So welcome everyone to the September 16, I believe, 2025 Planning Commission meeting.

Let's go ahead and do a roll call.

Mike?

Wes?

Here.

John?

Here.

Jeff?

Here.

Chuck?

Here.

Libby.

Here.

And Elizabeth Law says, I'm here.

All right.

So are there any announcements?

I'll have one, but I think we can save it for the end.

Okay.

Any petitions from the board from the public?

Okay.

I have an announcement, kind of, not a petition.

Okay.

But I just wanted to be clear that after our August 19 meeting, I followed up with an email to Josh, which he entered in the public record.

It had to do with my vote on the um what is it?

115 Chapel Point property.

So I just wanted to mention that.

It is in the public record now, but um okay, and is that in the uh minutes?

No, it isn't in the minutes because it was after it was after the meeting, so it was just something that personally I wanted to say.

I regretted my vote to recommend that development as it was proposed.

So got it with with some other information.

Okay.

Um thank you, Libby.

Any other announcements?

Okay.

Um we're gonna move to approval of the agenda, a little out of order here.

Uh, does anybody have any changes to the agenda?

I do.

I would like to um suggest that we add a point following from our um uh retreat, a discussion of the complete community matrix and moving forward with it.

I'll explain more after, but I think we have very hopefully brief uh action item, and I think we have a little bit of time to discuss that tonight.

So I'd like to add that as a point.

Okay, so um you need a motion?

Yep.

So moved.

Seconded?

Sorry.

Okay, all in favor of the agenda?

Aye.

Okay, posed?

All right.

So um let's move on to the minutes.

We have the August 19th minutes.

Does anybody have any corrections?

Comments?

Those were delayed because we wanted to add some information to it.

Uh Wes.

I'll move to approve the minutes.

Second.

I'll second.

Okay.

Okay.

All in favor, say aye.

Or raise your hand.

Aye.

Opposed.

Okay.

And I think Chuck, were you not there then?

All abstract.

No, I'm abstaining because I was not there.

Okay.

And one of any other abstentions?

No.

Okay.

Um, and let's keep moving to the September 2nd.

Any comments, changes.

It mentions um some comments that will be sent submitted to the developer, and we don't, I don't, I don't know if we have those yet.

Shall we wait for that?

Or is somebody for the for the concept plan?

The action item for planning commission is to transmit comments to the developer, which y'all did during the discussion.

I see.

That's the formal motion that you make at the end of a concept plan.

Okay.

I I interpreted that as written comments.

Follow-up.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Any motions.

I'll move approval.

I'll move to second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Abstain.

Um, Josh, I just have a question on the um in particular the August uh, what was it, 19th minutes?

The items that we the the plans that we discussed then, have they come to the council yet?

Uh 701 has gone to council on September 10th.

Uh 860 and uh 115 Chapel Point Road are scheduled to go to council on September 24th.

September 24th.

Okay, and if you all recall in the I believe it was in the retreat, we talked about particularly for those two where we had a fair amount of um discussion.

Maybe it was during the meeting.

We talked about having someone not only are they those gonna be uh relay to the council with their notes, but they read a lot of stuff to have um someone go and just give an overview during that meeting.

I'm gonna be out of town.

Does anybody want to offer on Wednesday the 24th to uh present those two during the council meeting?

Council now starts at six they this were in the August meeting.

The August 8.

Yeah.

I would love to, but I wasn't at the meeting, so I'm probably not the best choice to.

Oh, then you probably shouldn't have um try you probably shouldn't have motioned to uh pass the uh there's nothing in Robert's rules about that.

So did you say you would go on the twin board?

I have a schedule conflict myself.

Yeah, I remember you said that.

Wes were you your training?

Looks like I'm in.

Okay.

Yay, thank you, Wes for volunteering.

Okay, all right, but we do want to spread the joy.

So the next one we we're gonna not uh let it fall on Wes's shoulders.

Okay, all right.

Thank you, Wes.

Um I think we want to move up to old business.

I don't think there is any new business.

Okay, so moving on to 623.

Hello.

Good evening.

My name is Anna Scott Myers.

I'm a planner with the planning department, and I will give hopefully the briefest overview you will ever have for the site plan review.

Um this is part of the procedure.

Um staff has reviewed the project for LUMO compliance, and now it is um before you to approve um based on Lumo compliance.

Um just to orient you to the site.

This um project is proposed for 623 Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard.

Um this is a zoomed out map of the town on your screen, and then to zoom in um with the zoning districts.

The site is right here, circled.

Um it's in the R4 zoning district.

Um with that, I will pass it to the applicant to present the project, and I'll be here to answer any questions after the applicant's presentation.

Okay, the fastest ever.

I tried okay.

So it's in speaker view for you here.

Okay.

They can see that screen right here.

So if they're looking down, that's fine.

They're looking at this monitor right now.

Okay, thank you.

And you can use the mouse data.

And that just moves it forward.

Thank you, Anna Scott.

My name is Chad Huffine.

I will also try to help Anna Scott in speeding this one along.

My name is Chad Huffine, civil engineer for the uh Zen Brothers.

Our project is at 623 Martin Luther King.

Uh in front of you, you'll see that we're proposing seven residential buildings.

They replace three old buildings that were on the property.

