[Music] 25th, 2025 planning commission meeting. I am Blanny Miller, chair of the commission. We have a full agenda today, so I ask everyone to please be efficient in your comments and avoid redundancy so that we can hear um from as many viewpoints on as many cases as possible. We start every meeting with an opportunity for the public to comment on an item not contained on the agenda. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak on an item not on the agenda today? Seeing none, then we'll move on to old business. The first item under old business is resoning case Z722 at Glenwood Avenue. This case has appeared on several previous planning commission agendas, but we have not yet heard a presentation. Um so we will start uh with a presentation from staff and then hear uh comment from the applicant and from the those opposed. And with that I will turn this over to Hannah Reco for a presentation from city planning staff. Good morning Hannah Reco planning and development. Um so this um request is Z7022. Um it is uh three parcels with addresses on Glenwood A new and Lake Anne Drive. Um just shy of seven acres in size that are currently split zoned um between NX3 CU OX3 R2 and uh CM. And the request is to reszone uh to a mix of of uh districts including CX5 CU, R10CU, and CM. Um I'm going to provide some of the context for the site since it's been a while and then um cover how the proposed conditions have been uh changed. So zoning in this area along Glenwood Avenue uh is uh pretty mixed. Um there's other CX NX and EX districts um farther north and south of Glenwood A. We have residential um designations including a large R2 area to the south. And we look at the aerial can see that um pattern in land uses. So, commercial industrial uses along Glenwood AB, a mix of scales of of residential development, um, Lake Anne to the south and surrounding low-scale residential areas. Here's a a zoom in of the site, sort of a regular shape. Um you can see at Scottidge on Glenwood Avenue and Lake Anne Drive and then goes uh farther west uh behind the um residential properties along West Lake and Drive. Um wanted to also provide the street plan context here. So there is an existing rightway um sort of north going into the site. The dashed line uh is a proposed street on that street plan. So that would connect um Win Winchester Drive down in the um southeast um up through the site connecting to Winchester Drive uh in the town home development to the northwest. This is what the site looks like from existing right ofway. um currently undeveloped, mostly forested. There are a number of proposed zoning conditions. Um I'm going to try to highlight what is new. Um the applicant has also made revisions in response to staff comment. So um what I have here might does differ in a few ways from what's in the agenda attachment. Uh the first condition multi-art uh this refers to the area to be zoned uh CX5CU. Um so conditions about location of the building um retail gross floor area and number of dwelling units remain the same. They've added a condition a list of prohibited land uses and then in a condition another multi-art condition um pertaining to the R10 CU portion they removed uh a condition that was previously included that would have um donated a piece of land to either the city or the lake an HOA as a park. Um they've added a condition um referring to occupied building height or building height of occ number of occupied stories. And then um after condition three, the the remainder are new. Um so there's one uh that describes landscaped buffers uh that would need to be applied um in certain areas around the extension of Winchester Drive. another condition uh describing a sign easement that would be provided to the lake an HOA um for like a neighborhood sign and then a condition uh describing some storm water control measures um including um super silt fencing um during any land disturbance activities. um several parts that describe uh stormwater control measures. Uh the two and three here are required anyways under the UDO. a condition um describing or requiring rather the um the developer owner um identify a third party consultant to um oversee kind of the storm water control measures after a um storm water and erosion or sorry soil and erosion permit. Uh uh one change here uh from what's in the backup is that it would require meeting not only with a uh representative of the HOA but a uh the uh city engineer as described. Um and that um there would be certain requirements to receive questions and complaints and then um issue recommendations based on of those. Um and then the last part of this condition um would describe would require installation of a underground um of a a storm water pipe from the facility in tract one to Lake Anne. This condition's been amended. It it um previously referenced a another privately owned parcel not included in the resoning site. They've removed that portion and added uh language acknowledging that the city would have to approve uh any such activity in the right of way. Uh there's a condition um committing to extend um uh public water and sewer lines to um 6901 West Lake Ant Drive, which is the property just to the south on the corner of West Lake Drive and Lake Ant Drive. Um and then uh the last condition um would require written notice to the lake NHOA prior to any blasting um involved um in the um development. Um so you know note that several of these describe requirements of the UDO. Um several of these also describe fairly private benefits to surrounding property owners. Um so um staff's recommendation has been to uh that those are better placed in a private agreement rather than the zoning conditions. Um, and there is also, I think, some remaining um, uh, clarity and enforcability um, components that could be improved in order to enforce these zoning conditions, but uh, this is how they've been amended. Um, the conditions refer to track one, track two, track three with the three districts. Just wanted to outline that the CX portion is this piece up here that would front on Glenwood. Uh the R10 piece is roughly here. Oops. And then the CM is roughly where it is currently uh along the uh back of the the residential properties running on East Lake and Drive. So existing versus proposed zoning, we have a mix of mixeduse residential and conservation management districts. Uh and then a mix of um a different mix of of those uh same types of districts. Uh maximum number of units increasing slightly but staying roughly the same. And then um same for office and retail does decrease a little bit with the the um the uh new districts. Um and then the the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and consistent with the future land use map designations. Um see consistent policies here. Um in addition to future land use map we have got policies around density transitions complimentary land uses uh the scale of new commercial uses and then housing variety. Um no inconsistent policies were identified. I think the just the additional outstanding issues where the the conditions could be um made more enforceable um what I like to note. And then your deadline for action is April 9th. There is one more meeting, regular scheduled meeting you have before that date. Thank you very much. So, this case is listed under old business. However, it's been lingering on our old business agenda for the better part of a year and there have been significant changes to conditions since that time. So, um we are going to move to public comment on this item. The applicant and those in favor have a total of 10 minutes to speak. Good morning. I'm Isabelle Maddox. Um, representing Glennwood Lane LLC, the property owner. Here with me today are our development team, Tom Worth, my colleague, uh, Tommy Craraven, our civil engineer, and Chuck Walker, our land planner. Um, thank you to Hannah and the city planning staff for their patience and hanging in there with us on this case. It's been long admitted and thank you to the planning commission for your patience. Um, we have been working diligently with the HOA here because we've had some issues, you know, some some historical issues with this property and trying to get it to a place where it can be developed. Um, so Hannah explained the current zoning, which really the zoning map doesn't tell you the whole story because there's a lot of gnarly conditions on that zoning and there's also some restrictive covenants that make it challenging here. Um, here's the area. Well, I'm going to come back to this when I talk about a couple of things, but you can see Turkey Creek runs. Is the Is the thing not working? Um, because Yeah, I guess it is a little bit. Is it that is that showing up? Yeah. Okay. All right. So, that Turkey Creek runs through there and comes all the way to Lake Anne and that impacts this property a good bit. Um, and then Winchester Drive existing, I don't know if you can see it, but in green you have existing going to here really like this. Anyway, I need to clear that. But existing going See, it's just not doing the right thing. Um, technology fails me again. Um, but Winchester Drive has a goes close to this property and stops right before the creek and then picks back up near the sheets further down. We will be filling in a significant amount, not completely all of it to connect that road. And that road's important because it makes a parallel to Glennwood. It gets some of the traffic off Glenwood and the city very much wants that. It's been discussed in the city for a large number of years. Um, so we have a lot of challenges on this site. It's it's a combination of restrictive covenants, which Glennwood Lane and and the neighborhood agreed to years ago, but they're very restrictive and zoning restrictions. And so the combination of those two make it very very difficult to develop. We also have the highly sensitive Turkey Creek areas and Lake Anne to uh protect and be concerned about in this case. And then the third significant challenge is the Winchester Road extension is required by the city and it it supports traffic on Glenwood as well, but it's very expensive and disruptive when they actually do the work. So those things impact the neighborhood's feelings. They impact the cost of the project um make the combination of these factors make this very difficult. So we've been working with the HOA. We've had a lot of meetings. Um I don't know if Josh um Hansen is here today. Yeah. Oh, okay. So, the HOA couple of representatives are here and I'm glad about that. We have worked collaboratively with them and have a plan to go forward. Part of the reason that there are a lot of conditions that are sometimes city is saying maybe this should be in a private agreement. This the the HOA very much wants these to be zoning conditions and we're good with that. So, we'd like to keep those conditions as is. Um, so we want to we feel like these conditions protect Lake Anne, protect the creek and and you know will facilitate the connection of Winchester Drive. Um, to give you a little bit clearer picture of the tracks, we got track one, which is the main track on Glenwood. Um, and then this road coming through here is is Winchester. Glennwood's up here. Uh, track two is down below Winchester. And then track three is just the conservation management area down here. So, and the um and we don't anticipate any development on this, you know, Turkey Creek area or the the conservation management which is mostly tree conservation. Um so summarizing the conditions, we're limiting the the units on track 1 to 100 units, 35,000 of commercial uh maximum. Track 2 12 house townhouse maximums enhanced storm water. We'll relocate the lake and sign because with the Winchester construction that their current sign would be impacted. Uh we we are agreeing to make a utility connection to one property owner who's at the sort of at the most gets the most impact from this project. He has asked that we um align or or connect city utilities to his site. Um we have do have height limits. Uh the normal zoning height limits will apply but this is a further limitation that we will we will even though we have CX5 on the Glenwood parcel we'll limit it to three occupied stories. So, we can do parking underneath. Um, on the townhouse site, track two, we'll do two occupied stories. Again, we can have garages underneath. We will be providing new landscaping along the new Winchester. And we will give notice before we do any blasting to the neighbors. Um, for our storm water, Hannah went through it, but I'll go through it again. We're we're upgrading the level of the silt fencing. We're going to do a two storm water systems. one on the tract one uh one on track two. We will get that third party sort of an ombbudzman who will sort of be a neutral party that the homeowners can come to. They can ask questions. They can give complaints. He will have to give a report and initially there'll be a a monthly report when construction begins. There'll be a pre-construction meeting, then there'll be a quarterly a monthly report. Then once we're further into construction, it'll be every 90 days. And he'll report not only to the HOA but also to the city. Um, and we do plan a pipe to be installed from track one all the way down to Lake Anne and ended up in Lake Anne. Uh, and then finally, we are going to make a significant financial contribution to the HOA. This is not a zoning condition, but I'll just tell you this, which will help them with some deferred maintenance on on Lake Anne. So, we think those things are very protective of the lake. Um and the pipe will run so s sort of like down down this site to the lake. Uh Tommy Craraven who is working on the storm water for this project is here and can answer questions. I mean the the full the full stormwater uh scheme has not been fully designed at this point but he he understands a lot about this property and can tell you generally what we're planning here. Um the reality pro parcel is right here. This is our parcel one. This is our partial two so that he gets the impact he wants city utilities connected to his site which we've agreed to do. Um from a public benefit standpoint this cleans up a site that has gone undeveloped for many years even decades. Um it's even been in planning commission this case for three years. Um we'll add more housing units. It'll add commercial opportunities. It'll facilitate the extension of Winchester Drive and importantly will protect both Turkey Creek and Lake Anne and also as pointed out it's consistent with the comprehensive plan and the future land use map and we think this represents a good solution to something that's been a problem and it's been difficult to navigate this and we think we're very close. We do have a private agreement, but we also want the same many of these same um points to be, you know, included in the zoning conditions. So, available to answer any questions. Got land planner here. Uh Tom Worth had a lot of historic uh work on this project and uh Tommy Craraven, our engineer. So, available for whatever questions you guys have. Thank you very much. Um, are there any other members of the public who would like to speak in support of this project? Then seeing none, we'll move on to public comment for the opposition. Those opposed to this case have a total of 10 minutes to speak. Please come to the podium and introduce yourself. Oh, my name is Jessica Wilkkey. I'm an attorney with Hansen Howland and Wilky in Raleigh, North Carolina. Um we are working on behalf of Lake Anne Homeowners Association and the president of the HOA who is Shelley Leslie is here in the audience today. Um I am here on behalf of Josh Hansen who has been working with Lake Anne for many years. So he's been working on this zoning matter since it started but also our office has been working with the HOA since 2007 which is when we took over litigation concerning these restrictive covenants from an attorney and former Raleigh planning commission member Eric Braun. And as an aside, I'm here to on behalf of Josh Hansen because he is in western North Carolina with his family. Um, his father is in hospice and he is expected to pass away any moment. So, um, he wishes he could be here today, but he couldn't. So, the resolution of that 2007 lawsuit resulted in, among other things, the applicant voluntarily subjecting all of what we've been identifying as zoning tract one and a portion of what they're calling zoning tract two to covenants and restrictions. And this is what we're talking about, those gnarly covenants and restrictions that have made this development a little tricky. Um, the restrictions voluntarily placed on the subject parcels prohibited certain uses and building heights. One of the significant prohibitions is there was to be no residential uses on track one and no buildings over two stories on a portion of zoning tract one, but the application before the commission seeks to resone the parcel to allow up to 100 residential units and a total building height of five stories. And so Lake Anne has opposed this application for this reason as well as other matters within the covenants in the settlement agreement executed between the parties in resolution of that 2007 lawsuit. So the applicant and the HOA have spent two years in the present zoning matters um considering the proposals and the application and negotiating terms that would allow Glenwood Lane to proceed without violating those covenants and restrictions and protecting the lake community. And they want to also protect adjacent homeowners. And then the central feature of this community which is Lake Gan itself. Uh both parties have retained experts to assist with this effort. Council for both parties has spent numerous months negotiating terms that would serve as conditions to be included at the in the application as well as terms that would be outside the jurisdiction of the planning commission and the city staff. But with the long negotiated and crafted conditions were submitted on March March 14th and then again on March 17th on the proper form. um staff made comments on the application that look to undermine some of those years of negotiation. And so um applicant has retained a significant portion of the agreed upon conditions in the current version of the application before you. But there are some items that are incomplete and that they need continued consideration between the parties before the planning commission should uh should render an opinion on the application. Many of the conditions agreed upon by the HOA are to protect Lake Anne and the water source from which the lake receives its water, which is Turkey Creek they've been referencing here. The HOA considers the environmental protections addressed by the sedimentation and erosion control measures and the distribution of the storm water to be discharged from the proposal five, excuse me, the proposed five-story mixeduse development through a pipe to the rip wrap velocity dissipator where the storm water will enter the lake as essential components of any resoning of this property. that would allow such an intense use and that is draining directly into Lake Aam. the conditions that the applicant and HOA agreed to prior to the staff comments and subsequent alterations made by the applicant on the afternoon of March 21st which are four days ago uh 5 days ago are considered a floor an