and as you can see um the increased uh trips from you know a maximum of 54 units is estimated um you know to be it will generate some traffic but it's not significant traffic. It's about you know 15 uh cars in the AM peak hour. So, uh was that uh one every four minutes and then 22 cars in the PM peak hour, which probably doesn't match up with the uh the school peak hour. Um so, it would you know, the neighbors are very very concerned about it. I don't I'm not in any way trying to minimize that, but just wanted to present y'all with with some of the additional information. And with that, we're available for questions. >> Thank you. Is there anyone else here who wishes to speak in support of this item? Okay, we'll reserve 2 minutes 13 seconds for the applicant and those in support. Next, we'll hear from the opposition and you have a total of 10 minutes. Please state your name for the record. You don't have to give your address unless you just want to. >> Good morning. My name is uh Philip Brown. I'm a fifth, sixth generation Raleigh resident. Uh my family's lived in Lichford Forest. uh going on four generations with my children. Uh we uh grew up with the Bachelor family who originally developed our neighborhood. Uh the Johnson family had a wonderful home site with 4 acres, just shy of four acres. Uh we hope to keep that into an R4 zoning based on the conditions that I'll uh go through today. Uh when Raleigh evaluates resonings, the city considers four findings of facts. uh consistency with the comprehensive plan, compatibility with surrounding land uses, infrastructure and public service capacity, and environmental and community impacts. These criteria with this proposal raises serious concerns for our neighborhood versus compatibility uh with the surrounding neighborhood. Lichford Forest has been a lowdensity single family neighborhood since the early 1960s. The average lot size is under 3/4 of an acre, allowing 54 dwelling units on 3.8 8 acres represents a level of density that is dramatically inconsistent with the homes surrounding it. Responsible planning normally includes gradual transitions between housing densities. This proposal skips that transition entirely and instead places highdensity housing directly next to large lot single family homes. Second is infrastructure capacity, particularly roadway infrastructure. As alluded to already, Johnell Road, which would carry much of the impact from this development, is approximately 17 ft to 18 ft at its widest. I measured yesterday afternoon with my tape measure. The current uh rally UDO generally expects neighborhood streets to be anywhere between 27 and 36 feet with the current standard being an average citywide neighborhood 36 uh from curb to curb. So essentially, we're half of what's currently uh modern-day standards, meaning John uh is less than half that width. Uh to put that in perspective, I measured my driveway yesterday, too. It's 9 ft 9 in at its widest point. So essentially driving up and down John Road is like driving up and down your driveway uh going into oncoming traffic at all times of the day. When we fight Milbrook High School, we also fight uh trash day. you know, when everybody's cans are on the street, it's like a one-way street. Uh playing chicken with one ne one another. Um just with kids trying to get to school, us trying to live our lives um serving the community. Traffic volumes are already significant. Uh a 2014 traffic survey prior to us receiving speed humps uh revealed that over 19 vehicle trips, 1,900 vehicle trips per day um access our street. And as alluded to um already, Milber High School uses our exit as our Johnsdale Road as a major exit for um their school um major heavy traffic during school days after school activities lasting sometimes till 9 and 10:00 at night. Uh obviously high school students don't drive slow. At the time in 2014, the average speed limit at 25 mile per hour in our on our uh minuscule street was over 37 miles per hour. Uh we did have another traffic survey. I didn't write this in my notes. I can't pinpoint it, but essentially, I think they did it during Easter weekend or Easter break. So, it revealed a a a severe decline in actual real world numbers. Um, when you're talking about 54 town homes, council alluded to it, that the traffic analysis for Raleigh states that it can handle it. Well, unfortunately, uh, with with town home type dwellings, the city only equates to.7 cars per dwelling unit. That's grievously low. When we when in all actuality, mother, father, and one child, that should be two to two and a half cars per dwelling unit. Essentially, that's another 130 plus cars in that four acres that's going to be pouring out on our street with hundreds more trips per day on our roadway that already struggles with traffic and safety. Third is public safety. Johnsdale Road has a long history of safety concerns. Near misses with your four-year-old as you're walking down the street. Uh we did have a young girl killed on her bicycle several years back last month. Uh early February, one of the pedestrians, I think it was a high school kid, was run over on our street. Um these incidents highlight the risk of adding more traffic to an air residential street that has no sidewalks, no curbs, no gutters, no shoulders, a historic drainage ditch that any rainfall constantly overflows and overwhelms our ditch drainage ditches. Most of our residents are on septics and wellwater, which when you flood a septic system, what happens? The groundwater, the refuge, then comes up to the uh surface. On the south part of the property, I don't have the map up here. Uh you'll see a new uh apartment complex that was built less than 10 years ago. the neighbors uh that back up to that yard on John are constantly fighting uh pooling water 3 to four inches at a time and are experiencing those uh overflowing septic systems and the compro compromising of the wells. Uh this proposed density is only going to cause more problems. They are uphill of Johnale. Johnale flows south to north in its orientation. There was originally a creek that ran through our neighborhood has since been um backfilled, but as I said with the drainage ditches and no curves, no gutters, the water has nowhere to go other than to into our yards overwhelming our systems. Fourth is community and planning impact. Approving this resoning would create an isolated pocket of higher density development surrounded by large lot single family homes raising concerns about inconsistency with land use pattern and potential spot zoning. Additionally, the neighborhood has not been pres presented with a detailed site plan nor development conditions satisfactory to our um beliefs. Without defined commitments for traffic mitigation, storm water management, or buffering, it's difficult for residents and council members to fully evaluate the impacts. We also understand Raleigh's discussion about the missing middle. We are the missing middle. We are the small families, small uh large larger lots, less than 3/4 of an acre that just have a little bit of space between you and your neighbor that have worked hard for generations to keep that and pass that on from family to family. My wife and I, we've purchased her great aunt's house across our street on John. And our hopes and dreams in the future is that our children can live there one day and experience the same wonderful uh community that we've had. These are not luxury estates. The development inside the city limits pushes towards density. long-standing neighborhoods like ours should not be penalized and suffer at the hands of greed and and uh high density. Finally, our community's already defended its character before. The last two years, we've defended a court case from a neighbor trying to reszone uh three covenanted properties within our Johnsdale Road at the end on the north entrance. That multi- multi-year legal battle was recently ruled in our favor by a Wake County judge preserving the neighborhood with single family dwellings on large family lots. Uh while this resoning today is technically outside the neighborhood conditions because it was the old farmstead, uh it is directly in the center of our neighborhood and it should not stand and it would fundamentally alter u our neighborhood and its uh ecosstructure. The city's findings effects exist to protect neighborhoods like ours and based on these standards, this reszoning should be denied. Johnsdale Road cannot support any more dwellings beyond the R4 zoning our street was built for. We don't want any homes accessing our street. We don't want any uh construction vehicles on our street. They shouldn't be allowed to park. We have no parking signs throughout Johnale. Uh it can't handle that any longer. Uh we ask that Johnale not be an entrance for this neighborhood that they access only Liter Road uh ingress, egress, and ingress. Um we simply ask for 12 nice family homes on 4 acres. give us what is pertinent to the neighborhood that meets the standard of our community and there's plenty of money left in the game after uh purchase and all the development costs to meet that standard. I appreciate your time and consideration. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Is there anyone else who wishes to speak in opposition? >> Hello. Good morning. My name is Alex Hiler. I'm a homeowner on Johnsdale. And before I take a minute to speak, I'd like for everyone to stand up who's who came today from our community in opposition. We're a very diverse community. Um we have many families, young families who cannot attend today, older older population. My neighbor is 88 who just had a heart attack last week, so she's not able to join. But thank you for being here today. Um, I moved to this neighborhood in 1999 and my parents are not able to be here today, but my parents' house uh is within direct connects directly to this property that's being resoned. Uh, my parents are still on wellwater and there with their well is within 75 ft of the resoning property. Um, I love this neighborhood so much that I bought I purchased my own home uh in 2020 here. I'm a beekeeper and one thing that I absolutely love about Raleigh is it's a it's a city that really meets the great outdoors and what makes Raleigh so special is Raleigh is is really green, right? Um so this area being considered for reszoned, it's yes, it's vacant, but it's a living sanctuary. We heard earlier about an animal shelter. We regularly see foxes here in their kits, birds of prey, deer, groundhogs. Um it's one of the few remaining green spaces that offers refuge for wildlife. residents seeking quiet. It's really beautiful to walk by. Um, developing this land into town homes will have irreversible environmental consequences. The removal of mature trees will disrupt the water table in Lichford forest. Runoff, erosion, chemical exposure are real concerns. Um, especially for those who rely on wells and septic systems. My neighbor Phil just spoke to, many of us are still on well. Um, this is something that we absolutely depend. We