Um this shows you kind of an aerial view of where it was.

It's located um kind of south of Boyland Creek on the way into town, just up the road from the office here.

The project is between six-tenths and seven-tenths of an acre.

It conforms to the town's LMO.

It's situated in existing R4 zoning.

Uh the bullet points below building information, give you an indication of the specifics relative to floor area and the uh conformance with that criteria.

This is a copy of the survey.

It shows you the existing structures and a kind of a gravel lot that served those directly from old airport road or Martin Luther King Jr.

Boulevard.

Uh this is an area that shows you the white space inside of the green space.

The white space is the area where we're proposing construction with the green space buffering around the perimeter and then adjacent to the street.

This is a site plan if you haven't had a chance to see it yet.

There's a central parking lot surrounded by the seven individual buildings with one access point in the same location where the existing access point is now.

And then for conformity, um the design engineer have prepared the plans, reviewed the plans and submitted the plans to the town.

Uh then they do conform with the town's LMO.

And in addition to that, Chapel Hill Technical staff has made their review complete and uh has moved it forward to you all as a complete and compliant plan with the town's land management ordinance.

So with that, I'll stop and if you have any questions for me, we'd be glad to help you.

Okay, thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Um let us start with uh clarifying questions, either uh for Anna Scott or for the developer.

Yeah, I have a quick quick question.

Um is one of the vehicular parking spaces handicapped.

Is there a zoom function?

You can just say it's no, there is not.

Okay, thank you.

That no.

The answer was the answer was no.

No, ma'am, there is not.

And then I just looking at the fact sheet says um uh engineering required one HC space.

What is and it's circled in red.

What does that mean?

Um so I believe during review, and Chad, you can correct me if I'm wrong.

Um, engineering staff made a comment about requiring an ADA accessible space, and I believe that change was actually made in the plans.

Um I don't have the plans up in front of me, but I can try to pull them up quickly.

So it's a handicapped space is required.

I am not an engineer, so I don't know the design manual, but I do believe that that was a comment left in the technical review.

So for clarification, I'll add that was a comment.

That comment was since removed, and the handicap space is not required.

These are single family homes.

Other questions, Libby.

I guess.

Um, so just to clarify for me, what are the requirements, if any for the ephemerals and ephemeral stream buffer, any buffer requirements?

So there are no streams associated with this project.

I thought I saw one on the plat on the uh on the page on the north, that northern buffer, it shows a little dashed line that says something to the effect of ephemeral stream.

Am I making that up?

That is correct.

On the north side of the property.

Yeah, look.

Let me let me try to get you there where we can see it.

Anyone else see that?

Yep.

So what Libby is referring to is this line I'm I'm following with the ephemeral stream during the uh early stages of the project at the end of last year and early part of this year.

That was reclassified, and that stream is not affected, nor are there any buffers affected by this project.

I'll move to the next plan, and you can see the locations of these uh back porches or decks.

So this is the line you're looking at a long dash with a short dash line.

And then you'll see the the same line you're following this here.

But so are you saying it's no longer an ephemeral stream?

No, it was reclassified early in our in our process.

It is not affected, it's not a buffer associated with the stream here.

Okay.

I'm I'm still a little bit confused whether the stream went away or the rules changed.

The type of classification of the ditch, stream, river changed from the ephemeral stream to what we would call a ditch or a drainage way.

So I can provide some context.

And staff hasn't accepted, has accepted an outside report that is reclassifying the stream as ephemeral.

There is no buffer for ephemeral streams.

Does that answer your question?

Okay.

Somewhat.

But does water still water still flow through there?

The feature is still there.

It may be a concern, I guess we can come back to that.

In some terms, uh I'm I'm hearing in some terms we would use intermittent.

Sometimes there's water in it, sometimes there's not.

When there's a heavy heavy rain event, that that ditch will fill up with water.

So I I believe when you use the word intermittent, um you're using it not in the context of LUMO.

LUMO has uh three classifications for stream types perennial, intermittent, and ephemeral, and intermittent streams do have a buffer requirement, whereas ephemeral streams do not.

Josh, am I correct?

You're correct.

The requirement for ephemeral streams is to not disturb the stream channel.

Say that again.

The requirement for ephemeral streams, the lowest stream classification is to not disturb the stream channel.

And is there uh are you building into that stream channel?

It kind of looks like you are.

No, ma'am.

House number three isn't going into that.

No, ma'am.

It's in the file, too, if you want to zoom in.

Yeah.

Um one more question relating to this.

Who who reclassified?

You said an outside somebody, was it the developer or an independent?

So a reclassification?

A developer initiated private outside and objective.

Presented the finding to the town, and then Anna Scott can add to that.

Yeah, so public works staff will accept uh an outside report that reclassifies the stream, and the public works staff has and stormwater staff have both reviewed this report and have accepted it.

Not the that's a buffer.

That's the buffer requirement.

So I'm curious about the impervious surface.

Uh it looks like you're going from a little over 6,000, adding almost another 5,000.

Is that correct?

Uh, do we have the fact sheet I can show them on your staff?

Yeah, that's what it says on your fact sheet.

Where they can see it.

So that's allowable under LUMO.

So if you'll I can I don't know if you still have the site plan in front of you.

Uh you can see in the kind of the northeastern corner of the site plan.