absolute minimum here um and that's the minimum that the HOA would consider for removing those covenants which would be necessary um otherwise it prohibits resoning in the proposed use uh the proposed uses contained in the current application. The HOA would welcome additional consideration and recommendations by the city of Raleigh storm water development that might protect the water bodies uh Lake Ann and Turkey Creek uh the adjacent properties and the residents of the lake and community. So given the late changes to the conditions after the staff comment and Mr. Hansen's current family obligations uh Lakean would ask that the commission continue this matter until May 13th or May 27th commission meetings but no sooner than the April 22nd meeting. And of course, I'm happy to try to answer questions, but as I said, I'm here on behalf of Mr. Hansen. So, thank you very much. And may I clarify? Are you here in support of the case as currently written? Do you mean and the application before? Yeah. No, we we feel like some of the changes that were made um after the application was submitted by the staff don't reflect the the agreement that the pro property owner and the HOA have come to. I mean the the concerns or the the covenants that are in place have to be adequately addressed and the the agreement as stated doesn't adequately protect them. So thank you. Thank you. Are there any other comments in opposition to this case? If so, please come to the podium and introduce yourself. Uh then with that I will bring it back to the table and for discussion at the um among the planning commissioners and I'll start with a question um for the applicant. Could you help us clarify um just procedurally the timing and status of the conditions that were originally offered and any potential recent changes? Yes. Uh so we offered conditions I think it was uh was Friday before last and then we got comments back from the staff last Thursday and we made or it could have been Wednesday afternoon. We made changes and we're trying to negotiate with Josh Hansen, council for the HOA in including fairly late on Friday afternoon. We had to get those sign conditions in by by end of day Friday in order to appear here and have this substantive discussion. So there were the things that that sort of remained a little bit of a gap was the pipe running from the project down to Lake Anne. That pipe is probably going to need to go over a little bit of Lake Anne HOA property which the HOA has agreed to and we have that in our our settlement agreement but we can't really put that in a zoning condition because it goes across property that's not in the case and what and we had also required that there be an SCM at the end of that pipe before it goes into Lake Anne and we still intend to do that. It's in the settlement agreement. we can't put that in the conditions. And I know that the HOA wants it in the conditions, but it's not on property that's in the case, so it's excluded from the condition. So, we have a few issues like that that um aren't that deal with property that aren't in the condition. That being the main one, and we're we're intending to do all those things we've agreed to, and we we just can't do it in the in the conditions. Um the reality uh utility connection uh city is objecting to that as as a private benefit. I said well you know public utilities is a city issue. Um it's in it's going to be in the rightway Winchester drive city can approve that. I feel like the city can't allow that as a condition. Um and there are a couple of others that they thought relocating the sign easement that was more of a private benefit. Again we're going to put that sign easement. It's it's on property now that's in the case and and it will be property in the future that's in the case. So I've had other cases in Raleigh where we you know relocated a sign and have that kind of condition. So I feel like all the conditions except for the pipe that one is it goes a little bit outside the bounds of the zoning case. Um but but it we didn't spring this on them. It was it was late because we got comments from the staff back late and I realize the the conditions are complicated and so Hannah has been great at getting back. It's just that we just didn't have that much time because of the planning commission schedule and so it was a late afternoon Friday um that Josh and I were talking about it and we got those conditions done. Uh and then and we I acknowledge well what Josh and I agreed to on Friday was we would request that the planning commission bring this back on April 22nd. Uh and I realized the deadline for action is the 9th. And so I I was thinking we had a little bit more time. So I guess we're going to have to get another extension if we go to April 22nd. That would give us two, you know, a two meeting cycle to get these final tweaks done. And um at some point though, I think there's going to be a couple of conditions that the neighborhood wants that we just can't put in zoning conditions. And we we do have those in a private agreement. So I think we're really close. Um we're not there yet. I'm not saying that we are. And I I should have said that initially, but we'd like to we'd like for the planning commission to bring this back at its April 22nd meeting. And um Hannah, is that going to require another extension or can they act? And a follow-up question for Hannah on this one. It appears that there have already been uh changes to the zoning conditions. Yes. Is it and I know we only have one bite at the apple to change those. Is it even possible to come back with new conditions at this point? So that they've made their one change during planning commission review. If you wanted it to come back on the 22nd anyways, you would you would have to request an extension to review. It appears the applicant may have questions about that process. Is that your understanding as well? Well, we haven't been discussed by planning commission before. So, I I thought we had one more opportunity to amend conditions. Um, this is the first time planning commission has substantively discussed this. So, I would say we had one opportunity to amend and come back to the next meeting. You don't agree? I had the same question at the beginning. I was trying to remember if we ever did discuss this nine nine plus months ago. Um we have had a change to our deputy city attorney for planning in the meantime. So we're looking that up I think right now on the status of these things. But that may be um an open question that we need to review. But I guess the question still remains is there an extension required or is that what if well if additional changes cannot be made um was that relevant to your extension request? I think well we'd have to go back and talk about that. I I I if if that's the case, I had a misunderstanding. I mean, we would still make the same changes before we went to council, but I was thinking we had another opportunity to change. Sure. Like this being the first planning commission meeting, we have the right to change it and come back. And that was my thinking there. This is a question that has come up. um in the past as well, a procedural question and I think that it appears at this moment that that may be an open question um that we're still reviewing. The next planning commission meeting is April 8th. That is before the deadline um so there is we might be able to figure it out by the end of this meeting. If not, we could certainly figure it out by the end of the next meeting and then still have time to request an extension at Could you just speak into the mic? Oh, yes. Excuse me. Um, we're looking we're we're trying to get to the bottom of of that question at this time and um the and since the deadline for action is April 9th, if we were to bring this back at our April 8th meeting, um that would be before the deadline has run. So, if we needed to request an extension, we could do it at that time as well. as opposed to just today. Would staff like me to pause here while they research or do you want me to keep moving? I suppose in the meantime, we could still have a discussion today to flesh out any other questions or concerns. Great. Um so uh I I'll just start off by also acknowledging um to the HOA and to others that the the issue of including conditions uh that um are allowed under the UDO but that have an enforcability issue by the city. This is also an issue that has come up in the past. uh might even be something interesting for the strategic planning committee to consider um whether the UDO should include prohibitions on certain conditions. However, at this time they are not prohibited under the UDO. So, um I certainly understand staff's concerns and maybe we should look at those um more deeply offline, but this is the the rules as they exist today and um I understand that the applicant and the neighbors u feel strongly about those and are in in agreement between themselves. So, I'll start off there and I will see if any other planning commissioners have questions. Yes, Commissioner Fox. I have a question. I guess it's to the applicant. um many of the items that appear to be um things that would be included in a private agreement, could those not be included in a newly recorded plat with new covenants and restrictions? Um it's an interesting question. Um, normally you don't have conditions. Um, I mean, I guess you sort of have the conditions on a plat. I think it's possible. We hadn't really thought about it in that way because many of them appear they're not zoning issues, they're operational issues. And so that's my concern is including operational issues in zoning conditions because enforcability is very challenging and I'm not quite sure even what the remedy is for those type of conditions should someone be found to run a foul of them. What like what happens? Um, well, I think if they were in conditions, then the city could go and and enforce those and say you're in violation of a zoning condition, right? But then what happens? You get a piece of paper that says you're in violation of Well, you're basically um just like any zoning any zoning condition violation or any zoning violation, you get an NOV and you get fined and you have to depending on what it is, they can cease and desist or you can get fined. Do we know the level of penalty for something like this? I um what's not clear to me is the level of penalty and the remedy are commensurate with what the issue is. So that's why I would recommend removing them from zoning conditions. U I you know that's a good question. And I don't know how the city picks that dollar amount that they they threaten if you have a zoning violation, you're going to be fined $500 a day or some some number. And I don't know how that's chosen to be honest, whether that's a consistent number for all zoning violations or it's there's some degree of variability in it. Thank you. And maybe I'll push that ask that question to staff. Um and this is for the benefit of the HOA's understanding as well. The concern is not that we don't want the um parcel to be uh to have these restrictions placed on it. It's that uh our concern is about the enforcement of any of these conditions. So I believe that would be in of interest to the HOA as well. Could you please help us uh Hannah give us some information about why the city has these concerns and what the enforcement mechanisms would look like? Yes. Yeah. So, I think the the concerns are about um at what point the city would have the opportunity to evaluate whether the condition was met, which is typically the the review development review process. Um and then what happens if the condition isn't met? So, I think the the clearest type of condition example would be, you know, no site plan or no certificate of occupancy will be issued unless X Y and Z is done. there's a clear um sort of timing of when that condition was likely to be applied and then um if it isn't met there's a clear outcome of how it's how the applicant can um address it. What about after the the certificate of occupancy is issued if there's an ongoing operational violation of a zoning? Yeah. So, that would rely on um complaints being issued to zoning enforcement and and staff going out to evaluate. I think there's the question of um if a daily uh fee is incurred, how how how does the property owner address that and show that they're working towards ameliating that if it was some action that was supposed to take place at a certain time? you know, and when it comes to operations, is that the type of enforcement work that the city zoning um administrators and staff typically um undertake? No, I'd say most conditions refer to some concrete uh piece of the de uh attribute of the development. So a setback or a particular buffer um it gets more challenging if for example the ca in this case the the condition is requiring certain meetings to happen if there are complaints on a monthly basis for 90 days if if the city receives a complaint saying that that didn't happen. How do you pro how do you prove that there weren't any complaints or there were complaints and how and what do you do after 90 days have passed to address it? I think I think that's the practical considerations here. And I'll say the flip side of this coin is are there any prohibitions in the UDO on including any of these types of conditions at this time? Not of not like this. No. Okay. Thank you. I do think it's important to note that most of these conditions would really happen at the front end during construction. The city has lots of leverage if you're in in construction. They can refuse to inspect, refuse to issue the next permit. So, it's the storm water conditions, the utility installation, the moving of a sign, the blasting notice. Um, all those things really have to happen before this property is operational. uh there's very little that is going to come up sort of after the prop property is already operational. Thank you. And I think the city has lots of leverage there. Thank you. Any other questions, comments from the planning commission? On any other topics? Yes. So, in terms of storm water, it seems that that's one of the bigger concerns for the HOA. Um, is what's proposed now in the conditions adequate to maintain the the quality of Lake Anne? We believe so. And I can maybe ask Tommy Craraven, our engineer, to come and speak to that. He has worked on the storm water and been involved in this for some time. Thank you. They're from Sally as well if you're available. Sally, would you like to go first or do you want me? Oh, you go ahead. Okay. Um yes, what's what's proposed is more than adequate when coupled with the processes that are defined by the UDO uh for the um for the preliminary plan approval and for the construction drawing approvals. Um we will be treating on site. We will be conveying that treated storm water to Lake Anne. The thing that I would ask you to remember is this site is um I'm sorry what seven eight acres. Yeah. A minuscule amount of the total drainage area of Turkey Creek to Lake Anne. The best thing that we can do for Lake Anne is to treat our storm water, get it into the lake and get it to Clayton before all of the storm water from upstream uh nearly to Durham makes it downstream to Lake Anne. that lessens the load on lake and maintains the water quality. U all of those it's a difficult site. Uh it's it's a compounding difficulty with the problems that Lake Anne is currently experiencing. But we believe that what we're setting up in these zoning conditions gives the lake and owners uh what they need in order to continue to maintain that lake and meets the code and minimizes our impact on lake an be glad to answer any other if there are any more specific questions. Thank you. Does stormwater staff have something to add? Um, I would just add that this site will be uh subject to all the UDO requirements in terms of storm water quality and runoff control. Um, and that uh yeah, as Hannah mentioned, two of the proposed conditions just mirror the UDO. So, I think that's important for the commission to know. Thanks. Thank you. Other questions from the commission? Um well then I may turn to staff. Do we need additional time to research the question about whether they can make additional changes to conditions after discussing with the city deputy city attorney. We are generally of the opinion that they have had their one bite at the apple. uh that the review of the planning of commission began when the item was published on the agenda and that the um decision to request extensions indicates that the review has begun and is ongoing. That said, um, and, uh, want to give this time to be thoughtful and and review, I would recommend you defer to the ETH so that we can consider this question about whether or not they can submit again, revise again, and that that would also give us a time to figure out if they need to ask for another extension. If they if they are going to revise, they need another extension. Sure. If they aren't, they don't. Okay, that seems like a good path forward. Commissioner Fox, I was going to make a motion to defer the case to the ETH. Thank you. Second. Um, so with that, we will There's a motion and a second to defer this case to our April 8th meeting. Is there any further discussion on the motion? All those in favor? Any opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Okay, moving on to our next item, Z1924 at Edinburgh Drive. For this item, the commission has already received a full staff presentation, applicant presentation, and heard from the public. Our focus today will be on any updates or changes to the case since our last meeting. And we'll turn to Matthew Burns for a presentation from city planning staff. Good morning, Chair Miller, members of the planning commission. Matthew Burns with Planning and Development. This request last appeared as new business on the March 11th agenda, and your deadline for action is May 10th. Just a reminder that this site is um at the intersection of Glenwood Avenue and Edinburghough Road near the Carolina Country Club. And the applicant is proposing a variety of zoning conditions. Um the conditions that I'll the new conditions that I'll present on here are slightly different than the backup materials. Um but just as a reminder, they would limit uses to single unit living, office and parking facility. uh have the proposed office use would be part of um a single family home model home to be built at 105 Edinburghough and the 107 Edinburghough property would be used as a parking facility to serve that office use. It would the parking area would require certain buffers um and hours of operation for the design center office would be limited uh during the week and weekends. The conditions prohibit outdoor advertising. Uh they would limit the size of the proposed office use, limit the duration that the model home and office use could be in place, and limit height for um that proposed model homeoff to two stories on Glenwood or uh three stories along Glenwood Avenue and two stories along Edinburgh. It would require um the parking area at 107 Edinburghough to be replaced with a uh single unit uh single family home after 90 days of uh the closing of that office use would limit the maximum square footage of the house to be built at 105 Edinburghough. uh require the applicant to petition the city to install a new speed limit sign and limit construction on 109 Edinburghough to a single family home only. Would prohibit any subcontractor meetings at 105 Edinburghough after construction of the single family home or and office space. require uh the applicant to repair some failing asphalt along Edinburghough and limit design center uses to the garage and ground level along Glenwood for that 105 Edinburghough property. So in the back of materials there are two new conditions. Um the applicant the signed version of conditions only has one of those included. So the this condition would require that internal sidewalks um and driveways be built with pvious pavers for new single uh family homes. And condition number 19 which is in the backup which would have required um the development buildings in the development adhere to R six building setbacks was removed because the principal building setbacks in the office mixed use district which is what they're asking for and the residential six district are the same. Uh there are other dimensional standards such as lot dimensions, accessory structure setbacks and residential districts and building height uh which do vary but the condition is specific to setback so it was removed. So uh here is just uh the typical table that we show. Um, I added detached house and townhouse to both the existing and the proposed zoning just so you can see that the uh front side and rear setbacks are the same in the R six district and also the uh ox district they're asking for. And just as a reminder, the uh their conditions limit the maximum amount of office space that could be built on the property. The request is consistent overall with the comprehensive plan and consistent with the future land use map and it's inconsistent with the urban format. Consistent policies are related to reinforcing the urban pattern, managing commercial development and conserving, enhancing, and revitalizing neighborhoods. Inconsistent policies are related to corridor development and zoning for housing. There are no outstanding issues and your deadline for action is May 10th. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks very much. We have already heard from the applicant and the public, but just so uh I can get a sense. Um by show of hands, would the applicant or members of the public like to provide any additional comments and updates to the case today? Okay. Since we have already received wholesome public comment, we've also read your emails. Um and given the limited nature of the additional conditions, I'll grant um an additional four minutes to each side. So we'll start off with the applicant and those in support. You'll have total of four additional minutes to speak. Good morning members of the commission. I'm Chuck Walker. Uh I appreciate you giving us our extra time. uh Matthew has gone over the revisions of the conditions mostly worth smithing uh as as he had asked specifically for uh map references and such as that we'd have I do want to point out in condition number one even though it was on Matthew's chart condition number one uh specifically excludes town homes. So I just want to make sure that's that's clear. And as far as the uh the the last condition is uh again since our site is only four and a half percent of the water shed any kind of storm water devices that we put on this thing are going to be guided by the UDO but what we have done is we have uh we have made a condition on here that any internal driveways or sidewalks will be uh of pvious pavement to try to minimize uh some of that extra uh some of that uh new uh pavement. Uh what you see here is uh as they say the the best indicator of future future actions is past actions. This is uh this is the uh this is a house that is in Charlotte and it is a model home and design center. And so we just wanted to show the factor that this is kind of what it looks like what Copper Builders has done as far as experience goes. uh we have not specified these uh particular items architecture items in the uh in the case short of massing and stories because as we all know if we start putting up architectural conditions and a paint color changes you're back to a zoning case. So I just wanted to uh let everyone know that we have made the conditions the changes to the conditions that the staff has asked for. if you have any specific stormwater advice. Again, we have Tommy Craraven here if he if you have any specific questions and I'll be glad to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you very much. Are there any other members of the public who'd like to speak in support of this project? Seeing none, we'll move on to the opposition. Those opposed to this case will have an additional four minutes to speak. Morning, council. My name is John Bordon. I live at 112 Edinberg Road. That's a property right straight across from the proposed uh three zoning lots. Uh my actual road of front is actually across from all three of the lots. It's a corner lot that I live on, which is Edinburg and Yarmouth. Uh I've lived at this lot for in maybe 40 years. So kind of the oldest resident at that neighborhood area. So I've seen a lot of changes come and go over the times. And the two issues we've been kind of addressed are the traffic and also storm water. And the first issue with the traffic, uh, there's a lot, Edinburgh is like a little cut through that goes from the shopping center area to Lake Boone to the Budley district. And there's a lot of traffic goes through that and in the morning and the afternoons, you could be as much as a 10-minute wait to access to get on Glenwood Avenue. And we're afraid that with the the new construction coming in, first of all, the construction is going to be a make a nightmare for folks that try to come through. But with an office there, it might increase the uh amount of traffic. Uh, matter of fact, uh, uh, several years ago, I relocated my driveway from the Edinburg to the around the corner lot, which is the Armouth, because I couldn't get in out of my own driveway, and I'm afraid that might be an issue. Uh, the second issue we're kind of looking at is storm water. Uh, one thing that I'm not quite sure how this is going to work. I know that u, copper has proposed on the middle lot, the 107 to be put a parking lot. And I know several years ago the city of Raleigh changed the imperous roof to from 25 to 30%. Not sure what it is. And if you build a parking lot, that's concrete or asphalt and that's not a porous surface. So I'm not sure where all this water is going to run to. There's no absorption for ground area around. So uh we're happy with copper to come in and build. It's it's still zon R six and for them to put a three houses be great. This is a small residential sleeping neighborhood so to speak, but we just kind of oppose the having an office and commercial business and parking lot and hopefully that uh it will stay that way and the council will take a look at and hopefully we can keep it neighborhood like it is. Thanks for your time and everybody have a nice day. Thanks. Good morning. My name is Andy Betts. I live nearby this property on at 409 Yarmouth Road. Um, my primary objection today is going to be about the use of lot 105 as a model home and design center. As noted at your March 11th hearing, uh, this is clearly in opposition to UDO section 6.8.2, which does not allow for temporary model homes except in specified neighborhoods of at least 5 acres and 10 homes. So my question for you is for what reason would the commission decide to override the UDO? There's been no public benefit really offered by copper and whether you agree with the neighbors concerns about traffic and storm water. They still are real issues for the our neighborhood. So why again would you change your own regulations? The commission should really ask themselves what's going on here. There's not another custom home builder in the city of Raleigh that would build a $3 million 7100 square foot home that hangs over Glennwood Avenue. You wouldn't do it. They won't be able to sell it in 10 years. It's not going to happen. So, you got to wonder why. We have other subdivisions that have like uh Bellwood Forest that the Williams Realy built. Uh they had 13 homes in there right off Glennwood. They didn't have a custom home uh or a home center. You got Hoe's Barton Place with hundreds of housing options going up. There is no model home on that site. They put it in a business district up at Five Points. So if you're going to allow this, you're going to run to this in other places, too. So again, I'm going to come back to the question. Why would you agree to this change? Doesn't make sense. there's no benefit to the neighborhood. Build their three homes, lovely three homes. That home, if I remember, is not in a residential spot in Charlotte, but this one's going to be. Thank you very much. Uh we will now turn back to the planning commission for additional questions and comments from the planning commissioners. I would just like to start off um by I'll probably have questions for staff, but just wanted to start off by saying to the neighbors, I I am also your neighbor. I live in this neighborhood. I take this ingress and egress um on Glenwood all the time. I'm very familiar with the issues at peak hours and non- peak hours alike. Um so, we've all read your emails. We take your concerns seriously and as your neighbor, I've also rearch researched these issues with staff as well. So, I want to address some of them. um or all of them here here today with staff. So the first question that came up from both neighbors and from other planning commissioners who've called me is a UDO compliance question. Um there seems to be a a concern that the model home is not permitted in this residential zoning district. And so one thing I wanted to clarify and maybe staff can can add any additional detail, but um this resoning hearing is not a quai judicial hearing to see if the new proposal might be permitted under the current resoning districts. Instead, this is a legislative hearing to see to decide whether this change to the zoning district um to a mixeduse district where a model home would be permitted um is something that the uh planning commission and the city council will see as consistent with our comprehensive plan and um reasonable and in the public interest. Does staff have anything else to add procedurally to that compliance question? Just a little bit more background. So the a model home in the UDO is considered a temporary use. Um and it has certain restrictions on it. So the it has to be a site that's at least 5 acres and uh has to be intended for at least 10 residential units and the use of the office can't have any other retail aspect except for the initial sale or the lease of properties in a certain subdivision. So, this resoning request, which is applying proposing conditions that would allow an office use that they're describing as a model home, um it's it's really an office use. They're calling it a model a model home. The UDO defines a model home or residential sales office more specifically as a temporary use. So, um at least in in this case, as far as the conditions are concerned, they are proposing a time limit of 10 years. Um, as far as I know, that temporary use in the UDO does not have a time limit. Um, but the site that they're working with as well is considerably smaller than what you would typically see a residential sales office in. So, that's just a little bit of additional context for for that. So, while they're describing their use as a model home use, this is actually just an office use effectively. Yes. which is why they're reszoning from a residential to an office mixuse district that could accommodate uh an office used to serve their uh their intent as a design center model home type place meeting place. Thank you. Which leads to the next question that has appeared is about the enforcability of the 10-year limited use. Um there's concern that the 10-year limitation is not enforcable. Could you help lay out this issue for us? Sure, I can pull up the condition. Yeah. So, the way they're proposing it is it would be in place for no more than 10 years. As far as how that would be enforced, um probably be better asked of code enforcement. Um but it would require some coordination with the city as far as tracking that time period. So, we on our last case, we heard an issue about operations um and the enforcability of those operations. When it comes to a prohibited use, if there is is it correct to say that this would be the office use would become a prohibited use after 10 years. Yes. So if it was continued if they continued to use it um as an office, what would the enforcement mechanism be? most likely be a warning followed by some kind of fine. Um, code enforcement would go out to verify if uh the the home was still being used as as a as an office or a having regular meetings, if people were who aren't residents or owners were visiting the site and if they were continuing to use it as an office, it's it just could you explain a little bit more about the enforcement and the fine? I I would have to defer to code enforcement staff because I haven't uh so typically there would be a warning and a specified time for the property owner to bring the property into compliance with allowed use. And then if that did not happen within the specified time for compliance, there would be a regular fine, either a daily or weekly fine that would be imposed until the use was discontinued or the property was otherwise brought into compliance. And is this any different than any other zoning enforcement mechanism for a zoning violation? I would say use prohibited use enforcement is a very basic function of zoning code enforcement. Okay. So this would be enforceable to the extent any other um prohibited use zoning condition is enforceable in the city. That's correct. Thank you. And does that enforceability also apply to the um use of the the parking lot? Yes, it would be a very similar situation. Thank you. So those um glad to hear that those would continue to be those would be enforceable to change that after 10 years. Um I'll just add that the condition which is summarized on the screen uh for that 10-year period is triggered by the issuance of the first certificate certificate of occupancy. So that would be the the starting period for that 10-year duration. Okay. But it is staff's opinion that this is enforceable. Thank you. Yes. Um so, um also I just wanted to note for the traffic in this area, I certainly share the concerns about uh traffic right here. I wanted to note that under the existing resoning or I'm sorry, under the existing entitlement for the existing zoning, eight town houses would be permitted to be built right on these three lots. Is that correct? Approximately. Yes. and those would provide additional driveways and and ingress and egress and and impact from a traffic standpoint. Thank you. Um I I'll just say as a neighbor, I would be concerned about eight town houses going in in this location. Um that would be permanent. I think ultimately in 10 years three single family homes uh would be a a good outcome on this lot on these three lots and less intensive than the current entitlement. So that was one thing that um I was encouraged to see. So other questions and comments from our commissioners. Yes, Commissioner Fox. I just wanted to clarify one item to well I'm lying two items to make sure I understood it fully. So the conditions limit the building which would be on the 105 parcel to a home. Correct. So the the condition as written says that uh uses shall be shall not be allowed other than single unit living exclusive of town homes, office and parking facility only. Okay, that that helps me. And then um the other question, the way that is worded, does that limit the ability of a future owner from having um an accessory dwelling unit? I'll have to think about that for a little bit. I don't think so because these are primary principal uses that they're prohibiting. Okay, thank you. That helps. I mean for that reason the um the increase in density is actually quite limited and then the limitations that are put on the parcel in question um which would have a limited commercial use on it um are not significantly impactful um in my opinion based on what could currently be built there tomorrow. Um so for that reason I'm I'm in support of this. Thank you. Commissioner Mkay question just so because I know I'm new here so I just want to understand. So this is like five acres. Um are there homes there currently? No. So this is five acres that's basically tree land tree space that this is less than an acre. Less than an acre. Three/4ers of an acre. 3/4 of an acre. Yeah. And it could hold eight town homes. But they're proposing building one giant model home that would be used as an office for 10 years. For 10 years, but then after that 10 years, they would then have to sell the model home, the one lot model, I mean the one spot model home. They would just have to convert the use from office space to residential to residential. Okay. Um and it so ultimately based on the conditions there would be three single family homes on the site. One at 105 Edinburghough which would temporarily be a model home until that 10-year period is up and then 107 and 109 would also have single family homes built on them. So that the narrative of the conditions uh would require that parking facility, eight space parking facility that serves the office use to be converted into a single family home after the expiration of that 10-year period. The parking space. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions from commissioners? So to run through two quick storm water, I noticed the new requirement for pvious um surfaces for the for the parking lot. Could you help us ex could you explain what that means? I will defer to storm water staff I believe for that um and possibly the applicant for some context about why they included that condition. Want to start? Sure. Sure. Uh thank you. Uh the parking one more time the parking lot is temporarily tied to the design center at 105. It is conditioned to a maximum of eight parking spaces. It also is conditioned to pvious pavement on that parking lot. And then we added the internal driveways and parking lots for all the properties will be pvious. The the way the uh the way the slope goes now is all three of those lots drain to Glenwood Avenue and would ultimately be caught in the drainage uh ditch of Glenwood Avenue and moved and uh moved to the south. I understand there have been some uh discussions about doing some general improvements to Glennwood Avenue. This would be part of it. Again, it's only four and a half% of the total drainage area. So, there's not much that we can do that actually affects uh affects that area. So, I just wanted to make sure that we were clear on those items. If you have any other questions, I'll be glad to answer. Thank you. May I ask Sally to um address what does it mean for to have a pvious surface parking lot? Sally Hoy Rally storm water. uh a permeable or pvious pavement is actually uh defined by the state. Uh it has some specific requirements including a soil test and so it would um for 90% of the storms the run the raintorms that occurred the water would infiltrate in the ground. Now, in a really big, you know, hurricane, it would not all be able to infiltrate, but it would um handle those most frequent, you know, afternoon thunderstorm type of things for 90% of storms. Yes. And do you agree that the water drains onto Glenwood and not into the neighborhood? I don't have enough information at this point to say. I would I would definitely agree with that. For 105, I for um 109, I don't have enough information to say. Thank you. And under the existing entitlement, are the driveways required to be permeable? No. Okay. So, this would be a new storm water condition for That's correct. Thank you. I I also, if if I may, um wanted to share there was um at the at the previous commission meeting, there was uh somebody talking about the drainage issues further south on um is it Camden Woods Way, I believe. Uh the city is actually in the process of designing a drainage improvement project along Lake Boon Trail from Edinburgh to Glenwood. Thank you. And one final question for staff about um the potential public benefit. Could you clarify if these are built um what the sidewalk improvements might be along Edinburgh? So staff discussed this internally after the last meeting and so uh the determination of whether a site will have uh public improvements is based on the tier of the site plan. Uh so a tier something that triggers a tier three would require public improvements um including sidewalks. But in this case, uh, since the only uses that would be permitted are effectively single unit living and, um, you know, office space/model home. Um, those would likely be interpreted as a tier one site plan. So that would not require uh, public sidewalk improvements. Thank you. Any other comments from commissioners? So, at this point, I'm inclined to um agree with Commissioner Fox. The the potential um density under the current zoning would again be eight town houses that I think would be more problematic in this area than three ultimately three single family homes. And I was glad to hear that the 10-year use limitation for one of the units to be in office um is enforceable. So, for those reasons, I'm also in support. Any other comments from commissioners? Commissioner Peer. Yeah. Yeah. I I don't think I can support this case um because of inconsistency stated by staff. I mean mainly we talk a lot about housing choice and housing supply. I know this would only take out one part of one unit essentially. Um I just don't like and I do really appreciate all the thoughtful conditions particularly the pvious driveways and sidewalks. which we saw that more. But, uh, this is a tough one for me, but I just don't I don't like the idea of having model homes and the precedent it could set to have model homes popping up in neighborhoods. Um, and and yeah, and I think the parking lot gives me pause, too. I just if that wasn't a part of it, I might think about it differently. Um, but I think the president sets is a little odd and it runs a little counter to what we talk about here in our comp plan pretty regularly. So I think I'm have to vote against it for that reason. Okay. Commissioner Cochran. Yeah. And I'm leaning toward voting against this as well because I don't see the benefit of reszoning site 109. If you're going to build a singly single family home there and that's intended to be the use u for a long time, why reszone it? Um, why not exclude that from the request? It's a good question. Would the applicant like to respond? I'm sorry. Could you reiterate that question? Sure. Why are you requesting to reszone 109 if the intention is to put a single family home on it? We we were doing the uh the reszoning case because all three lots are currently owned by copper builders and we felt that because of the string of office zoning that runs for dozens and dozens of blocks on Glenwood Avenue for consistency sake. We wanted to have the uh for example the dentist office next door is an is an ox3. So we didn't want to have an ox3 R six ox3. So we just want and since it was the commonality of the ownership that's why we did it and that's why in the conditions we specifically say that that is going to be even though it will have office zoning it will be a single family house on an existing single family lot but the intent is to sell that property right it's not to keep it as a group there the intention as I understood for 109 is to build a single family home and then sell that to a private owner so yes it would only be temporarily ly owned by the applicant. The conditions say that that all three uh all three of those lots will grow up and be a single family house. Uh 10 uh the only the only delay on 107 is to provide parking for 105 because we didn't want any uh uses on 105 to require on street parking because we knew of the traffic uh issues on Inborough. So again, the owner has all three lots. So, we wanted to make sure all three lots were conditioned equally. So, it's it'll ultimately be three single family houses on ex on three existing single family lots. Just to clarify, 109 will be zoned ox with a condition that it is required to be residential with residential setbacks. Yes. Okay. To further belabor that one, I think it's a question for staff. So if someone wanted that to be in office 101 15 years from now, they would need to reszone it. Okay. Thank you. So it's a strange thing we haven't seen, but it's in fact enforceable such that the development will actually be consistent with R six on 109. Okay. Um other questions from commissioners. Sorry, just just one more clarifying question on that point. It couldn't be office, but it could be commercial on site. No, it's conditioned specifically for a single family house. Okay. And under the current R six, it actually could be town houses. Correct. Okay. I'm asking because I thought the condition, let me get back. I thought the condition said just office use was limited to 10 years not only but the only allowed office use is the model home and sales office on 105. Yeah. Okay. And also just to address that I did not before the office use on 105 is at the corner of Glenwood and Edinburg. It's a challenging lot um in any case and it is adjacent next door on Glenwood to an apartment complex with a large parking lot and um a commercial um dentist office. So that is further why I thought that lot in particular um was appropriate certainly for temporary office space that later converted to single family home as opposed to providing that use deeper inside of a neighborhood. I'm sorry. And just for context, I just want the commission to understand that the maximum square footage that we're asking for is less than the space this table takes in total. Thank you very much. Thank you. Helpful. Um, other comments from commissioners. With that, I will entertain a motion. Commissioner Fox. I. In regards to case Z1924, I move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated March 25th, 2025 contained in the agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. Thank you. Do we have a second? Commissioner has seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Those opposed? That's which one did you Oh, I'm abstaining. I don't understand enough about the issue. Okay. So, four to two to one. Um, not abstaining due to a conflict. Just Okay. I have questions but just remaining questions at this time. Thank you. And for those that are opposed, is there anything additional you'd like to site on the record as your reason for opposition or have you already covered it? My previous comment about Thank you for confirming those. Okay, that motion passes 4 to two to one. Um, thank you to everyone for your engagement on this case. Madam Chair, yes. May I request a leave of absence for the R remaining of this meeting? Yes. Acknowledge we will continue to have a quorum. So thank you excused. Moving on to our next item, agenda item C3, reszoning case Z4724 at 2500 Barwell Road. for this item. The commission has already received a full staff presentation, applicant presentation, and heard from the public. So, our focus today will be on any updates or changes to the case since our last meeting. Yes. And we will now turn to Matthew Barrens for a presentation from city planning staff. Hello again. Uh, this case last appeared on your March 11th agenda. Uh, and your deadline for action is May 10th. Just a reminder that the site is south of Pool Road along Barwell Road. It's approximately just under 44 acres in size. So, the uh conditions that are unchanged are uh prohibit certain uses that are otherwise allowed, prohibit the apartment building type, limit residential development to no more than 125 units, and prohibit any residential development north of Walnut Creek. But the applicant has proposed three new conditions. Uh the first of which would require uh any townhouse buildings that are immediately abuing the southwestern boundary line uh to have a minimum sideyard setback of 10 ft and uh they included an exhibit with their uh conditions in order to show where the where the conditions apply. Uh similarly, any townhouse buildings that are immediately budding properties along the southern boundary line would have a minimum regard setback of 30 ft. And uh the applicant's also offering a condition that would require a dedication of at least 3 acres of TCA south of Walnut Creek, so in the developable uh area. It's a reminder that uh the request represents a modest increase in entitlement uh but the units would be clustered uh south of Walnut Creek and the Walnut Creek Greenway on the site. The request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and consistent with the future land use map. Consistent policies are related for uh to uh more compact development and zoning for housing and inconsistent policies are related to fire service response. There are no outstanding issues and your deadline for action is May 10th. Uh please let me know if you have any questions. I I'll also note that at the last meeting, Commissioner Otwell had some questions about the lift station nearby and believe public utility staff is here if if you have any specific questions about that. Okay, thank you very much. We have already received um we've already heard from the applicant and from the public. Um, but just so I can get a sense by show of hands, would the applicant or members of the public like to speak on any updates to this case today? Yep, we have at least we have a couple. All right. In that case, we will um all lot an additional four minutes to both sides. We'll start with public comment for those in support. The applicant and those in favor have a total of four minutes to speak. Good afternoon, planning commissioners. Worth Mills with Longleaf Law Partners here on behalf of Marlo and Moy LLC. Uh Howard Moy with Marlo and Moy LLC is here as is Peter Kasan, our lead engineer. So at the March 11th meeting, we got substantial feedback from both uh Dr. Lane and from the commissioners. There was the request to defer so we could present to the Southeast CAC. There were questions about traffic, specifically existing traffic on Barwell Road. the bottleneck at the Walnut Creek Bridge, the extension of Brandy Crest Drive and disturbance to Brandy Crest residents, potential safety issues with the proposed Brandy Crest Drive extension and the Barwell Road intersection. Uh we talked about environmental issues, uh potential flooding along Walnut Creek, transitions from the adjacent single family communities, and the location of tree conservation area for any subdivision plan. So, first I just want to go to the Brandy Crest Drive extension question. There was comment at that March 11th meeting that Brandy Crest Drive uh is narrow and it lacks uh sidewalks. Um Brandy Crest Drive is a public ride ofway. It's uh platted as being 50 ft wide and it does have sidewalk on the south side of Brandy Drive. That sidewalk extends on Brandy until you get to a gusta away to the west. Um, the narrowest street that the city of Raleigh has in its street typology is the neighborhood Yield Street, which is a 55 foot ride ofway with sidewalks on both sides. So, I say all that to say, we think that extending Brandy Crest into our site, we will have a consistent street type. We're just going to have sidewalks on both sides of the street rather than sidewalk on the south side of the street only. And I'll note too that the UDO does require us uh to extend Brandy Crest Drive into our property pursuant to UDO section 8.3.4.6.5. So we we have the requirement to extend it. We have a street type that is consistent with what is in place today. And I wanted to touch on the location of tree conservation area and the intent of the tree conservation area regulations themselves. So, we have offered a condition that would require at least 3 acres of TCA on the south side of Walnut Creek. If this entire site is developed under a subdivision plan, meaning taking all of the land north and south of the creek, then we would be dedicating approximately 75% at least 75% of our required TCA on the side of Walnut Creek on which we're developing. Um, if we if the applicant subdivides uh this lot north and south, then we're still required to dedicate three acres of TCA south of Walnut Creek, and that will exceed the 10% UDO minimum. Um, I'll also note again, we're prohibiting development on the north side of Walnut Creek, so all of those trees have no reason uh to be disturbed either. Um so so we think between the prohibition on development north of Walnut Creek, the requirement to dedicate TCA on the south side of Walnut Creek, we are establishing um good environmental natural resource buffers from Walnut Creek. We are uh maintaining uh a uh wildlife corridor for uh existing wildlife in the area uh to travel along Walnut Creek. Um, and so we think those are all very good public benefits. Um, and we we did talk at that last meeting about locating TCA kind of in the 12 to 13 acres of area that that we can develop on and that we can build homes on. Um, but in reading the language in the UDO, the intent of TCA regulations is to preserve tree coverage, mature trees, and natural resource buffers. and it's to lessen development impacts on surrounding properties. And if you analyze the primary and secondary tree conservation areas in section 9.1.4A and B, the UDA prioritizes locating TCA on the periphery of property. It's either thoroughare yards or perimeter buffer yards or natural resource buffer yards. So very rarely and and really nowhere in the UDO does it say we want this centralized within a developable area. Uh and so even if the development were to dedicate the three acres of TCA that's required within the 100red-year flood plane or within the flood way, this is still meeting the intent of the TCA regulations as they're written today. And as mentioned, we also increase the setbacks to adjacent communities if these or if this property is developed for town homes. uh we are requiring that those townhouse developments maintain the same side and rear yard setbacks that a single family detached home would have to maintain in the existing R4 district. So wanting to make sure that we are uh maintaining compatibility with surrounding developments. And here's a look at the the updated conditions. Conditions five and six relate to the side and rear yard. Condition seven relates to that TCA placement. So just to summarize, we are consistent with the future land use map. We're consistent with the comprehensive plan. We're consistent with all but two applicable comprehensive plan policies, both of which deal with fire response time. And that will be dealt with at the annexation stage. This develop this request is compatible with the surrounding area, the additional zoning conditions, address that compatibility, and strengthen environmental protections along Walnut Creek. And for those reasons, we think that this case is reasonable and in the public interest. happy to answer any questions uh and appreciate your time this afternoon or this morning. Thank you. Thanks very much. Are there any other members of the public who'd like to speak in support of this project? And seeing none, we will move it on to public comment for those in opposition. Those opposed to this case will have a total of four minutes to speak. Um commission members. Thank you for your um my name is Kirsten Irish. I appreciate your time and patience with me as um my civic duties um pretty much extended to me being a voter um to this point. Um but this is a very important issue to me. I'm in um I don't know if I can point to it on the screen. I'm in a property directly adjacent to the resoning area. Obviously, there are a lot of concerns considering construction, the development of the area. It's very It's obviously a lot of trees. It's very rocky and hilly. Um, one of the reasons that my partner and I chose this property was because we like to look outside and see trees and wildlife and kind of and have a peaceful um area to live in. So, um, that's that's a a major concern of mine. I and my family have lived along the Barwell Road area for probably 10 years or more now. And with recent developments, there's a development that is still occurring between um Barwell Road and Rock Corey Road. And that is adding to the already I I feel um bloated population. And I'm concerned that existing infrastructures um in the area uh do not currently support the existing population. And adding to that um increases um safety concerns as well as um contributing to um infrastructure issues as well. We have a speaking for our property alone, I know we have an issue with the storm water drain that we are in we have been in constant communication with the city of Raleigh and nothing has happened about that. So I'm wondering what kind of resources um are available to existing residents and properties um that would be strained given an additional an additional property um in addition the safe for to safety issues. I'm sorry, I'm going a little over my time. Um, Barwell Road is a very busy only two-lane road and in recent months there have been multiple pedestrian instance and I know at least one has been a fatality. Um there aren't sidewalks along ex along Barwell Road there. Uh and I believe an additional population um would contribute to potential further safety issues. Um those are the big ones for me at this time. Thank you. Would you mind stating your name again for the clerk? Sure. Um my name is Kirsten Irish. Thank you. Uh thank you commission for allowing us time. I've got a minute and something. Um let's see if I can get through this. Um Dr. Lane um Ulissiz Lane and chair of the uh Brandywood Subdivision Neighborhood Association and Southeast CAC. And since the last meeting, some of the things have been touched on, but let me see if I can highlight a few of them so that we don't miss them during our uh discussion. Of course, the traffic and safety issues, and one of the main things, of course, was the road that was going to come into barwell. We understand from last time that the state is involved with approving that road and we really want to couldn't say yes to this till we know what that impact is going to be because of the curve and the traffic uh around Barwell into that road. Also the lift station uh odor uh issue still to be addressed. um we've worked with them for a long time, but we also would like to know what are the limitations on the quality of air tests for those odors for residents living in that area and how is that maintained. And then we also uh want to