The October twenty second meeting of the Chapel Hill Town Council.

I think we're ready.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome.

Um this evening we have four items on the agenda for discussion.

Uh first up, we will begin by considering options for our open council seat.

Uh, our second and third items are legislative hearings for conditional zoning applications.

Um item two concerns one fifteen Chapel Point Road.

Item three concerns five six four zero Old Chapel Hill Road.

That item was polled.

Yep.

Thank you.

Got it.

Um, and for our final item, we will be opening a public hearing regarding text amendments to the Chapel Hill Land Use Management Ordnance.

Um, to get things started, we have three proclamations to announce tonight.

Um, the first is for Cyber Security Awareness Month.

With us tonight to receive the proclamation is Chris Morris from Chapel Hill's Technology Solutions team.

Um, Chris, would you please join Council Member Searing up front?

Or Councilmember Searing can be by himself.

You are welcome to be at your seat or up front.

You be where you're comfortable.

Very comfortable.

All right.

Um, well, we'll make sure that Chris gets this.

And uh October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month in the town of Chapel Hill.

And as our lives become increasingly digital, protecting personal information, public service, and community infrastructure is more important than ever.

And this really is no joke.

The town is committed to strengthening its cybersecurity practices and raising awareness about how everyone can stay safe online.

We encourage all residents, businesses, and institutions to take simple proactive steps like using strong passwords and enabling multi-factor authentication to help build a safer, more resilient digital community.

Thank you.

Chapel Hill is committed to rejecting violence and promoting healthy, respectful relationships through awareness, advocacy, and action.

Thank you.

Many, many thanks to the Compass Center for their tireless efforts to educate the community and also to make sure that survivors are supported as they heal and rebuild their lives.

We really appreciate you all.

For our third proclamation, we are recognizing National Uh Fire First Responders Day later this month.

Would representatives from Chapel Hill Fire, Police, and Public Works join Council Member Sharp up front.

Don't try to run.

These individuals respond to crises with courage and compassion, often at great personal risk.

We thank them for their unwavering commitment to public safety, safety, and the well-being of our residents.

Thanks, y'all.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Now you can escape if you so choose.

Thank you all.

Our Tropical Storm Chantal really reminded us of how much we rely on you and how much you all do.

So thank you again for helping all our residents and getting everyone back on their feet.

Up next, announcements.

I have a couple quick things to share.

First, um, tomorrow is the beginning of early voting for municipal elections.

Um early voting sites in Chapel Hill and Carborough will be open starting tomorrow through Saturday, November 1st, and election day is November 4th.

Um there are four local polling sites in Chapel Hill and Carborough, including the Chapel Hill Public Library, the Seymour Center, the Chapel of the Cross, and a new polling site, which is the Drakeford Library Complex.

So please get on out and make your voices heard.

Second, we have some fun events coming up this fall, including the Festival Arts Market on November 1st and haunted Chapel Hill on October 24th.

And third, council's next meeting will be on Wednesday, November 12th at 6 p.m.

here in Council Chambers.

Council, does anyone have anything else to share?

Yes.

Councilmember Barry.

I had the privilege yesterday of attending the Chapel Hill Police Department's promotion ceremony, and I'd like to extend another congratulations to Lieutenant Belcher, Sergeant Anis, Sergeant Gim, and Sergeant Kazulinski.

Thank you.

Great.

Next up, we invite members of the public to comment on items not listed on the printed agenda.

It looks like we have one member of the public signed up to speak.

We do.

Craig Nishimoto.

Welcome.

Keep it brief.

So when our uh we're pointing out the tree protection ordinance violations.

Can you speak into the mic, please?

We're we're uh when we've pointed out the tree protection ordinance violations at the Hillmont Development.

One of the ways we've been sidestepped is town staff essentially saying there's not really standards, there's just recommended guidance only.

So the the position that we've heard repeatedly from town staff is that the design manual, the town's design manual, it doesn't really give standards, it just gives recommended guidance only.

That's a quote.

Here's what the LUMO itself says about the design manual.

In the same section that you'll find the tree protection ordinance in, section five, it says that the design manual is a required document to accompany the LUMO to contain the specific designs and construction standards.

In that same section, it says unless specific exceptions are given in the LUMO itself, no development shall be done except in compliance with the design manual standards.

