[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hey. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> February Excuse me, I'm all off. It's April 28th. It's 9:00. It's time to start the regular meeting of the Planning Commission. Tend to my script. Thanks everybody for being here. Uh This is not the beginning of my script. All right. Um We will begin each meeting by giving the public a chance to speak to any items that are not on the agenda. Do we have anybody here today that would like to speak on something not on the agenda? Am I being picked up on the mic? All right. All right. Barring that, we'll get right into our business. Let me bring up my agenda. All right. First order of business is the consent agenda. There are two items on the consent agenda. Uh school lot area amendment, which was a item that's in the text change committee that we would like to ask for an extension on so I have more time to discuss. And approval of the minutes. So, if everybody has had a chance to review the minutes, uh I'd ask for a motion. Commissioner Box. Um motion to approve the consent agenda. We have a motion. Is there a second? Seconded by Commissioner Cochran. All those in favor, raise your hand. All those opposed. Uh consent agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. All right. And I don't believe we have any The agenda lists a committee of the whole report, but that report will be made at our next meeting. Uh we just had that meeting last week and have not had a chance to incorporate all of the documents and records. So, that'll move us on to old business. And we will revisit rezoning Z-526 the New Bern Avenue assemblage. The public hearing is still open. I believe there was a little bit of time left on the speaker clock, and we will start by getting an update from staff on anything that's changed or any information we needed since the last meeting. All right. Um good morning. Hiram Marziano, uh Planning and Development. Um just a brief reminder of what brought us here. Uh state laws changed, uh reverted some zoning decisions. City Council authorized the staff to go out for those 81 properties uh to be included from the original request uh seek rezoning. 18 responded. Uh that is now 16. Two have withdrawn uh since the start. So, the request is to rezone 16 parcels across 4.3 acres in various districts. Um the RHDC will meet in May to discuss as well, and your deadline for action is June 13th. So, primarily we'll go over real quick again the two properties have been removed. Uh we'll talk about the on my part some confusion from last time to help sort things out for everybody. Uh so, real quick, this is the convoluted map we can all barely read. Uh we have the first eight parcels here. Uh these are the ones who cement submitted applications. Um nothing's changed with those or these other eight as well. So, these are all included in the the staff report and analysis. I'm going to zoom through the maps real quick. I've left them in here in case anyone had questions on specific properties. So, the additional requests that came in through the public engagement portal, um I've broken these out to make it a little bit more easy to read. So, these three parcels right here were included in our original outreach. Um they were included in the previous rezoning request. They were um reverted. Uh they did not get applications in in time. I have since received applications for these now, uh but these three were included in our outreach. Um staff believes it'd be a fair to make a judgment on these if you so desire. Uh the other two were not included in our outreach. Of these two, uh 2345 New Bern Avenue was included in the original rezoning request, just not the one that got reverted. Um it was one of the earlier uh approvals. Uh so, they're not They were not part of our outreach or uh council authorized um request. And 101 North Bloodworth Street was not part of any part of this case originally and came in in the engagement portal. Uh these two staff feels that would not be appropriate at this time to um make recommendation on without further direction from council. Um >> [snorts] >> So, just to clarify for everybody, we included these for transparency, um but not for for us. Staff made no analysis of these inclusions. Uh and that being said, that's pretty much the update from last meeting. Um everything else still the same. We're looking at consistent with future land use map, consistent with urban form map, and overall consistency with comprehensive plan um for those original 16 plus those three others that were included in the outreach. Um consistent policies, same. Inconsistent policies again, um and your deadlines for action. Do I need to clarify any more on some of that for anybody? Uh just one quick clarification. Um 2345 New Bern Avenue was originally part of the original rezoning process, but was not part of this reauthorization by council because they were part of a different chunk that was voted on in council addressed it originally. >> Correct. They were not uh reverted. The the rezoning that they received was approved and and stayed. Okay. They were part of I believe it was um Z-9222 B. And the ones that got reverted were part of Z-92 Z-9222 C. Um so, it was not part of our city authorized outreach. I'm I'm impressed with your case number retention. That's A lot of twos, so it was easy. >> [clears throat] >> All right, thank you. Um I believe we had some time left on the public comment clock. I checked the minutes and it didn't happen. >> it's in the I should be in the packet, I think. I put it in the the blurb. I just don't remember those numbers off the top of my head. >> 2 minutes. I believe we have 2 minutes remaining. If there's anyone that would wish to speak uh in favor Uh it's 7 minutes and 55 for those in favor and then 1 minute 54 for those in opposition. Sure thing. All right. If we would go ahead and set the clock for those in favor, 7 minutes and 54 seconds. Is that right? >> need a sign. Okay. Thank you. Good morning. Molly Stewart, Morningstar Law Group. I represent the owner of 101 North Bloodworth and the contract purchaser at 2345 Newbern. Those are the two cases you just heard um that are recommended not to take action on here. Um for that reason uh if that is the plan, I will go sit down. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Thank you. All right. Is there anyone else that would wish to speak in favor of the rezoning application? Uh please state your name for the public record. Go right ahead. My name is Billy Brewer. I live at 721 North Bloodworth Street in historic Oakwood as does my wife Joanne Sanford. >> [clears throat] >> I have lived in in historic Oakwood for over 45 years. As my neighbors, some of whom will speak in opposition uh to this zoning um I believe in preservation um I've walk >> [clears throat] >> not just talk the talk but walk the walk. I have my wife and I have either directly or indirectly remodeled and preserved at least 10 properties either inside the historic district or just outside of the district. Um Joanne and I and my daughter Charlotte Croff own three other properties that are involved here in the historic district. They're 307, 311, and 325 East Edenton Street. We did not originally request the inclusion of these properties in the zoning change. Uh but then when the General Assembly up set the thing and it came back, we of course opted to say we wanted to be rezoned as originally approved by the city. Um We wholeheartedly support the inclusion of these properties in the zoning zoning change. As to the three properties, 325 is a residence for which we have just received our certificate of appropriateness to remodel and retain it as a residence. Uh 3 11 has been a commercial property for as long as I can recall. It was a North Carolina High School um Associations building, then it was the um this this North Carolina Council uh for Children and then a real estate firm and then when I bought it in about 2011, it was my law office for approximately 15 years. 307 is a dirt parking lot and has been for a long time. Um Why do I support the zoning? The city needs ability to grow and evolve, especially in its downtown area. A key opponent that el it evolution is transportation. And the decision has already been made by the city to construct the rapid bus line along the Newbern Avenue. It seems to me that this rezoning is intrinsically connected to the optimization of that RBL. Um In my opinion, concerns that may be expressed ab inclusion of these properties in the rezoning as nibbling away at historic preservation um is overstated. It seems to me the pro proposed zoning does not eliminate the city's ability to control the form, scale uh and appropriateness uh of any property to preserve preservation. Um Balancing interests and concerns of uh stakeholders is a difficult task. I don't have to tell y'all that. Y'all deal with it all the time. You have property owners, adjacent property owners, developers, preservationists, and you but you also have the general public who want to be able to have a city that grows and evolves, increases tax base basis to keep its taxes reasonable, and a want of transportation network that provides the ability to move in and about the city. Um seems to me what the city's planning department has proposed with respect to this rezoning finds a proper balance for that. Thank you. I'll be happy to answer any questions anybody has. Thank you for your comments. We'll we'll get the questions later. All right, we have 3 minutes and 21 seconds left on the favor. And now we'll move on to those opposed. I think I see more than one or two here to speak in opposition, so I'm going to go ahead and without opposition without objection add 3 minutes to both sides to allow everybody time to speak. That'll leave the opposition with 5 minutes, so try to be brief. We've heard lots of comments on this already, and so please try to keep your comments to uh to new perspectives or facts that have not been presented yet. Thank you. Please state your name for the record. My name is Carmen Wimberly Cauthen. I live at 1321 Battery Drive. Um Matthew has a packet that I have prepared for you. I emailed it to um to you all this morning. Um sorry I was so late and was not able to participate last meeting. My concern and the concern of my community is the properties at um 1302 Battery Drive and uh that back up to 23 Bart Street. My concern is uh the size of this development that was proposed in 2021. Um and the developer pulled the proposal, so of course we have no idea based on this rezoning um packet would happen. But the proposal was for a four-story 40-unit apartment building on that corner. 10 apartments that would be two-story, and the the remainder of them would be 340 to 400 square feet, and his consideration was to sell them for $240,000 a piece. Bus rapid transit is real. Gentrification is real. Our community struggles because people are being pushed out, property taxes are going up, and this uh rezoning really does affect that for the entire Newbern Avenue corridor. Um I just wanted to share the information that I have and hope that you would read it and help that let that help to make your decision. Thank you. I thank you, Ms. Cauthen. Uh good morning. Um you may recall the City Council denied the rezoning of 101 North Bloodworth a few months ago bec from residential to commercial because partly bec in appreciation of the value of Oakwood as a neighborhood with residents and partly because there is a shortage of housing downtown and a surplus of uh empty offices and commercial spaces. 325 East Edenton is adjacent to 101 and the conditions are exactly the same, so the same uh reasoning applies. Council denied that by vote of 6 to 1. Thank you. Before you leave, would you please state your name for the record? Oh, I'm sorry. Matthew Brown. Good morning. Chris Crew, 306 Elm Street. You keep hearing rep representations that the preservation community is opposed to all change, and that is not the case. Preservation and growth are not a dichotomy. What the community is opposed to is unexamined change. The preservation community's concern is with an apparent lack of a thorough appreciation and analysis of the potential adverse impacts on our irreplaceable historic resources. This is the legacy that makes Raleigh the attractive place it is. I oppose the upzoning of the properties within the historic district because it doesn't address any specific nec necessity. It may reduce housing, and it provides no basis other than conjecture to describe the benefits of this change. Please remove these properties from the list. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Tabitha Rainey. I'm here to object to 1313 Newbern Avenue and the two properties on Boyers Street. Here's my reason why. 1313 Newbern Avenue, I have been to the county and the county have said they have no no no reason or ability to take Newbern Avenue up this 1313. So, I asked them, then why are we here? Why are we at the city council with this application if you don't have any any notion of taking it up, then why are you applying? They all looked at me puzzled puzzled. I'm asking for the opportunity to go back to the county again and say, just tell me why. Just tell me why cuz I don't understand it. The second 13 the the the second property is on Boyers Street. I live in College Park. I have lived in College Park for over 70 years. We have tried to get preservation in College Park in 1989. It was denied. So, we don't have any protections. So, what we look for is to go by each property and try to protect what we have. When you leave a neighborhood with no protection and we're a black neighborhood. We are a black neighborhood. And when you leave it with no protections, it it is left wide open for anything. And that's what the Newbern Avenue BRT is bringing in. It's bringing in for the black communities no protections at all. And I think that this this board need to rethink that because it is serious. And I am serious about my community. Thank you for your comments, Ms. Rainey. We're going to keep the public hearing open and bring it back to the table for questions from the commissioners. Try to keep this portion of the meeting to direct questions to staff or to the applicant or to the public if you wish and call them to the podium. And after that, we will come to discussion. Are there any questions from the commission? Um I mentioned in the last uh meeting that we had a uh project working group for the I mentioned in the last meeting that we have a project working group for the DMV site and that there was a market study done talking about the feasibility of development of Newbern Avenue. Have you all had an opportunity to reach out to uh the engagement outreach and engagement board who've been putting on the who was working with the project working group to get access to that case study? I I'm familiar with the case study. Yes, if you if you have any questions, I'll I'll do my best to answer them. I'm not Ken Bowers. He's He's kind of the guru on that, but I'll I'll do my best. So, I'm going to pull it up really quickly. Cuz my specific question is if this case study is saying that mixed-use residential and housing, I mean residential and commercial on Newbern Avenue isn't a feasible measure. And if you're familiar with it, then can you explain how these two kind of things work together of us trying to rezone this space in that case in that market study saying that it's not feasible? Sure. So, that market study was looking at a specific property with a specific snapshot in time in the next 5 years of of what could actually be developed on that site based on topography, size, location, um city goals, um and the market study came back and made recommendations that were very different than what I think council was expecting and what the community was expecting to come out of that report. Um but what staff is taking from that report is not that a mixed-use development will never work there. It's just current market conditions right now with interest rates being what they are, construction costs and labor costs being what they are, the ability for somebody to finance a very uh a multi- uh