There's a trapezoidal shape or rectangular shape stormwater control measure located beside the last house.

So you have it.

Yeah.

And what is the what is that?

So that's called a by that's called a bioretention cell.

It's a pond that's filled in with mulch and sand and a mixture of different soil types, which allows the water to run off the impervious surface into that uh bioretention cell, which is it allows about two feet of water to sit on top of a sandwich of different soil types and filter media.

The water over a time period percolates through that soil media with the intent of scrubbing off the pollutants associated with the water, and then buoyant pollutants or trash or garbage or things that are off the parking lot are held on top of the ground surface.

So it functions to provide both stormwater quality and quantity functions for the increase in impervious surface.

And what is the um standard that that is built to?

The state has a minimum design criteria that we design all of these features by.

Okay, and can you tell us what those standards are?

Like 25 year storm?

Oh, specific to the detention requirement?

The detention requirement for the minimum design criteria is typically left to the town ordinance.

The state standard is for the water quality piece.

Typically a bioretention sale uh ponds about two feet of water.

We design those between the 10 and 100 year storm depending on what jurisdiction we're in.

The town's requirement is a 25 year storm if you are not going to council.

Since this project is not going to council, it's designed to have 25 year storm as a minimum.

Okay.

And has the um town's engineers reviewed this plan?

Yep, they they said it's up to uh code.

Yeah, and I'll I'll also add that this site plan review is for the design of the project.

They also will have to get a zoning compliance permit.

Um so there will be further review for more details.

Um, so you can think of this as like a preliminary site plan review from staff to make sure that they can be LUMO compliant, and then they will also have to get the zoning compliance permit.

A lot of the things we would review in the zoning compliance permit, we've already reviewed in the site plan, but there are additional details we will review in the zoning compliance permit stage.

Got it.

And just so we keep that in mind, what are the additional items?

Um, like off the top of my head, they'll have to submit a lighting plan to show compliance with the ordinance.

Um if they are not electing to have town um solid waste pickup, then they'll have to provide a will serve letter from an outside um company that will say we will serve this site if they can't meet um design wise this town's standards for trash pickup and things like that.

Okay.

Other questions?

Will it will it come back before us or just to staff?

No, the if the design is not changing, then it will not come back before you.

Um so unless they have to move a building or parking or something like that, then this is the planning commission approval.

This is our moment.

Well, my question is do we make any comments about the design?

We'll get to that and then we're still asking questions.

Yeah, and I I'll note that uh while you can make comments about the design.

We do ask that you make the decision based off of whether this can uh meet the land use management ordinance, and staff has said that this, even if there are not all details fully in place, uh staff have reviewed it for what we call feasibility of compliance, and we believe that this can feasibly comply with our rules.

Okay.

Um can either Jash or Anascott just help me back with exactly what are the impervious surface requirements as far as expansion of impervious surface.

So the allowed impervious surface ratio is 0.70%, and they're at just under 36% is proposed.

And 70% of the whole property.

Okay, so I guess I'm looking at the map wrong.

That really doesn't look like it was 36%, looked like it was much more.

Is that gravel?

The could could you put the just look like closer to 80%, but so I'll help you a little bit.

So thank you.

So you have a gross land area that I'm circling with this mouse and an existing impervious surface area, and an existing impervious surface area.

We lost the image, yeah.

This one just takes a little longer probably.

Okay.

So I'll hover over an old house.

Would can I ask, would you mind hitting the um the slide button or just make it a little bit bigger?

Oh, the zoom in presentation here into presentation mode.

Yeah, so then your mouse is over there.

Okay.

That was a house.

Driveway, another structure, another structure.

All of those are considered impervious.

Are they a concrete base?

Are they all concrete based?

Well, one was a crawl space, one was gravel, one was a uh shed roof, another one was block over a um soil, but the roof area or the gravel are all considered impervious surfaces.

Uh all right, so if you can kind of memorize the I'm trying to find the button now the increase in impervious surface is homes with roofs one through seven and the parking lot and sidewalk feature that's in the center.

That amount of impervious surface subtracting the existing impervious surface divided by the remaining land area is the way you calculate the percentage.

So what you see on the property centralized is located over some existing impervious surfaces, which net out of the equation, so we calculate the new impervious surface area and provide treatment water quality and water quantity control for that amount of impervious surface.

So what you see that looks like 50% impervious of the site, I think we were at 40.

What did you just say?

Umpervious surface the proposed impervious surface ratio is 35.9%.

Okay, and your and your LMO allows for 70% in the zoning district, so we're well below that criteria, and then the additional impervious surface is handled through the stormwater control measure.

Does that make sense to you?

Still don't understand it.

Oh, I said a math lesson on this, on how it's calculated would be helpful, but trust that it's under the matter of the district.

Yeah, I'll just note that each of these house sites are roughly about 630 square feet in uh footprint.

Porches may or may not count towards impervious, depending on how they are built.

Um, and then the parking lot is pretty clearly impervious, but this is a stormwater pond that should count as pervious surface.

Their landscape buffers are gonna count as pervious surface, um, and any other land like this where they're backed off of MLK is gonna count as pervious surface.

So that's roughly how we get about 35%.

So you're saying 35% of the remaining property is pervious, flip it around.