pay taxes. Our wells cannot be contaminated and this the the quality of water needs to be sustained. Um as I mentioned our our well is within 75 ft of the resoning area. Clean water is not a luxury. It's an essential and many taxpaying residents here depend on groundwater for their families. Um as Phil mentioned earlier, the resoning would effectively split our neighborhood and significantly reduce remaining Okay, >> finish. >> Okay, thank you. um and reduce our remaining green spaces. Raleigh's prize because it's city where urban living meets outdoors. Um as a beekeeper, I see firsthand how desperately pollinators need protected green space. When we remove their habitats, we don't just displace animals, we we red we disrupt the ecosystems that sustain all of us. Um >> could you just finish this statement, please? Since >> the >> That was my sentence. I'm done. >> Thank you. I said statement sentence. Thank you. >> Okay, commissioners. Um, questions for the applicant, staff, or the public? >> Commissioner Hotwell. >> Thank you, Chair Bennett. I was hoping staff could explain to me how there could be 54 units under the current zoning. I saw that in the analysis. >> Yeah. On R. >> Current zoning, it would be R six. >> Okay. >> Yeah. R, we ran an extra table for them under the R six premise. >> Okay. Sorry. And that would been the maximum number of residential units under R six. >> Okay. Thank you. >> We're out of time for the opposition. You had 10 minutes. Um would the commission like to allow an additional two minutes. So, um this lady could speak. We would do two minutes per side if we did that. Okay. With then without objection without objection you um please state your name and we'll give another two minutes. >> I'm safe white. I'm 6605 Johnell is probably about seven or eight houses from this property of Mr. Johnson's but um I wanted to make sure that Mr. Brown did speak of the child that was killed. This area is a county road and it's lumpy. Um, last time they resurfaced, my grandson and my husband were driving down and we were going like this all the way down Johntown. He says, "Oh, grandpa, do that again." It was like a roller coaster. So, it's a county road. It has blinding curves and as well as hills. So, I wanted to make that known. And we have a lot of high school students that walk from home to school do and it's um not very safe for people let alone cars. So um just wanted to make sure that we understood the topography is not conducive to much more traffic than we are taking at this time. So thank you. >> Thank you. Now commissioners um yes, you have 45 seconds left. I'm sorry. >> Please take your name for the record. >> Hi, my name is Lorraine Snyder and I live at 2368 Raven Hill Drive, accessed by John'sdale. I did want to make note that there is a discrepancy and something that is incorrect in Mr. Marciano's presentation to you. Lichford Road is not four lane. It's three lane. There's one going north, one going south, and a turn lane. It is not a four-lane road. >> Thank you. 20 seconds left. Anyone else want to speak in opposition? >> Okay. Thank you. Now commissioners questions for staff applicant or public. No questions. Do you have a question, Commissioner Fox? Okay. All right. Seeing no questions. It sound I think we do have a question for the applicant though because it sounded like the applicant was asking for additional time to consider some revisions to conditions and more coordination with on one of the issues. >> I mean we can I guess I'd put it this way. We can we can do we can do that work if if this if this uh commission didn't have additional questions. we can do the work on the Johnsdale access as we move forward obviously because we can you know either we can just work with staff and with council on that. >> So is it the will of the commission to to um ask the applicant to add conditions revise conditions or are we ready to vote? >> Commissioner Neptune. >> Thank you Madam Chair. I I have a question with regard to city transportation. So, I think this may be a question for staff and not necessarily the applicant. I'm just trying to better understand the context of Johnale and this access point to the high school and and I suppose specifically the question here is one of I guess jurisdiction. I mean, is this a city road, a city maintained uh streetscape? And I suppose if so, you know, has, you know, I mean, we have a fair number of residents out here who are elevating um, you know, the issue with regard to that infrastructure and apparently we lost a a child, okay, along the way. And so I'm I'm just trying to better understand um, has this been escalated to our colleagues with city transportation? Are there uh any conversations, any um plans in the works to improve these conditions, to improve, I guess, access points for the high school? I think you see where I'm going with all this, but I'm going to really defer Yes, sir. >> and lean on staff to speak to what are we doing if assuming this is a city street, >> right? So, good morning. I'm Carter Robertson with our transportation department. Um it is a city-maintained street. We have done a traffic calming project there in the past. Um, as was referenced in 2014, we evaluated the street. We saw that um, the speeds, the 85th percentile speeds were up to 37 miles per hour. So, almost more than 10 more than the the speed limit out there. So, we installed um, speed bumps out there and then we re-evaluated it in 2023. um that analysis showed that the speeds did reduce over that period from before and after installing the traffic bumps. I did want to clarify um whenever we do an analysis like this within a school zone, we always make sure that school is in session when we do that analysis. So, Monday through Thursday, not during a break. Um to the point of the fatal crash, this is something I'm unaware of. I can uh check with our vision zero team to see what previous analysis they have done uh regarding that. I do know recently we have received requests for uh safety inquiries along this road. Um I know they're going to go out and look at the existing conditions and after that they're going to request spot enforcement from RPD. So they would go out there um during when school is opening and then when it's letting out um most of the complaints we've heard is speeding particularly among those those school kids. So maybe getting RPD out there for some spot enforcement and I think they're also looking to see whether a speed feedback sign um would be appropriate out there. Something to indicate the drivers, hey, you're going too fast. You need to slow down. Thank you. I think there's a follow-up question from Commissioner Walters. >> Has anyone considered putting sidewalks at least up to the uh access point to the school? >> John Saleplace. >> I'm not familiar with any previous discussions. Um right now our kind of leading framework for future sidewalk projects is our active mobility plan which was approved this past November. um it has a prioritized list of sidewalks that we're going to use to go after for those future projects. Right now that this section of Johnsdale and Raven Hill, those are not on our list, but we can certainly add that um to our documentation so that it's included in future priority lists. Um Lichford itself though um is involved in in our AMP list and it was ranked highly um due to the lack of connections um and uses along this corridor. So Lisford on the east side is included and we're looking at that for a future project. >> If I may apologize to Madame Chair, I did not intend to manage the commission table. >> Carry on. Uh, I think as as a former chair of the bicycle pedestrian advisory commission, I do care deeply about our streetscapes and making them safer for all of us who are trying to move or walk or bike, >> you know, across the city. I have one follow-up question for the applicant with regard to the engagement with the principal. I should also mention I have a background of work that began in our schools, our public school system. So, I'm I'm just curious to hear if you could elaborate briefly, sure, 30 seconds on the engagement with the school principal or with Wake County Public Schools. I'm just trying to better understand the response to you as it relates to, you know, managing, you know, this this traffic conundrum with the students. >> Yeah. I mean, I So, quick background here. I've I have I have experienced mixed uh success throughout the triangle in trying to communicate about traffic issues with uh school systems. Um what happened in this case was I reached out to the uh the area superintendent, the facility folks in in the public school system and then the principal. Um, the principal replied impressively fast, as in like within two hours, which shocked me because I don't know how how a high school principal can respond to anything in outside of his school in two hours, but because it was a school day, but um and he but he basically closed the door on me and he just said, "This is a vital part of us getting in if we h if we closed if we closed the Johnsdale access, which is right here. Whoops. um if we closed the Johnsdale access um we would have backups on our other access points. I think they have two other access points. And then he also said apparently one of the other concerns um and I I won't editorialize on this because I don't know enough about it but um I think the seniors maybe the juniors are allowed to leave campus for lunch and so there's a concern that um if they didn't have this access point which I think most a lot of students use that they wouldn't be able to quickly get back from lunch because they have a limited period of time. Um, so it was not an impolite response, but it was not a, "Hey, we're open to thinking about solutions to it." >> And it's not something that we can address at this table. I just confirmed with staff. We can't have a zoning condition that would cause Wake County Public Schools to do anything. So, um, we do have a council member here today, though, so she's listening. um >> which I if I could just >> we we we have it's 11:30 >> I will comment >> two more two more cases that we have to hear. So I'm not making light of the issues the traffic issues and the school and the safety issue certainly I'm not making light of but what I'm trying to say is that's not something that we as a planning commission can address through zoning conditions. So, I don't want you to think that we we could um we can elevate them so that council is aware and Wake County Public Schools if they watch this are aware, but we we can't address it here. Um is it the will? Yes, Commissioner O'Hver. Well, that I before we do that, I due to that issue, knowing we can't do anything about it, I would like to defer the case and allow the applicant to talk further about providing an condition on not cutting through or working with the city. So, I'm not comfortable moving forward with this. I'd like to Mr. Coleman uh indicated that he was willing to to do that. So, I would like to defer the case. >> My