If we go to the design manual itself, it says in the uh memorandum at the beginning in 2023, it says it it establishes standards.

It says, and then if we look for the standards for tree protection, it's listed under a section entitled Tree Protection Ordnance Requirements.

And in that it says in uh page 11, it says compliance with these standards shall be required at the time the property is developed.

So we have the LUMO saying these are standards, we have the design manual itself saying these are required standards.

We have the town staff saying it's recommended guidance only.

Now if that's not enough, we can go to the Hillmont Conditional Zoning Permit itself.

Oh, that this body approved, it signed.

And that document says the conditions and restrictions of that document, the Hillmont Conditional Zoning Permit shall be binding until modified or amended by action of town council.

What's one of those conditions?

Condition 40 talks about the town design manual.

It says the developer shall comply with all standards of the design manual as applicable to the project except as amended by this ordinance.

There's no amendments to the tree protection fencing in this ordinance.

So you've got the conditional zoning permit itself saying you gotta follow the design manual.

You've got the LUMO saying you've got to follow the design manual, and you've got the design manual itself saying these are required standards.

It's only the town staff that says they're not standards, they're just recommended guidance only.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh that was the last name I had.

Okay.

Um that brings us to our consent agenda.

Um, council members, uh, item number nine regarding changes to the council procedures manual has been pulled as well as items item six.

Thank you.

Um, and so those will come back for discussion at our next meeting.

So I will need a motion to approve the revised consent agenda.

Question first before we proceed.

Were those items pulled before noon today or by noon?

Um was the other was pulled before the meeting started.

Is that it was my understanding, and I don't have a problem with that, but I want to make sure that we're following our own.

So we checked in with our attorney.

Our process or our um our request is that things are pulled by noon, but technically things are allowed to be pulled up until the meeting starts, then it would require a motion with a majority.

Okay, it helps when we all know those rules.

Thank you.

Do I have a motion?

I move the amended consent.

Second.

Move by council member Ryan, seconded by council member searing.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Uh motion passes eight to one.

Okay, that brings us to item 11, a discussion of the town council vacancy.

Um, for those in the audience who have not been following this particular matter, um, a vacancy on the town council was created when council member Karen Stegman officially resigned her seat on June 27th.

Uh, this vacant position is one of the council seats that is on the November 4th ballot, and as a result, an appointed member would serve into until council's organizational meeting on December 3rd, when the newly elected council is officially seated.

And as a result, an appointed member would serve into until council's organizational meeting on December 3rd, when the newly elected council is officially seated.

We have two meetings between now and then, one on November 12th and one on November 19th.

In accordance with the town ordinance, I announced the vacancy during council special meeting on September 3rd.

And the council and the clerk noticed the vacancy on September 10th.

The application window closed on October 10th.

As today is the first meeting of the council since applications have been received.

Council members may make nominations from those who applied for possible appointment at the next scheduled council meeting.

If no nominations are made today, the item will be continued, and council has the ability to make future nominations at later meetings.

No appointments will be made today.

So council, any clarifying questions.

Okay.

Council members, that brings the question back to us.

Does anyone wish to make a nomination?

Okay.

Not hearing any nominations this evening.

This item will come back at our November 12th meeting.

Thank you to everyone who has applied for the position and for your interest in local government.

Up next, item 12 is to close the legislative hearing and consider action on 115 Chapel Point Road.

Charnika Harrell is here to walk us through.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I'm Sharnika Harrel, the case planner for this project.

I will let the applicant present first, and then I will follow up with a brief uh presentation from staff.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council, manager.

Um I'm Adam Golden with Northwood Raven.

We are the applicant.

Um we can move.

I think quickly to um what we heard at the original public hearing last month.

Um so here were the four things that we discussed.

Uh first thing we wanted to do is clarify the parking.

Um the questions we heard is will parking be provided to all units if for all residents and all units.

The answer is yes.

Um that will be included in the rent.

So technically they will be bundled, which I now fully understand.

Um so I we wanted to clarify that.

Um the second question that we heard is on the stormwater pond specifically.

Could we pay special attention to the planting around the pond to make sure that it looks good?

And what I wanted to just underscore is that we are um planning to use the pond as an amenity, and we have trails that are actually going to run around the pond.

We have an overlook planned and we plan to aerate the pond.