use mixed-use project is just it's not financially feasible at the moment. But I talked to staff about your comment, Commissioner Omekanye, cuz I thought it was um worth exploring with them to make sure that, you know, future meetings with your working group, this is better explained. Um but it's not a position that mixed-use will never work. It's just maybe not financially viable today. So, when we're looking at Newbern Avenue and we're looking at what could happen in the next 10, 15, 20 years, I think it is still council, what I understand council's goals are to go ahead and get this land set up for mixed-use in the future and high density in the future to support the BRT line. And then as the economy improves, that those developments will start coming in. So, thinking about Newbern as being more of a long-term investment and getting that land ready when the economy is ready. So, I hope I hope that answers your question. I want to ask in context. Sure. Cuz I I'm a person of context is important. So, on the site, we're not asking the working group was not suggesting or asking that one large apartment complex that's affordable housing only be built on that site that also includes commercial use. We've been asking also for mixed housing on that site. So, that is condos, that is townhomes, that is stand-alone because it's a large parcel. And then in the portion of it that may have an apartment building built having mixed-use commercial use so that there is retail in that space, which is basically exactly well, I guess we don't know because you all this whole package is asking for a blank check cuz we don't know what's going to go there, but it's based on the viability of the Newbern Avenue corridor being successful to have mixed-use. So, I'm still confused about how there's a case study saying that it's not viable to do what a group of people have been saying they want to do that which is mixed housing fixing the mixing missing middle. Context is important. Not just some large apartment building that has retail at the bottom. So, exactly in some measure what everybody on this proposal is proposing to do is what we're proposing to do also on that site and that is on the corridor that this whole project that's being brought to us is talking about, but you're explaining that the case study is correct saying that that it is not feasible for mixed-use, but it may be feasible for their mixed-use. It's not feasible with the goals council outlined for that site um from a financial perspective right now. Um that was a broker study that was again looking at kind of financial [snorts] feasibility in the next 1 to 3 years. Um the city, from what I understand, staff is going to be continuing to re-evaluate that site. So, even though it may not be um financially viable to do what council had set out to do um in 1 to 3 years, it it may be after that point in time. And so, those studies are continuously updated as more market data comes in. Um but yeah, as of to like as of right now today, what what council had envisioned for that site and I believe what had been discussed with your working group, it's it's just not going to be something that the economy will support and that the market will support to construct. But again, I don't want to say that it's never going to happen. It's just maybe not. I guess what I'm also trying to understand is because well, one, just for context to the audience and the commission that doesn't know, uh I would like for you to state what you're saying council's goals are for the site so I can make sure that we're aligned on what we understand council's goals being for the site since I've been working with it for close to 3 years. And two, we are not asking for the site to be redeveloped in 1 to 3 years. And if the cost of products are going up right now, then they're not going to go down in 5 to 10 to 15 years as you're making a point for this case that they want. So, I'm asking again so if you can clarify, what are you what's your understanding of council's goals for the site? We're not saying in the next 2 to 3 years. So, that's not that is inaccurate. We're speaking on developing the site in the next 5 years same as some of these people are saying. So, what are your thoughts on what council's goals are? And how is this site not feasible in the same time frame of what they're trying to do? So, my understanding from council, um and again, I know that this is kind of a fluid process. They are going to be taking input in from your group, from the community members, but council did express an interest and desire to develop the DMV site um with a mixed-use project that would support the BRT. How that is broken down, how that's configured, um to be determined, but that's why they did the broker study. They first did a build-out study to see how much could possibly be built on the site, which is a normal thing um in land development process to make sure that you're not underutilizing a site. Um and then they followed it up with a broker study to figure out based on land costs, labor costs, construction costs, you know, what what is financially feasible, what could actually get a loan to to fund it. Um but again, the DMV site is a portion of the Newbern Avenue plan and vision uh to support BRT. Uh again, I just I want I think I what I communicated to staff that was working with the broker and that presented to your group was just to to for everyone to understand that just because something maybe isn't financially viable today, you still go ahead and get that land entitled so that when the market does improve, it will be it will be shovel ready. Um so, I think that is the goal with this rezoning as well, just on a much larger scale than DMV. Okay, I just want to pin the point down that those two cases don't agree with each other. The case study that and it and the what is on the site was left to us, the project working group, and what we want the site to be, which is what what is in this packet, mixed use, missing middle, uh affordability that's not in this packet. There's ramming up a a a corridor that needs it, but affordability, residential, retail was told that it's not feasible to do that on a site that's also very instrumental to the BRT because they want to put a BRT port there, which is also the reasoning for all this rezoning that's being requested today, being told that what the community wanted on that site is not feasible, but this may be. So, I just wanted that to be on the record. Thank you. Go ahead and Mr. Glenn. Thank you for that. And just for those following along online or in the room, the the DMV site itself is not a part of this rezoning application. And not that you were making that point, but just for clarity. Uh thank you, Commissioner Umukoro. Are there any further questions from the commission? Commissioner Neptune. This is a question for staff. Uh and thank you, uh Mr. Chair. With regard to the parcels at 305, 311, and 325 East Eden Edenton Street. I'm trying to understand um if you'd just clarify for me, were these parcels a part of the original application that was approved by council some years ago, or were they added since I guess May or March of 2025? Um it's my understanding when I did the the research that they were part of the original request or consideration for original request. Um I don't have a category on this. Sorry, I thought I had the column here. Um they were included in the council authorized outreach that we sent out for applications. Um I wasn't with the city when we started that process. So, I can't Yes, they were uh rezoned and then unzoned by state action and then authorized for council to be rezoned again in this process. Thank you. Commissioner Fox. So, I apologies, [clears throat] I missed the first meeting when we talked about this but I just want to make sure I'm understanding conceptually what's happening. So, there was a large rezoning as part of the Newbern Avenue uh TOD process. Um these particular parcels were rezoned. They went through public notification. There was a public hearing. There was a vote from City Council, and they were rezoned. And because of state law, we just need to go through the process again, so it's it's um procedural in nature. That's correct. >> Okay. So, I'm not >> [clears throat] >> unless the conditions on the ground have changed um I'm not um seeing a lot of uh need to parse through much of the detail. Um as this already went through a public hearing as well, and these and these parcels were rezoned. Thank you, Commissioner Fox. Did Mr. Sanchez, [clears throat] does he have a hand? I She's next. Yeah. Uh Commissioner Umukoro please. Uh can we has the are the questions done? If we can close the public hearing. Thank you. Yeah, we'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to the table for um uh conversation, debate. Um Commissioner Umukoro and then uh Commissioner Schewel. Um at the last meeting, we had a resident come and say that she wanted to remove her application from consideration. And uh I guess my question is um she said she didn't when she was presented with the opportunity and the application was explained, she didn't feel like it was explained clearly enough to her. And when she came here to the meeting, she learned more about what was going on than she felt what was told to her when she signed her application and submitted it. And I'm wondering if the the opportunity if an email has gone out to an opportunity to everyone to reconsider if they choose to cuz these are owners or you know, people who own residential property even though they may impact other property. Um I'm wondering what the application process was like for them and if they were given an opportunity to understand their ability to revoke their application. And my to uh Commissioner Fox, I understand that these things were uh maybe approved in the past. And since this is a discussion, I just want to say this very quickly. I understand these things were approved in the past and and taken out by uh the state, and now they're going through a re re review process. But it's also an opportunity to fix maybe mistakes that we made when we approved some of this stuff. And there are questions that I do have about um Battery Road, the Battery Road uh projects, the Bart Street projects. I'm concerned about the Richard B. Harrison Library cuz I know that they were inside of the um library bond, and they only got 1.4 million dollars, and that wasn't for construction at all. It was only for technological updates. So, I'm concerned about why if the community doesn't want to move the library, is the library even in the package to be rezoned if they're saying they're not building up on the library and is landlocked. So, there are some a lot of these that I'm cool to move on today that I think we're all in some measure of agreement on, but I don't think that every project on this needs to be moved on and voted on today. But if we can figure out what the application process was, that was my question. Uh wait, um partner, if we're going to do questions to staff, I think that without objection, we'll reopen the public hearing. Okay, my my apologies. That was my >> That was my last question, I feel. Hope and I can't promise. Um the application process was uh we we did the outreach to the 81 uh parcels that were authorized. Um they were sent applications that mirrored what was done previously and requested with a letter that explained the situation and requested their signatures if they wanted to participate. Since then, there's been multiple conversations with a few people, uh not everyone. Um and I have reached out to everybody that was included in the original, let them know how this was proceeding forward. And that's when I did hear back from a few that wished to remove. The first person that removed before the previous case, and then um Ms. Nelson who removed since the uh the previous I'm sorry, previous meeting. Um so, the the information's there for those that have have come in contact and requested anything. Um so, as far as I know, it's it's available, but I didn't sit there and say uh anything specifically like now's your last chance to get out of this or anything like that. So, I'm just saying it was a we are proceeding forward. These are the dates we're going forward with. If you have any information or questions and comments, please reach out to me is how it was worded. Okay. Thank you. Um are there any further questions for staff while we're here? Commissioner Walters. So, I just want to clarify. Every every rezoning that we're considering right now, uh the owners of the property had to proactively submit an application saying that they wanted to continue to have the condition that they had prior to the state uh reality change. They they had to sign There was a pre-filled application with information from the previous rezoning. Um if they wished to participate, they had to fill in their name information and then mail that back to us um as provided with an envelope. So, they had to consent in order to be part of this. Okay, thank you. And while while we have the hearing open um could you tell me which What were the properties that were removed in uh since the original letters went out and the acceptance came in? Uh the original properties that were removed would be 1225 East Eden No, wait, I'm sorry. You got to find it. I thought I had it in the right order. Yeah, 1225 East Edenton Street. Um it was a property that is split zoned uh commercial mixed use three urban limited and R-10 with TOD. Um and then the other property was uh 1122 Boyer Street. That's RX-3 with TOD um, currently. And they were removed? They were Those two properties are the ones who requested withdrawal. And, uh, just to be clear, and I think I know the answer to this question, but by state law, they don't want to be in the rezoning, we're not allowed to include them in this rezoning. Correct. >> [snorts] >> All right. Uh, any more questions before we close the public hearing again? And I believe Commissioner Shelburne had a comment. Yes. Uh, thank you. So, either I, like Commissioner Fox, missed the previous meeting, or my memory is going a lot faster than I thought. So, I'm not up on a lot of the specifics here, and not going to make anyone re- educate me on them. So, I just have a couple of general observations that are just going to inform my vote. The first is last meeting, the every commissioner except for me voted against something after hearing testimony about concerns over traffic safety. Well, just want to note that there's nothing that contributes more to traffic safety than getting people on transit. And there's no better way to have people get on transit than by having density, especially high residential density near transit stops. So, again, that's just a general observation. And I'll just repeat a general observation >> [snorts] >> that I made a pre- previous meeting that preserving the physical spaces in a community does not protect its demographics, does not protect who it's there, any of that kind of thing. In fact, it very much can do the opposite. And that gentrification displacement occurs when you do not allow supply to meet demand, and it's quiet, it's doesn't happen in any big public way, but people get priced out of their housing when that happens. And so, the way to protect a community is to allow it to to grow. Thank you, Commissioner Shelburne. Um, Commissioner Omokai, just a moment, if you please. Um, I'd I'd like to continue this discussion as as much as we need to hash all this out, we'll keep going. I would like to propose a framework to maybe make this a little bit more simple and to pare it down a little bit. Um, >> [clears throat] >> I think that we could go ahead and make a motion to uh, produce without recommendation a give a no recommendation report for the properties that were not authorized by council for this time around. And that would be 2345 New Bern Avenue and 101 North Bloodworth Street. Um, does the commission find that to be acceptable? You're removing that? I'm sorry. >> You're removing that? Yeah, take those out and no no recommendation, no yay or nay, just council didn't ask us to look into these in the first place. Send it back and say that they can they can send it back to us if they want. So moved. Do I hear a second? >> We have a motion and a second. All of those in favor? That's unanimous. We'll go ahead and take those out. And what I would like to do next was maybe identify some of the properties that we would like to discuss in further detail, and then perhaps, uh, before discussing those, move on the ones that we are uh, with that we're all comfortable with. Um, I'll I'll put that out there, but then I would like to recognize Commissioner Omokai for her comment. I'm sorry, Commissioner I'd like to respond to your question listen. She had her hand up, uh, previously. Okay Commissioner I appreciate you trying to put some framework to this. >> [clears throat] >> Those few properties, we've we've dealt with this before, I think even with this case. We've got the non-property owners coming forward and asking them to remove property, and we were pretty adamant originally that we weren't we weren't going to address that. So, I'm not sure why we would do that in this situation. Uh, what about My intention is to make sure that the commissioners are comfortable that they have the information they need on these properties to make a correct decision. Fair enough. Well, that's that's kind of my perspective, so. Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Omokai. Um, kind of want to address two things. Uh, to Commissioner, um, O'Haver's perspective. In the next year, this will be a whole new council. I mean, whole new commission. So, you Chairman, you will be gone. Uh, uh, Commissioner Fox, I know you're ready to [laughter] be gone. Commissioner O'Haver will be gone. Um, if you all made decisions that was based off of that commission's perspective, most of the commissioners here are newer. So, we are brought in as a voluntary group of people who are going to be impacted by our lived experiences by the decisions made by this planning commission. So, while I do appreciate tribal knowledge, I think that's important, but I also want to make it clear while it's being stated, we already we did not already. You all already, and you all are leaving in about a year. Right? So, that that's a shift in perspective. And I also want to address just very quickly, um, yes, gentrification is happening, but the ideology that preserving structure is a privileged one. Um, there's a lot of space in our community up New Bern Avenue that is being removed, historical houses that have significant relevance not just to the black community, but to Raleigh as a whole. There are historical figures that made impacts in the world that have impacts here in Raleigh, and us in while we get to drive up Oakwood and see beautiful homes from an era, and we see the governor's mansion, and those structures are preserved. To say that structures in other communities don't shouldn't have that right because density and gentrification is a part of the reason why I keep saying implicit bias training, a series of it might be necessary for this commission and other boards of commission. And I mentioned before the founder of one of my founders of Delta Sigma Theta being from Raleigh, North Carolina, being buried here. Jack Johnson, first black heavyweight of the world, reason why they came out with the term great white hope cuz nobody could beat him, who also was a inventor who invented the wrench that we still use today, died at St. Agnes Hospital because he was not able to be served at any white hospitals that are here, and that's why that building being there, being preserved, is important. So, preserving structures in vulnerable communities where people's voices are often not heard because people have enough money to not invest in those communities for long enough, the city has enough money to neglect those communities for long enough to hold it in a place for when people are ready and they have money and they have friends they can be put on boards and commissions they can then be pushed out of their homes. So, that is why I'm saying, yes, we may have made decisions on these properties, but some of them, when we talk about long-term impact to communities, and if we're talking about affordability, and none of these things that we're talking about approving today on New Bern is even considering adding affordability, and our number one ridership is up New Bern Avenue because that's the most vulnerable corridor in the community in this city, then some more scrutiny on the decisions that we're making on the properties, having a second look and a second bite at the apple might be a benefit that we didn't get a chance to have because of the perception. So, places like Bart Street, places like, uh, the strip mall that's next to the Alliance Funeral Home. My question is, have they spoke to the Alliance Funeral Home because that development will impact that one next to it, and that is a historical landmark. And I know that we don't have houses and churches and spaces because we've been wiped out. And that's the point that we're making when we stand up here and sometimes try to have a harder benefit I mean stand on harder benefits for specific corridors because we don't mean they're vulnerable just because people are that live there are low income. We mean they're vulnerable because they're held in a position to be taken advantage of like what's happening now. Thank you, Commissioner Omokai. Commissioner Fox, and then Commissioner O'Haver. Yeah, thank you. No, I appreciate your comments, Commissioner Omokai. Um, you bring up an interesting point for me. So, it's really important at this table to to make the distinction between what is a development project and and what is land use. And so, we're not approving development projects. That's that's not actually what we're doing. So, this is this is really zoning. So, is it appropriate to zone a corridor like New Bern Avenue or Capital Boulevard North or Western Boulevard or any of the other BRT corridors, is it appropriate to to zone them as is being proposed here? And I would argue yes. You're correct in that there's no affordability in here. Right? And I I would point out, last time I checked, exactly zero affordable units have been built based on zoning conditions. So, affordable units are not built based on zoning. They're built based on bonded projects or LIHTC, low-income housing tax credits. And neither of those things are the zoning. But when the zoning is appropriate for those projects to move forward, it's easier for those projects to move forward. So, for instance, with LIHTC, the project would rate higher if it had access to other things which come in hand with the zoning. So, >> [clears throat] >> I would argue that big A affordable housing does follow the zoning. Small A affordable housing, so that which is attainable housing, um actually is responsive to supply and demand. And that's that's proven by numerous researchers you using numerous different methodologies. So, I would say allowing density, regardless of where it shows up in the city, allowing density does actually make rents go down. And that's that's been proven empirically. But if we want big A affordable housing, I think the mechanisms by which we get that are bonded projects and LIHTC, and and making those projects rank higher in LIHTC based on certain things. Proximity to transit, proximity to grocery stores, um other amenities and social services, et cetera. So, >> [clears throat] >> you bring up a really interesting point, but again, there's no detail with these because they they are not projects. This is this is land use. I want to Commissioner [clears throat] Abril is next and then we'll then you're next. >> Yeah, I just I I want to just clarify. Um Yes, this commission is is going to be turning over, but by nature, that's the way it's supposed to occur. I've served on this commission for 6 years and not one time have I made a decision on anything personal to me. Decisions over the past 6 years have been made for the betterment of the community. So, when I roll off, I'm still part of this community and I hope that the decisions I've made and I've been very clear on a couple of decisions I did make that didn't turn out the way that I thought and I've articulated those. And those continue to bother me. Um so, I just want to I just want to clarify that. Yes, I think I've got three more meetings. Um after 6 years, my decisions are made for the community, not anything personal. And I think the comments are being made that this is to set up for BRT to be successful. So, I'm ready to um move forward in approval with this rezoning case. Commissioner O'Mukai. Um I just want to state it's been uh uh I'm not saying that anybody specific has made decisions based on something other than, but when we see transit overlay district, this falls in line with the BRT. I was on the transit authority for 8 years. I chaired it for 6 years. And part of that is thoroughly understanding how all of this goes hand in hand with that. And how we haven't even been able to find anybody to even build the BRT cuz it's too expensive at this point. So, continuing to zone, and I understand these are not development projects. I understand that zoning sets up for development, though. So, I'm talking about this comprehensively. I'm not looking at it as something small and specific. I also want to state that I'm a woman with two a bachelor's degree, a MBA, multiple certifications, a laundry list of experience and awards. And it has been explained to me three times how supply and demand works since I've been sitting here. I know how supply and demand works. [clears throat] I know that when you increase demand supply, it happens to meet demand, and then therefore the cost of the the thing goes down. And if there's not enough supply, that creates frenzy and demand, and the cost of the thing goes up. But I also understand that as a city and as a planning commission, we've approved enough housing to meet the demand that for the need of housing, it's just not being built. It's not being built. We have approved enough like of the properties that we've approved, of the uh apartment complexes uh that the city's approved, of the rezonings that we've approved. We have approved enough to meet housing, which is why we're seeing rent stagnate, right? So, yeah, we do understand rent is stagnating because of of what you all are saying, supply meeting demand. But that is supply meeting demand for whom and who can live here. And if we're constantly building things that have no affordability in communities that are naturally occurringly affordable that then make them unaffordable, then we're just supplying housing. So, I would hope that nobody explains supply and demand to me again, please. Commissioner, just 1 second. I I would like to remind all of the commissioners that uh we're encouraged to debate ideas and not each other and keep it as unpersonal as possible. Nobody's crossed the line here. Just want to remind it. Uh Commissioner Cochran. Um so, and I want to acknowledge that um what Commissioner Abril said about even if you roll off of this commission, it doesn't mean you're out of the community. And I appreciate the the welcome and and training that he and Commissioner Fox have provided me over the past year. That being said, I live on Bart Street and I've um moved in right at the beginning of its peak gentrification. So, I've seen it happen and I don't think that zoning has affected that at all. I think that um whether you're zoned for R4 or R10 or, you know, something higher, the the market demand in that specific neighborhood has has driven the the cost up. And [snorts] there are other efforts um both nationally and locally to think through um how homes are being bought, um you know, even some ideas around um not letting developers buy single-family homes, things like that. Those are going to to happen regardless as to whether or not we have public transit down this corridor. So, at the end of of the um the conversation here or my my contribution to this conversation, having this rapid transit is so important to me. Um I'm a big fan of public transit, and if it was more convenient, I would be using it every day. Um so, in the effort to build on that, make this a viable plan over the next 10 years, I would like to vote in favor of this rezoning just to encourage that. I know it's not going to happen tomorrow. It may take us years to find the right builder, but it's worth the effort to put that infrastructure into our city to alleviate other problems. Traffic's not going away, and this is an ongoing thing to, you know, pivot and adjust to make sure that we can provide services to the city. That's it. Commissioner Neptin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just I wanted to make a brief note of acknowledgement to uh some residents in Newbern, or I should say along the Newbern Avenue corridor. Let me clarify that. Uh I was brought into a meeting late last night uh in the backyard of some some folks who live along the Newbern Avenue uh you know, BRT corridor and uh you know, I did not leave that backyard till about 11:00. And I'll tell you, I I'm grateful for uh the time and the energy spent um by these residents to, you know, engage a member of the commission very directly in this conversation and you know, after uh I guess a a couple hours at minimum, you know, something that occurred to me is that the city has made such an effort to apply lessons learn from mistakes that it's made in decades past through robust public engagement around this particular project and many others, but I think this one in particular is so striking to me given that you've got everything from the 2016 Wake County Transit Plan that had its own set of engagement followed by the, you know, 2021 Equitable Development around Transit Plan, um the Newbern Station Area Planning uh community engagement. I mean, I participated in in many of those public meetings. Um and of course, you know, fast forward through the rezoning process and all the public hearings and all the engagement that's required. And there is this tension. I mean, there's this tension as I think we try to uh acknowledge where we are as a community, how we want to continue to grow, um and and sort of drive that growth, so to speak, um as best as we can while also being mindful of not, you know, losing the the the character and the soul of what kind of makes this city so great. Um there is this tension for these for our residents and for our communities who live along those those areas of projected growth. And I just I just want to I think what I'm trying to articulate as briefly as possible, and I promise to wrap up in a moment, is that uh I just I I have a lot of you know, sometimes I think of it as heartache or heartburn and and and, you know, heartwarming feelings, right? Like as on the opposite end. And there there is a there is some heartache here. I just want to acknowledge that. I mean, again, sitting down with the residents last night and right there along the edge. And we're in conversation around the potential for you know, DX3 this and that and the other, you know, sort of I guess upzoning attendant with this. But that is, you know, it is after all this engagement, all these years. I mean, even going back to our comprehensive plan adopted in 2010, 2009, our 2030 comprehensive plan and the updates made sense. I mean, this is Ultimately, it is aligned based on public opinion, based on ongoing engagement, which is true engagement, by the way. It's not a one and done, right? I mean, this is an ongoing process of actively being in conversation with each other. But ultimately, coupled with professional full-time colleagues on staff in planning and development, you know, I am grateful for all the work and for all the discussion and all the conversation. I do think it's meaningful. And I recognize the tension with these corridors that are, you know, bearing the growth and the development of our community. With that note, I'm also prepared to move forward with a motion to approve. Thank you, Commissioner Neptune. Commissioner O'Haver. Yeah, I'd like to um make a motion. If we could If we could hold just 1 minute on that, please. Uh I would like to provide an opportunity