turn. My turn. Um, >> what? >> Hold attorney. Can there be a zoning condition limiting access? Yes. Yes. With that being said, I don't want to say in this case that would be the decision that needs to be coordinated with transportation. There's a lot of things that go into those types of decisions. We have in the past had zoning conditions that say where access points will be versus not. Okay. Um, but I I don't want to say 100% certain that that is going to be the determination of transportation in this case. Um, but I think giving time for everyone to work through that. Um, you definitely could defer the case and see if there's an option. >> Okay. >> So, Commissioner Commission, >> yeah, cut through might not be the right word, but my point stands in I want to keep moving. Let's defer the case so that the applicant has more time to discuss what we can do here. >> Thank you, Commissioner Neptune. I mean, Commissioner Bernett, sorry. like you know I'm sure um yes this is for the applicant um just I I live towards the Northridge area and I drive Lichford every day twice a day uh at a minimum going you know going to work and um going home and the the traffic is out of control and I see when I'm headed in um when I'm headed in around 8ish in the morning I see all the kids that are walking across Lichford Road down that street um And I'm not surprised and I and I and I'm so sorry that someone like lost their life, but I am not surprised that that happened. And I think at a minimum having the egress and egress and ingress restricted to Lichford Road, I think that's just like a starting point. Like there's no way you should have any more traffic on John's Dale Road. um at a minimum eress ingress on Lichford Road because I think that in itself just it just it would change the entire dynamic of their neighborhood. It would disrupt their quality of life. Not only just create just more danger and just more traffic. I see that and the kids walking up and down the street. So now we're talking about bringing in like construction equipment and trucks and and and the people that are going to school and the people that live on John's, right? It's all of that right there. So that's just my I would love to see the applicant just do that as like not even a thought. Ingress egress on Lichford road at a minimum. Thank you. >> Well, now seems silly to do it after clapping. I was going I was I was going to uh support the notion that um Commissioner Bernett uh had had brought up. I would too support the um applicant deferring this to address um some of the concerns on Johnale. >> Anything else before we defer the case? >> Just just briefly for the applicant, I would encourage connecting with Wake County's safe routes to schools program in coordinating your efforts to mitigate traffic and the concerns in the neighborhood. >> Thank you. Uh Mr. Pullman, would you like to come back to the March 24th meeting which is starting to look like a repeat of today's meeting of >> or would you like to do the next >> I think the next one in lie of I think comments I believe it was Mr. Haver that you know there's there's a real relatively short time to make any changes if we're coming back on the 20. >> So that next meeting would be >> April whatever day in April is yeah that would work >> and then your com conditions would be due by >> fourth I believeth >> April 4th 3rd fourth yeah >> so that works for you >> um it you know it'll either work for us or or we'll we'll ask for some more time. Okay. So, for today then we will defer this case until our April 14th meeting. Conditions will be due by April 4th. >> Thank you. >> And thank you very much. And thank you to members of the public who came out and spoke to us. >> Thank you so much. >> We have two items left and it's 11:35. I think who needs to leave by noon? One two. We'll still have quorum. Do you Is it the will of the commission to keep going and knock these out? Okay. Next up is reszoning Z5225 3470 Blue Ridge Road. We'll hear from staff. Good morning again. and Mitesh Balderon uh with planning and development presenting on Z5225. This is a request to reszone 1.61 acres um located at 3470 Blue Ridge Road from R4 to RX3 with conditions and your deadline for action is May 9th. Zoning in the area is predominantly low-skll residential matching the existing zoning on the site R4. There are a few pockets of R10 and R six zoning nearby. Um, as you can see, uh, generally again low scale residential surrounding the site. A few instances of, um, some open space and parks. Um, there's the Glenn Eden pilot park, um, just east of the site and then, um, Laurel Hills Community Center north of the site. And then kind of moving away from the site, uh, residential density does increase slightly with some, um, newer town home developments. Uh and then kind of zooming out a bit more, the site is situated between the Crabtree Mall east of the site. So further up Blige and then moving west, um it's near the Lake Boon shopping, Lake Boon Trail Shopping Center and also the UNCC Rex Hospital. So kind of between those two major city growth centers. Um but generally immediately surrounding the site, predominantly suburban um and single family detached homes on similar sized lots. Um on the site today is one single family detached home built uh roughly in the 50s. Here are a few looks at the site and frontage along Blue Ridge Road. Uh no pedestrian facilities along this portion and then also limited bicycle facilities. Um none really on like directly in front of the site. Um and then the third image is showing if you were to look at the site like straight on um there are some pretty large front yard setbacks in R4 but there is a home um back there. Um the applicant has proposed three conditions currently. The first is restricting residential density on the site to 20 units. The second is prohibiting retail uses and the third is prohibiting the apartment building type. Um as we discussed in a former case, um sometimes retail is permitted but as a limited use in RX. Um this site is not located at the corner of two public streets, so retail uses wouldn't necessarily be allowed. Um anyway, um here's a look at the change in entitlement between existing and proposed zoning. an estimated 11 units under existing zoning and then up to 20 uh with but that comes from the condition that's capped with the conditions um and then generally a reduction in setbacks all around moving from R4 to RX. Um the site is in an area that is less walkable than other areas in the city due to the limited pedestrian facilities. Um residents most likely need a car for daily trips. Um however the site is served by some transit and has um and is considered more bikable than other areas in the city on average. Residents in this area are less burdened by transportation costs and also have a higher proximity to job score. This is because the site's located close to Crabtree. Um and then also the large UNC Rex hospital site. Um the site is directly served by the Go Raleigh uh Go Raleigh route 2711 with service along Blue Ridge Road um with a few stops within walking distance of the site. The request does not include any subsidized units, but it does add to the overall housing supply. It would permit a variety of housing types, smaller units on smaller lots, and again in an area that does have um some transit service. Um residents in this area are less likely to be people of color and they're also less likely to be low income. Um and then rents in this area have risen like similar but slightly less than the citywide average. Uh the request uh for RX3 is inconsistent uh with the low-scale residential flume designation um for this site. Uh the request is also inconsistent with the urban form um guidance. The site is within a frequent transit area and fronts a transit emphasis corridor being Blue Ridge Road. Um these two things would generally policy would recommend an urban frontage be included with the request which was not. Um and also no similarly worded conditions. However, um as we saw before, the area is majority suburban and lowcale residential. So an urban frontage maybe wouldn't necessarily make sense um in future development of the site. Overall, the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan though a number of policies here that speak to compact development um capitalizing on transit access and then also um including or encouraging housing variety and density especially in Raleigh's existing single family detached or neighborhoods. Um two inconsistent policies were identified. These speak to uh the flume inconsistency and then also frontage inconsistency. Um approval of this request by city council would amend the flume map um from lowcale residential which is currently on the site to moderate scale residential which would better capture that RX3 zoning and it would look like that. Uh your deadline for action is May 9th. I'm happy to answer any questions. The applicant is also here. Thank you. I'll open the public hearing. The applicant and those in support have 10 minutes. Good morning. It's still morning. Um Isabelle Maddox here today representing Homes by Dickerson. Um also with me today is Emily Rothrock of Site Collaborative our landscape architect designing the site. Um, see, as Metro said, we're requesting R4 to RX3 conditional use. Uh, there's a zoning map. It is a fairly residential area. However, there are a fair amount of townhouse developments in close proximity. Um, our three conditions, we've kept density at 20 units, excluded retail, that was the neighbors wanted to see that affirmatively. I realized it would be really difficult to do retail on this site. Uh, and also excluded the building apartment building type. It is a townhouse objective here. And we think that if you look, we've got town houses immediately adjacent, right? Yeah, it's not not showing up just immediately to the south. Then you have some to the No, it's not showing up much. There's some up to the north of this site and there are several to the to the east. You can see them as you kind of look at this this uh aerial photo. So, I don't think town houses are out of character with this area. Um our conceptual layout um and Emily can speak to that in a little more detail. This is it's just a conceptual layout. We're not we certainly are do not have a fully engineered site plan. Uh uh it does show buildings pulled up close to the street consistent with an urban frontage. Um we did not include that as a condition uh for v various reasons which which I'll get into and I'll let Emily come up in a minute and just go through the site plan or conceptual layout that we have now. Um, two outstanding issues were they were inconsistent with the future land use map. Um, but this isn't a frequent transit corridor, so I believe that that that encourages um greater density and would should overcome any inconsistency with the future land use map showing this is low dens density residential. This is a larger residential portion on a major transit emphasis corridor. So I do