Uh, so we will absolutely pay special attention to the planting around the pond.

Um, we are limited on plantings within the actual stormwater device to meet the stormwater management regulations, but but the answer to that is yes.

Um the third thing we heard is land north of the stream.

There was a request could we consider a conservation easement?

Um we have looked into that.

Um there are there are some survey requirements, some legal requirements.

Um I think at this point we're not prepared to go down that route just because of the extra effort, time, and work that would be involved.

Um, it is something we would consider in the future.

There are some tax incentives that come with that.

Um, but we did look into it and wanted to let you know that um at this point we're just we're we're not quite ready to to do that.

Um the fourth item and arguably probably the I think what may be the most important was affordable housing.

And I think there was questions from two council members is could we consider the current uh proposal is that uh 10% of the market rate units at the community would be uh affordable and would be half designated for people making 60 percent of the AMI and half making 80 percent.

Um we could not in the original proposal include a town home.

They are larger units, they are the most expensive units we'll be constructing here.

So we went back and we looked at every angle, every way.

We tried to get creative.

And we do have there is an option that we can put forth and I can offer today as we'll call it option B.

And we would propose this as we either one will be fine with us.

That option would be we can offer two townhomes that would be included in the affordable proposal.

In order to do that, all of the units that would be affordable would have to be at the 80% AMI.

That we will go with whatever council's desire is on that.

We actually have optional language that would be available if that is something that council wants to move forward with tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um R6 of reasonableness and consistency with a comprehensive plan and O4 for the ordinance approving the conditional zoning application.

Council questions Councilmember Ryan.

Just to clarify, so the number of affordable units would be the same as the in the previous proposal.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, exact same number.

Um and at the current, the current number on the site plan is 169 units, which translates to 16 units.

Um it would be the same number.

Two would be townhomes, the balance would be in the multifamily buildings as before.

And did you consider having a lower number at 60 percent or the 80 percent was what worked better for the we we were we were we looked at every angle we could look at and it was to try to get a town home?

And I was the the only way it could work was was this.

We there wasn't another option unless we reduce the number of units, which I did not think was palatable.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Barry.

Mr.

Golden, just one moment, please.

Um will those affordable units differ at all from the market rate units?

Not at all.

Okay, same finishes, same everything.

Thank you.

Are there members of the public wishing to speak?

If you'll uh sign up with the clerk, that's okay.

Or in the interest of time, if you would like to come give comment and then sign up with the clerk, we can we can just flip it around a little.

Welcome.

Hi, I'm Sophia Barry.

I go to UNC.

Um, this isn't gonna be long, but you said the word affordable a lot, but you didn't give any prices.

I'm just kind of wondering what that looks like for the people.

Thank you.

I'm glad I prepared.

That's a good question.

Um the um 60 percent AMI rent for a one bedroom uh would be, and this is uh if you back out a utility allowance would be 1,201.

Um for a um eighty percent one bedroom.

Uh that would be one thousand six hundred and thirty-four dollars.

And do you have the cost of the town home?

Yes, so the townhomes uh will let's see, the town home would be at there will probably be a two-bedroom and a three bedroom, so let's say a two-bedroom town home at 60 percent would be 1,462 dollars, and a town home at 80 percent would be 1981 dollars a month.

Thank you.

Council, back to you.

Any comments?

Councilmember McCullough, followed by council member Barry.

Um Yeah, I'm I'm very excited about getting density there next to the um parking.

Um I'm okay with the modifications that you've asked for, but I prefer to I like the holistic planning um in terms of recreation and all that.

I think it's a good idea.

I would prefer to see the parking unbundled.

I think it's an equity issue when somebody's trying to be car free to be burdened with the additional cost of providing car car parking to other people seems um unfair to me.

Um I personally think it's more important to have 60 percent AMI address than to have townhomes in the mix, but I will defer to the people who know affordable housing a little more on that one.

Councilmember Barry.

Thank you.

Um, as someone who has faced housing insecurity with three children, uh actually and an adult, the larger town homes are helpful to families to households that are larger.

And in saying that, I want to underscore that you may have um households that range in income that qualify for this, and therefore that amount could vary slightly.

So I don't want people to get too wed to the amount that you shared.

It could be somewhere on that spectrum, correct?

Or are you going to sit with a finite amount for those units?