Uh 65% pervious, 35% impervious of the remaining property.

Um other questions?

Okay.

Ums specifically about whether this uh adheres to the lumo as we understand it.

Uh or no public comments, I guess.

Oh yeah.

Any public comments?

Seeing none?

Okay.

Now we'll go to our comments.

Uh any comments?

We're particularly interested in how it relates back to the LUMO, but while we have the developers here, we're welcome to add other thoughts that might improve the project, but that's what we're gonna be voting on.

Ask a question to the rest of us, the green space implication here.

I haven't read the DUMO to be fair.

So is that is there any comment on the green space aspects of this project?

You mean like in quantity or connectivity or total green space uh on the property?

Is that meaning the guidelines of the model?

It is in the guidelines.

What amount of well Scott, do you want to answer that?

Um you say green space.

Do you mean tree canopy coverage?

Um or are you talking about like active recreation space?

What green space are you talking about?

I'm just the initial one.

The tree canopy.

Yeah, so there are tree canopy requirements for this site, and that is something that staff has reviewed for feasibility of compliance.

Libby, did you want to say something?

Of course I I think yeah, I read all that.

It looks like they are in compliance with the LUMO, as far as I can tell.

But I do always have some comments for your consideration if I'm able to provide those.

I am concerned about those units close to that ditch, which could become a raging torrent and a heavy rainfall.

And um, so just that's just food for thought to consider perhaps design strategies.

I notice I think you're below, somewhat below the Chapel Hills height requirement under the existing rules, and I'll bet you could get an exception to exceed it by a little bit.

Um so I wondered, might you consider building up some of those units on stilts and letting the parking be under the units, some or all of them even, and you could reduce your um parking area.

Um so those are that's all I came up with.

Thanks.

Actually, that's uh an interesting idea putting the parking on the bottom floor and not having that large surface because that would also protect, especially in units three and two, and maybe four of I mean I don't know if you're planning on basements, but we just this weekend found some flooding damage we didn't even know from Chantal that is now all moldy because we didn't find it.

I think that that uh intermittent or that uh ephemeral ephemeral stream is um as we've seen going to probably have larger and larger extreme events going through.

So that's actually a great idea, Libby.

Um I also am a little suspicious about this really fitting with the 25 year storm uh the 25 year flood qualification.

I know you said the store the engineers have looked at that given the location where it is.

Uh I have not walked the property, but I did drive by it.

It sure looks like that isn't actually going to um be close given the amount of additional impervious surface and the expected changes in our weather weather patterns.

I actually don't think that just uh I I suspect that this actually isn't um compliant, but I'm uh you've got experts working on this, and I assume you don't actually have the full plans yet.

It sounds like you're just planning on whatever size retention uh facility you need, you'll end up putting however deep however wide, but that to me doesn't look like it's gonna serve the trick given the topography and the amount of impervious surface, but um you've got people to sign off on it and sign off on that stream and sign off on the handicap parking.

So you've obviously done your uh your due diligence.

So um any other comments?

Okay, anybody want to make a motion?

I'll move uh approval of resolution A.

Which is that the uh compliance with the comp the uh comprehensive that's approving the site plan review application.

Site plans don't go through ordinance, they just need the resolution.

Yeah, thanks.

Mike seconds?

Okay, any discussion?

Okay.

Uh we'll vote from this then, Libby.

Hi.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And I'm gonna abstain because as I said, I don't think that I know that it's compliant.

So I'm gonna abstain.

And uh and that's it.

So good luck.

Uh and um I think we're good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for your time.

Thanks, John.

Thank you very much.

We appreciate that.

Thank you, Anna Scott.

All right.

Um to the complete communities, and um Josh, I'm gonna just send you a couple files, which we may put up uh in a minute, but I'm gonna send them to you.

Okay.

Josh, do you want me to leave this here?

Send message.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um so um we talked during the retreat and last what time is it?

Okay.

It's 20 to 7.

This will not be a long conversation, I don't think.

So we're gonna keep this short, but we brought you all in here for this meeting, so we're gonna go at least to the uh to eight o'clock to seven o'clock.

At least to nine o'clock.

Promise we'll get you out before all right.

So the um we've been talking about whether this effort that we've been making with the matrix is been valuable, and John and I started trying to think about how could we actually evaluate whether what we've done is uh relevant and helpful, and so uh we went back and forth a bit and actually did a a first pass of looking at some data to see what might we look at to look at that matrix we've made.

Are we asking the right questions?

Are they uh relevant and helpful?

How might we use this analysis to go back and revise our approach, revise the matrix?

The town has started to corporate some of this into their um the way they review projects, so this could also potentially help them or help the council.

So what I did is actually um Josh, if you don't mind putting up the there's another one with a table.

Yeah, so we have looked at in the last couple of years since we did this matrix, nine different projects, and it's using the matrix, a lot more.

Right.

We've looked at lots of projects, but nine times we went to the effort of putting them in the complete community matrix, including a couple in that in that recent session.

And just deciding which ones we did is there's some bias there.

Some projects we decided, well, this is a slam dunk, so we don't need to do it.

So those nine projects aren't just an average, although some of the ones we didn't do was just because we didn't get around to it.