think a higher density is appropriate here. Um but the frontage um frontages are not typical on this area of Blue Ridge or really and um the closest zoning uh frontage on Blue Ridge is a pretty good distance away. It's at the old Raleigh shopping center which has a parking limited frontage um which doesn't seem even very appropriate for the transit emphasis corer because you could be up to 100 feet back off the street with with parking in between the building and the street. So that didn't seem to make sense. Um, and the proposed development is consistent with the frontage. We are I think we're showing 10 feet away from the rightway right now and absolutely no parking between the buildings and the street. Um, so I think as as a practical matter, we'll be consistent with with a frontage. Um, in summary, well, I'm I'm let I'm gonna let Emily come up and just talk about this the concept um plan a little bit just to give you a little bit better flavor for that. Emily, please step up and explain this. >> Emily Rothrock, landscape architect with Site Collaborative. So, as Isabelle mentioned, this is conceptual. There's a couple of things to note here. Um, the site has about 30 foot of grade fall from front to back. And so, we wanted to understand the site a little bit more in terms of density and practicality of development. So, we did go further into this site plan than sometimes we normally would. Uh, the town homes shown here are pulled up towards Blue Ridge Road as close as we felt practical based on the existing sewer easement. That sewer is installed. The future developer built that sewer extension at the time of the improvements going on in the road so they wouldn't have to open up the newly finished road. So, that sewer exists, that easement exists on the property. that would be continued down the frontage to bring into the site. And so the intention is to bring these town homes as close to the street with an urban feel that we could uh while maintaining a reasonable distance to the surrounding residential development, but acknowledging that sewer easement. And then as we step down through the site, we're obviously showing these blocks of units the it will work with the grade and the drive vials. It's intended to have rear loaded town homes on this concept. And so you'll see these are alleys as well as fire access. But the goal of this plan is also to have storm water underground. There is a significant um work to be done when we get to site plan in terms of how that's going to outfall, but the intention of this is to address the storm water underground with detention. So, uh, I think the site plan in general, the goal is to create something that fits within the density surrounding, but also acknowledges some of the challenges with the site here in terms of topography and how we deal with storm water and the shape of the site. You can see there's ample green space surrounding. There's plenty of opportunity for little pocket niches for the neighborhood. And so the developer is really interested in keeping that look and that intention. So the density shown here is less than the zoning uh request, but it could be increased if the units became smaller or site plan allows. >> Thanks. and and with the the RX zoning, we will be maintaining a buffer on on the edges of the site that are adjacent to residential uh which is um 10 ft 10 foot transitional yard and I think 20 in the rear and 10 10 on each side and 20 in the rear for our our mixeduse um you know buffer. Uh so in summary, we believe this case is as reasonable in the public interest. Um the applicant as as Emily alluded to the applicant already extended at its cost public steward under Blue Ridge Road. Um there was an earlier consideration they were going to do a different development here that ended up not working very well but in any event they knew they were wanted to develop this property and it was going to be cheaper and more efficient and better for the city to go ahead and extend it. So they have extended the sewer which will provide um you know you public sewer on that side of Blue Ridge in that location. Um this is directly adjacent to a townhouse development. Uh it does increased dwelling units in our area. It's in a frequent transit area on a transit emphasis corridor. It's in close proximity to Rex Hospital and all the medical facilities nearby the art museum, Old Raleigh Shopping Center, other retail. also public parks and greenway like uh Laurel Hills and Glenn Eden Pilot Park. The uh the the greenway that comes uh very close. Uh I can't tell you the distance, but it's it's very accessible. Um it is consistent with the comprehensive plan. So with that, we'd appreciate your recommendation for approval and certainly available to answer any questions. >> Thank you. reserving 2 minutes and 38 seconds unless there's anyone else in support who wishes to speak. Okay, those in opposition have 10 minutes. >> All right, seeing no opposition. Commissioners, do you have questions? Commissioner Fox, >> a question for staff. I just uh wanted to clarify. I believe a at the time of site plan, a sidewalk would be required along Blue Ridge. I'll let transport transportation staff answer that. >> Thank you. >> Yes, normally yes, but uh there is a project along this corridor that is building sidewalk on the southern side of Blue Ridge. Um I think it's in construction right now. Might be finished by the time this resoning is uh confirmed. >> Thank you. Um, given that, um, Chair Bennett, I'm ready to support this at the appropriate time. >> Thank you. Any other questions? Commissioner O'Hver, I have a question for staff. Can, um, can you describe for me the difference between the height requirement that is existing for R4 versus the height that's allowed in RX3? >> Yeah. Um, so looking at height in R4, for a single family detached home, it would be 40 feet or three stories. And then for RX, it would go up to the RX3 would go up to 50 ft for in that three stories. >> Thank you. >> Other questions? >> I did have one for transportation. Um, I'm just looking at the aerial. It looks like there's a multi-use path on the opposite side of the road. Is that correct? A new multi-use path. And then standard sidewalk cross-section both u north and south on on the side of the road that the pro proposed resoning is. Is that correct? >> That's correct. That sounds right. And then the um there'll be a median put in for the roadway. Right now it's two lanes not divided. So there'll be a center median with that project as well. >> Okay. So I think some of the original analysis, planning analysis might not be exactly reflecting some of the walkability uh that we're seeing that just happened. I just want to kind of clarify that. >> That's Commissioner Habry, did you? >> Yeah. Sorry. >> Uh I'm just I'm I'm okay with the height. I'm assuming question for the applicant that that eastern boundary is going to need because of the topo is going to need all that existing vegetation is going to >> go. >> I I don't know that that's going to necessarily be the case everywhere. It's a significant amount probably will um depending on the height of this wall and how much of a slope we can get to match grade. I can't answer that right now. And we also need to have a storm water outfall somewhere. So >> yeah, my really my only concern and again just to be consistent is that how it's to the east but I think you've got the 10 foot transition yard. >> I think you're talking about this side here. >> No ma'am the I Well, no ma'am the bottom. >> Yeah, it's turned. There's no north arrow, but um that's the south side. >> Yeah, I'm looking at it right here. This house right here. >> Yeah, >> I feel like there's gonna be enough. It sure would be good if you could maintain some of that existing vegetation there, but I'm not going to hold this process up for that. >> Okay. Anyone else? Okay, no further questions or comments. I will close the hearing and >> I will entertain a motion. Commissioner Fox. In regards to case Z5225, I move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated March 10th, 2026 contained in the agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. This recommendation also includes an amendment to the future land use map to the extent described in the adopted consistency statement. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion? >> All in favor? Any opposed? >> Oh, okay. >> Okay, that was unanimous. >> Thank you. >> Last item, reszoning Z126, 307 West Martin Street, 311 Commerce Place and 322 West Davy Street. We'll hear from staff. Hello. Uh for the last time this morning, Mutron Landing and Development um presenting on Z1 26. Uh this is a request to reszone three parcels located at 307 West Martin Street, 311 Commerce Place and 322 West Davy Street. Um roughly 1.28 acres um from DX5 with a shop frontage and DX20 CU um to DX20 with conditions. Um this case is or the site is within the um depot national register historic district. So it will appear tomorrow at RHDC for their recommendation to city council. Um but your deadline for action remains the same um as May 9th. Uh zoning in the area is predominantly um DX. The site is located downtown um and so um DX surrounding it and currently existing on the site today um with varying heights between five to 40 stories. Um here's a look at the site and where it sits in relation to downtown. Um it's just south west of um Nash Square. Um and it's surrounded by several commercial and high school residential uses. It's also just east of Raleigh Union Station, like less than a quarter mile, so within walking distance of that. And then here is another look at the site and just like with some existing businesses and uses today, just to kind of help orient yourself um near the Wake County Justice offices. um the dairy chocolate in the pit area um across from the Dylan and then also again within walking distance of Raleigh Union Station. Um as I mentioned before, the site is in the Depot National Register Register Historic District. The two existing structures on the 307 um West Martin Street parcel um are considered contributing structures to the historic district. Here's a few looks at the site and its frontages. Um the first one is on West Martin Street, so leaving most like downtown and heading towards Union Station. Um and then the second is the intersection of West Martin and Commerce Place. And then the third is the rear of the site. Um so the 322 West Davy Street portion. Um it's just a small tail. Um and this is a sliver of this portion is what is currently zoned um with the DX5 shop frontage. And then two more looks at the site um specifically Commerce Place um which uh is included as a frontage with the request. I'll note that um the applicant team has an active custom streetscape um request in with a different planning team. That's a separate process, but we'll also go to city council for review. Um I can answer maybe some like limited questions on this, but generally the idea is to build out Commerce Place um as like a pedestrian