Yeah, the way um my understanding of how um the program we've got set up here is that this would be the maximum.

This would be the rent because the the market rate is significantly more than that.

So this is for all the affordable units, the rate is fixed.

Um there's a utility allowance that um this chart, which you came right from the website from from the town uh affordable um website, which is super helpful.

Um, but it it's kind of a fixed amount because it's so far below market that that is the rent.

Then that means that it narrows just who it can serve, and so I would love for you to actually talk with someone about that.

Having worked at community home trust, and we dealt when I was there primarily with home ownership, but a house could go for a home could go for a certain amount for sale, but if uh council member searing's household earn slightly more than he his household would pay more than I would pay for that same unit in the community home trust model that used that.

So I just want to make sure that that's that that is in fact how it you should be doing it if you're using our model.

Yeah, if you could talk about we've been following, I think uh the affordable housing team has a program that's been used on, I think, on all the rental projects, and we are following I think it's it's been um uh getting more defined as projects have gone along, and I think we're using the most uh the latest version of that.

So we're just following that.

And I'll remain curious as well.

I will take my own advice and talk with our staff.

Thank you so much.

Council.

Um I'm assuming procedurally the the motion before us would be for the original affordable housing proposal, and we would need an amended motion for the second option.

That's correct.

The ordinance published in your packet keeps the previous proposal.

Um, and so it would be an amendment to that if you would prefer the other option proposed.

Okay, council.

Do I have a motion?

Yeah, I'd like to move um resolution of reasonable reasonableness and consistency with a comprehensive plan.

R6.

Move by council member Barry, seconded by council member Miller Fushi.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Motion is unanimous.

I'd like to move that we approve the conditional zoning with the amendment for option B.

Second.

Move by Councilmember Barry, seconded by council member Miller Fushi.

Sorry, can we restate what the two options are?

So option B would be the 16 units with two of those units being for the townhomes at 80% AMI.

So all units are ready for some.

Correct.

All of them?

Yes.

Correct.

The other option was half or at 60, half or at 80, but no townhomes.

But no townhomes, and they would all be very small.

I did anyone talk to the housing staff and see if they had a recommendation.

Um they did not have a specific recommendation.

Did they hear the option B?

They did.

Okay.

So yes.

Move by okay.

Moved by council member Barry.

Do we have a second?

And I would like to add that there is a need for this.

Motion fails.

Do I have a different motion?

Move resolution.

Option A.

Second.

Move by uh council member Noller.

Seconded by Council Member Miller Fushi.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Nay.

Uh motion carries eight to one.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um seven to one.

Oh shoot, seven to one.

I forgot we're down to council member.

Sorry, bad math.

Um it is.

Item 13.

Um is to close the legislative hearing and consider action on 5640 Old Chapel Hill Road.

Uh Josh Mayo from the planning department is here to walk us through.

All right.

Thanks, Mayor and Council.

I'll hand it over to the developer Ernie Brown.

Hello again.

Ernie Brown.

I like I said this to you guys about once a month.

Um Ernie Brown, I'm working on a project here on Old Chapel Hill Road that you guys saw about a month ago.

I can run through what I thought would probably make a lot of sense is for to kind of recap what the project is.

And then you guys had about three or four questions from the last meeting, and then I can kind of address and then uh go from there.

So to remind you guys, this is roughly four acres on the corner of East Lake View and Old Chapel Hill Road, which ties into a much bigger conglomerate of projects that are going on with what we had approved back in 23 with Javelot Crossings, what Zom was approved back in June from a conditional zoning, and then also what Northview is doing above us with also apartments and how this all kind of ties in and connects.

What we're asking for is the ability to have uh a pretty wide range of townhomes, and as I mentioned the last time, that really comes down down to to give us the flexibility to also look for stack townhomes as well as just regular townhomes.

Uh you can and see how the the roads are kind of tied in along this way.

We have two streets that we were asked to bring in by staff.

That's the east-west connecting that meets with ZOM, and that's also the north-south road that you see that touches old Chapel Hill Road.

So here again, this kind of gives you basically the directional of how that we're working it.

We've got two different uh levels of stormwater management on this.

Uh, in the green space that you see kind of in the corner where the two new rows were coming together.