look at the flooding zone with some of that has been addressed. So for trust and transparency, uh we need a little bit more information before residents can really say they're for or against this in addition to some of the other things that I brought up last time. Thank you. Uh turning it back to the table for additional comments, questions from our commissioners who'd like to start us. Question. Yes, Commissioner. Alo, would a prohibition against a daycare center, does that prohibit a resident from obtaining a special use permit to operate a daycare out of their home in an R10 district? I'd have to look at how the condition is worded. If it's if they're describing prohibited principal uses, I think a special use permit for an inhome daycare would be allowed because that would be considered an accessory use and not a principal use. Thank you. And while you had stepped away, they said public utility staff was here to address a question you may have presented at the last meeting if you still had um those as well. Yes. Oh well, maybe I'll just go ahead and turn back to staff. See if you can address that question. I believe it was uh Commissioner O'Hafer who had been who who had mentioned the capacity of the lift station. Um and since Dr. Lane had brought up uh please questions about odor at the site and having worked with the city in the past. I'm sorry, what was that last part? So at the last meeting, Dr. Lane had brought up the odor at the lift station. Um, and I believe commissioner had asked uh for some more context about the lift station and its capacity and in context of a new residential residential development on the property. So, we have public utilities here to answer that. Thank you. Yeah, if we could have that additional information. Good morning, Jonathan Ham, Raleigh Water. Um, in regards to this particular parcel and its direction of flow, um, and also the size of the developments proposed, um, the tie-in point for them is not going to go to the, uh, Walnut Creek lift station that's adjacent. Um, and also the the gravity sewer mains that cross the frontage on Barwell Road are, uh, it's twin 72in pipes. So, we don't typically allow for a uh direct connection to those pipes. So, there would have to likely be some other way that the flow is conveyed to get it around uh and connect to our system. Uh I believe staff had made the comment that it would be uh connected to the west, but again, once we have a plan set, we can we can work with them to determine that. um as far as the impact to to the lift station and to the system, we analyze those the the individual impacts with each development as they come forward. So with 125 units that crosses the threshold for what we call a downstream sewer analysis and so the engineer would have to um look at their impact to the existing downstream gravity and mitigate that impact whether it be through upgrades to our system or going a different direction. Um, as far as addressing odor at the Walnut Creek lift station, I I'll reach out to our operation staff and try and get them in touch with you. Um, but it is the largest lift station we have in our system. Um, at Crabtree Creek and the Noose River pump station that's at the resource recovery facility are the three largest that we have. And so it conveys a a a tremendous amount of flow. Um it is essentially a flow matching station which means it's flow in flow out and so there are no concerns at this time with capacity of the lift station but we are constantly trying to work on odor to reduce it especially when it's in a neighborhood area. Um it's just the the nature of the business is it's not it's not odorless unfortunately. Thank you. Um other comments from commissioners on that or other topics? Uh yeah, this is for Mr. Mills. Thank you for condition number seven there. Um I appreciate you putting that south of Walnut Creek. I think that that quills most of my concerns about it. think um one other thing I have and I apologize for not raising this in the last time we heard this but it it kind of got by me was um my question is about number four um where you said you will pro prohibit development north of Walnut Creek. However, utilities would be allowed north of Walnut Creek. And I think my concern there is having utilities built that would cross the creek. And we recently saw that on the news uh around Anderson Point Park. And I know, you know, it happens from time to time. Seems like in a watershed like that, it could severely uh severely hamper water quality and cause all kinds of other things. I was wondering if when this got to council level if you all cons would consider prohibiting or putting in some kind of language or condition that would prohibit utilities crossing the creek. Yeah, I'm happy to speak with public utilities about that. I think what I was trying to accomplish there was to make sure that the city was not in some awkward position where if they wanted to make improvements to the greenway or whatever other sort of capital improvement projects they may want to do on the north side of Walnut Creek that we didn't create a zoning condition that somehow got in their way. We don't have any intention of doing anything with the north side of Walnut Creek. So again, if the city's fine with prohibiting or or having some language that prohibits the crossing of Walnut Creek and they don't see any issue with that in their future plans, then it it doesn't make a difference to us. Thank you. Other comments from commissioners? I have a couple. Yes. Um again, bear with me. One, I do live in this area. uh near Barwell Road and Rock Quarry. And once you cross New Hope, it is two lanes of traffic, one each way. And it is hard like once uh traffic gets started, it's hard to get off side streets. It's hard to for pedestrians to cross into it. So that is a concern for me. adding 200 I mean 125 new units that without us having an expansion of that road could cause a lot of congestion and traffic in that area and cause more um weight on the rest of the area going down Rock Corey Road. My other question that I do have just for my own edification is of the 125 units is there any affordable units? Yes, thank you. We have not included a condition for affordable units in this case. Um it is not uncommon uh when I have resoning cases in city in in the southeast CAC where people specifically do not want more affordable like quote unquote affordable units. They are looking for additional market rate housing to build off of their existing neighborhoods. Um, so, so I don't know if I'd have to go back in my notes from the neighborhood meetings that we had to see if that was ever specifically stated in this particular case that there was a desire not to have affordable units included in this project. But I can tell you that I I get it quite frequently um in Southeast Raleigh when folks say we we don't want new affordable housing next to us. We want market rate housing next to us. Uh and so that would be the plan here is for for sale um market rate town homes or single family homes. That part hasn't yet been determined by the the the applicant whether they think it's more suitable for town homes or or for single family, but their intention is to sell these homes and have them market rate for sale product. That's interesting. I guess it depends on who you talk to about who wants affordability. My my other question is, is there any possibility that the Walnut Creek Trail that crosses over the plot the 40 some odd acres plot of land could ever become privatized because of the ownership of the land? Could the greenway be privatized? The city has a greenway easement over the the land. So, they have continuous use and enjoyment of the area within that greenway easement. So, it's private land, but it's a publicly it's a public access easement for members of the public to walk on the greenway. Awesome. And of the 40 some odd acres, only 12 eight probably about 12 to 13 acres is developable. It's outside of the um 100year flood plane on the south side. But you're looking to resone the whole 40 some odd acres. Why is that? Well, it if you want to reszone a portion of a property, you've got to go out and get a survey of the land that you want to reszone. Since this area north of Walnut Creek is zoned for manufactured housing and almost exclusively in the floodway or the flood plane, we thought it made a lot of sense to reszone the entirety of the parcel, get it all under one common zoning district, and then prohibit development north of Walnut Creek, which is a little bit more environmentally sensitive than the southside is. Okay. And that's in the conditions. The one of the conditions is to prohibit residential development north of Walnut Creek. Okay. And you give us a specific amount of acreage that that prohibition is on. We we've just called it out as north of Walnut Creek. There will not be any residential development. Okay. But it's like no amount. You're just saying north of Walnut Creek. It's prohibited. Okay. within our within our site boundaries. I can't speak for any anybody else's property north of Walnut Creek, but but within the the four corners of this property, anything north of Walnut Creek is not going to be developed for residential uses or commercial uses. We can't do commercial uses. And with that Walnut Creek area being considered a flood zone, like level one and two flood zone. And we know that a lot of the removal of the trees is what's causing some of the flood. And that's going to happen when you redevelop this uh part of the project for residential use. Is there any ideas around mitigating an increased flood uh area of the part that's being developed? So we are not allowed to fill or locate new buildings anywhere within the 100redyear flood plane. So anywhere that's shaded pink um is an area in which I don't mean that area I mean like below that where you are developing there has to be removal of trees and I think one of the residents said that it's a hilly rocky area so of course water was going to flow in the direction of the gravity pool right so once there's no trees there to absorb the water but there's going to be houses there is there a possibility that those houses may then start to flood I I don't foresee that happening. Um, we're still going to have a tremendous amount of trees and and tree coverage between new homes and Walnut Creek just by nature of our TCA condition requiring 3 acres on the south side of Walnut Creek, the required zone 2 noose river buffer, that's a primary tree conservation area. And and I'll just say as well, if there's if there's no benefit to the developer to cut a tree down, they're not going to cut it down. That's just more money that they have to spend that doesn't provide any benefit to them in terms of grading or clearing a site for new development. So, I don't foresee this as as being some clear cutting of the south side of Walnut Creek all the way up to to zone two of the the Noose River buffer. They're going to do just as much as they need to do to build their community and everything else is going to remain undisturbed and three acres of that will be perpetually undisturbed because of that TCA condition. I'm more so meaning the 12 acres that's going to be cleared. Is there anything that's going to be done because a lot of and I'm not trying to uh belabor the point, but I know that there's a lot of development that's happening and it is only clearing trees for the development that's being built, but those removal of trees, especially with the landscape is causing more flooding in the residential areas. So, is there going to be things that are going to mitigate potential flooding in the areas that's being cleared for the town homes? Understood. So, we we we will have to abide by the city's regulations on storm water and storm water mitigation. the and Sally's here, so if I mess anything up, she can absolutely correct me, but um the development is going to have to be able to handle and treat storm water from a 2-year and a 10-year storm the same way that the site treats storm water for a 2-year and a 10-year storm pre-development. So there are regulations that we have to abide by that says for a 2-year and the 10-year storm, we have to design storm water facilities that capture, treat, and discharge water at the same rate that the property does in its natural state. So, while we are cutting trees in that 12 to 13 acres to locate the homes, we we also have to design a storm water facility to um account for that storm water runoff and then get it uh safely into Walnut Creek. Okay. If I may, since storm water staff is so close to the podium, um to help address some of these these good questions, these type of questions often come up when with development of land that that is currently um undeveloped, right? So, could you help describe the um tree conservation and storm water requirements of the current development entitlement versus the proposed? May I add to that as well? Yeah. and also if there are limitations or not to impervious. Yes. So I I will start with that one. Um so given the size of this parcel, there's no specific impervious area restriction. Those we only have specific impervious area restrictions for parcels that are 1 acre or less. Um so under both the current zoning and the proposed zoning the storm water regulations would be the same. Um so as Mr. Mill said they would we have a regulation around runoff rate control and so that's the amount of water flowing through pipes and channels or the the rate at which it flows through it. Um so you can think of it as if if it fit in the channel now it should fit in the channel later it might flow for a longer period of time. So um that and and typically for a green field development like this where they're cutting down trees they have to build storm water control measures to achieve that objective. We also have a requirement for water quality and so and it's around uh nitrogen and so the amount of nitrogen leaving the site is limited to a certain threshold and that means that in addition to those rate controls the site has to install something that either um allows pollutants to settle or filters them out or something like that. Um, and then if they were to go into the area's designated flood plane, there's there's a lot of additional rules that kick in, um, including having to study whether there would be any any increase in the flood elevations uh, either upstream or downstream. Thank you. So, yes, often when think when a site is undeveloped, the temptation is to compare the current lack of development with the proposed resoning. But um we also have to acknowledge that under the existing zoning that's R4 and manufactured housing, they would be entitled to build today. And so that's why we often compare what's entitled the entitlement today and the controls for storm water or tree conservation as opposed to what's proposed. Um and I believe that we include the applicant is including additional tree conservation areas um that do not exist under the proposed under the current zoning as well. So um to address some of those issues and on the affordable housing piece also I just want to acknowledge a great great question um that comes up frequently and one of the con one of the policies at the city and also at the national level is actually to avoid um concentrating affordable housing in any one specific area especially if it um and and in southeast Raleigh um just because it's come up correct me if I'm wrong I don't want speak for anyone in particular, but one of the bigger picture concerns is we don't want all of our affordable housing to be concentrated in southeast Raleigh. We really need to be spreading that out um throughout the city. So, if that's what the applicant has been hearing from the Southeast CAC, that's consistent with what um we've been hearing and then also with the federal policies with respect to where you concentrate affordable housing. Anything else to add from our CAC chair? Yes. If you're not hearing that from the Southeast CAC, he said he told thing about Yep. very open to it's a good question about affordable housing and how it's going to be distributed in Raleigh because it's like oh some people confuse with lowincome housing but the understanding and education of people of of the different value of housings in a neighborhood mixed from top to bottom and how that works. And so this discussion about bringing down the the val, you know, take Oldtown that we work with them on. They have apartments, they have town houses, they have single family homes, they have senior level, they have a mixed use of individuals in that neighborhood. So whether you're in a large operation or small, that same consideration should be given. And that's where you have to start. Not that one person is saying what that means, you know, to look at that. Sure. So, I just wanted to respond to that that I'm sure you said that it was someone that you talked to. The Southeast CAC as a whole doesn't say that. So, I just want to clear that. And other thing on the odor that I do want to mention with staff so that you all hear the same thing. I'm a retired veterinarian. What odor comes from something. If this odor is coming from sulfur, then there's a public health concern. And see, if you don't understand that, it's like I lived in Pennsylvania around Three Mile Island. There was radiation and over long periods of time, people were impacted by that and then later on caused a public health problem. Does this sulfur odor cause a public health problem that has not been monitored? So, see, you don't understand that until somebody starts looking at that. So if there is a national or state level of safety for public health for this odor and sulfur that needs to be aware of and is monitored, that's what we want to know. If it's not, could it be a future value? So these are things overall that somebody at least has to mention and staff has to at least and we work with them on that, but it wasn't mentioned here. Great question. Thank you. Um I also have that question. Could public utilities address whether this sulfur and odor is something that's studied or regulated for the public health impacts. So I I can partially address it. Normally this is more on the operation side of the house. Um and I'm more on the the development of the permitting side. Um, as far as air quality, we do comply with all of our um, state permits and EPA permits related to air quality. Um, as far as the um, odor control at Walnut Creek, hold on. Um, we have a biot trickling tower that's on site. It works really well. Um but um we're we're working on repairs to some of the other pieces because we're pulling negative pressure off of the sewer to try and get what what he's mentioning is hydrogen sulfide gas which is the the the rotten egg smell that we typically have that comes from our larger lift stations. um hydrogen sulfide gas when it comes into contact with air and water becomes H2S04 or um sulfuric acid and eats um components of our system. So we're we're trying to we want to get it out of our system as much as everyone else wants to not have it around them either. So we're we're certainly trying to mitigate it. The biotickling filter uh that we have there is trying to utilize um organics to eat that hydrogen sulfide. So, it's just a matter of the quantity um coming out of the system um and the nature of