oriented area. So, kind of capitalizing on what already exists there with benches, lighting, things like that. Um, and then the South Dawson Street frontage is also um included with has a the site also has frontage on South Dawson Street. Sorry. Um, so just to kind of show you where it is and one of the conditions speaks to how um that uh frontage will be developed, which I'll get to in a second. Um, the applicant has proposed six conditions. the first to speak to historic preservation. The first is um requiring the preservation of the first 85 ft of the contributing structures on the 307 um West Martin Street property. So measured from West Martin Street, the first 85 ft of those existing buildings should be preserved and the remainder of that structure can be removed. Um and then no additional height is permitted on this portion and should any exterior improvements be made um it should you they should use similar materials to what exists in the depot district today. And then the second condition is speaking to the first. In the event that the contributing structures are damaged or destroyed for some reason um the entirety of the contributing structure can be removed um and then in its place uh a structure cannot be greater than five stories. And again it should use similar materials um as to what exists in the depot district today. And then um in terms of moving away from histo historic preservation specific conditions um the third condition prohibits some uses the adult establishment pawn shop self-service storage vehicle repair related uses um cemetery detention center and then dorm and fraternity and sorority sorority uses. Um conditions four and five speak to future development of the site. One dogway station shall be included as well as a plaza of which 50% um shall be open to the public. And then condition six um would require that the south Dawson Street frontage of the site be um developed with main street streetscape standards. Um that's explained in the UDO, but generally this is a cider a wider sidewalk tree plantings again to promote like pedestrian oriented development. Um difference in entitlement between existing and proposed zoning. I think the high level here is entitlement is roughly staying the same. There's a slight reduction in like the estimated number of units. um but relatively the same between existing and proposed. Um and then a slight difference in setback requirements with a shop frontage. There are those build two requirements. Um but those are pretty similar to what's required in DX. The majority of the site is DX, so not a lot changing here. And then again, just to look at commercial entitlement and the difference between existing and proposed, we see a slight increase with office square footage and a slight decrease with retail, but again roughly the same entitlement between existing and proposed. Um the site is located in downtown Raleigh. This is where we see some of the city's highest walkability and bikeability and transit service. Um residents in this area have a variety of multimodal options for accessing things. So lower transportation costs and then the high there's a higher proximity to jobs. The site is within one of Raleigh's major employment centers. Um service to the site uh transit service to the site. Um there are a variety of Go Raleigh routes that serve the site within walking distance. And again, the site is also within walking distance of Raleigh Union Station. Um, it also is included in some western and southern um BRT station area planning as well. Um, overall the request does not include any subsidized units, but it would add to the overall housing supply. Uh, it would permit a variety of housing types, smaller units, smaller lots, and again in an area well served by transit. Generally, um, there's a higher percentage of people of color living in this area and a lower percentage of low-income individuals. um rent in this area has increased more than the citywide average. The request is cons consistent with the future land use map designation of community mixuse for this site and it's also consistent with urban form guidance. The site is within a frequent transit area and also downtown on the urban form map. Um though no specific frontage is included with the request, future development plans for Commerce Place and the South Dawson Street frontage um kind of speak to what an urban frontage would do. And then in terms of the West Martin Street, um the preservation of that first 85 feet kind of maintains that like shop frontage facade. So high transparency, people buildings closer to the street and encouraging uh like retail oriented uses. So with that preservation that helps with consistency there. Um overall the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan as well. A number of policies here these speak to reducing vehicle miles traveled through mixeduse development. um creating more high density and mixeduse opportunities in downtown um as well as um encouraging pedestrian oriented uses. And then there's also some um downtown specific and historic preservation specific policies that are met by the conditions. Um and then there's also some area plan guidance. The site is within the downtown west area plan. Um some consistent policies there for encouraging mixeduse development while still preserving the historic and unique character of this portion of downtown. And then the two inconsistent policies that are identified, the first is um in the downtown chapter, uh the downtown t downtown downtown chapter includes um designate some streets as primary retail streets and recommends a shop frontage be included with requests. Again, that's not included here. Um but I think future development because of the conditions is likely to mimic that shop frontage. And then for the downtown west area plan, there's a map and that kind of maps that this site would be no greater than four stories. I'll note that this map and this plan was written in 2004, long before a lot of the city's transit oriented development policies come into play and development today is much higher than what is reflected in most of that map for this area plan. Um, another reminder, the case will appear tomorrow at RHDC for their recommendation to council. Um, but your deadline for action is still May 9th. The applicant is here to answer questions as well as me. >> Thank you. >> I'll open the public hearing. Um the applicant and those in support have 10 minutes. >> Good morning, Chair Bennett and members of the commission. I'm Jamie Schadler with Parker Poe here with my colleague Walker Abbott as well as um the applicant in this case Turnbridge Equities represented by Jason Davis who's with here with us as well as Brian Perie with McAdams. Um, this request is a straightforward cleanup to the 2002 22 case that many of you uh served on the commission and heard. Um, we're doing two things with this case. We are trying to apply those conditions across the board to the city-owned parcel that Turnbridge purchased shortly after the case was approved. It's adjacent to Commerce uh place and we want to have a uniformity of those conditions applying. And then we're also making adjustments to the historic commission to the historic conditions to ensure that this primary retail street does not contain a vacant uh retail building and that's what's been sitting there today for three years. So um some lessons learned in the historic preservation conditions and we've strucken a balance and bringing those forth with you today. Um for context if this if Turnbridge bridge sounds familiar and this case sounds familiar in 2022 uh the city was seeing a lot of activity downtown and Turnbridge was fortunate enough to participate in that in um going through the site plan with the crearyy which is now coming out of the ground with his historic uh preservation on that site as well as working with RHDC on this site and on the seabboard depot. So they're no stranger to the importance of historic uh significance and providing that balance with new housing downtown as well as height where appropriate. Um but in this particular case, these three parcels sit of course um just catty corner to the the new and and soon to be improved Nash Square. Um they're the home of commercial but mostly vacant uh buildings today and a large surface lot. Um the previous resoning was for DX20 with the conditions in 2022 and the city-owned parcel carried forward a uh DX5 uh shopfront. Metra did a great job explaining the depot historic district and I'll try just to hit the highlights of that as we go. Um just in as it was in 2022, the future land use map and the urban form map both support height and density and growth in this area. That has not changed. The community mixeduse designation is surrounded by the central business district that you can see there in the kind of darker purple and suggests the DX designation and the 20 stories are appropriate here just like they were in 2022 when several other cases were approved surrounding this site with 20 and even 40 story designations in the DX. And so um turning to the urban format meter did a great job of talking about the investments um in transit in this area. uh uh the frequent transit area designation is was appropriate then. It's probably even more relevant now with the advancement of the BRT uh the proximity to Union Station and exactly where you want people to be able to live, work and and commute by foot downtown. The site is in um oh went backwards there. The site is in the uh downtown west gateway and you can see that red star there in the corner of the depot historic district. And the two um policies cited on the screen really embody what we're trying to do with bringing this building um out of the ground and preserve the historic nature but have some height kind of to the rear. And that's promote mixeduse and development along this primary retail street that's been designated u by the city. And then try to redevelop these surface parking lots into something that can be more more housing, more retail, more amenities u for the folks that live and work and want to uh be downtown. As mera mentioned, there is a kind of a legacy four-story designation here that predates a lot of those investments in transit. Now, the land use table would suggest a higher height and the urban format would suggest even higher so that that 20 story is consistent and the staff report does a great job of discussing all of that. Here are the historic buildings. So, they they are historic, but they have no standalone historic designation. So, they're not landmarks like cremary was. And what that means is before the 2022 case, they could have been demolished. The reason they can't be demolished today is that we put those voluntary conditions on ourselves to preserve the building for that first 85 ft. It was unconventional then. It's still one of those most stringent um preservation techniques that you've seen in the city. Um but what we found is that's conflicted with our ability to tenant the space. And because