We have underground storm uh water collection there, and then we have a hundred year stormwater pond that is a retention pond that we are utilizing that kind of follows what used to be the old Cowan Road that we talked about.

This is a question that came up uh a couple times that was actually I didn't do a very good job and kind of explaining to you guys.

Uh, there's a section in there that we're asking for a closer variance, I believe five feet you know from the property line.

Um that's actually has more to do with like where Zom is at.

This is actually shows you where the house that's currently on the site that's behind us and where we're gonna be building.

So the top picture, what you see is what's in shaded is their house.

What you see coming in is the new road, and then you see the what's proposed is the new construction.

Down below, what you can um what you'll notice is actually what is currently existing grade.

Uh you can see where we're actually having to build up the property so we can meet with where Zom is coming in to connect, and then you can see where the retention wall is.

And it's about 80 feet from the retention wall to the house.

So it's a pretty big just kind of natural buffer just from where their house sits and where the road is going in.

How high is the wall?

I'm sorry.

How high is the wall?

I believe it's like five or six feet.

Um I mean, actually you can tell from the retention wall.

I can't I'm going blind and deaf by the way.

Uh but you can actually see where the existing grade is around uh 327 feet, and then the new one is around 333 feet.

So six feet.

I had a pretty good guess.

And then the last slide that I have is just kind of how this all kind of ties in uh to that.

You know, you can see where we had Hugh Street, which is on the southern portion where you see the road coming in and how it connects to old Chapel Hill Road, the apartments that we're doing, and how that will also connect with what Zom is doing on the apartments, you know, north and south of the creek, and then how they are doing the townhomes around from White Oak over to East Lake and how we tie into that, and then how it goes up into where DR's group and Northview are tying into, which you can also kind of tell from there.

The FFE, which stands for floor area elevation, is everybody's at around 330 feet, and that's where we're trying to meet at, so the roads will kind of obviously connect.

So that's all I got.

Thank you.

All right, so good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Josh Mayo with Chapel Hill Planning Department.

Uh I'll go over the context of this uh conditional zoning application.

Um, and just a reminder of its location and the procedures.

Um as a reminder of the framework that Ernie was talking about.

This is part of the park line east village area.

Uh this property is highlighted in red uh or outlined in red to highlight its location with in context with the recently approved development uh of Zom of uh Chapel Hill Crossings um and of the former uh gateway project.

Uh I think it has a new name, but I forgot.

Meridian Lake View, that's right.

Uh this development brings cloth buildings closer to the street and proposes street trees that are consistent with the nearby developments.

The applicant has also agreed to build a multi-use path to connect to the path to Meridian Lakeview and along uh the Lakeview frontage as well.

Staff's recommendation is that council uh approve the ordinance A subject to the conditions uh listed there.

Um as a reminder, this is a rezoning from R1 to an R6 C C D zoning district.

Uh this would be between uh as Ernie noted, 32 to uh 64 units with some variance in the numbers there.

Um the applicant is proposing 15 percent of these units as affordable with half at 65 percent AMI and half at 80 percent AMI.

Uh they are making connections that are consistent with the connected roads plan, um and it is located in the north US 1551 focus area.

And just a reminder of the procedural context for conditional zoning.

Uh the requested zoning district accommodates the land use of multifamily, and the applicant has requested modifications to Limo standards.

Uh a reminder of the complete community considerations.

We believe that this meets the town's strategy for growth.

Uh no single issue raised below should be considered in isolation.

Um so the procedures for tonight are to close the hearing, uh, consider the resolution of reasonableness and consistency and consider the ordinance approving the conditional zoning.

Thank you.

Um council questions.

Are there members of the public wishing to speak?

Council, back to you.

Comments or a motion.

Move by council member Nollert, seconded by council member Miller Fushi.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any appointment?

Point of order.

Sure.

Do we have to make a motion to close the hearing?

That would be preferred, but it's implied at this point.

Move to close the hearing.

No.

She's just asking procedurally if we're supposed to close the public hearing.

That's all.

Um would you like to add closing the public hearing to your motion?

I think it's already done.

Cool.

Uh, all those in favor with moving R7, uh, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Motion passes six to zero.

We're we're down another council member.

Um next motion.

Council section.

Uh-huh.

Seven to zero.

Seven.

Oh, right.

Because he didn't ask to be excused.

Got it.

Okay.