for commissioners that are are opposed to rezoning of any of these properties to carve them out in a separate motion. It would allow them to more specifically highlight the areas where they have concerns and give council more confidence in the areas where they concur with the request. And so, Commissioner Omekhayel, I'll ask you directly, are there some properties that you would like to carve out and vote on separately? Cuz I think the commission wants to move on these today. >> Thank you, Chairman. Um I agree with that cuz I don't feel comfortable just approving all of these. I think there are some that we all agree on and some that I do have questions on. So, the Richard B. Harrison Library, 1313 New Bern Avenue is one um that I think that we should pull to the side and have further discussion on. I do have questions um and and more so, that could just be just understanding how engagement went with the Lion's Funeral Home for 1601 New Bern Avenue. Um I have questions about uh 1118 Boyer Street. I know that 1122 is already been removed. Um I know that those also impact the apartments I mean, the houses across street 1171, 1121, 1120, but I don't think that they were involved in the rezoning. I have a question about uh 1302 Battery Road. I have uh the two properties there. I have a question about 23 Bart Street. And we've received a lot of emails about uh two uh 325 East Edenton that I think should be uh considered also. Um everything else I believe in this comprehensive plan um since we're not moving forward with the Bloodworth um uh project and uh that other project I believe that was a concern. Um Um those are the ones I think are the bigger uh issues to me that need to be pulled to the side to discuss. Um there was a question about Person Street, but I just think that that's conversation that could be had, but that's 1 2 3 4 5 maybe 6 out of all of this, which still gives us 10. Acknowledging that two were removed uh and asked to do uh do that. So, I asked that if we have time to move those out to have further discussion, I would really appreciate that. I'm comfortable with the majority with the rest of the commission. So, thank you, Commissioner Omekhayel. I counted six properties: 1601 New Bern Avenue, 1313 New Bern Avenue, which is the library, Right. And I'm not saying like I just have a question about how engagement happened with the funeral home that's right next to the strip mall cuz he recently [clears throat] had service there and he didn't have enough space in his lot to fulfill that and strip malls may not allow him that if there is a funeral there and there's not a lot of street parking. So, I have questions about that one and what engagement happened there. Um uh Sorry, carry on. Boylan Street, Battery to the Battery end and Bart Street. And since we got a lot of emails about 325 East Edenton, if we can have further [snorts] discussion on that one. So, at this point, given those comments, I would like to entertain a motion on the remaining 10 items and I can list those off for staff if that's uh helpful. Anybody be willing to make such a motion? Commissioner Parks. >> A question. >> Sure. But uh so, does there need to be a formal motion [clears throat] to remove those ones from consideration first? I was uh I was thinking we would vote on the ones that weren't highlighted here and formally vote on those and then dispense with the rest as as we will. Is >> Yeah, I think um if if possible, I think staff was intending to take all the recommendations up to council at once just because we wanted to have one ordinance addressing whatever is ultimately approved. So, yes, Chair Atwell, if if you want to entertain a motion on I think nine or 10 that were not included in Commissioner Omekhayel's list and then if you all want to discuss the remaining six, um hopefully we can have a recommendation going up to council at one time for all the properties, even though the recommendations may be different. Sure thing. Uh Commissioner O'Haver. >> clarification. We're going to discuss those other six today or making So, we're going to continue to discuss those six today. To be clear, I think we will probably vote on those today, but I expect it to be a split vote. We could We can A [snorts] motion can be made to postpone it. I don't know if that would carry. >> us postponing the discussion on those six since in the presentation, we don't have to make a final action until June 13th and we have at least three meetings between now and then. Um that gives us more time to have a more robust conversation with each other and community and make sure and ask the questions like about the Lion's strip mall that we can make sure that the whole commission feels completely confident in moving forward. As I mentioned, the majority I agree with. There's some that I do have concerns about that I don't feel comfortable with. I Certainly. And I think that that will uh the commission will be given an opportunity to make a motion to that effect. Um but first, let's deal with the ones that we all have a a clear side on. We're quick. We're we're acknowledging though that the Are we acknowledging the two that were removed cuz they were still on the list? The They're They're They're not under consideration anymore. Legally, we're not allowed to consider. And if we could just just clarify for the record as you all are voting so you know which ones you're voting on, the two that were removed withdrawn, correct? Is that what we're cuz there were two that were not part of council authorization, but then there were two that were withdrawn. >> right. It's very confusing. Um the one that was withdrawn that is still appearing on your agenda item is 1122 Boyer, correct? And then Matt, what was the other? There was a second one that was 1225 East Edenton. That's right. So, I have a I can I have a list here of the ones that have not been called out. Um And since I have the list, I'm just going to go ahead and make the motion. So, would you like me to read these out, please? Okay. That would be helpful, thank you. >> Sure. All right. Um for 14, excuse me, 1246, 1250 New Bern Avenue, 1501 New Bern Avenue, 1702 Pool Road, 1401 New Bern Avenue, 1210 New Bern Avenue, 1241 New Bern Avenue, 203 South Tarboro Street, 827 Cotton Street, 101 North Person Street, 307 and 311 Edenton, and 15 South Bloodworth Street. Uh I read all that and I don't have my uh staff recommendation up here. Just one second. Uh just a friendly amendment, it's actually 100 North Person Street. Oh, it Excuse me. Please amend to 100 North Person Street. And if you want to I think you're going to do the consistency statement and all that. Yes. So, for the above-mentioned properties, I move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated April 28th, 2026 contained in the agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. There is a motion. Do I have [clears throat] a second? I think that was Commissioner Walters Commissioner We'll take that from Commissioner Burnett. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? All those opposed? We have one opposed. It passes 9 to 0. Commissioner O'Haver, would you like to state your reason for proposal? It's not 9 0. 9 1, sorry. You get You count as one. I'm sorry. >> 8 1. 8 1. 10 9 1. Um yeah, I mean, I think I've been pretty clear about it. I was ready to make a motion to support all of this. So, it's not that I'm not in favor of the 10 parcels you just listed. I think there's been it's it's it's clear staff has presented there's been lots of community development. Commissioner Neptune was very articulate about what's been going on over years of conversation here. >> [clears throat] >> And um I think we need to move forward. We need to make the decisions best for the corridor. And so while I support it I I'm you know the library is a is a conundrum to me why we're pulling that out. So I just I'm not sure about this process here. While I'm in support of the all of the projects I'm I'm voting denial for that reason. Thank you Commissioner O'Haver. All right. So that leaves us with the remaining properties. Um I would like to open this up for a motion if there would be anybody who would like to defer this to a later discussion. I would like to make a motion to defer this to a later discussion. There's a motion to defer. Is there a second? Second. Um motion to defer this to our next meeting for further discussion. All those in favor? All those opposed? The motion fails. Uh I'd like to open it up for a motion for either approval or denial of the remaining properties. Anybody be willing to make such a motion? Commissioner Omokai. I make a motion that we then if we're not going to discuss them or further that I make a motion well no I'm not going to make that motion everybody. Commissioner Walters you're reaching for your microphone. Yes I am. Yeah you know I just want to go back to the comment earlier comments from Roberta. Um I think that they really align with what I've talked about previously uh in relation to these cases. Um all of the cases in front of us are raising their hand saying I would like to have the thing that I had before that went through a very rigorous public process um and uh I want to honor that process and the people who are involved in it uh and um for that reason I'd like to make a motion to approve the remaining Oh I got to pull up the consistency statement real quick here. Is there an opportunity for discussion before the motion? I'd like to make uh I'd like to move to recommend the adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated April 28th, 2026 contained in agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment of the remaining addresses that we should probably list out loud. As as a friendly amendment I will read those out now. Properties will be 1601 New Bern Avenue 1313 New Bern Avenue 1118 Boyer Street 1302 Battery Drive 23 Bart Street and 325 East Edenton Street. We have a motion and a second. Is there a second? Seconded by Commissioner O'Haver and uh any further discussion on the motion? Commissioner Omokai. I would like to say that and I say this all the time just because we spent a long time making a bad decision doesn't mean we should invest more time seeing it through because it was somebody's idea. And if it's not all six of the ones that I'm saying I believe that the Battery Road and Bart Street because Bart Street is where No Old Pool Road meets and it actually goes down a very dangerous road. Um it will cause a lot of traffic. I mean if if if people being pushed out and not being able to afford their housing is it an issue that at least talk about those those properties. Then traffic concerns and safety concerns on Battery Road and Bart Street should be considered in this at least. And if those could be pulled out if we want to move forward with the library fine. I don't understand why if we're not building up on the library they're not given the money to do that. They weren't given the money in the bond but we're asking to rezone them to be built up. And I think if the library is going to decide to do more or move which is what the community is saying they don't want to do then they should bring that back for a separate rezoning. That's why I'm against the library rezoning. If they're going to decide what especially if we're saying we don't know what's going to happen there and they haven't been given the money to construct. They've only been given the money to add to their technology and do slight renovations. But we're rezoning them to build higher on a landlocked lot and we don't know what's going to happen there. Like let the library be taken out. That's why I have a issue with that and let that be its own rezoning later with if they're going to come back and say this is what we're going to do here on this property especially since that city on property that should be used for community use. If everything else on New Bern Avenue is going to go through uh like the like uh the 1601 like I said my concern is just parking. It's not that I'm against that development. But I would ask that we at least consider pulling out the Battery Road and the Bart Street to have more conversation. If we can't get the if I can't get the all the other ones. If those three >> [laughter] >> cuz it doesn't make sense for the library if they're not building up and they're not telling us what they're going to do there. And we don't know if it'll be used for community use and there is significant community concern for Bart Road Bart Street and Battery Road. Uh thank you. Uh Commissioner Burnett. Um being from the Southeast Raleigh neighborhood I I know that you know we are a lot of this is procedural but I do support Commissioner Omokai on the 1313 New Bern Avenue uh parcel being removed. I mean you know the Richard B. Harrison Library is a is a anchor. It's a it's a it's a monument in in that community in in my community. And so I would really like that pulled out. So I support her on that. The other ones I mean you know I would kind of I guess go with the will uh of the commission but the 1313 um New Bern Avenue I think that definitely needs to be pulled out and like handled on its own. And Commissioner Fox. Um [snorts] friendly amendment if accepted um to Commissioner Walters motion to remove 1313 uh New Bern Avenue uh from his motion. Do you accept? I do. And if we could have a approval of the second that Second. We have a motion and a second. Would you like me to read these properties out again? All of the ones previously mentioned except for 1313 New Bern Avenue which has now been pulled for a separate consideration. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? All those opposed? The motion passes eight to two. Sorry this is going to take a second for me to Wait. Wait. This was a motion to remove The This was a motion to approve everything except Okay yeah just making sure I voted the right direction. >> [laughter] >> All right. All right. So we have we have one remaining property left on our list to dispense with. Oh just some procedural things. If we could have the two commissioners that voted in opposition give their statements. >> Yes. And then we'll We do have the 1313 but then Matt had one additional vote that we're going to need for some additional properties that came in. We'll we'll cover that in a minute. Uh-oh. Okay. Um first we'll get our comments. Uh Commissioner O'Haver. Uh I've been clear on the record. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Omokai. Uh while I appreciate and and really truly appreciate this commission's decision to remove 1313 New Bern Avenue I still have a problem with the other properties that I brought forward and for that reason I'm opposing. Uh thank you. Make sure that's on the public record. Uh we do have that one more property to deal with but I I hear from staff that would we like to talk about this first or >> a clarification. So uh a motion on your position on 1313 New Bern today would be great. Uh otherwise deferred to a later meeting but you can vote that up or down. And then there were three properties um that were authorized by council. And Harm if you would pull the slide up for me please. Is that Is that 1246 and 1215 New Bern Avenue? Those were included in the first two. >> Those were included in the first motion. Oh. Oh they were. Yeah. Thank you. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. >> [snorts] >> 1246, 1250 and 1501 were the first three on that list. Got you. Um so I think we have >> I wrote I was writing stuff down. I've been doing this for for a couple days now. Um All right. So we have one left to deal with uh and we are still in discussion at the table for 1313 New Bern Avenue. And personally I spent a lot of time reviewing this the first time it came around and I am confident that the the county and the library will continue to serve the community uh to the best that Wake County can do. Um and I'm ready to move on it and I'm happy to hear opposition and debate at this point and hear a motion to either defer or to approve or deny as is the will of the commission. Commissioner Omokaiye. Um, I just want to explain there's no guarantee that the library will stay there. So, we know that we're developing the DMV location. That library is a staple. Even if we build a new learning center at the DMV location or Tarboro Tarboro Road, we don't want the library moved. The library hasn't been given its funding to at all. It's been neglected for a long time to build up or construct anything on its site. Like I said, it was only given 1.4 million out of a $16 million bond, and that was just for technological upgrades. So, I'm saying if there is no plan for the site, and the community doesn't want the library moved, and we don't know what may happen to the library, let's just make that decision when they know what they're going to do on that site when that time comes. So, I would rather us either vote it down today if possible, and just let them come back. It's the county. They can come back to us and say, "Hey, this is our decision. This is what we're going to do on this site. We've gotten more money. This is why we want to build up, and there's no problem rezoning it at that time." But, a blank check on a location that we may then lose in the future to isolate our culture to one location at the DMV or Tarboro Road is the concern. So, if we can either if any if if it's not comfortable being voted down today by the commission, I would appreciate if we just moved it and talked about it another day. So, we can have more context around it and not just what's in our face. Thank you, Commissioner Omokaiye. If we were to defer, I would want us to be very clear on what questions we would want answered that are not available to us at this time. My question would be what is going to Why are we A, why are we rezoning to build on a space that doesn't that it doesn't have the funding to build on? It's a landlocked library. So, if they're funding to build higher on this library site, then where is the funds coming from for that? When is that plan? What is that going to look like if you're going to if that library is going to stay there and build up two stories, then is there going to be a business center in the like let us know how what how community or is that library is the plan long-term for that library to be moved and that spot to be used for whatever development residential commercial that has nothing to do with community use and that land sold. So, I'm just also trying to preserve historical spaces in our community and a community in a spot in a spot that doesn't get that benefit. We don't know what's going to happen with the library that is for public use. The library could be used and that land could be no longer used for public use, and we want that to stay in community. So, they have an opportunity to come back when they have a plan, and if this is for public use, let them give us a plan before we approve something. I I understand your comments. Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Walters. I just I guess I just want to reflect a little bit. I think these are all actually really important things to think about, um, and they make sense, and, um, they they are often things that we think about when an applicant is coming to us for a rezoning with a project in mind. Um, and I just want to kind of uh, emphasize that this is tricky because it's not it's not that we're not doing that right now. This is really more about the city trying to, uh, use planning tools in order to, uh, increase density around BRT. And And so, well, those questions all make a lot of sense to me, and I think they're important when Wake County, you know, comes and says, "I'm interested in doing this project." Or they have a project in mind. I think that, um, what we're doing right now, and and knowing that we've approved all but this case, you know, I actually think it really makes it would be a disservice to pull one out and treat it differently. Uh, when what what we're saying what I'm saying, at least, and what I hear other commissioners saying is that these folks have raised their hand and said, "I want to I want the thing that I had before, and that it makes sense from a city planning standpoint." I think, um, the the best thing that we could do in this scenario is treat them all the same. Thank you, Commissioner Walters. Commissioner Neptune. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just wanted to echo and briefly follow, uh, Commissioner Walters in his note and observation. Something that I've appreciated learning in my time spent on the commission is that often times a property owner will come through, and they will seek the rezoning uh, to expand their options with regard to what could be done uh, with a property to, you know, improve upon it, to build upon it, etc. Uh, now, I do also recognize and deeply respect and appreciate, especially, um, in Southeast Raleigh, particularly, uh, being mindful of that opportunity to grow and develop, balanced against our desire to preserve and not lose, you know, what's made us who we are. Um, again, I think just as I reflect on this overall application for rezoning and the decade plus of engagement and ongoing frankly conversation um, you know, when you look at our role as a commission, as a body, and you see how this is so deeply aligned with our comprehensive plan, our future land use map, and the interests in the public good, you know, to see future you know, housing stock and supply, to see improved transit for our community. Um, and then, you know, I think so, I suppose specifically with this particular property in Wake County, I mean, if I'm not mistaken, there's an entire separate commissioner board that the county has that directly oversees its public libraries, our public libraries, coupled with the Wake County Commission and sort of that separate processes before you even get to I think a significant change that could happen. So, I My sense is, you know, through this application for rezoning, the county is just kind of creating, uh, more options for itself and not fewer to improve upon, to support, um, this public asset. Um, so, again, I think I'm really just briefly echoing, the observation made by Commissioner Walters. Um, and and again, I I I think I'm prepared to move forward with the motion to support. Thank you, Commissioner Neptune. Commissioner Berndt. Um, to Commissioner Walters' uh, sentiment regarding uh, the applicants have raised their hand and are saying like, "Hey, I bubbled up because I wanted what I had before." Is there How was that expressed by the library? That's I guess that's my question. Uh, I'm going to keep this at the table, so I'm going to attempt to answer it. So, we're not going to open the public meeting. Uh, this is not a library-led uh, effort. This was led by the city, and the county got the same letter as everybody else asking that they wanted to be included in the rezoning, and it at that point, it was a very small lift to for them to say, "Yes, here's the application." Commissioner Cockrell. And um so, my understanding of the library system as a citizen of Wake County is that there are different size libraries. There are community libraries and regional libraries, and that they change our they will initiate a new library when population and usership demands it. So, while this is an an older library, one that's been loved by the community, there may be a time where this part of the county has enough readership to increase their facility to a regional library. So, by insisting that this library can or this building can never move, we're kind of saying we don't want a regional library here, which I think would be a disservice to the community. Um, you know, think about if um, if we were preserving a YMCA, so the Southeast YMCA never got built. It's that kind of thing where, you know, the the counties probably can't promise a date in which the those metrics would demand a regional library, which may I'm I'm I don't want to stick up for the county in any way, but they are under obligation to provide services to the county, and a library is one of their services. So, I appreciate maybe this is being used as a negotiation tool with the county because the community wants something, but I don't know that um, I I don't know that this is the way to get it, I guess, is what I'm saying. Thank you, Vice Chair Cockrell. Commissioner Fox. So, if I take a step back and look at this one and review it the way we would individual parcel coming forward, the request is to rezone from NX3 urban limited with TOD to NX4 with TOD. So the delta in the increase in entitlement is is actually a pretty low threshold. It's going from NX3 to NX4. Um, the change in the urban urban limited would be a question that I would generally have at the table when we were reviewing this in isolation. Um, however, I do happen to know um, we did adopt standards for Newbern Avenue. So, that lack of [clears throat] an urban limited frontage does not concern me because I know the streetscape um, is a is a is a separate thing for Newbern Avenue. So, the BRT corridors have a a a separate um, kind of street typology um, and and requirements associated with that. So, the primary difference here is really an NX3 to an NX4. It doesn't increase or decrease the permitted uses. It's a increase in height, so from three stories to four stories. So, in that sense the change in entitlement is actually quite small, so things that we would generally be looking at like um, changes to traffic pattern would would be quite negligible um, on a corridor like that. So, if I think about it from that perspective, the delta from the existing zoning to the proposed zoning is is again quite quite a quite a small increase in entitlement. Thank you, Commissioner Box. Uh, Commissioner [clears throat] Omokai then Commissioner O'Haber. Um, when we say the part of the reason why I think that this parcel should be treated differently cuz when we say, "Well, the applicant came forward." We are the applicant. It's our library. It's it's it's >> [cough and clears throat] >> the county the what we pay our taxes into. What's up Newbern Avenue does matter. We're not saying we don't want a regional library ever. We are saying that if that's what the they're going to do, then come back and get rezoned when you know what you're going to do. And no, we don't want the library moved. That is what we've been saying about losing historical properties that I I feel like sometimes it's just falling on deaf ears because people are thinking about what they want, which to me I mean, I'm doing it, too, but I just want to call out that that's isn't we're not here as we're not all here just making these decisions based off the comprehensive plan. And again, it may be a small incremental shift, but those shifts happen. So, just to give context also, there are two libraries in Southeast Raleigh. One is the library that is off Cross Street in a strip mall next to a Food Lion that has a leaky ceiling and is by a liquor store and is by a police station and it originally got no money in the library bond. So, when we're talking about usage of libraries, people actually try to use that library and it doesn't grow and doesn't get any money because of where it is and who it serves. And that's the same thing with the Richard B. Harris Library only getting $1.4 million in a $16 million bond that had money left over that they could have given to the library to construct, which would make sense for us then to rezone again because we are the applicants because it's our library. So, if there's one thing that could be brought back when they have a decision of what we're going to do, it's not enough in our community to just trust and hope is not a strategy for us. Historically, that has been proven. And it may not be everybody's reality, but the the those whose reality it is should be considered even if it's not yours. So, that's a part of my issue. That's why I'm saying, "Yeah, years of talking about this has happened and just because you spent years making a poor decision doesn't mean spend another hour doing it again." They can come back and rezone this when they know what they're going to do. And the threat of it being moved and they can say, "Well, we're going to move it." Tell us. What often happens in the in our community to us is we're not told what's happening just like I brought up what happened that on the corner from my house and I wasn't informed. That is a community epidemic in Southeast Raleigh to some people, not to everybody. So, if this is for a community use, this is our library. We're asking just to let them come back and get this rezone when they know what they're going to do. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that if it's just one item on an agenda. One item. I'm sorry if they're like, "Well, well, then the city council doesn't get that one item." It's just one thing that give the community a win at least once at this commission table. Uh, thank you, Commissioner Omokai. Are there any Commissioner O'Haber? You had your hand up next. Um, I'm not probably as up to speed as Commissioner Cochran is on the county's obligations. >> [snorts] >> But I have a just a a general question. Um, with or without this rezoning, there's no guarantee that there's a library there. The county can at any time decide to sell that property. Is that correct? Let's let's keep it at the table for now. I think >> Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm asking the attorney. Can I not do that? Are we allowed to ask the attorney questions without opening the public hearing? Uh I Let's open the Okay, well, then it's not a question. It's just a statement that that's my understanding. I'm fairly certain that's true, um, but without being able to get confirmation of that, there's no guarantee that the county doesn't sell or move that land regardless of this rezoning. All right, thank you, Commissioner O'Haber. Is any more discussion or comments? At this time, I'd like to open the floor to a motion. We can either move to approve or deny or defer as the motioner wishes. I'll make a motion. I make it Do I have to read it verbatim from the thing? >> Uh, it would help if you would read the motion to One moment. staff-supported recommendation. I can never prove what to do with it. I think that's it. Uh, I move to recommend adoption of denial of the consistency statement dated April 28th, 2026 containing the agenda materials for the recommended denial of the zoning amendment of the uh, 1313 Newbern Avenue Richard B. Harris Library. We have a motion on the floor. Is there a second? Second. Uh, Commissioner Omokai made the motion. Commissioner Sanchez has seconded. All those in favor of denial, please uh, raise your hand. All those opposed? Motion fails two to seven at this time. I'll make a motion that we talk about this later at another meeting. Uh, we have a motion from Commissioner Omokai to defer. >> until today and not make a decision on this today. Is there a second? Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor of deferral, raise your hands, please. All those opposed? So, the motion fails six to three. Give Give me just a second to catch up. All right. Are there any other uh, call for a motion for approval or denial or we can revote on one of these? Commissioner Box. Uh, motion to recommend approval uh, 1313 Newbern Avenue. Uh, um, with that I move [clears throat] to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated April 28th, 2026 contained in the agenda materials and to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. We have a motion from Commissioner Box and a second from Vice Chair San- excuse me, Vice Chair Cochran. Not yet, Commissioner Sanchez. Um, all those in favor? All those opposed? And the motion passes seven to two. That concludes this case and uh, I'm sorry. Oh, yep. Would Commissioner Commissioner Omokai, would you like to have a statement on the record for your reason for denial? I'm denying this case because I don't believe this community is considered enough in the decisions that we're making on the commission. I do not believe that this commission is making equitable decisions across the city. I believe that density and the desire to rezone has been a burden that's been placed on District C and most specifically Southeast Raleigh. I believe that places that we actually own like the library should be considered at least given a plan before we move forward and I believe that those are considerations that would be given to other parts of the city that we don't get and I repeat that we need an implicit bias series training and I will uh, take time to meet with the chairman and anybody on staff so that if I need to initiate planning that that that happens. Hopefully before anybody rolls off so everybody can benefit. Uh, thank you, Commissioner Omokai. Omokai, excuse me. >> We do have one housekeeping. I'm so sorry to interrupt. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. Could we get Commissioner Sanchez's statement, please? >> I was just going to say I'm in agreement with Commissioner Omokai. Thank you, Commissioner Sanchez. One housekeeping matter, um I'm trying to make sure we've covered all the properties here. I'm I'm I'm missing a couple on my list, and I just want to make sure that we're we're finishing this case out so we can give a full recommendation to council. Um Chair would you um read through the 10 that you had listed in the first motion um or maybe the second motion. Yeah, so the first motion was to not recommend uh the the not approved not authorized properties. Second motion was to approve the the properties that we had general consensus on, and those would be 1246 New Bern Avenue. 1250 New Bern Avenue 1501 New Bern Avenue Mhm. 1702 Pool Road Mhm. 1401 New Bern Avenue Mhm. 1210 New Bern Avenue 1241 New Bern Avenue 203 South Tarboro Street 827 Cotton Street 100 North Person 307 and 311 East Edenton and 15 South Bloodworth. Great. Thank you. Yes, we are good. All right. Thank you very much. >> that. Um I'm going to call a 5-minute recess uh 7-minute recess. Let's be back here at 10:00 till 11:00 for the remainder of our cases, please. >> [clears throat] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Continue down our agenda for new business. And we will hear from Hiram about rezoning Z-326. Good morning again. Uh this is Z-326, 617 West Jones Street and 117 Glenwood Avenue. Um the request here is to rezone 0.41 acres from office mixed use three stories with attached frontage with NCOD. And also um on the map it's the redder portion uh DX or downtown mixed use 20 shop front frontage conditional use. And both of those parcels are being requested to go to downtown mixed use 20 stories with shop front frontage. Um Planning Commission deadline for action on this is June 27th. Zoning in the area is predominantly commercial mixed use overall. Um some residential, some neighborhood mixed use. Uh most of it's downtown mixed use. Uh again this map really should sit here and say mixed use uh over the whole area. But you can [clears throat] see that we've got a mixture of medium scale residential. We got some institutional uses. We got commercial. We got office space. High res high scale residential. It's just uh it's a typical downtown mixture here. Zoomed in on the properties so you can see what we're looking at. These are some two older single family structures. Um these one there to the southeast was part of a previous rezoning case that rezoned the entire um block facing uh Glenwood Avenue there to the DX 20 uh SHCU. Um The parcel on Jones Street there was not included in the original rezone zoning case on the front. Uh just uh quick pictures of the site. Uh the entitlement we're looking at here um major takeaways are uh some changes to front uh how the street how the properties would front with the shop front frontage. You're looking at a zero to 15 foot uh setback from the streets. Um remainder pretty much being the same. Possible uh density going up to 189 from 99. And then you can see increase in office entitlement and retail entitlement for this area. Uh does have a higher walk score than average, higher transit score, higher bike score, higher transportation cost index, higher job [snorts] percent. So it's hitting all of our our good boxes here for energy analysis and transportation. Served [snorts] Oops sorry. Served directly by um route six Glenwood. Uh it's also within walking distance of route four, eight, and the Arlon downtown. Um does add to the housing supply, does not include subsidized units in the application, does not permit a variety of housing types uh being downtown mixed use with the shop [clears throat] front frontage. Uh smaller units are allowed than normal. Um And it is well within walking distance of transit. Some demographic data real quick. The some of the highlights are less likely to be racial minorities compared to the city average in this area. Area residents are likely more likely to be low income than the city average. And the gross rent in this area has gone up 29%. Uh since 2019. Uh so we're kind of split here. The uh FLUUM has two designations for these properties here. Uh central business district and office and residential mixed use. The request would be consistent with the central business district. Uh the request is not consistent with the office and residential mixed use. Uh previously if you notice that that rear portion of 117 Glenwood that kind of like dog legs south um is in this uh office and residential mixed use but it is also DX 20 shop front CU. Uh there are conditions on that part of the property from the original rezoning that would limit height there to 12 stories which would put it in compliance with office and residential mixed use. Um so what's bringing this out of consistency with this is the height request as far as the FLUUM category is concerned. Um Otherwise it meets all the other standards for the future land use map uses, things like that. It's just getting that height regulation. Shop front frontage is consistent with the um urban form map. Uh this is in the downtown area. It's also in the frequent transit area. The downtown area spans all the way over to St. Mary's there. >> [clears throat] >> So we are consistent overall with the comprehensive plan. Uh we are consistent with urban form map and we are inconsistent overall with the future land use map. Uh some consistent policies considered here compact development, some of transit oriented development. We would have mixed use redevelopment, supporting retail. Um We're talking about frontage. We're talking about uh zoning for housing, uh pedestrian access to downtown, uh greenhouse reduction. Um under light utilize sites in downtown, encouraging downtown housing housing and street walls. So we're hitting some retail goals. We're hitting some um urban form goals. We're hitting some housing goals as far as the consistency goes with this. Um the request is to remove the NCOD from that Jones Street property. So it would be technically in my opinion in inconsistent with protecting our neighborhood identities. Um And again that whole uh height regulation is what prevents us being consistent with the uh future land use map. And your deadline for action is the 27th and here's some of your upcoming meeting dates. If I'm sorry. Forgot. Uh if y'all do choose to recommend approval, we would also recommend a uh future land use map amendment to amend the entire section there to downtown. Uh central business district. My apologies. Thank you, Ms. Marziano. Well, the public hearing is now open. Um we're going to allow 10 minutes for those in favor to present and then we'll allow 10 minutes for the opposition after that. For those in favor, please come to the podium. Good morning. Molly Stewart, Morningstar Law Group here on behalf of the owner and applicant of these two parcels. My comments today will focus primarily on the 617 West Jones Street parcel. That is the parcel um where the biggest change is requested in the existing zoning and also where we heard uh the the few concerns we heard were focused on that parcel particularly around its NCOD designation. So I will focus there. Um the large the larger overall goal here is to make a more coherent shape to improve floor plans in this area and to make the make that parcel consistent with that Glenwood Avenue frontage as well. Um this is the area we're talking about. Our our biggest scale planning map that we have in Raleigh is the growth framework map designating this area as the downtown regional center where the most intense growth uh is contemplated. This is in conflict with our current zoning. There are a couple of layers of controls here that are quite strict including the detached frontage um which calls for the kind of uh development that you see on your screen. Um also the NCOD overlay uh has has similar requirements to it and and we'll talk through those. The North Boylan NCOD uh has several components to it that are compared on this chart with with the zoning that is proposed here. Uh and one way to think about this particular NCOD is it's it's sort of an early version of a frontage. Um many of its topics uh aim in the same direction and achieve many of the same things as the urban frontages uh that we apply today. Um and and you see that with the shop front frontage that's requested uh all of those topics get addressed one way or another. Uh I haven't heard any um particular concern about those changes. Uh they they sort of aim to do the same thing in slightly different ways. Um so so those aren't really the focus. The focus is of course on that height um which is controlled under the NCOD um keeping it uh at essentially two two and a half stories depending on the the type of building that you're constructing there. So we see this conflict between the policies that we have uh in this area and and the existing regulations on that that parcel in particular. Uh and and this is a a broader view of our downtown, the pink area being the downtown designation on our urban form map. Um and we've surrounded that area uh and many cases actually overlaid um large sections of that area with historic and neighborhood conservation overlay districts. And that's what you see here on this map. And and those those overlays are designed to lock that that pattern in in in perpetuity. Those aren't the only barriers uh to uh expansion of our downtown. There are physical barriers as well. Uh here on this map you see highlighted in green the planned Devereux Meadows Park um which which truly is a physical barrier because it is there protecting the Pigeon House Branch. Um so so not really just sort of a a policy there. Um it's next to that double black line is a railroad right-of-way. Uh and then to the south a sort of a perplexing cloverleaf interchange at the south of our downtown. Um so so lots of of physical barriers here um kind of constraining our downtown and and making it difficult to fulfill that growth framework map that directs our our height and our density to this area. And if we remove that urban form layer, it makes it a bit easier to see just how restricted our downtown is. What this map doesn't show is the additional 99 acres of that downtown area um that are owned by the state of North Carolina and unlikely um to develop in an urban way. And here you see that red star uh is located uh on the site itself um which is located on the inside edge of one of our uh overlay districts. So let's zoom in on that, take a closer look. Uh 617 West Jones Street is inside that NCOD 117 Glenwood Avenue is not. Uh and that eastern boundary of the NCOD aligns with the eastern boundary of the office residential mixed-use designation from our future land use map. So here you see that that dark uh red color, that is our central business district. And the blue being our office and residential mixed-use designation. And we're here in a bit of a peninsula of of that area as the central business district uh extends farther west in general in other locations to the north and to the south of the site. That central business district pushes west. Here um for whatever reason it is at its most extreme eastern eastern point. >> [snorts] >> So let's look more closely at this block to see if we can see why it might be carved out of the central business district. So the area that's outlined in red is a portion of the block. I've excluded the Glenwood Avenue frontage which is uh part of the central business district. Um but the area outlined in red aligns with that future land use map um office residential designation. Uh and all of it except for the area in the green box is also within the NCOD. Um and as we can see this block um by area is primarily surface parking. Um And these are the types of buildings you find on this block. These these are the actual buildings that you find on this block. And and and what do they have in common? Um Well, they're short. They this single block provides uh you know, examples of traditional architecture, modern architecture multi-family commercial building types, all different kinds of building types. Their commonality lies really only in their height or or lack of height. Um So uh you know, we heard that this is perhaps inconsistent with protecting neighborhood identity. The neighborhood identity um to be protected here is short. Uh and as far as I can tell, you know, any protections that protect this situation are not designed um to create a particular identity other than that height limitation. And [snorts] and that's all true again here in our area of greatest intensity and density and access to various forms of transportation. So let's look at an aerial view. And this turns us upside down a bit. Here we're looking uh downtown is is toward the north of our to the top of our screen. Um and and so north is to the to the bottom of our screen here. Um so again, everything on Glenwood Avenue here uh is already zoned for 20 stories. And the West Jones Street parcel is is really part of that assembly. It is part of that assemblage and it's cut off from the other buildings on this block um by the intervening surface parking lot. So what other reason could we have for this designation? So let's look across the street. What is this building looking at? It's looking at these two commercial buildings. Uh and uh and and this loading dock. So let's look at the surrounding zoning. Uh everything outlined here in red is a zoning of 20 to 40 stories. Um so it's it's quite common in this area to see these these very tall um zoning designations. Uh and as you can see they extend north of the site, south of the site, um east of the site, and in fact many of them exist in a location that is farther west than the site itself. And if we add to that all the zoning that is more than the uh two and a half to three stories um that are permitted here, uh it's virtually everything. It's it's most of the area. Um So this you know, this three-story detached frontage NCOD controlled building um it's hard to say why that should exist here between a 20-story assemblage and a surface parking lot. Um again, the goal here is is to join that parcel with the remaining assemblage on Glenwood Avenue already. And this this slide highlights the full assemblage so you can see that. Um and and to fulfill that comprehensive plan goal um of directing growth here. Um happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Stewart. We will now allow time for the opposition to speak. 