So what I have done is I took those nine projects, I took the matrices, and I dumped them into a private sandbox in chat GPT 5, and asked chat GPT 5 just to collate it in a useful manner so we could see the five projects, which is here.

Now I have not there, chat GPT is not perfect, and if we want to move forward, we would have to go project by project and make sure that this is actually an accurate description, but it's pretty darn helpful to get this started.

So then, so these are the five projects, and nine nine projects, five on the board almost, and um, yeah, I was just gonna ask Josh to show you all five, and the categories, more or less if you recall, we've changed the categories over time.

So these have changed a little bit, but this is how chat GPT uh addressed it.

And then I asked it to summarize uh what are what are the main points, and I also asked it to identify typical projects and projects that excelled, and that was the the sheet that you put up first, Josh.

And so turned out it was pretty interesting, actually.

Again, this is just a first pass with Chat GPT, and they're clearly some uh issues.

And uh we'll just look through I'm not asking for a full discussion.

This is about are we interested in pursuing this?

Uh if you all are particularly interested in something.

It has some uh makes some editorial comments like, oh, that's pretty good density, but it's really a very suburban approach, which it came up with this.

Oh, here's the it's synthesis.

The synthesis shows 157 East Rosemary, which for those of you that don't remember, is the project that we greenlighted, strongly green lighted, and the council completely rejected.

And it actually uh came out as exemplary, stand out as positive models, while others like Hill Hillmont Gateway or Barbie Chapel reflect more typical suburban development trade-offs, which is kind of interesting.

Interesting in terms of is close to your thinking right now.

Well not the top one, not the rosemary, but the other thing.

Um that's a good question.

A bit, I mean, if you look, Josh, go up to the very top where it shows.

This is do you want to say something, John, about what you think the uh density where our density falls?

Did you send that PNG?

Okay.

Josh, can you put the the final?

It also asked me at the end of this, would you like to see a graphic depiction?

I said, sure.

Yeah.

And it showed this.

So the orange bars are density units per acre, and then the the plotted red line, the key is on the right side of the screen, affordable housing percentages.

Now that's not whatever the council approved if it approved, finally, that was whatever came to us initially.

So we probably want to update the red line to reflect whatever was actually approved, if something was approved.

But um, you know, that rosemary project was really tall and on a small plot of land.

So just tell Mike what the project was.

So he is a 157 East Rosemary, it's the corner of Rosemary and Henderson, uh, where the gathering place is now, right?

Um it was uh what 12 story, I want to say uh glass building and uh you know quite tall.

I think it's 12 stories, yeah.

Um so that's how you get uh how many units an acre.

I mean it's units an acre.

Yeah, yeah, really dense.

And and the council thought it was just too tall.

Uh but the second one.

You know, interestingly, South Creek, I thought it was way denser than that, but it had a huge component of uh, and this is the South Creek density is just measured um on the the land that's uh west of the creek, so not that uh 80 acres that's not built on that's not included in the math.

But a lot of that project is actually town homes.

Um so anytime you add town homes to a multi family project, you drive down the density.

Um Barbie Chapel, I don't know that had any town homes.

That's probably why it's looking, you know, in the probably 33, somewhere around there.

That's that's the one near Downing Creek, is that right?

Yes, right.

Yeah, Barbie Chapel is oops, sorry, Barbie Chapel's the one near Downing Creek that didn't get built.

Um Hillmont is the one that is currently under construction.

Thank you.

Yeah, right.

John, how do I read the eighth page?

Not the units.

So the density is just the um the quotient of number of units divided by number of acres.

Sorry, number of acres divided by number of units to be inverse.

But uh no, two units by acres.

Units per acre.

Okay.

Okay.

So generally we see between in the teens so low 20s.

That's sort of normal.

Rosemary was an outlier.

Barbie Chapel was the second highest, probably the highest in recent memory to be approved, or it was in the high 20s.

Wow.

Um but normally we're seeing, you know, in the teens to low 20s, which is if you would think of, you know, um, you know, Blue Hill.

Do you know what that area is?

Yeah, you guys explained that to me last year.

That that we're where all those apartments that would be, you think probably around 40%.

I'm just guessing, I don't know what do you think.

I think that's probably 40.

Because it doesn't have townhouses and it's more or less built to the lot lines, it's probably more dense with structured parking.

I'm afraid I I don't know off the top of my head.

Um I will note while this graphic is up that uh South Creek Gateway, Barbie Chapel.

Um, I know off the top of my head did have some affordable housing commitments that were not captured in this graph.

Yeah, yeah, because they were added later.

Am I also remembering correctly that the rosemary project also was doing uh special application that would they were gonna do 25%?

25% affordable housing.

So that's partly why the why the so like South Creek doesn't have a 25% writer, like the Rosemary Project would have, yeah.

It stands out that way.

But anyway, I just thought it was actually this graph was sort of interesting to me because you see, like, well, what are we getting over time?

Um what does it all mean?

So what?

That's another question, but it just um I hadn't seen this data before.

So the issues if you go back to say the um the second document.

We would, I mean, this may or may not be accurate the way it uh sort of reviews each of these, but it's it's pretty interesting.

Maybe Josh just scroll down.

I'm sorry I don't have my computer connected and making you be the secretary here.

Uh you know, mix use transit.

You want to just stop a second, let people kind of read a couple different things, get a sense.