Moved by.

Oh, Lordy.

No, it's not math night.

Um eight to zero, right.

He's back.

Um I'm sorry, I lost two.

Two seconds.

Move by council member, seconded by council member sharp.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed.

It was actually my math problem.

That was not your fault.

Um any opposed, please say nay.

Uh motion is unanimous eight to zero.

Whew.

We did it.

All right, thank you.

For the main event.

Okay.

Um item 14 is to open the legislative hearing on the omnibus text amendment to the Chapel Hill land use management ordinance and town code.

Taz Lagu from our planning department is here to walk us through.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council.

Um Happy Last Day of the Vali to all that celebrate.

I think we'll have double.

All right, good evening, everybody.

Uh, I'm Taz Lago with the planning department.

Um here with you this evening to present uh set of text amendments to the town code and land use management ordinance.

Um staff's recommendation for you this evening is to open the public hearing, receive and provide comment, and continue the hearing to November 19th uh 2025.

Quick background um what brings us here and why tonight is very different from past conversations about LUMO.

Um just a quick update on the the full Luma rewrite project.

Uh as we mentioned earlier in the year, we've got kind of a refreshed team of folks helping us with the drafting, and they are kind of working full speed ahead to get this uh ready for for council consideration in 2026.

Um given that this is a kind of significantly delayed deadline at this point relative to what we had originally anticipated with the project.

Uh we heard interest from some council members um to consider advancing some updates to LUMO in advance of that full rewrite.

Uh and so that's what we're have the opportunity to consider this evening.

Um staff have are proposing a set of text amendments that reflect uh council interests, any number of public discussions about the LUMO rewrite to date and best practices based on kind of our professional expertise.

And so uh there are you know several items before you this evening uh wrapped into one ordinance that we are again proposing as uh as a package of text amendments.

Uh they roughly fit into two large uh groups that we'll be discussing over the the course of the evening.

Um there are improvements and amendments to our development process, right?

Things that uh speak to how we make land use and zoning decisions.

Uh generally speaking, you'll you'll see us moving from larger scale projects to to smaller scale projects as we move through each of these different topics.

Um then we've got proposed amendments to development standards, right?

The underlying rules that any of the the preceding development processes are all based on.

Um the first several topics here lot layout standards, infrastructure requirements, uh two family housing options.

They really pair with um with each other and are geared towards increasing opportunities for home ownership.

Um the other regulations or other kind of topics that you'll see listed, um, or other kind of impactful opportunities to to amend the LUMO in kind of targeted uh tactical ways to meet some some broader town interests.

Um I'll I'll you know as briefly as I can move through each of these items.

Um it's your meeting, and so I will I will follow your lead, but I would ask um that we hold questions until the end.

Um just as a precautionary tale, and we tried it the other way with planning commission.

Uh the conversation took about three and a half hours.

So um again, your your meeting, and I'll follow your lead, but the the ask is that we do questions and comments uh after the presentation.

Uh so with that, I will uh I'll go ahead and get started through um again each of the the topics we've we've lined up for you this evening.

Uh so our our first topic is concept plan review.

So our first topic is concept plan review.

And the proposal in your packet and the ordinance for you this evening is to remove the notion of formal concept plan review for new conditional zonings and special use permits.

In terms of you know why we're proposing this.

Um we know at baseline that formal concept plan reviews are not something that's widely used in North Carolina.

Um I can't speak in absolutes, but from from personal knowledge, I'm not aware of any jurisdictions, peer jurisdictions, neighboring jurisdictions, any jurisdictions in North Carolina that use a practice comparable to our kind of formal concept plan review.

And when we think about what the impact of kind of having that unique process is relative to our peers, um I think one thing that stands out is that we're creating an additional barrier to entry that other communities in the area do not have when it comes to folks that are interested in in doing business in their communities.

Um also have seen over time that concept plan review reinforces something that the complete community strategy really challenges us to move away from, which is this notion of making development decisions on a project-by-project basis.

I think the complete community strategy really tries to challenge the town to express hard questions in the form of policy, in the form of ordinance that can be kind of clearly and consistently articulated to developers.

Concept plan review kind of moves away from that or keeps us away from that, because each concept plan review is an opportunity to discuss those questions on a again on a project by project basis.