it. So, we certainly are going to work with you. I' I've got your contact information and we're going to have our staff reach out. So, that hydrogen sulfide gas that is something that is regulated by the state and the EPA and presumably studied and and this is something that the city is also looking at addressing those standards. Yeah, we have we have several odor studies that we've done throughout our system. Um, and most of them are complaint driven and so we do try and make sure that we're addressing them as quickly as we can. And is there a history of complaints in this area? We we've dealt with I think a number of those complaint issues. We're just again we're trying to tackle it as best we can with the biot trickling and and with pulling negative pressure to get the the air out, bring fresh air in. Thank you. Um I you know remain concerned always about these types of environmental environ environmental justice issues in this area and others. um if we are complying with what is required at the state and federal levels then we are if those levels are something that need to be changed um unfortunately that's above my pay grade here at the planning commission but um I'm glad that we're looking at it and Dr. Lane, thank you for addressing it. Um, if we need to continue to look at it, please, you know, I'm not exactly sure who again above my pay grade a bit, but to present it at the city council level would probably be worthwhile as well. So, thank you. Um, other comments and questions from our commissioners, Commissioner Cochran. So, I want to ask a question about the safety concerns on Barnwell Road. I've I'm hearing that there is a lot of traffic concession as well as um some safety issues for pedestrians. Just so that we all understand the process here, um say for example, a turning lane would be needed to get people in and out of this neighborhood more easily. At what point in the process of approval would that um be negotiated or would a traffic study be done? Good morning, Plane Commission. Carter Robertson with uh transportation. Um, first I just wanted to address someone mentioned that there was recently a fatality along Barwell Road. We have our vision zero group in transportation and they investigate every traffic related fatality across the city to see if there's anything that could be done to mediate those uh safety concerns. So, just wanted to go ahead and address that. Um, another thing that was mentioned, I'm sorry, I'll try to get to your direct question. Um, was the safety coming out of the site in this proposed location. Um, we talked to NC DOT. Um, they said to grant access, they would need to see that site distance requirements are met. And so what that means is they require in this case in these circumstance a 480 ft undisturbed line of sight from the access point. And that's what my line right there is showing. And so I'll let the applicant speak to this a little bit more, but it's my understanding that they've also talked with NC DOT about this and they're pursuing an easement for that uh sighteline clearance with uh Raleigh Real Estate and Raleigh Water who owns that property. A lot of safety things. Uh your your direct question was about should there be a turning lane on Barwell when that would happen in the process. My question yes is um so you know right now we're trying to decide whether or not we can add more density here and we're already hearing that maybe the infrastructure can't handle the existing density. So to responsibly densify this, which is a goal, right? We want some density, we want more housing, but um you know, are we creating a worse problem? And at what point in this process is there a stop gap to make sure that someone either the city or the property owner is on the hook to fix it before we just let this happen and then wait a while to to upgrade the infrastructure. With regards to this zoning case and its particular effects, I believe most of those conversations would happen as development progresses. Um, as I said, we've already been meeting with NC DOT about this with our development review team. Those conversations will continue to determine what's best for this particular site. Um, in terms of Barwell Road as a whole, um, there was a widening project just south of here. I think we'd have to have some larger conversations about traffic impacts along the corridor and that that would depend on how those conversations go. Okay. Does that answer all of your questions about safety? I think so. Kind of. I yeah I think I understand the process. Other questions from the planning commission? Is that Commissioner Fox? I just uh it may it's a question for staff. I just wanted to be clear. Currently permissible are 122 units. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. That's the estimated entitlement of what could be built on site today. Oh, okay. So, it's just a delta of three. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Other comments with commissioners? Commissioner Awell. Um, I'd like to address the pedestrian safety issue a little bit. In in general, I feel that the widening of roads has a negative effect on pedestrian safety, and I'm generally opposed to widening roads before there is a demonstrated need for it. Um, if the projected development does not go through, we're left with a wider, faster road. and uh it tends to induce traffic as well, brings more traffic in when you build larger roads. Um so I'm I'm okay with the traffic situation, I don't like it. I realize that it's dangerous and there needs to be uh improvements done, but the kind of improvements that could be done by the developer are not likely to enhance safety. they're likely to be uh address uh through flow issues, get the cars through faster, in and out faster, and not really enhance safety in the larger sense, especially with regards to pedestrians. Um I think that this proposal is it it's compliant with the comp plan. It's compliant with the future land use map. It preserves a significant amount of forest space and it generally offered some thoughtful conditions. and I'll be prepared to support it when it's time to propose a uh a uh time for a motion. Sure. Ready to ready to support. Thank you. Any other comments? Then I will entertain a motion. I'm looking for it. I got it up. Sure. Great. All right. With regards to Z4724, I move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated March 25th, 2025 contained in the agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. Second Fox is seconded. Any further discussion on this item? And with that, all those in favor? Any opposed? That motion passes five to zero five to one, excuse me. Thank you very much. Commissioner Omakaya, would you like to state your reason on the record? Uh, like I said, I live in that area and it's it's it's already packed and a lot of traffic. We do need more affordability. I know that's not something that we can force as a as a um planning commission. Um, I am concerned about storm water. I am concerned about the extra flooding in the area. as a person that lives close to this area and has talked to many people and has gone to uh CAC meetings and had these conversations about the concerns of the development that's going on around in the area. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll make sure to add that um to the record. Um, moving on to our next item, item C4 in the agenda, the recommendation on modification of neighborhood conservation overlay districts. Um, this for this item, the strategic planning committee has studied and discussed a potential recommendation to city council um in order to address past issues that the city and its citizens have faced with respect to the process of amending an NCOD. Uh, Committee Chair Fox presented this topic at a previous planning commission meeting, which is why it appears on old business. However, we have not heard a staff presentation or public comment at the planning commission level for this item. So, while this is not a reasonzoning case or text change subject to our standard public hearing procedures, um, and this topic has been discussed in open meetings at strategic planning, um, we are going to address this with a full staff presentation today. So with that, we will turn to Hannah Reau for a presentation from city planning staff. Sure. Good morning. Hannah Reau, planning and development. So, the chair just mentioned this item is is on your agenda stemming from the February 25th meeting where the strategic planning committee chair um partially reported out discussions about NCOD's um and um could deliver the potential uh recommendation the commission could make um to um the city council for for revisions to the NCOD process. So I've got some background um about that discussion um and some of the items discussed um starting really basically um or at the beginning. So what are NCOD's? Um this is a an option in our UDO uh stands for neighborhood conservation overlay district. um they are intended to be used to uh further restrict um dimensional standards uh in residential districts and to be specific to a specific neighborhood. Um so there's a a a list of um dimensional standards that can be amended through an NCOD. Um they're usually more restrictive than the current zoning and there's a a community process to create and apply them. Um so this is a list of um components that the NCD NCODS can regulate um pertain to lot size uh setback residential density um lot width um and then things like building placement and vehicle surface area. So, not every NCOD regulates all of these, but part of the process of um coming to the standards for a particular one is choosing which of these the neighborhood would like to regulate. Um the process um is essentially a uh text change followed by a zoning request. So, the neighborhood will make a petition to the city council um that staff start a study on the neighborhood and that study um establishes kind of the the standard character of the neighborhood. There's uh neighborhood meetings involved in that process. Um there's um public hearings uh to write into the UDO the standards that the neighborhood decides on and then uh the process for a reasonzoning request to um apply that new um district to the to the neighborhood. So the point of discussion that was reported out was um the lack of a unique process to amend an existing NCOD. Um the processes we have um for that would really depend on the exact nature of the change. So if like we saw um with the force park NCOD change would be a text change. So not changing where it's applied but what um the language in the UDO. So that's a text change process. Um there are public notification uh points at um planning commission and city council review and then there's also the online portal um but there's no specific neighborhood meeting uh for for that process. And then if um someone were to come in with a request to change the boundaries of where um the NCD is applied that is a resoning process. We have most I think only seen that in removing an existing designation um but in theory could happen with um someone wanting to add it to a a property and that follows the standard resoning process. So neighborhood meetings at least one um and then an online engagement portal and u mailed and posted notice for planning commission and city council review. Um so there was some discussion about uh amending the process. Um the uh point that the chair committee chair reported out was uh interest in pursuing in in recommending to city council that they authorize an amendment to the process. So there is um something more similar to the process of creating an NCOD for the process of amending one. Um and so on my summary here I don't know if the chair one wants to add anything to those comments but happy to answer questions too. Thank you very much. Um any additional committee report from our committee chair on this at this time? Uh I can say the issue came up um specific to changing dimensional criteria. So when one applicant um came in with property in an NCOD wanting to change dimensional criteria for the entirety of the NCOD and that that was kind of the the impetus of part of our discussion just to give a little bit more context to um some of our newer folks. Thank you. Um so again this is not um a reasonzoning case or text change subject to standard public hearing and we have heard public comment or open to public comment at open meetings at strategic planning but so I can get a sense are there any members of the public who'd like to comment on this topic seeing none we will bring it back um to the table again uh I would like to note we um have the dimensional standards another time this has appeared historically was when Um the NCOD wanted to have a name change. Um that was one where there was a lot of cons. Even though the neighborhood was very engaged, there was no requirement that the applicant to who was proposing the to change the name of an NCO uh go through that full sum neighborhood involvement process. Um, however, the neighborhood HOA undertook that anyway. But even so, there were still concerns about um whether that process internal HOA process was adequately followed and how to count votes and all of those kinds of concerns. So we saw that issue appear um and you know in both cases causing great strife among the neighbors not really feeling like they had a city process that um was transparent and that they trusted in order to get this kind of change. One additional place I've seen this is in our Southland neighborhood conservation overlay district. That is one um right near Glenwood South. Um that's one where you know it the original intent of the NCOD and purpose and use of it um has largely changed because that is largely a commercial district now operating out of historical single family homes. And so that one has continually been reszoned piece by piece in a way that is doesn't have sort of a coherent reszoning strategy. So there is not currently a mechanism to um reszone an entire NCOD um in in one procedure in a way that um has the same wholesome process and transparent process to involve the full neighborhood in the way that the creation of an NCOD has. So that was why that was some of the the things that we've seen over the last several years and what we were attempting to discuss and see if there was a way to um that we could address that and create a procedure that the neighbors felt good about and trusted um in case this pops up again in the future. So any other thoughts from commissioners on this topic? I have a question. Yes. Can any community request to have an NCO designation? Sorry, could you just speak that into the mic just so others? Can any community request to have NCOD designation? Good question. Staff is not a yes. Absolutely. Um it has to there are some minimum requirements. So it has to cover at least 15 acres and then um there have to be signatures from property owners to initiate the process. It also requires uh study by staff and an endorsement by city council. So there are some hurdles. I would just add that uh while that provision is in the code, um the changes in the state legislative law around zoning mean that that could only be accomplished if every property owner signed that they were willing to participate because there's no mechanism for downzoning which typically an NCOD is a downzoning from the base district and it would allow less than what is or be more restrictive. um that's that's currently prohibited by state law from from someone else doing that to some other party doing that other than the property owner without their consent. So I think right now the climate is such that it's very unlikely that there would be a new NCOD created in the city. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe our proposal is just to give um the citizens that are that do live in an NCOD a mechanism by which they could organize their neighbors um and and a process where they could try to address any changes that they might want to see to their whole neighborhoodwide NCOD uh brought to the city. Any other comments? Yes, Commissioner Fox. I was going to say um we did we did discuss um at some point the length of time or the lifespan of NCODS but I just want to acknowledge um there was not consensus on that item and so that's not currently part of a recommendation is really tied to um the amendment to existing texts and again not that the city would be able to change any of the NCOD's but that the the neighbors themselves were just giving them a process if they wish to do that. Correct. Any other thoughts, concerns from commissioners? Commissioner Otwell seems thoughtful on this. Yes. But my only thought is if this is worth the trouble at this point now that almost any request from the neighborhood is going to be to increase the restrictions and impose a down zoning. How likely that is and is it even worth the time to dig into this? That's a fair point. Um, and I don't have a crystal ball, but I will offer in some instances where we've had a reasonzoning case that proposed to remove an NCOD, I have thought to myself, they could have kept that NCOD if just one small criteria had been adjusted, but they didn't really have a mechanism to do that, so they just removed it. So, I'm not saying that that um is an outcome. It just it could be an outcome. I'd be happy to support a request that would recommend council ask staff to consider what kind of changes might be possible. I think it'd be a pretty open-ended kind of request to council suggestion to council. Thank you, Commissioner Peer. I'm sorry, I might be missing something here. Do we have the exact language in our agenda item here showing showing the language of how we're not proposing to change it proposing we're we're requesting of council that they have staff look at changing it based on a discussion that we had. Whether or not that comes back as proposed text is um to be determined. Got it. Um yeah. No, I I think one thing I was looking through the the staff presentation on this item. One thing I I did find interesting that I just wanted to bring up is I think it's the second to last page where it's says NCOD's don't preserve affordability. And I'm curious. I found it interesting that the Newurn Edon and the South Park um neighborhoods were the two that were huge outliers there. Um, it says 2009 through 2019, but that wasn't this recent tax valuation was not included on that. I'm assuming if it was through 2019. Um, this is some legacy work work that we did. Yeah. Pre- pandemic. Yep. Okay. Um, for a second I was thinking that might include the Newurn values post Newurn to, but I guess it doesn't if it was through 2019. Um, and all of those neighborhoods there that are listed, those are trying to look at sideways. Are those all the NC all the NCODs we have? Cool. Yeah, I was just curious of that if there were if that was a mix of of the two, NCOD and non NCOD or what, but thank you. Was curious about that. Thank you. Other thoughts from our commissioners? Yes, Commissioner P. um when it says that it doesn't preserve affordability, doesn't it protect more naturally occurring affordability in that area? So it it doesn't prevent existing naturally occurring affordable housing from being, for example, torn down and rebuilt at a similar according to the NCOD at a different price point. Um, I guess I'm asking like if a neighborhood is considered a um, so could you speak into the mic? I can hear you, but others on TV mic. I've always had a problem with that. Um, if a neighborhood is is a neighborhood conservation overlay district, right? And you see areas like even Oakwood. Now, we're when I'm saying affordability, I think that the same thing the gentleman said earlier. Sometimes when people hear affordability, they're thinking low income, but I'm thinking the ability to afford it, the housing in the area. So Oakwood is a area that kind of has maintained its affordability, right, in that area for the for a large part. So when it says that the NCOD relationship to housing and affordability does not preserve preserve affordability any better than the citywide average, doesn't it protect the naturally occurring affordability in that community? So um naturally occurring affordability is connected to often the age of the unit. Um the an NCOD uh doesn't stop redevelopment. It just says it just regulates what that redevelopment could be could be. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. That's very helpful. You bring up an interesting point too. We discussed this at the committee. Um I mean this is an interesting graph that was created by staff around 2019. Um but what it did not do is compare I have an NCOD I don't have an NCOD what is the difference and that's a very challenging calculation to do so this is really only comparing NCOD's to each other if that makes sense and to a city-wide average um and I'll also add that this was part of our larger discussion of NCOD's but um especially when the topic of a time limit on NCOD's was presented But that given that the time limit was not um a recommendation that came out of this discussion or at least elevated to planning commission or requested to elevate to the city council. It might um ours is a lot more just limited to a process to amend them. Um and some of the some of the issues that that could resolve for a lot of these neighbors that we've seen. I mean, we've seen and received emails showing neighborhoods are getting torn apart by some of these times when they don't have a process. And so, that's really what we're seeking to address more than greater issues related to NCOD's um and affordability. So, um it might while this is interesting, I'm not sure that some of those topics that did not come out of the strategic planning and some of those slides um might be confusing to our recommendation when presented to city council. So, um I'll just add that and just like they're a little dis confusing to our discussion here today. So I might recommend that we don't pull the full presentation to the city council not to confuse what we are recommending. Thank you. Understood. Any other comments? I'll entertain a motion. Yes. I'd like to recommend um that we u make a motion for the city council to authorize a text change to amend the process for citizen initiated modifications to existing NCODS. Thank you. I will Commissioner Otwell has seconded. Any further discussion on this topic? All those in favor? Any opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Six to zero. Thank you. Moving on to new business. We have two items under new business today. For these items, we will hear a full staff presentation um and we will hear from the public. Excuse me. The first item is TCZ 325 at 200 West uh 200 West Street. And we will turn to Matthew Clem for a presentation from city planning staff. Good morning, planning commission. Um, yep. So, this is a text change to zoning conditions for a site downtown. It is a site that is currently under construction um for a development that will include uh the Rust Bus Transit Station. So, that's a transit station that's planned to serve the Western and Southern Bus Rapid Transit corridors. Uh about 1.75 acres. Uh there's no change to the base zoning districts. The height uh and conditions are largely staying the same and we'll go through that uh in just a minute. And your deadline for action is May 24th. Uh so looking at the site, it's in uh in the downtown and is surrounded by downtown mixed juice zoning. Uh here's the site highlighted. Um this is an older uh aerial image so you can't see the current construction activities. Uh we are currently sitting in this building right here. Um so the site is adjacent to Raleigh Union Station uh the associated rail lines uh and some other uh newer developments. Um another look at the site uh from West Street. Uh I have all the conditions listed. Um most of them are not changing. So this one is unchanged. Uh condition number two is uh the only condition that is proposed for change in the resoning request. Uh when the site was reszoned um back in 2020, uh this condition required uh affordable housing in the um development. What the request is changing about this condition is adding the option to pay to the city's uh affordable housing fund a contribution per unit. So essentially as it's written, it says that uh a number equal to 10% of dwelling units in uh a new development multiplied by $40,000 would be contributed to the city's affordable housing fund. So, uh, um, just rough math, a 400 unit apartment complex on the site, 10% of that is 40 units times $40,000 is a contribution to the city's affordable housing fund of $1.6 million. So, what this condition is doing is adding that option to the development. Of course, the option of having subsidized affordable housing on the site also exists. This is an additional option for them. Uh the remaining zoning conditions are excuse me are uh remain unchanged. Um they talk about building type parking restrictions uh pedestrian access uh sighting materials um screening of structured parking uh ground story active uses uh and building materials um from the uh existing structures on the site. So look at the uh existing and proposed zoning entitlement um does not change because the building height and the base zoning districts do not change. Um being in the city's downtown of course has a higher walk score, bike score, transit score, uh job access and transportation access averages compared to the city as a whole. U this is a route map of existing transit service in the area. But of course we can plan for expecting southern and western BRT uh to serve the site as well. Um based on the development capacity of the existing zoning um there will be uh more housing added to the city supply. Um the request does not require or guarantee that subsidized units are included but there is the opportunity u if not that contributions are made to the affordable housing fund. Of course, a variety of housing types, smaller units uh within walking distance of transit or perhaps an elevator ride downstairs. Uh rents have increased in the area um by about 41% compared to the citywide average of 25. So rents are increasing um and again uh being in the central business district of the city, the area has great access to employment uh and transportation options. The central business district uh recommends, excuse me, the central business district future land use designation recommends the DX zoning. Uh so it is consistent with that consistent with the urban form map. Uh the list of zoning conditions that were approved in 2020 mimic the requirements of the um uh urban form guidance sections of the plan. Um so the request is consistent with the future land use urban form map and uh the comprehensive plan overall. Uh a list of consistent zoning policies in the comprehensive plan and uh your deadline for action is May 25th and I can take any questions. The applicant is also here for uh their presentation. Thank you very much. Um we will now turn to public comment. For those in support, the applicant and those in favor have a total of 10 minutes to speak. Good morning, Chair Miller and Commissioners. Molly Stewart, Morning Star Law Group here on behalf of the applicant RB Vertical. I also have with me today John Florian uh from he works in partnership with Hoffman who is the who is in turn the private partner on this public private development that is Rusbus. Um so he is here to answer any questions that you might have as well. Uh so we have as we've gone through this process we have heard no concerns and as you just heard we've also heard no inconsistent policies with the request. Um it does boil down to an update to one of the existing zoning conditions. Since the original zoning conditions were approved on this site uh in the past probably two to three years a consensus has developed about what an affordable housing condition looks like in Raleigh. uh and it typically does have this AB option which doesn't currently exist for this site meaning that the affordability can be provided on-site or be provided through a payment in lie so that the city can provide affordable housing. Uh so that has become the standard since the time that this was approved and that is the model that we're seeking to adopt here for this um for this property as well. I will note that there is a major difference between this proposal compared with uh what has been approved over the previous few years which is that those previous conditions have sort of settled at a point where a payment is made of $40,000 for for 1% of the units that are provided on site. So on average you're paying $400 per unit built on the site into this fund. The proposal here today is to multiply that by 10 to provide that same $40,000 payment for 10% of the units on site. So a $4,000 payment per unit. So um really a different scale than than what is typically adopted on this topic. Um this is the only change made it requested at this point and that and the point of the change is uh to see that this project can happen. Um that's the reason that we're going through this extensive process to request this one single change. So, John Florian and I are available for your questions. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other members of the public who would like to speak in support of this project? Then, seeing none, we'll open up public comment for those in opposition. Those opposed to this project have a total of 10 minutes to speak. Please come to the podium. Seeing none, we can bring it back to the table. Any comments from our commissioners? Yes, Commissioner Fox. Um although generally I don't like to have affordability in conditions uh because there are other mechanisms that are available to be able to do that. Um I understand this checks change and what it's trying to do. Um and for that reason I I don't find this particularly impactful or um counter to adopted policy. So I'm ready to support it at the appropriate time. Thank you. Any other comments? Commissioner Peeler. Yeah, I'm definitely against this uh this change. I think that it's not been said in city policy the $40,000 per unit. Um that's something I think the city really needs to do is set some guide rails as to you know what kind of voluntary inclusionary units or money can be set aside and we don't have that yet as a city. Uh, I think the applicant's right. There has been a lot that has happened since 2019 with what developers do offer on their own. Um, I'm personally of the opinion that $40,000 at one or 10 is really not adequate for a downtown um, high-rise given the the housing inequality homelessness general unafford unaffordability of Raleigh. Um, I think there's other cities that have done this that have done like fees in lie of on-site units and they're, you know, if you're to compare similar similar ones to the similar size of Raleigh, they're they're much higher. Um, I also work in affordable housing underwriting. So, this is super important issue to me. Uh, I work in LITC and really the only other option we have outside of inclusionary zoning is LITC. Um, LITC, as many of you know, almost never ends up being a building over four or five stories. Um, it's usually never mixed income outside of the low incomes. Uh, so it doesn't put market rate residents with low-income residents, which is what we really need. We need inclusive communities of many different incomes, not just poor people living on a uh in in a poor area, which is mostly what we get now with with LITC. Uh there's also quite a bit of LITC that's planned to be built in the next year in this area. And so outside of this year, there's possibly not a lot of affordable housing getting built beyond 2026 in this area that we know with the the way tax credits and bonds go. Uh so all all that said, I I think it's really I I think the the on-site inclusionary thing that was put in here, I believe it's 2019, is that correct? When this was reszoned originally? 19 or 20. Yeah. Um yeah, I would I would I would like to see that maintained. So, I plan to vote against this. Other comments for commissioners? Commissioner Otwell. Thank you, Chair Miller. Um, I'm in agreement with Commissioner Fox that I generally don't push for affordable housing conditions in uh in zoning changes. I don't think they're usually appropriate. Um, I'm conflicted uh in this case in particular. This is a public private partnership and I think that a partially p public project uh has a little bit more responsibility in this area and should be subject to special consideration. Um this is also on top of a transit station where I think this kind of location specific targeting is very appropriate. Um, I'd be interested in hearing from the applicant what changes have occurred in the vision and the design for this project since it was originally reszoned because I know that it's uh it's not the same as it was when we started. There has been some history on that what's called the overbuild, the piece that is being built above the transit station. Um, I I don't have the complete history of all all the changes on that. Um, but your comments and Commissioner Peeler's comments are are well taken. um we fully understand the need for that on-site downtown housing. Um but unfortunately the reason that we're here u making this one sole request is that this project will not be constructed with that requirement. Um in order to construct the project at all, this change was necessary. Um no one wants to go back through a process like this. Um it's sort of a worst case scenario and so it took um it being absolutely necessary to get here. Uh, so if that condition were maintained, we would simply um not have any housing constructed here. Thank you, Commissioner Fox. Just wanted to follow up to Commissioner Atwell's question. Um, has there been a change to programming of the overbuild since the resoning? Yes. Uh, I don't know that any promises were made during the resoning process. I wasn't involved in that. I I know that what is contemplated has changed. There was a hotel. Would you like to to address that? Mr. Florian can address that for you. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm John Florian. This has been a a a long process and a and a long project and uh um Hoffman Associates and uh and and their partners have been have been really working to try to get this project financed. It is an extremely extremely challenging financial environment right now. There are a number of projects uh that are trying to be financed um throughout the city as as well as throughout the country and uh and high-rise multif family in Raleigh is really hard to get financed. Um it will not happen with the affordable housing requirement right now. There's, you know, we don't see any any point in the future where you can get enough rent on the non-affordable units to cover that deficit in the affordable units to make that financially feasible. the the the programs uh had a hotel and multif family and because of COVID and investor sentiment in COVID the hotel was uh was eliminated and additional multif family was added. So a lot of the uh um go triangles as well as the city's objectives were to build housing near transit which this project does. It's currently planned for 385 units and I think we're as as as uh as Miss Stewart said we're we're offering uh really a very large contribution in compared to a number of other projects to affordable housing fund to really have more benefit in terms of affordable housing. Go triangle as as our partner and and and Hoffman Associates want to support affordable housing in the area and feel like that is the best way to do it. Um but also it is a public private partnership but go triangle the p the public is not putting money into the deal. So you know that they are not you know subsidizing the deal. So that's why financing it is is is challenging and we can't do it and and and put that on site with the incredible cost of of high-rise construction that is that is you know raised in the in the past few years. When you look at the uh the rental increase that was up to 21. It's gone down since 21. So rents have gone down, costs have gone up, interest rates have gone up, and financing is really hard, you know. So it's we're we're we're looking for, you know, avenues to make this happen and to get this going, and we really need this. Thank you. Other comments from commissioners? Yes, Commissioner Mai. [Music] Um it seems a bit disheartening um that at every turn we're being told that we can't build affordability, but we're being told we need affordability. And affordability isn't just in rent, it's in ability to maintain where you're staying. Energy prices are going up. in single families, somebody one person in the home is paying over $300 a month just to heat or cool your home. So it almost seems like it's not it doesn't make sense to donate money to a affordable housing fund that can't build anywhere because we talked about Barwell and he said well people don't want concentrated uh affordability but then we talk about building somewhere else and people say we have nimi not in our backyard and nobody's asking to build affordability outside of southeast Raleigh and if we have a public private partnership that includes transport transportation and we know our number one transportation riders are people who need affordability. But everybody can take the escape route that we're just going to donate to a affordability fund and throw a huge number out there but never build the affordability anywhere because nobody wants affordability there. So then we'll have a whole pot of money to build affordably even if the public is a part of the project, but the affordability won't be built there because of whatever reason or whatever cause. And if that was the case, but it was put in in the beginning of this project that affordable housing on site was a part of the project, it almost seems like an easy out to not build affordability and just say we're going to put money into a fund. So, for that reason, I would not sign with this. You bring up an interesting point if I might as of it makes me have a question for staff. Just to follow up on a point you made. Um, uh, when a developer pays into that pot, the fee in L, who then develops the affordable housing with that pot? Yeah, I would say it goes into um just the funding, all the different funding sources the city uses uh to help advance the affordable housing goals of the city. And a big part of that funding is for LITC projects as Commissioner Peeler mentioned earlier, but there are other programs where the city is involved in investing our our money to help advance that goal. But I think the big piece of it is is light, right? So we might use that money