So I was wondering with some categories, like we review, let's say nine different categories of um aspects of a given project.

Are some of the things that we're talking about that are in our matrix just not generating any insights or not jet generating recommendations?

Because if so, you know, why talk about them if if they're not generating anything interesting or a recommendation?

Um and ones that are generating sort of insights or recommendations, I thought it would be interesting to see.

Um like parking, for example, like what are we normally seeing as a proposed parking ratio for a certain kind of project so that we could just sort of norm that for a project that comes in, we can say, well, we usually see you know, in this range, you're proposing above that or below that, and it could be helpful for us to know that when we're commenting, like what what are we generally seeing and where are you in relation to what's normal?

So just uh John kind of added to the point there.

It it would kind of flag potentially.

I I think the point is valid, it just kind of gives you what's normal and what's not normal.

So it would be an indication of a flag, so you can actually look at the lumo and say, hey, you know, this one look based on normal.

We just saw the norm for units per acre was roughly 20.

If you go back to the other chart, right?

Um they're coming in at 35.

Is it just a hey, this is a good good way to go and say, hey, this is not within the norm.

And we should look at the lumo and kind of make the recommendation that this is not going to go through, you know, approval process because of that.

So I it just sounds like the more data I love this, the more data is collected and fed into this, the more insight we're gonna be able to drive from it anyway.

Yeah, I like the idea of using it as how we all analyze a particular project, but I mean, in my case, I'm looking at next week, and we have this long matrix with a lot of comments.

What do I pull out for three minutes to really highlight to counsel on a particular project?

So there's something to me about how we could build on it to prioritize for an individual project.

The the priority for this project is uh category one or category five, and not spend so much time highlighting elements that are in the other categories that aren't um a priority for that particular project.

Because I think our goal is to commit convey comments, and um the matrix is very thorough, which is good on one hand.

On another hand, it's not very good for for conveying uh discrete comments, if you ask me.

It it might also be when you think about next week.

If if you looked at this, now this is not you know, this is just chat GPT, but it is kind of interesting.

You could look through the comments and our recommendations and look at where are there things that really are outside the norm of what we're seeing, like this is exceptionally good or bad.

You know, this project is different than what you've been passing before.

You've passed all these others.

I want to point out that in this aspect this falls outside the norm.

I mean, these are these are nine projects in very different contexts.

I mean, it it GPT loves South Creek, but you know, it's right across from Southern Village.

I mean, it's a very and the 157 East Rosemary loved the unbundled limited parking.

It's right downtown, and it's honestly a little bit of a it's an outlier for any kind of development you're gonna see in this area, and it wasn't approved.

Um so um I think getting to to Wes's question, I would just sort of pick out I mean, in your three minutes to council sort of pick out aspects.

Don't go through the whole matrix, but pick out aspects that you as a human as a member of the planning commission think are you know relevant or might sway the uh what this doesn't also get at is what council members care about.

And you know, if we want yeah Rosemary.

Yeah.

I mean, Chat GPT and us loved that building.

Um council did not.

Um so just I think it's you know, just a little bit of trying to figure out what and maybe based on their questions or their clarifying questions before public comment.

Yeah.

I will the thing that we'll also note about the trend of development um is that as we see more and more infill, we're gonna see development on tougher and tougher parcels to build on.

I'll I'll throw Chapel point out as an example where it has 19 acres, but at least nine of those acres are unusable with wetlands and streams and and all of that.

Um making that distinction on on how folks use the available land will will be a big thing in staff's evaluation of how projects are are being efficient with that land.

Yeah, to Josh's point, I think context is everything.

Was it what was there before is something that isn't captured maybe by our matrix?

Was it forest cover, tree buffer?

You know, there's so there's so much data that we're missing in terms of looking at complete communities trade-offs.

So I saw something in there about that made it look like Chapel Point was great for R C D protection, but in fact they're encroaching planning proposing, I don't know if they're changing that, which I hope, to encroach on 49% of the RCD there.

And also they're asking for steep slope exceptions.

So when you you really have to look at the site context to get any meaning out of this.

Was that Chapel Point?

Matrix.

That was Chapel Point or Caraway.

Oh, we are there.

Yeah.

Because yeah, it and see that was where why I had trouble with the term minimal disturbance, if you remember, because that's what the staff report and one other document said.

You had to dig into the request, the LUMO exceptions, uh, whatever that document is called, what they're asking to change, uh to find that percentage.

And so basically that's almost all of the uh that's half the buffer on one side of that it's all on one side of the creek, too, and it's the better side since the other side abutz I 40.

So it's tricky reviewing these things in one meeting and providing meaningful feedback.

You know, it would be great if we started getting if we got some of this information earlier, could provide comments before it comes back in this more or less state um that they're ready to go to council almost.

So I I find it exceedingly difficult to provide meaningful input in this process.

And I actually thought your suggestion of raising and putting the parking was brilliant.

I'm sure it won't be.

Well, right, it has no clout because they can this, I guess that's essentially a buy-right situation, Josh.

Is that what we were looking at tonight?

Where we don't have any real power to change anything.

We just say it looks like the other comment I want to make about that is I really don't think it's a good idea to have outside people do the stream determination.

I think that they could have conflicts of interest.