And those aren't questions that that shouldn't be asked, those aren't trade-offs that shouldn't be explored.

Um what we've seen is that in the 20 plus years that the town has had concept plan review.

Um, concept plan review, you know, is uh kind of a creature of the late 90s.

Um, and in that time, Chapel Hill and the processes, the way we make land use decisions has changed a lot.

Um council has supported improvements like improved and more strategic staffing.

Um council adopted policies that again clearly articulate the town's interests and other adopted plans, right?

Elements of our comprehensive plan that really allow us to take a step back and end formal concept plan review because we know that meaningful collaboration with staff that are empowered to speak to trade-offs that are empowered to speak to the whole kind of environment and an ecosystem of plans and policies that council has adopted, uh, allow us to counsel applicants and meet the same major town interests that um concept plan review has expressed and fulfilled in the past.

And so, with that, again, our proposal on concept plan review uh is to end formal concept plan review and instead rely on on staff consultation to meet uh those same interests.

Moving forward, um, again, kind of in that vein of how do we make decisions around larger scale development projects.

Uh, we know that conditional zoning is one of the most powerful tools that the town has to bear when it comes to uh really thinking through and approving large-scale development projects.

Uh, and we think that we can streamline this process in a really meaningful way.

And so that's that's the proposal before you this evening.

Um I'll briefly go through some of the elements of what it would look like to streamline the process.

And these are gonna look very familiar to many of y'all because they are they're kind of tried and tested by this council and by staff.

Um the first proposal would be to allow council approval of a project after just one meeting.

Um the kind of emphasis here is on allow.

Uh, this wouldn't be a mandate.

Um, it gives council an option of in the rare case that a project comes before you and just hits it out of the park.

Um, it gives you an opportunity to acknowledge that and approve a project on the same night that it comes before you rather than requiring a mandatory second meeting.

Uh if there's any concerns about the the quality of the proposal that's come before you, if there's concerns about a lack of community input, um just a lack of consideration generally, you will maintain the option to have a second or more hearings beyond that first hearing.

Um the other thing we really want to look at when it comes to conditional zoning is the the level of materials, the level of detail that we're asking applicants to provide as part of their application package.

Um we know that we currently ask for a very high level of detail that in many cases is a holdover from how we use to do special use permits.

We've also seen opportunities to move through conditional zonings with much more high level application materials that still give us an ability to really meaningfully assess major trade-offs, major impacts to surrounding development, but without asking applicants to go through the time and expense of preparing really highly detailed and highly engineered materials.

We also want to think about after a project gets approved by council, what sort of flexibility do we give home builder or other developer to allow their project to evolve over time, right?

We have seen in many cases projects take some time between council approval to the time that you know a shovel ever hits the dirt.

And in that time, a lot can change.

Physical site constraints on the site can be revealed through additional analysis.

The economy can kind of fall out from under a home builder or a developer.

And so we want to be able to give folks an opportunity to within certain defined guidelines, evolve their project, allow it to adapt to again changing circumstances while still staying within the general confines of what council has approved and what the community expects from the project.

And then kind of the final piece of this would be the idea that staff would review building facades.

And that's just opposed to kind of a the existing practice of the community design commission reviewing building facades at the tail end of a project, right?

After it's already been approved by council, and after there's really no at a point where there's no regulatory ability to shift what those buildings may look like.

And we've just seen that those meetings don't end up being particularly productive for really anybody involved.

And so again, these proposed opportunities for streamlining the conditional zoning process are gonna look familiar to you.

We've tested them through our kind of abbreviated process for uh affordable housing.

We've seen we've seen four applications come in the dwarves.

Three of those have been approved by town council.

Uh and in every case, right, staff were able to move those applications at a at a much faster clip than a traditional conditional zoning might see.

Um in every case, staff were able to weigh necessary trade-offs, council was able to weigh necessary trade-offs and make meaningful decisions about the project, even with a lower level of again, time, cost, and risk on behalf of the developer.

Um so ultimately, these are opportunities to streamline a process without really sacrificing the town's ability to get the things that we need as a community.

Um so just a reminder the opportunity here is to streamline our conditional zoning process.

Uh moving on to uh a different type, a kind of an older form of entitlement that we've historically used in Chapel Hill, special use permits, right?

Um these are permits that until about 2018 were kind of our main tool for large-scale development.