this is a primary retail street, we want to make sure that those two policies have the appropriate level of talking to each other. the historic preservation on the one hand and making the the tenency vibrant um and not vacant. And so the conditions that we are bringing forward bring forward a majority of those historic preservation conditions um with uh several tweaks that I'll go over in a minute. The rest of the conditions, as you may remember from the from the prior case, have not changed. We're doing DX with 20 stories consistent with what's on the site today. we would bring that city-owned parcel in the bottom uh by by commerce and Davey in line with those zoning conditions and also change that from the DX5 to the DX20. Uh the reason we're not pursuing shopfront on that parcel or need to get drop that shop front is that with such a skinny parcel, it's very difficult to meet the stringent um shopfront conditions. But as Mitra mentioned, the combination of having the streetscape condition on Martin plus us filing the streetscape plan, which should be to council sometime later this spring, um has that combination of what you otherwise would see in shopfront and the actual physical location of the buildings will preserve, have that relationship with the pedestrian realm um that and the build to that the shopfront would otherwise have provided. So we're providing kind of a character of shopfront just using different tools. The other conditions that you see on the screen would remain the same. The dogway station that citizens advocated for. Uh the public plaza or the plaza that was a minimum of um 50% open to the public. Um as well as the prohibited uses that have become common to see downtown. Uh the main change um that we're talking about then are those two changes. Bringing the city parcel in line with the rest of the zoning so we can have one cohesive set of rules and this change to 1B. So, we're still preserving the first 85 ft of the contributing structures and maintaining the overall massing. We're still making sure that any replacement materials or improvements in C would have um the same materials visible from the right of way that are similar to other contributing structures. What we're changing is that the preservation today requires preservation of exterior brick walls and associated masonry openings and repair placement of fenestration. What does that mean? It basically means we intended to preserve the entire facade with fenistration, the windows, the casings, all of those things. And when you look at trying to rent these retail buildings and make this the vibrant retail space, we haven't been able to get tenants that want to stay in that older space. They want a little bit of um name recognition or storefront of of creativity and viability. And you see that all throughout downtown, wanting to make sure that their storefronts have a little bit of their signature. And so we're trying to do that and preserve some of the flexibility while still preserving the vast majority of these historic structures. The 85 ft is the majority of the building. Um and most of those and anything would be replaced would have to follow that 1C. All of the remaining preservation conditions uh that were endorsed by both RHDC and this commission and in 2022 would remain the same. This plan shows how those conditions would would be playing out in plan. So, the historic preservation uh kind of brown area you see there is the first 85 ft. Then you have a constructibility zone. Think of that as taking off the back half of the building. If you wanted to do a restaurant with more modern um equipment or things, you'd need to kind of have some areas for service. So, that area is why we kind of picked that 85 ft. The pedestrian zone would be where we'd have some of the open space requirements and the the plaza. And then the mixeduse building is where the the yellow where we'd have most of the height and the bulk of this building that could be up to uh 20 stories. These uh pictures show how the public plaza was envisioned. You see a lot of inspiration from kind of narrow spaces that could be appropriate here in the urban area and and borrowing from inspiration in other kind of urban cities. And then as you see in the staff report, this is overwhelmingly consistent with the comprehensive plan. um the staff report and on pages 11-1 12 does a great job of highlighting all of those consistencies, especially trying to make retail work in this area and what's appropriate for that balance between historic preservation, which we are absolutely still committed to, and making this retail street not full of vacant retail boxes. Um and with that, um we know this request is is relatively straightforward, but there could be detailed questions. We're happy to answer that. I know you've been at it a long time today. We are going to RHDC tomorrow and because we do expect a discussion of those historic preservation conditions, but they're largely the same as that what was voted on by this planning commission, uh we would appreciate a recommendation to go forward to continue to have a a discussion with RHDC tomorrow and then of course we'd evaluate the the totality of both of those recommendations uh before we reach council later this spring. um approving or recommending approval today will allow us to unlock this really key area with a high walk score in close proximity to jobs and allow us to make it more vibrant than when we're able to uh with the best of intentions of those existing conditions. Thank you. >> Thank you. I'll now open the public hearing. No, I'm sorry. I did that already. Um it's been a long morning. Um those in opposition have 10 minutes. Okay, seeing none. Um, commissioners, do you have any questions? Commissioner Bernett. >> Hey Jamie, does this include the uh Raleigh Denim building or a portion of it? >> No, it does not. I think that's a block over. >> Yeah. AC across Commerce Place. >> Okay. >> We're on the east side of Commerce. That's the west. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Did I see another hand? >> Commissioner Walters, Commissioner Uwell, Commissioner Fox. I was just curious why you added that skinny parcel to the south uh to this resoning as a part of this request. >> I I'm happy to do that and we can talk a little bit about the purchase if that's the um that's the uh impetus. But um we tried to go forward and purchase that site and then do a site plan using the existing um conditions as well as that existing zoning on the city owned parcel. And what we found is with that skinny a parcel and the shopfront designation, it really forces you to do something that's kind of a a vertical oddshaped building on a very skinny parcel and just couldn't make it work. And so um tried to avoid a resoning if we could, but just weren't able to do it at the same time. The needs of the tenants um were were speaking volume. So we decided to try to do it all together and and recombine and do bring one case forward. So, is there intent to build something on that skinny portion of the resoning? >> Jason, would you like to come up and and talk about that? >> Uh, yes. Our our plan is to create retail that would front Commerce Place consistent with the streetscape plan that we're um currently um advancing through um council. >> On that skinny portion, how deep is that? It's >> 25 ft. 25. >> So really single story is what works best there and it it'll be consistent with the existing warehouse buildings on both sides of Commerce Place as well. >> I see. Interesting. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Atwell Fox then. >> All right. Thank you, Chair Bennett. Uh I have a couple questions for staff if I could please. Um I'm not as up to date on the main street uh streetscape. Can you elaborate a little bit on what's required there, please? >> Yes. Um, give me one second to pull it up. Sorry, I don't have a specific slide with that included. Generally, it's wider um, sidewalks. Um, I believe an overall streetcape of 20 ft. Um, wider sidewalks, tree plantings required. Forgive me while my computer loads. Okay. Yep. Um, a streetscape width of 35 ft, a minimum 10 foot sidewalk, and then a minimum six foot uh planting area. >> All right. Thank you. Um, does the DX zoning come with any build to requirements? >> No build to just setback requirements. So, I I had some problems with the frontage designations and conditions associated with this site. Um, from what I can tell, there's no build two that would be required on any of these facets. Uh, it looks like Martin Street is not have a required build two because it's doing a Main Street streetscape. >> That is for the South Dawson Street frontage. >> I'm sorry. Let me get my map in front of me. >> Yeah, the the Martin Street. Yeah, Dawson. So on Dawson, it's the main street, right? And so that will not require a build to on a very large section of the street. And the preservation requirement is great. I would love to see those persist, but in the event that they're demolished through damage or other act of God or the other things that are uh listed in the application, there there are no requirements for frontage or build to. And having those buildings get damaged when you're demolishing half of them is uh I'm not going to say it's likely, but it's a very common occurrence. And I'm I'm frustrated. I voted against moving out the uh streetscape review from planning commission and this is why because we're being asked to make a decision based on something that we don't know that may not happen and so we don't have any guarantees on commerce place either. Um I'm going to have a hard time voting for this unless we can beef up the build to requirements along at least three portions of this. I I understand the skinny section down at the bottom. I'm happy to leave that out alto together. Um, more concerned about the northern end of Commerce Place and Dawson Street and that's all for now. Thank you. >> Thank you, Commissioner Fox. >> If I'm not mistaken, and I could very well be reading this incorrectly, so please correct me if I'm wrong. Um it does look like there's a minimum and a maximum building setback when you have a commercial building uh on the main street street type. >> Could you say your question one more time? >> Um looking at the commercial building type in a main street streetscape, >> it looks like there may be a minimum and a maximum setback. Um they're proposing a main streetscape type which is um if it's 8.59 in the UDO. Is that where you're looking? >> Yeah. 8.5.9 streetscape types. If you look at C for a commercial building. >> Oh, I see what you're saying. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Apologies. Not meant to be a quiz. I know this is like way in the weeds. >> For sure. For sure. >> Yeah. >> Yes. I see what you're saying. I think then depending on the type of building I think most then yes that could be required depending on the type of building that they develop that would I think be figured out during the site plan review phase. >> Okay. And um just for my own education there's a mixeduse building type and then there's a commercial building type. I don't know what their uh proposal would fall within. Um, I'm I don't want to assume. I think I was looking more towards mixed use, but I'll let the applicant team speak if they know what that portion of the site would have. >> Thank you. >> Could you hear the question? >> Was that a question for the applicant? >> Yes. >> Hi. Sorry, I think uh reading the that section wrong. Um thank you, Carter. If you want to explain it, that might be better. >> Yeah. Looking at the streetscape types and 8.59, those aren't referring to any building types. So, we're only looking at A for condition, whichever condition calls out the main street type. So, type C, the main street, and the mixed use, those are >> different standards that wouldn't apply for this condition. >> That's not exactly clear to me why that's the case. >> However, I believe you. >> If I may, I'm looking at the ordinance myself. So 8.5.9 street skate types starts with a main street and then B is mixed juice. Those are mixed juice street types >> not building types and then C is commercial which is commercial street type >> and agnostic of the building itself but these are options for streetscape types >> if I may. Um, so there are other streetscape types which do propose a minimum and maximum building setback. I guess that was a better way to ask my question. >> Yes. And so for commercial, for example, the build 2 is 20 ft to 50 ft, right? >> Any other questions? Yep. >> Commissioner May, I thought you had a question. Okay. So, are we >> okay? >> I like to be unpredictable. Um, are we maintaining the uh the the number of stories that the building can be? At its current state? You're not asking to change that in the resoning. It's already currently reszone to possibly be able to build up to 20 stories, but you all are looking to build like five. Are you saying >> it can it can the overall site has the 20 story designation but within that first 85 ft of um Martin Street we wouldn't be able to change the building massing at all unless there was a fire or and and those the the conditions in which we would be able to destroy or it would be destroyed are not our own. It's you know kind of an act of God. So we're not intend in intending to change anything within those first 85 ft in terms of the height. >> Right. But behind that, how high are you all thinking about going? >> 20 stories and we can have the right to do that today. >> Okay. >> Thank you, >> Commissioner Her. >> Um Jamie. Um so the 85 ft, it starts on Martin and runs down Commerce Place. So all of Martin is maintained on the two structures. Then you're going 85 ft down Commerce. I think I saw that on your graphic. >> That's right. Help me understand the 85 ft because it's to to Commissioner Ow's point that's a portion of the building, but I guess you're doing that because you need that 20 ft to construct the 20 stories behind it. Well, so it's the majority of the building and what we did when and you might remember this is the was the historic Clear Scapes building and so we worked with them on what's the appropriate way to preserve the building and the majority of it and um Fred kind of helped us look at the the fenestration on the exterior of the building and how some of the um the beams and structural supports lined up in different bays. And when you look at the 85 ft depth, you're saving um a significant portion of the bays and then kind of having kind of back of house stuff um of what's used there today that's not as significant. So we're saving the most historically significant portion of the building by doing the 85 ft. And then the back of house part is really just to make sure we have room for that constructibility but also for access if we have um transportation has needs of getting uh vehicles in and out, emergency vehicles in and out. They might have radi that we might need to meet. And so we might have to um uh mess with that back half back portion not the back half. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? feel like you guys are doing this because it's my last meeting. So, you're making me stay as long as I possibly. >> We don't want you to go every minute. >> Was your last meeting? >> We'll talk about that later. Any other questions? So, >> Commissioner, >> we could go for drinks after. Commissioner Atwell, is there a condition or revision to a condition that you want to see or is that being addressed in the streetscape plan that we can't review? >> Uh the streetscape plan could very well address the concerns I have along Commerce Place, but I don't know what it looks like at all. Um and it's still in development. Uh uh it would make me comfortable to see a shopfront or a build to along Dawson Street and a condition for preserving some sort of build to if the historic buildings are not able to be preserved. >> Jamie, is the applicant willing to consider that? >> I think we can consider it, but I don't I don't want to say that it's going to be a zoning condition without the streetscape plan is a new tool and I don't know what staff's I don't want to bind staff's hands on how that would look. I I'd be happy to leave Commerce Place alone and we'll see how that streetscape pan goes, but I'm more concerned about Martin Street and Dawson Street. >> I I think we're open to it. I I I I would prefer to hear what RHCC says tomorrow. And if if you're willing to vote today and say we want the applicant to study a build two on Dawson um and and any treatment on the streetscape there, I would I think that's completely appropriate if the if the will of the commission would be to give that specific instruction um and and move the case forward and then see what we have from RHDC and from there kind of evaluate whether we need to change the conditions before we get scheduled for a public hearing before council because I do want to make sure we're not conflicting with the streetscape plan and that could be at council as soon as May or May, possibly May. So, um, and I don't know if if staff has any opinion, but I I don't want to prevent us from reacting to staff's comments on the streetscape plan. >> Sure. >> If we vote today, I'd have to vote no, but I would appreciate that effort either way. If you voted no and noted that as your reason, >> Commissioner Makay, >> I wanted to make a suggestion that if they have time to come back to us after they speak to the historic preservation community, I mean, uh, council, because this is a historic area and sometimes our decisions kind of cross over theirs if they haven't had a chance to speak with them first. So, I would like our decision on the planning, if possible, to be held off to get further feedback to see how the historic preservation community views this project. >> Is that the will of the commission? It sounds like the applicant is asking us to move it. So, what's the will of the commission? Commissioner Fox, >> I'm because we just saw this case as recently as 22, I'm comfortable moving forward and making a recommendation from the perspective of the planning commission acknowledging that the RHDC is meeting tomorrow. >> Okay. Others >> can can the applicant remind me, you probably said it. What what is the reason on trying to rush this through versus coming back to the next meeting? help me understand why we I'm not suggesting we do it. I just want to understand why. >> Yeah. It's not necessarily rushing it. We want to make sure that this marries up with the streetscape plan and with all of the cases that are being, you know, some cases were delayed today and kind of getting backed up as you go to council. It'll be more confusing for council if we're asking them to decide the streetscape plan and isolation from this case and vice versa. So, we're trying to have those go forward. The RHDC, as you know, is a new policy that didn't used to happen after our planning commission. and it used to happen um before. And so I think holding it up just so we wait for them is going to set a policy that you just wait and you know each time. But we're certainly willing to consider both as we move forward to to council um and and modify. I'm not sure coming back on the 24th we'll have a way to incorporate the frontage in a way that'll satisfy you commissioner without knowing when we'll get the comments back from the streetscape plan which is still in review. And so I just want to be careful that in again bestlaid plans we're not tying somebody's hands. Um can clarification did did you just say there's a policy now that RHDC meets after planning commission because if that's the case then we'll always be saying can it come back to us >> and I we don't want to start that do we >> I would feel comfortable with staff explaining what that position is >> staff >> I don't I don't want to misspeak >> they're conferring >> so uh we have been coordinating ating between planning commission and an RHDC public Raleigh Historic Development Commission publication so that the RHDC has the benefit of the published staff report which we deliver for you. Uh, and I understand what you're saying about that inherently results probably in a two-touch for the planning commission, but it seemed from a um support of the historic development commission helpful to provide them with a staff report for their review. Okay. So then if it's the will of the commission to continue this, we can just know going forward, every time you have something that's going to appear before RHDC, unless this changes, you're going to automatically be asking the applicant to defer it. And I think the applicant should be aware of that. >> You do not have to ask for that. I mean, that is your discretion. >> We will be automatically deferring. >> The commission, the historic development commission makes their recommendation to city council, not to you. Right? >> If you want the benefit of that, of course, you would ask, >> right, >> for to continue the discussion, but that is not a requirement for you. >> Right. >> I'm just making a note of that. Like Commissioner O'Hver said earlier, it's a timing thing. So, applicants will be looking at being deferred if they have something going before RHDC because we we're saying we want the benefit of RHDC's memo. So, yes, Commissioner Bucks. Um, I acknowledge that might be uncomfortable for some folks, but know that the information that comes from RHDC and the information that comes from the planning commission is used in the deliberation of the final decision makers. So in a position where we are not the final decision makers, I'm I'm comfortable acknowledging that in a motion and just saying absence of information from the RHDC, these conditions are in the public interest, etc. >> Yeah, >> I'm comfortable with that, too. I I don't know how much my opinion matters anymore, but I say that because we've had several cases where we >> went against what RHDC said anyway. So, I think we already sort of have our minds made up. It didn't sound like we had any concerns about historic preservation. If we had concerns, then I would say, let's see what RHDC says. But it seems like our concern was more with frontage, which RHDC isn't going to take up. So if we're okay with this from a historic preservation perspective, my individual recommendation would be for us to >> move it out register >> and that doesn't have to be a standing policy for every time there's something that goes to RHDC. Maybe there will be ones where we want to hear their opinion, but for this one, it sounds like we we sort of know how we want to move and council will look at our recommendation and RHDC's recommendation and they'll make a decision. Commissioner Walters, Commissioner Haver, you're looking at me, so I think you want to say something, too. >> Yeah. I just I just want to say I'm uh I I support what you all are talking about. I I'm ready to move this forward. I also have some concern that we by adding our any conditions about frontage would complicate be redundant with uh the streetscape plan that's already in motion uh especially on Commerce Place. Um so I just want to tread lightly there. So that's that's where I'm at. >> Thank you, Commissioner O'H. >> Yeah, I just I want to say they're preserving from a historic standpoint. They're just they're preserving Martin Street and the majority of the structure down Commerce. And I just will go on record for a third time that I there many times I don't agree with the RHDC, so I'm not concerned about having their memo in front of us. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. So, it sounds like who wants to hold this until it's gone before RHDC? Let me do it that way. So, who's ready? Everybody's ready to move on. >> Yeah. >> All right, then. I will entertain a motion. Commissioner Fox. In the case of Z126, I move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated March 10th, 2026 contained in the agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. And I'll add to this a willingness of the applicant to look at build to conditions along Dawson. >> Second. >> Second. >> All right. Um, we have a motion to approve and a second. Any further discussion? Any further discussion? All in favor? All oppose? That's Commissioner Atwell. And would you like to state again for the record? Go slow because I'm typing. >> Sure. Okay. the uh the frontage and build two uh conditions are not adequate to the zoning district and we don't have any information on the streetscape plan which is a major component of the request. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Thank you and thank you for your service. >> Thank you. >> That concludes our new business. Next is other business beginning with report of the chair. So as you all know this is my last planning commission meeting. >> So for one last time I'll ask you to indulge me so I can just say a few words one last time. I want to begin with gratitude. First to city council. Thank you for the opportunity to serve and for the trust you've placed in me through both appointment and reappoint. Public service is not something I take lightly and I appreciate this opportunity tremendously. To our staff, thank you for the incredible amount of work you do behind the scenes to make sure we can do our job thoughtfully and responsibly. Your professionalism, patience, and commitment to this city make our work possible, and I'm deeply appreciative. To my fellow commissioners, past and present, thank you. Serving alongside you has been an honor. The discussions at this table are not always easy, but they're always important. I'm grateful for the time, the thoughtful thoughtfulness, and the care that each of you bring to this work. I also want to thank the many applicants, neighbors, advocates, and everyone who takes time to come before us. Whether we agree or disagree on a particular case, your willingness to show up, speak up, and engage in the future of Raleigh is what makes this process meaningful, and I appreciate you all. One of the greatest gifts of this role has been the people I've met, many whose paths I might never have crossed if not for this work. I've learned so much from all of you and I'm grateful for the connections and relationships. When I first joined the planning commission, it was just before life as we knew it changed. The murder of George Floyd, racial unrest, and a global pandemic. Those events forced many of us across professions and institutions to reflect more deeply on issues of equity, access, and opportunity. I'm so proud that this body and this city were up for the challenge. Thanks in part to those discussions, we have our equity and climate section of the staff reports. Now, as my tenure comes to a close in 2026, we find ourselves again in a moment where our communities are asking hard questions about fairness, belonging, and who gets to thrive in our cities. We're right on the precipice of a new comprehensive plan and I'm confident you will again keep these issues front of mind during your discussions and recommendations. I hope that during my time here I've contributed in some small way to encouraging us to think about equity, equitable development, and the broader community impacts of the decisions we make. Serving in this role has truly been one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences of my life. And I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to be one voice among many who have helped shape Raleigh. Because the decisions we make here don't just shape buildings and land. They shape opportunity. They shape access. They shape whether people can see a future for themselves in the city we love. And if we keep people, all people at the center of our work, Raleigh will be a place where legacy residents and newcomers can thrive as neighbors. It's been my honor to serve. Thank you. >> And now reported the members. Seriously, how do I like I'll talk to you later. Okay. All right. Pulling it back. Um, we do have an item on the committee of the whole. >> Yes. >> Um, and I believe does it coincide with me passing off that chairperson duty? >> Excuse me. Could you guys keep your voice down a little bit, please? That's a great question. >> That is a good question. So, uh the the new vice chair is currently not at the table. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Um but I will do a quorum check for the people who are here right now. So, committee of the whole meeting on March 26 at 4 p.m. And >> yeah, you don't care. God. Uh yes, I believe I I agree with you that Commissioner Cochran would be vice chair of the commission and chair of the committee of the whole at that time. >> That would be her inaugural meeting uh where she will chair the committee of the whole. However, from the members sitting at the table, are people available uh for that time, March 26 at 4 p.m. Just raise your hand if you I'm just doing a quorum check. >> You said March 26 at 4, correct? >> I might be able to do that. One, two, maybe one, two, three, four, five, >> five. And we'll assume >> vice chair >> and we'll assume the vice chair is there as well. So we are barely making a quorum. Everyone wrap themselves in bubble wrap between now and then. Okay, >> that I have no other comments. It has been lovely being your co- captain and I knew you before planning commission and I will know you after planning commission and I will talk to you later. Thank you. So, I'd like to request a little bit of community assistance because my computer died and I don't have my calendar. But, uh, I'm pretty sure we have a text change committee meeting this Thursday at 400 p.m. That would be March 12th at 4 p.m. >> March 18th. >> Next Thursday. >> Yes. >> Next th Wednesday. >> See, this is why I need help. Um, >> you're still the chair of that committee at that time. >> Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Um, March 18th, Thursday Wednesday. >> Wednesday. >> Wednesday at 4 pm. >> Say it all again. >> All right, let me use my glasses this time >> or I will whisper to you. >> Next meeting is March 18th, 2026 at 4 pm in the Raleigh Municipal Building in room 305. And might I add, because I didn't say it, um, everyone who is not on tech exchange committee is considered an alternate for text change. >> Your future chair atwell will work through assignments for committees and everything, but for right now, if you're on text change committee, you're on. If you're not, you're considered an alternate. So, you might be asked to show up if someone can't so we can have quorum. >> Speaking of quorum, >> um, could we get a quorum checked for next >> Wednesday, >> March 18th at 4 p.m. for the text? >> There's three of us. >> Yeah, you only need three, right? >> That's three possibly there. >> You don't Are you on text change? >> I don't know. >> She's an alternate. You just appointed her. >> Okay. Oh, no, I'm not. Then never mind me. She is. That off my calendar. Commissioner Neptune. >> Yeah. Oh, sorry. >> It has been a privilege to serve with you. >> Thank you. >> And I have no further report. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Commissioner Haver. >> Yes, ma'am. Um I am not available for the text change committee. I don't know if I still need to send an email um for that. And um yeah, won't spend a lot of time, Nicole. It's just we we used to meet regularly for coffee, but I think it's appropriate. We need to find some time to go meet for a cocktail. >> Thank you, Commissioner Bernett. Chair um Chair Bennett, you have been an amazing um guide and teacher throughout the process. So, thank you. Uh and we'll definitely grab that coffee. >> Thank you, Commissioner Walters. >> Uh it's been a pleasure serving with you in the short time that I've been uh overlapping with you. Thank you for your kind words. >> Thank you, Commissioner May. >> Well, I said what I said to you the last meeting. It has been a pleasure serving with you. I do look forward to continuing our relationship and continuing to talk to you. So, I'm happy about the the your future with the housing commission. I think they're getting a really really great leader. Um, I have another question though. Did we vote on who the chair and vice chair were? >> We did at our last meeting >> email. >> No, we did at at our last meeting beginning of the meeting. Okay. Thank you. >> The chair is chairwell and vice chair Cochran. Okay. >> Okay. We'll have the report of the assistant director. >> Thank you for your service to the city of Raleigh. >> Thank you for your service. You've been a great colleague to me. I really appreciate you. And I have a totally inadequate gesture of appreciation for you. >> Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. >> For your pride wall. Is >> that the land use map? >> Yeah, that is the land use map. Yeah. Thank you. >> Oh, it slips out. It's It'll come out of that thing if you if you want to frame it or whatever. It's not laminated. It just feels like it's laminated. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Anything else for the good of the order? All right. For the last time, we're adjourned.