10 minutes to the opposition. Is there anybody here that wishes to oppose the application? All right. Uh not seeing any, I will bring it back to the table for questions from the commissioners. Does anybody have any questions for uh staff, applicant, or members of the public? I have a question for staff. Um and perhaps applicant. The proposal uh removes some conditions on one of the existing lots. What conditions were those that would no longer apply? Um I do not have a list of the conditions on my packet. If if Molly can >> I'd be happy to hear from Ms. Stewart. There are two conditions um that exist on all of those four parcels that are on the frontage on Glenwood. Um and they they would be removed. The two things that they do, one applies specifically to that sort of rear chunk of 117 Glenwood and that's why this this parcel's in the case. Um that is that 12-story height limitation that you heard about earlier. So that's one of those conditions. The other condition and it again applies to the uh the full assemblage on Glenwood in requires uh a a piece of public art on the site. Um and the thought there was um if we were to reinstate that here, this would be a separate zoning district, a separate requirement. Um a kind of hard to read once this whole thing comes in as an assemblage. I don't think there's a real concern that that parcel would develop at 20 stories by itself. Um so uh very unlikely. And so that condition would remain in place on the other three parcels. So when the whole assemblage were to come in, that that condition would still apply and would still require that that piece of public art. Thank you. Any further questions from the commission? Commissioner Walters. Following up on that. So if if this is an assemblage uh of the parcels that are shown on the screen right now, why would you want to remove the public art condition on these two if it was going to be applied to the other three anyway and and you know >> Absolutely. There there's no um you know, opposition to having it. The the parcel that isn't part of the uh the the previous rezoning, the the one in the back there on Jones Street, um that one doesn't have the condition today. Um and the one that is uh part of that zoning and has that condition, um you know, we think that there's no realistic option for that to come in for for development without the rest of them. Meaning that that condition is going to kick in at site plan regardless. Got it. Yeah. Commissioner Omukai. Oh well, I mean, we're going to give them whatever they want. So I'm I'm willing to make a motion to approve this. I would certainly welcome that after everybody has their time for comments and stuff. Commissioner Rowe Heaver. Formalities. Just to clarify, we're on the current screen where it says DX20 SHCU, that's one of the parcels, but you're saying the the red portion in the back is part of that DX20 is limited to 12. Is that what I understood on the That's exactly right. The condition about the 12-story height applies only to that rear portion. Any further questions from the commission? I will We'll go ahead and Commissioner Fox I think has a question or >> excited to make the motion. >> I do have I do have a question. [clears throat] It might be for staff. Um There are no um transitions or step downs required because the adjacent uses are also commercial in nature. Is that correct? Uh yes, we're going mixed-use, mixed-use, commercial next door. Um so yeah. If they're um Yeah, sorry. Okay. No, that helps me. Um and then to [clears throat] follow up on Commissioner Rowe Heaver's question regarding the little barnacle on the back there that had the 12-story limitation on it. Um I'm wondering um if the applicant could relay the origin of that limitation. So what was that trying to achieve? Certainly. Uh so without the Jones Street parcel, it was much more barnacle-like in character um in that previous rezoning and it was sort of jutting out into uh this this lower zoning uh area uh and it was a response to um a particular uh individuals who was concerned about that and thought that you know it would it would be more consistent this way. Um and and it got us to uh consistency with that office residential mixed use and that was what it took to do that. If there are no more questions, we'll close the hearing and bring it back for discussion. Commissioner Omekam. Yeah, I want to go ahead uh and uh just move on with the inevitable. And I make a move to recommend adoption of the proposed consistency statement dated April 28th, 2026 contained in the agenda materials to recommend approval of the zoning amendment. This recommendation also includes an amendment to future land use map and to the extent described in the in the adopted consistency statement for Z 326. There's a motion on the floor for approval. Is there a second? I didn't get no second. I Commissioner Shellbourne seconds and open it up for further discussion or debate. Commissioner O'Haver. >> Sorry, I had a question. So again, uh if we could All right, without objection, I will open the public Um to follow up on Commissioner Fox's question, I assume that there were going to be some transitions, but did I hear that there are no transition Why would there not be any transitions between the two zoning classification? Question for staff. Yeah, the neighborhood transition requirements apply when mixed use zoning is adjacent to residential zoning. Um so there's no additional neighborhood transition required uh between mixed use and mixed use zoning. All right, we have a motion I'm sorry, Commissioner O'Haver, did you wish to >> [clears throat] >> We have a motion on the floor. Is there a second? I have a question. >> get it What Public hearing still open, so let's go with questions. >> no, perhaps perhaps a friend a question to Commissioner Omekam, um a friendly amendment offered um that council consider the some of the previous conditions um related to step down in that area. That's it. Commissioner Omekam, you're working through it. Would you like to She Commissioner Fox has proposed a friendly recommendation to your motion. Sure. Yep. So Commissioner Omekam has accepted the friendly amendment, so the motion on the floor is to approve and ask council to consider existing conditions addressing step down between the DX and the OX districts. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner Burnette. All those in favor? All those opposed? That motion passes 9 to 1 um actually 8 to 1. Commissioner Walter, I didn't Did I catch your vote one way or the other, Commissioner Walter? >> Sorry, I I was not prepared. Uh I was still wanting to discuss this a little bit more. Uh so I was caught off guard. Um uh but uh Yeah. And where where where did What did you call me as? The uh the the motion was to recommend approval and ask council to consider existing conditions on the site regarding step downs to the adjoining uh zoning district. Let's redo the vote then. So all those in favor? All those opposed? All right, the motion passes 8 to 2. And um I would invite commissioners to state their reasons for opposition. Uh yeah. Uh I'm in I'm in favor of it. What I'm not in favor of is the process and how we got here. We just spent an hour and 45 minutes discussing a previous case and we can't take 5 minutes in this particular case to consider adjacent property. So I'm 100% approval for the case. I just would have liked an opportunity and there's been plenty of times where we've agreed not to send something out and leave it up to council to make a decision. So uh I'm just um disappointed in how we got to this point. Thank you, Commissioner O'Haver. Commissioner Walters. Uh yeah, similar. I just was not ready to make any decision because I don't feel like we spent the time that our commission is here for to talk about it. Uh generally I I I think I would have approved of it uh but I really just don't feel comfortable. So that was that was where I was at. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. We'll make sure they get on the record. Okay. All right. That concludes that case. Moving down the agenda, we will move on to rezoning Z-5725 8020 Litchford Road. Revisit Litchford Road today. And we will again hear from Hiram Mars Marzian. Good morning again. Rezoning uh case Z-5725 um Mitra could not be here, so I'm filling in for her. Uh this is 8020 Litchford Road. The request is to rezone 20.27 acres from a mixture of uh residential one, residential four, and residential 10 conditional use to residential six conditional use. Planning Commission deadline for action is June 27th. Uh as you can see here, the zoning in the area is predominantly residential with some nearby commercial to the north. Uh Litchford Road itself bisects this property. Um the R4 portion being on the western side, the R10 CU and the R1 portion being on the eastern side. I will point out you'll note that the rezoning boundary line there um doesn't match the full property. The rest of that R1 proper uh parcel is part of this larger tract. They are keeping 2 acres aside for the single-family residence that's there and then requesting rezoning the rest of the the everything else that's in that boundary. So where that R1 is labeled right now will stay R1 and then the rest of that uh pale color will go into the rezoning request. Um The site itself uh surrounded by low-scale residential, uh some moderate-scale residential further east, um and then open space. I believe that's Northridge Country Club there and some commercial to the north uh right before you get to 540. Um The area itself, other than that single-family residential house you can see slightly there just outside this boundary line, is wooded and undeveloped. Just some quick sights as you're coming down to reinforce that this is a wooded site. The conditions that are proposed as part of this uh would require that all dwelling units be located as a detached house building type. So they're excluding all other housing types. Uh maximum residential density will not exceed six units per acre. And they've uh got a list of some uses that would typically be allowed that are not. Here you can see uh the entitlement chart. Uh setbacks are consistent with the R10 area that is currently rezoned as um slightly uh smaller than the R1 R4 normally allow. The entitlement for density uh is less than what would be allowed under today's zoning. Uh right now you can get 131 I'm sorry, 136. Uh their maximum requested by the conditions would allow for 121 units. Uh height, again, current conditions under R10 would limit height to 39 ft. Uh but R6 zoning limits height to 40 ft, so not much change there. Transportation and energy analysis-wise, we do have a higher walk score than average, a higher job proximity score than average, but we're looking at an average bike and low transit score for this area. The Litchford Road itself bisects the reporting. So the western tract, the R4 tract, has average transportation costs, while the eastern tract has below average transportation costs, but it's because the like the census tracts are lined out. >> [snorts] >> The site's not served by transit. Uh the affordability analysis is while we are adding to the house This does add to the housing supply, just not as many as it would be entitled today. Uh does not include subsidized units in the application, does not permit a variety of housing types, uh does not permit smaller units than typically allowed, does permit smaller lots than typically allowed in the city, and is not within walking distance of transit. Uh some demograp- demographic overview here, lower percentage of people of color live in the census tract than Raleigh's average, lower percentage of low-income individuals live in this area as compared to the Raleigh average, and the median rent for this area has increased less than the city average itself since 2016. Um This request is consistent with the future land use map. R6 itself is being a low-scale residential district, this is low-scale uh residential future land use. residential future land use. in order to create communities that will age timelessly, and are places where people live to actually create a community. In addition to that, we're also very involved within the greater communities in the divisions in which we are building. Uh we are very proud of our work with St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in all of our divisions. And then, as you can see, we have a couple examples on the screen of some of our work um in public areas within each of our other divisions as well. So, with that, I'll turn it back over to Laura to talk about the specific project in the specific community today. Thank you. All right, thank you, Rob. So, staff has done [clears throat] a wonderful job of laying out this case, but I just want to briefly reiterate some points. Um as staff mentioned, the site is on both sides of Litchford Road there, just just south of I-40, consisting of just over 20 acres. We're bounded by several existing single-family detached neighborhoods. And then again, uh staff laid out the existing single-family home. Uh that is this is a family that's been in Raleigh for many years. Uh it's an elderly um property owner there. She just wishes to remain there. Uh so, we've uh worked with her to uh subdivide if if this case were to move forward with a positive uh vote from council, it would be subdivided with 2 acres, and she would remain there and live out the remainder of her life, and then um if and when this would be redeveloped, it could easily be incorporated with this overall community in the future. This is the current zoning, bit of uh bit of uh a hodgepodge here. Um R4 to the west of Litchford Road, and then R10 CU, and then of course the remaining tract that I just went over. Up. Did that touch that? It'll be back on in a second, sorry. Thank you. Uh which should remain R1. So, [snorts] it's currently split zoned, which is problematic, uh as you can imagine, to create any kind of cohesive development here. So, the intention is to rezone it all uh to R6 conditional use. The existing R10 CU uh conditions, I know that came up on the previous case. Uh the existing R10 CU, just to just to lay out what those were, limit development to townhouse or detached house, uh eight dwelling units per acre. Uh they did increase some rear building setbacks, and there's specific architectural conditions that spoke directly to a townhome product type. So, it spoke to um the number of garage bays for a front-facing uh townhome unit, as well as um a roofline treatment. So, wouldn't be pertinent uh to what we're trying to create. So, our we wish to remove those restrictive architectural conditions to allow for more flexibility. The proposed zoning here, as staff went over, is R6 CU. These added conditions, uh dwelling units shall be located within a detached house building type. The maximum residential density shall not exceed six units per acre. Um and then, as staff mentioned, we are prohibiting some uses otherwise uh permitted, including cemetery, telecommunication tower, golf course, outdoor sports, or entertainment facility. We did have just to uh we did have our two uh neighborhood meetings. We had um about uh a little over 20 folks at the first one, and maybe a little over 10 at the second. Um overall, it was very positive. Um they reacted well to um and agreed with certainly um both staff, who mentioned it, and our proposed uh really is in keeping with the surrounding community. Um it is important to point out this you think that this may be office in nature cuz it's office and institutional zone, but just want to point out that it's a low-density uh senior housing community there. So, there really isn't any um commercial that is directly adjacent uh to these properties. And with [snorts] that, I'll uh yield my time for any remaining questions. Thank you. Thank you. We'll retain 4 minutes and 28 seconds for the applicant and those in favor, if needed. And we will now invite those opposed to the application to please come to the podium. Not seeing anyone opposed, I will keep the public hearing open and bring it back to the table for questions from the commissioners. Commissioner Walters. I just had a a kind of technical question for staff from the staff report or staff presentation. Um I don't know. You listed some consistent policies uh with this proposal. Yes sir. >> On slide 16. Yeah. Nice. The last two I was curious about, and this just kind of for my own education. Um Understanding that this is a fully forested site, how does this rezoning proposal protect natural water features and mitigate stormwater impacts? I believe the thought process there was due to the lowered density allowed and reduced reduction in units and larger lot sizes that would been permitted from going from R10 to R6, um that cumulatively it would affect a positive benefit towards this. Because because the net Yeah. total is less than otherwise. Correct. Got it. Thank you. Any further questions from the commission? Commissioner Neptune is considering whether he has a question or not. Um Well, sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair, uh for putting me on blast. Uh >> [laughter] >> Well, I suppose, you know, kind of back to this consistency and what's what's I guess been found to be inconsistent, you know, I just come back to