for gap financing for a a um private developer who's pursuing a LITC project. Raleigh uh generally provides gap financing for projects that are taking the 4% tax credit versus there very few 9% tax credit projects that are built in the state um that are approved reg annually. Right? And so we have over the past 10 years worked to develop our program of um gap financing for 4% projects. And then that money might also be used for land acquisition. Uh we've been doing some there's been money spent out of the most recent bond for acquisition in the bus rapid transit corridors for example. Um recognizing that um contributing the land to the project is often a a really important part of the financing and and um just bringing those bringing new units to the market. Thank you. I have another question. We definitely have plenty of projects to spend the money on that. I don't think that's a that there we have those opportunities as a city. Okay. Yeah. I was just trying to make the question I was trying to answer in terms of the the public sector so the city takes the lead with that pot of money. Okay, that helps me. Thank you. Well, I have two questions. Of the housing needs that we have in the city, what percentage is affordable and what percentage is just [Music] housing? Is the need for affordability does that outweigh the need to build more units? Well, building more units helps both issues, right? I would not I would say we have a housing supply problem in Raleigh. Everything that we can do to improve and expand the supply, the diversity, the volume of supply helps address affordability for everyone. Um, as I recall, somewhere between 30 and 40% of households in Raleigh are cost housing cost burdened, which I think is a good indicator of the need for affordable units. And how many of the developments that we're seeing of private developers are willing to build light housing? So, typically in North Carolina, largely because of how the housing finance agency and the low-inccome housing tax credit program work, developers either build uh LITC or they or they don't, right? So, um there are very few companies that build both market rate and t tax credit projects. the um capital financing and complexity of making those projects bring those projects to market generally means that either you specialize in that and you deliver that or you deliver market rate housing. So, and and there is not, to my knowledge um um market rate affordable mixed single building pro single um structure project anywhere in North Carolina because of how those regulations are are um interpreted and applied. Thank you. This is a really interesting conversation and we um have one additional planning commissioner coming on as well. There's a lot of the same questions and and topics we've discussed in the past. This year we have not had um a retreat due to the fact that there were just quorum issues. Um, once we have an additional our our final additional planning commissioner come on for this fiscal year, I would suggest that we have a retreat and I'm going to keep a running list of all of these interesting questions that um we could all the the folks that have been on here could use a primer and update and um I think we'd all really benefit from a deeper conversation about these topics. So, thank you. Thank you for that. One more question. Uh, yes. Also, just wanted to keep an eye on the time. We only have six. Um, so if we lose even one, we will lose a quorum. We do have one additional resoning case on the agenda. It is um 13 minutes left. Is anyone able to stay or does anyone need to leave have a hard stop at noon? I have a hard stop. Apologies. Okay. Thank you. So, we will lose a quorum at noon. So, um but yes, one additional question about this case. Yeah. Okay. To the developers, in lie of building um affordability, how much do you uh how much do you estimate them units are going to cost? How much are are the units that we are building going to cost or what is the rent you know for for the units or you know we're we're we're actually you know uh we're we're working on that um you know in terms of the market analysis and what the what the rent is. So we don't have a set rent rate right now. We're trying to propose that to investors and we're looking at the market studies in that rate in those rental rates uh to again obtain you know financial feasibility for the project. So investors have a certain return. So so range, you know, the r it'll they'll be the, you know, the higher price units in in the market. So you know, range from, you know, 1,800 to, you know, 4,500, you know, dollars a month, you know, depending on where you are in the building, 27tory buildings and um they'll they'll need to be to make that, you know, to be able to support the high-rise costs that are that are involved. So, if you look at other, you know, high-rise buildings that are in the past, and we're we're seeing a lot of developers struggling to get fin high-rise buildings financed right now because the costs have gone up so much that the the rental rate needs to really support that. Thanks. So I might add to the agenda also, not just looking at the affordable housing impact question, but another one that's come up in the past, which is the impact of market rate housing, including um at the higher levels, the impact on all of the other um market rates for uh rentals in particular in Raleigh. We have some good data um there that we could share as well. Um, I share some of the comments the for from Commissioner Fox and Commissioner Otwell about affordable housing conditions in resoning cases versus other ways that affordable housing is typically created given that the applicant is go triangle in this case and this is a critical project um for the city and that we have heard directly from the applicant that this is not going to be built um without this. I'm also inclined to support it. Any other comments from commissioners? Right. May I'd like to entertain a motion. Yes, Commissioner Fox. Uh, in regards to case TCZ325, I move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated March 25th, 2025 contained in the agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. Thank you. Do I have a second? I'll second. Commissioner Otwell has seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor? And those opposed? That motion passes 4 to zero or 4 to2, excuse me. Thank you very much. Any additional comments from the opposing votes in addition to what's already been stated for their reason against? Uh, I think we need inclusionary zoning in Raleigh and I do not think we will get any affordable units in Well, I know we will not get affordable units in rich white parts of Raleigh through LITC because that's not how LITC works. Um, so on-site inclusionary units is our hope to do that and build an inclusion uh, sorry, inclusionary affordable city. So, I'm really disappointed this passed and I hope it does not pass council. Um, yeah, that's all I can say. Thank you. Maybe we could also add to the agenda um the legality of inclusionary zoning um in the city and and what we at the planning commission or the city or can do about it. I would just like add to piggyback on what uh Reeves said. I feel like the more that we allow developers to say that well instead of building it on site and as much as I understand the increase of cost and cost is increasing for everyone and housing is a serious need and the more that that could be the reason to not do it the more it's not going to be done. Thank you. Um so that motion has passed 4 to2. Thank you. Moving on to our next new business item, reszoning case Z5424 Lewisburg Road. This case is to change approximately 3.65 acres from R1 to R10 with conditions. And we will turn to Aaron Klinger for a presentation from city planning staff. Before Miss Clinger makes her presentation, I just want to acknowledge her. Uh so during a long period of staff turnover we have been utilizing the services of a consulting firm called 3TP. Miss Klinger is an employee of 3TP and we are uh really appreciate their support during our period of transition. You will probably be seeing her over the next six months or so. Thank you. Hey everyone. Um it's nice to meet you. As Bino mentioned, I'm Aaron with 3TP Ventures and this is KC 5424 for 5420 Lewisburg Road. The applicant is requesting to reszone approximately 3.65 acres from R1 to R10 CU. The deadline for action, just realize that's a typo, is May um well yeah, the deadline for action is May 24th. The surrounding zoning in the area is predominantly residential with a combination of R1 and R10 CU. There are a handful of sites along Lewisburg Road that are zoned mixed use. Um, as you can see from the map, the subject parcel is landlocked and does not have direct access to Lewisburg Road. Here's an aerial view of the site and surrounding area. There's a moderate scale residential neighborhood and place of worship directly to the properties northeast and two low-scale residential areas to the west and east as well as another place of worship to the southwest. Here's another view of the site. You can better see the street stub um and the adjacent neighborhood in this area. Here are two street view images of the site. The first one was taken from Razan Street in the adjacent neighborhood and the second one was take taken from Lewisburg Road. Um here are some additional aerial views. The applicant is proposing to prohibit several uses that might be undesirable in a residential zoning district which you can see here. Um, under the existing zoning, the maximum number of units for the site would be two. Whereas, if the request was approved, a maximum of 42 units could be locate located on site. Um, the setbacks would decrease as well. The site has both lower walk and bike scores than average. However, the transportation cost index is lower than the citywide average, and the site benefits from higher proximity to jobs. Um there was no transit score available for this site. Routes 23L and 24L are both GO Rally GO Raleigh connector routes. They both run approximately 1.3 miles southwest of the site. Approval of the request would add to the housing supply. It would encompass a higher variety of housing types as well as allow smaller units and lots than the citywide average. However, it does not include any subsidized units and the site is not located within walking distance of transit. The site area has a higher percentage of people of color than the citywide average and a lower percentage of lowincome residents. The percent change in median gross rent since 2016 is much lower than the citywide average. The requested zoning is consistent with the future land use map designation of moderate scale residential. Um corresponding zoning districts for this land use designation are R six and R10 and the category envisions a variety of housing types including triplexes and town homes. This request is consistent with both the comprehensive plan and the future land use map. As I just mentioned, it aligns with several of the plan's vision themes as well as policies that advocate for a variety of housing types and increased housing supply. Uh comprehensive plan policies with which the request is consistent are listed here and we did not find any inconsistent policies for this request. This request does not have any outstanding issues. Um the planning commission deadline for action is May 24th. Uh upcoming meetings will be held on April 8th and 22nd. Thank you very much. Um given that this is new business and public comment um would be open for 20 minutes, it looks like we do not have time for full public comment today. Uh just so I can get a sense by show of hands. Um who is here to speak on this case today? Just one. Is is there anybody opposed? Um then seeing none, I would like to go ahead. Do We do have some limited time. I don't want to limit you more than what you need. We've got about four minutes left. Would that be enough or would you like to postpone to the next meeting? Okay, great. Most of this information anyway. Thank you. Um then we will open up public comment to those in support. The applicant and those in favor um do technically have a a total of 10 minutes to speak. Although if it runs over our time, we will need to pause um until our next meeting. Okay. Thank you. First off, good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Rala and I am with triangle legal on behalf of uh artbuilders LLC and construction masters LLC who are the applicants and the property owners of this property. Joining me is Mr. Enidali. He is ma um a member of the manage manager and managing member of the LLC one of the LLC's as the properties. I do want to thank you all and the city staff for all the help. They have been a big help to us. Um again most of this information is has already been reviewed. I will say I did take some updated photos um on our most recent snow day. Um yeah, this is just the map showing the current zoning. Uh there's a mix of zoning in the area. R1, R10, R10 conditional, R six, R4, and even some mixed use. Uh this resoning request from R1 to R10 conditional use is consistent with the city's future land use goals and map. Under the future land use map, this area is designated as moderate scale residential and R10 is one of the corresponding districts. Just to quickly talk about the concerns, we've been working with the neighbors um and had two neighborhood meetings. The biggest concern has been traffic and the the traffic is almost entirely caused they they described is entirely caused by the place of worship. And so this traffic even before the first neighborhood meeting um it's been there's been peak traffic during the weekly service and then certain religious events. Um it is our position though that our proposed resoning will not be significant to this traffic or impact it. And as noted by the staff review um we will only contribute 13 hourly trips per AM and 17 hourly trips per PM hour. So in the short term this project it's resoning and I could talk a little bit more about the project. it's not as format or not as fleshed out as some other proposals at this uh time. I'll talk about that later. But um yeah, we don't anticipate this project, this resoning changing the current traffic. In the long run, they do hope the the applicant or we do hope to pin a connection to Kyle Drive, which uh would would be the road to the right of Lewisburg Road through either a future development that would make use of a stub made uh in the formation of this resoning or a connection to Kyle Drive from an existing stub off of DOA, which is uh shown here. As to other concerns, uh we do, you know, hope to work with them. If we do initiate construction for privacy and safety, we intend to limit the hours to working hours and working days of the week. Uh other information such as a timeline would be shared with the nearby neighbors once the properts have an idea of what type of construction uh will happen. We will and have continued to maintain an open line of communication with the neighbors and of course we're open to your feedback. Thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah. That's just the condition. So, let me ask for our city attorney. If we open it up to public comment right now, even though we don't have time, will we still need to open it up to public comment next time as well? 10 minutes or however many. Yes, I think. Okay. So, given that that is the case, um I think that thank you for this. Sorry for the awkwardness of today's hearing. Um but we will ask that you come back to our next meeting. You can you can take action. It's only if you continued it that you would need to provide additional comment, but you can take action. Oh, okay. Do our planning commissioners have any comments on this case? I'm I'm happy to do the will of the commission and they I'm ready to vote approval. And if there's not a lot of discussion, we could just get this off the docket. All right. Well, then I would like to formally ask if there's any other members of the public who'd like to speak in support of this project. There are an additional seven minute opportunity today to do so. And seeing none, if there um open up public comment for the opposition, you will have a total of 10 minutes to speak. If you are here today, um please come to the podium. And now seeing none of that, I will bring it back to the planning commission to see if we have any um discussion or a motion or if anyone would like to discuss before we make a motion, please raise your hand. Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion. All right. Um, regarding to make sure this is right. I've said it wrong before. Regarding Z5424, uh, I move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated March 25th, 2025 contained in the agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Any further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor? Any opposed? substaining. I feel like just didn't didn't have enough time to look through it, so it Okay, abstaining. Um Okay, that motion passes um five to zero to one. Thank you very much. Moving on to approval of the minutes. Are there any comments to the minutes today? So, with that, I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Do I have a second? We have a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Any opposed? That motion passes five to zero to one, I believe. Um, and then moving on to report of the chair. I'd like to welcome our newest planning commission member. Um, Talupe Toalupe Omakay, excuse me. We welcome you to the commission and we're excited about your willingness to serve in this way. It's um um a lot of public service to join us here and we very much thank you. Um we're going to have at least one additional planning commissioner joining as well as we discussed and we will try to look at adding um a uh retreat where we can welcome everyone and address some of the issues that often appear before us. Um and Vice Chair Bennett is not here. So um to cover her item, we do have a committee of the whole meeting this Thursday. Quorum will be exceedingly tight. If you can attend this Thursday at 4 o'clock, could you please raise your hand to confirm your attendance? 1 2 3 4 um and not able to attend. I am also intending to attend. So that's five. Is there six? Bennett would have been six. I think there's I need to double check, but we have five here today. Uh moving down the line, anything to add? No report. A text change committee met last week, but we will be formally reporting out at our next meeting and we'll talk about accessory structures for cottage course at that time. And as of now, there's no pending items on the text change committee, and I'll wait for word about whether we're going to be meeting or not and report at the next meeting. Thank you. As of right now, there are no items on the strategic planning committee uh scheduled for April 9th, so that meeting may be cancelled. Um more to come at our next meeting. Yep. Okay. Thank you very much. Um and Commissioner Mcrimman as well is the new chair of our infrastructure mobility committee. Um she um we there is there are no agenda items for that committee either. And turning to our report of the assistant director. I have no report beyond what's already been published. Thank you. Okay. Thanks so much. Anything else for the good of the order? We are adjourned. [Music]