It would be much better to continue with the staff stormwater people who normally do the stream.

Somehow they also suddenly don't need an ADA parking spot.

Yeah, uh I'll note that uh I believe TAS came before y'all this spring, um, noting that one of the luma changes we intend to make is to uh remove the site plan review um because ultimately we are asking y'all to stick to LUMO compliance for developments that are building between 5,000 to 20,000 square feet of building, um, which they are allowed to do um under the rules.

So we will likely you may have seen your last site plan review tonight.

Um as for the the stream determinations, I'll note that we um there are there is a determined process on how stream determinations are made, and if uh they can prove that a certified engineer followed that process.

Um we're legally obligated to accept it.

So staff can determine whether they are following the correct processes or not, um, and compare that against the the standard procedure.

Um that's that's kind of how we have to uh operate.

Those state rules or those town rules.

Uh I don't know exactly off the top of my head.

I'm I'm not the stormwater expert on how those stream determinations are made.

But yeah.

Um but getting back to this, not any of these specific.

I think this exercise of looking across historically how we've used the matrix, what sort of insights we're generating what what we've actually said in certain cells of the matrix in the past could help us determine which parts of the matrix are pulling their weight and which aren't, which are generating insights and which are sort of like um form over substance, and could help us sort of refine what it is that we're getting at in the matrix.

Beyond that, I don't really know what sort of insights could be generated from this.

Might depend on what we look at.

Um, like we could try to tie like our matrix output to like a conclusion of the kind of like these sorts of projects could be approved, these aren't.

Here's why.

You could compare like our recommendations and matrices against the council actual reasons why they were um let's say denying projects or accepting projects.

That would be more of a qualitative analysis.

Maybe we're not prepared to do that, but at a minimum, if we're gonna keep using this um format, I think we want to just look at whether it's been working for us.

And the bet easiest way to do that is to see how we've used it.

Yeah, can you share the spreadsheet?

Uh sure.

Or however it can be done legally.

Yeah, I I can go ahead and forward it right now.

Thanks.

Um it is now public because this is being recorded.

Yeah.

So just to say this totally unreviewed.

It's 100% uh AI work product.

This is this spreadsheet is AI?

Yes.

It's all in the Oh, I thought someone had taken the cells of the spreadsheet.

Okay.

Nope.

No, I don't need it then.

I mean no human intervention.

Okay.

I don't I don't trust it.

How about the categories of this?

The categories that was on on the columns.

Yeah.

Are they also AI?

I don't even know if they might be.

They are AI because our categories changed over time.

Okay.

Uh we started to break some things up, put some things together.

And so this essentially decided how to restructure all this together.

Oh gosh.

Jeff Liz just did this this morning.

I mean, it it I mean, if we think about it too, just ideas like visually, like the staff uses the green check mark, like there could be some way to visually have like, okay, for this project, green, green, green.

Oh, this is a comment.

So that's what I should focus on for this particular project.

Like if we can think of some visual graphics or or ways to really the whole idea for me is what am I supposed to focus on?

And if it's something that meets requirements, there might be a way to convey that that's that makes us focus on the things that we want to point out that don't meet requirements.

Um, thinking about how we visually transmit it, might be something to think about.

Well, so I thought I saw this in Tess's um analysis on the next page where kind of leads to that.

So he's taking some of the data points and gave you a you know a point right here.

That's what you're looking for if you look on on each one typical examples or typical, and then he talks about those data points.

He gives you some percentages of whether it was parking, whatever the uh category was.

So it did some work for you.

Yeah, I mean that that first thing typical, that's pretty accurate.

Projects provide a range of unit sizes, studios, 15, 7 to 15 percent.

Yep.

Uh affordability usually run with and these are some of the ones that fit squarely in the middle.

As as you as more data is given it given to this, as you guys put more data into it, right?

It'll then get better and better.

Okay.

And so all right.

So I don't want to prolong this discussion right now.

Uh John and I thought this was useful.

This was just the first step.

You know, nobody is is gonna just throw it in AI and say we're done.

But it does actually expedite, it does a lot of stuff.

I mean, AI could be very helpful, and to just ignore its capabilities is you're gonna be left behind.

Yeah.

Uh so you'll see me back there then.

Left behind.

Well, here you go.

Uh yeah, I'm afraid I think actually I'm imagining there's a lot of AI being introduced into your uh profession.

You'd be surprised.

Not for long though.

I won't say.

Um I'm glad you have the confidence.

Okay in AI.

Uh but I'm not, I mean, this is just a starting point, it's not a final point.

All right.

So if anybody's interested in um being involved in discussions contributing, talk to me, talk to John about your ideas or your interest in participating and where you see this being helpful.

Okay.

Any other Libby?

I just think um it might be better to pull as much data.

I know you try when there is data.

I think that's the problem.

There's not data for a lot of these measures and they're a bit vague and uh well, you can put the fact sheets in, I mean, you can feed whatever you want and AI.

We all we did was look at the matrix.

That's what I mean about our matrices, how they're yeah, yeah.

But yeah, if you're interested, and also if you are particularly interested in the tree cover piece, we can talk about you know, maybe you could pull out some data and we can throw it in and see how it you know, it might affect the matrix to have different data be added, and that might help us as we do these matrices.