the comprehensive plan and staff's finding that this is inconsistent with the vision for, you know, that this city has articulated how it wants to grow. Uh so, maybe the applicant could speak to, because if I'm reading this correctly, it appears that the applicant has offered conditions that reduce the entitlement available on the site, limits limiting the development to detached houses, and then of course, resulting in again, this is a quote from the staff um report here, you know, generally resulting in less affordable and energy efficient type um housing types allowed in in the zoning district. So, I guess maybe this is a question for the applicant as to why they're offering these conditions that are resulting in this uh misalignment with, you know, how we want to grow as a city. >> Sure, I'll take a stab at that and if the if my client wants to get up and speak, I'll let him. But just briefly, yes, I think the previous case and just to be clear, it's not a it's not a down zoning on the entirety. You know, I would I would argue that on the western side of Litchford Road, which remains R4, that we're we're up zoning that to R6 conditional use. So what we're really talking about and what was zoomed in with staff's analysis was the portion of the site that's R10 CU. I think that while it's commendable in all areas of the city and you know, I live here too and certainly agree that you know talking about a more attainable housing type but which would allow which would be consistent with the R10 conditional existing zoning. But the fact of the matter is, you know, that was this was that was rezoned for a very specific townhome product that was not over that was not successful, was found to be, you know, not consistent with what's happening in the surrounding area. There's as we know, Litchford Road isn't getting slower types of traffic. So you know, we found that by allowing the R6, it really allows for mitigating transportation issues as much as as much as we possibly can on a busy road. That'll be, you know, we'll have you'll have a both frontages on Litchford Road improved as a result of this if it moves forward and also you're able to to this will also have direct access to existing neighborhoods cuz there's existing stubs. So that was another concern that was brought up of having consistency and having fewer traffic into those existing neighborhoods. That was consistently brought up with our neighborhood meetings. Thank you. Commissioner Fox and then Commissioner O'Makaia. Yeah, I had a question about the staff report in regards to transportation infrastructure. So first off, I appreciate the amount of detail that went into this and this helped meld many of the questions that I would have had, which were what are the street improvements that would be required on Litchford. Those are laid out very clearly also. The pedestrian facilities that would be required on Litchford and the and the bike lanes. There's a comment about there's about sidewalk connecting to a shopping center. Just noting that there's no pedestrian crossing. Implicit in that comment is is there a recommendation that a crossing be included for this particular project? Good morning, everyone. Carter Robertson with transportation. I'll elaborate on that a little bit more. We don't necessarily have a specific traffic device we're recommending at this time. It's just something we kind of wanted to highlight. Um so looking at the property right now there is sidewalk on this eastern side coming all the way down to the property. So with their frontage improvements, they would connect to that and that would be a pretty seamless connection up here at Harps Mill and Litchford Road. There's a shopping center there. But on the west side, there's nothing to connect to. So there'd effectively be a hole there. That's just something we wanted to highlight. We're willing to have conversations with the applicant of how that could be addressed maybe through a zoning condition if that's possible. But that would be either through a crossing or potentially offsite sidewalk. I'd have to refer to where how big that gap is. It could be 100 ft or a couple hundred. I'm not recalling right now, but just something that we want to uplift as part of this conversation. No specific recommendations right now. At the time of site plan I mean noted in the staff report is that that there might be additional traffic study that would be required. At that [clears throat] time during site plan would other traffic mitigation or pieces of infrastructure be recommended? Does it that occur during the site plan process? I guess is my question. Yes, so if triggered at site plan, if we do a traffic study, usually those are a little more in depth at site plan stage than at rezoning, but depending on the development, part of that will be a pedestrian and bicycle analysis. Um so that's something that we can include in that analysis if it got to that point. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Fox. Commissioner O'Makaia. I have two questions. One, is there going to be any tree conservation cuz it looks like there's a lot of deforestation in this area for this project. And I know that they'll be the second question. I know that they'll be detached homes, but what type are they? Single family? Are they townhomes? So no apartments, but like single family homes. Of course. And are you going to do any tree conservation? As far as the tree conservation comes into play, they'd be required to follow whatever UDO regulations would stipulate for the property of the size at the time of development. So there would be some tree conservation requirements. Commissioner Cochran. And this is for the the city staff. Do you want to stay up? Since this is the ETJ, but they're not asking for annexation. Um would that tree conservation be governed by the county or the city? It'd still be governed by the city since it's within our developmental jurisdiction. Okay. Commissioner O'Haver and then Commissioner Walters. I would whether rhetorically or literally like to ask the applicant to consider allowing additional housing types. I think not even in today's conversation um but throughout our conversations over the past year about what we're trying to accomplish a little bit about following up on Commissioner Neptune's comments. Uh even if they did allow additional housing types in the conditions doesn't require them to do it. If they sell the property then we're affording whoever purchases the property to have that zoning [clears throat] in place. So I'm a little and I think with 20 acres two sides of the road, certainly want to respect all of these single family homes that are adjacent, but I think there's an opportunity here to provide at least the additional housing types to be allowable, but not committed to. I'd like to actually respond to that. Um I think that would bring it further into compliance with the comprehensive plan. I'm not certain at this point that the applicant can revise an application to be less restrictive to remove conditions. Is that possible at this point? Well, the density's not changing. So whether that would be less restrictive. I mean the just because an additional building type is allowed. Um My initial thoughts are we're not making it less restrictive because the density's not changing. Thank you. And would you want to follow up with applicant to see if they would be willing to consider that? Let's see what the other comments are. Okay. Then further Commissioner Walters. Another boring clarification for Hiram. So I understood your logic on the now that I understand your logic on the stormwater impacts and natural protection of natural water features. What tripped me up is that it's inconsistent with greenhouse gas reduction and in the thought that you have less units, how can it be inconsistent with reduction reduced greenhouse gas and not with the others? Why why don't those all lump together? I understand where you're coming from that one. I think one became more of a physical characteristic of the site, while the other one became interpreted more as the unit type of housing being restricted to the least energy efficient model. >> Oh, okay. So I think they could be lumped in some way and one of those could bridge probably both. Yeah. I think, but taking it from the the standpoint of the it's the housing restriction that causes the greenhouse reduction one. I see. Not the other >> It's the It's the lot [snorts] sizes and stuff that it benefits the other. So one would become more dimensional, one becomes structural. I appreciate that. Let me get Commissioner O'Makaia first and then we'll come back. I just wanted to piggyback on Commissioner O'Haver's point of considering additional housing types. Density should be a citywide lift. And if we're talking about supply meeting demand, making sure that we have apartment style type housing in places like this that looks like it could actually support it would be a great idea. Commissioner Shevlin. I wasn't going to say anything, but thanks to the two of y'all. I'm going to echo the yes. Well, I've been troubled by this. I think it's true that it's appropriate to have the same zoning for all these parcels, but there's multiple ways to accomplish that that would result in allowing apartments and I get to the single-family homeowners wouldn't like the possibility of apartments being nearby, but I think y'all know what I think about that. And so but I'm actually even a little bit more disturbed or at least similarly disturbed by not having this annexed. To me that it troubles me when properties get to be a free rider on the city and not have to be and I know we can't do involuntary annexation, but that was a mistake by the legislature. I just want to clarify They will have to annex by the time they reach SPR. So because they are in the ETJ. So an annexation isn't accompanying this rezoning request just because they are in the ETJ, but before they get their their land permits, they're going to have to annex. Thank you for correcting me and I withdraw that last observation then. And Mr. Clem, I believe you had a comment. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to clarify on the comment you made about revising a case to be less restrictive. That um there's a code section that covers revising a case to make it less restrictive and that refers to a council action um during their legislative hearing. So the planning commission is not similarly restricted to um accepting less restrictive zoning conditions during your deliberation. Excellent. Thank you. Um so I will follow up with the applicant. Would the applicant be willing to revise or remove some of these conditions restricting housing types? Yes, happy to answer that. After um talking about it with my client just here, we would be willing to add uh single-family attached or or townhome depending on how it's how it's specified in the UDO as an additional housing type. You would be willing to remove that restriction. Just to Oh, just to remove the condition altogether. Okay. Understood. So remove the condition and not have any housing type restrictions to be clear. Thank you for the clarification. >> And for that you would need to come back at a future meeting. Would you be available I think May 12th is our next meeting and that would mean you would need to get updated conditions signed by Y'all help me out here. We can get draft conditions by Friday this week and then signed conditions the following Friday. Is that schedule suitable to the applicant? So draft conditions this Friday. >> Draft this Friday, sign next Friday. All right, is the 12th good for staff? Without without objection, I'm going to defer this case to May 12th. For removal of the single-family housing restriction condition. And I believe that's our end of our cases for today. Moving on to our next order of business. All right. >> is usually just with the the chairs. That means that y'all can object to and force a vote if you like. Oh, no, I had no objection. It was just a question. >> Sure. Yeah. All right, other business the report of the chair. I have no report at this time. Thank you for everybody's attention to the to the cases today. I appreciate the discussion. Um and we'll move on to report from the members. Um there's nothing currently on the um committee of the whole agenda for the 28th, but that doesn't mean it's canceled. Is that correct? That's correct. I don't believe we anticipate delivering anything to that uh meeting. Yeah. No report. >> hold your calendars, please. No report. I have a question for staff as to whether there will be a text change committee meeting in May. Yes, there will be. Yes. And it will be the follow-up to that item that we discussed in March. And those meetings are typically held on the second or third Wednesday of the month. Is that right? Yes, that is correct. Second, I believe. Thank you. My apologies. My colleague on the commission is pointing out documentation that I did not know existed and I'm reviewing it for the first time and it appears that we do have a meeting on May 20th uh at 4:00 right here in the Municipal Building in room 305 and uh it will be on TC-126 the school lot area amendment uh last discussed on March 18th. This is the This is a great report. So thank you for your time. I will let Bynum know that you are very happy. >> [laughter] >> No report. >> [snorts] >> No report. No report. I have a comment to make. Um in the case that we were looking at for New Bern Avenue I just want to point out something. Uh like I said, the majority of this commission is new and a lot of deep questions aren't asked on cases in specific areas. We were asked to approve a swath of I guess it came down to 16, 17 properties today. Um without even thinking about pulling any properties out to think about them separately, but things that I heard mentioned on other cases that we heard today were uh stormwater impact, transitions, usage traffic entitlements less affordability, and energy inefficiency, tree conservation uh historical use was brought up, but was quickly dismissed, transportation infrastructure, street improvements, bike lanes, sidewalk extensions what is allowable, but not committed to. Um I think that we need to sit with how disturbing that probably is that none of those deep questions were asked on a large a very important huge swath of properties that we were asked to approve all in one sitting all in one day. Most of us are new and nobody thought to ask those questions, but I also want to make sure that I even if they even if people, you know give long dissertations those questions are not asked or answered and I just want us to sit with the fact that I keep bringing up implicit bias and sit with the fact that how many times in District C or in certain parts of the district those questions aren't asked and things are just approved because they fit the comprehensive plan. Thank you. I have nothing. No report. Thank you everyone for your comments. All right, and I would actually I'm going to take back what I said about report from the chair. Considering that we do have several new members and it's a fairly fresh commission I would like to gauge the desire for planning Raleigh planning tutorial overview presentation to give us all the basic understanding of overlays and base districts and mixed use in the So kind of a short run version of what Raleigh teaches with the planning academy. And if just by nod of heads, if people seem pretty interested in that, I'll follow up with staff and see if we can get something on an agenda coming up to go over that. Um I'd also encourage members to check out the Raleigh planning academy. It's an excellent program and goes over a lot of this stuff and I know some of us have been through it. Yeah. Commissioner O'Haver. I was just going to say and probably won't be a part of it, but we there are going to be some new members and we haven't had a retreat in a while and so that might be an excellent opportunity for the treat retreat once new members get on board. So just something to consider. Thank you. All right. If there's nothing else for the good of the order, I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you. >> [music] [music]