We might pull some data that isn't actually in what they submit if we know that that's helpful.

It would help with um sorry, no, go ahead.

Go ahead, Les.

You no, I'm gonna move to adjourn, so you go ahead.

Sorry, before we adjourn, I do have one thing to to note from staff's end.

Um as y'all may have noticed the security situation at town hall has changed.

Um as a result, we unfortunately cannot host in-person night meetings at town hall.

Um planning commission has the option of moving to the library, but then you have a hard cap at eight because everybody's gotta be at the library at eight.

Um, or we can find other alternate venues, or you could move all meetings um online.

Uh we've got about a monthly time till the next in-person planning commission scheduled meeting.

Um, but unfortunately, we can no longer host them here um until the security situation changes.

And that just means they're downsizing and so they don't have evening security.

Yep.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um that's something to talk about.

Yeah.

And so thoughts.

The easy thing is obviously just to move online and perhaps once every half year, you know, meet at the library.

We could do that.

Wes?

I mean, I I I figure we could meet from six to eight as well.

But it doesn't work if if we have like four conditional rezoning stacked up, which happens that we we would have all these people showing up from out of town and we couldn't hear them.

Or would they be scheduled differently?

I mean I mean I don't care.

Well we had that we had the concern about yeah, it just might be hard to schedule, you know, an applicant who has to hit council by a certain date.

Then let's go online.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I'll I'll note staff can schedule to aim for two hours.

It is on y'all to stay to two hours and if we're getting the library announcements um that that serves the bridge in.

They they help.

Do we have this situation where you know we have stacked up often?

Um that can run run to nine o'clock or ten o'clock.

That's probably what happens.

It you uh several years ago, we would meet till 10 or 11 regularly.

Okay.

That but we haven't had that since pre-COVID I would I mean my suggestion would be that we just move online, but I think more generally, I think that's pretty awful that there's no convenient town space for uh, you know, one of the town's few remaining advisory boards to meet in person to allow members of the community to participate in person.

Um I think it's exclusionary.

I think it's counter to the ethos of Chapel Hill to you know to sort of take a uh space away that's important like that.

I know that the library closes at eight.

I also know that the library gets a significant funding from the town.

So if there's a way for town events to have the library stay open later so that we can you know perform this service adequately, I think we should.

If there's no other possibility, I think we need to uh you know I realize there are consequences.

I think we need to look into moving the meetings earlier during the day so that people can attend in person.

I I think it's I think it's you know, we moved offline during COVID because uh you know special circumstances of the pandemic um and um I understand it's gotten a lot easier to to participate online, but there's still a segment of the community um that is much more comfortable uh participating in person.

And there's something about being in person and being able to talk to people that you don't get with being fully online.

So while I think we should move to fully online, uh I think the town really needs to give some thought into why they're not you know allowing advisory committees to meet um in person past 8 p.m.

Well we could move up to five.

Yeah, I was just gonna Jeff mentioned earlier in the day, I was wondering.

When we have I mean, be tight for me, but I could probably do it as a class that I teach that ends at 4 30.

I'd have to jump in the car and I'll I'll also know we can uh discuss this at a future meeting.

We're also looking at other options of locations that could work.

Um I think a couple that have been tossed out.

The only one that is all hours that could clearly work for us is the new Chapel Hill police station on Mill House Road, which has a conference room and has security.

Um we're looking at other options as well given the location and um we we want to meet some community interest in holding an accessible meeting and all that while still having the security.

So um we'll we'll have more as uh the next meetings come up.

But yeah, the library's a pretty accessible place.

I think people feel more comfortable going to the library than town hall.

I I agree, and I think the late meetings are a problem too for people.

So, you know, moving them earlier.

Yeah, but early meetings are also a problem for people that work till five or six.

Yeah, I mean we we've yeah, we've set up these meeting, I mean we have a seven person membership with the assumption that they're evening meetings.

Like, you know, the the Durham Board of Adjustment meets monthly at 9 a.m.

You know, and they spend like generally a day going through their agenda.

I'm not saying we should start at 9 a.m.

I'm just saying that you know there are boards like this that meet at like noon or 1 p.m.

But we seven were selected on the assumption that you know, as ever has been that these meetings take place in the evening.

So it's challenging.

The daytime would be challenging for me.

Yeah.

But I think your comments are valid, and we should we should we should figure it out.

All right.

Well, we can uh we're gonna meet online October whatever.

Yeah, and we can everybody can dwell on this.

Maybe Josh will know if there are other options at that point, and we'll make the decision.

Do we need to make it before then?

Um I think if we make it at the meeting, that gives us sufficient time to notice it and all.

Okay.

And uh Josh, if you know that there's like some interesting different option, if you want to share that with us just so we can percolate that beforehand.

Okay.

Out of curiosity, what's board of adjustment doing?

Uh what I would say is the planning department uh did not budget for police.

We have pulled enough budget together to cover the monthly board of adjustment meetings and the monthly HDC meetings.

We could only get two monthly meetings.

Okay, I'm just deliver.

I know where we stand.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

Those boards make quasi judicial decisions, therefore they must be in person.

You guys don't.

That's why I asked, yeah.

Okay.

Any other business?

Any motions.

I move that we adjourn.

Okay.

All in favor?

Okay.