And they've created kind of a patchwork of different restrictions around town.

Uh and those restrictions are something that we have an opportunity to peel back to a certain extent.

Um, and so our proposal this evening is to allow properties with existing SUPs to add new permitted uses or development.

And the main interest here is to really be able to facilitate the redevelopment, reuse, or evolution of some of these older properties with existing SUPs.

Um, just to kind of help kind of contextualize what that means.

Um a project receives an SUP, the SUP usually enumerates a particular list of uses that are that are allowed on that site.

And those uses become the only uses that are allowed on that property moving forward, regardless of what the underlying zoning allows.

Um, and that's the dynamic that we want to peel back to a certain extent.

Um what we would not do is change any sort of requirement that the types of uses that the council has already identified as quote unquote special uses.

We wouldn't create some opportunity for a project to add special uses without proper council approval.

Um, for example, drive-throughs, right, are and likely always will be special uses in Chapel Hill, at least certain flavors of drive-throughs.

Um, those are never gonna be something that could just be added as a result of this particular change.

Instead, the types of changes that we would be looking at would be an office building adding a charter school, a retail building, adding an office tenant, or you know, something that's really starting to gain a lot of momentum around the country, the notion of places of worship, adding housing.

Those are the types of things where you know we already understand under the existing zoning, but these are uses that are kind of harmonious and can work well with each other.

And so we want to peel back that uh those restrictions from the existing SUPs and give the properties an opportunity to again kind of evolve over time.

Um moving on to again kind of uh an even smaller scale of development, um, site plan review.

Um, this is kind of a um somewhat of a an awkwardly positioned review process in the town, in that it's for buy right development that doesn't have to go through uh conditional zoning or special use permit.

We still ask it to go through a public hearing in front of planning commission.

Um it is what we would consider a uh purely administrative process because the decision at the planning commission level is based purely on one question, one question alone, is that and that's does the project comply with LUMO?

Um it's not a question that is up for kind of interpretation by planning commission members.

Um it's it's essentially a mechanical decision.

Um and these types of administrative decisions are always going to be mess best made by staff.

Um essentially every time they are asked to review a site plan, uh, first question is will this please be our last one?

Um they are strongly in favor of the notion of um removing site plan review.

So one caveat that we are proposing to this kind of general rule of removing site plan review is in the pine knolls and north side neighborhoods, where the NCD rules themselves specifically require uh site plan review for a scale of projects that otherwise wouldn't require site plan review in town.

Um we've had this kind of implicit agreement that the LUMO rewrite or related work would not change the underlying NCD rules.

Um we also know that the kind of core interest behind requiring uh site plan review in the NCDs is to make sure that community members know what's happening in their neighborhood, right?

Know what's happening around them.

And so what we would propose is to heavily streamline uh the end the site plan review in NCDs, but maintain that opportunity for public notice, for public uh awareness of new projects to again kind of hit and maintain that core interest behind the NCD rules.

Um so the last uh procedural um recommendation for you this evening is around subdivisions.

Um proposal would be to give the town manager um authority over all subdivision approvals, regardless of their size.

Um today uh subdivisions with with more than four lots are usually coming to council for approval.

Um site plan review, uh subdivision approval is a purely administrative process.

The question before council when the process comes to council or the question between before the planning commission is does the approval does the application comply with LUMO?

Um and like site plan review, the administrative decision here is gonna be best made by staff.

And so what we found is that uh you know making administrative decisions at the staff level is consistent with kind of national best practices, both in terms of organizational efficiency, but also equity in this sorts of decision making.

Uh we also find that that reassigning the responsibility to staff creates really clear expectations for applicants, for the public, and for the decision makers, right?

Of what their role, what their responsibility and what their leeway is when having to wear a very different hat than the ones you typically wear.

So we're gonna move on to kind of dimensional and development standards at this point.

Um the first proposal is around lot sizes.

These are one of the primary uh organizational tools we use to kind of control density in town.

And our proposal is to decrease minimum lot sizes and related dimensional standards.

Uh we're talking about related dimensional standards, it's essentially things like setbacks, lot width, um, the other parameters that define not just how big a residential zoning lot might be, uh, but also the the size and shape of the lot.

One thing we know uh kind of categorically is that large lot sizes hurt affordability, um, and they have historically had an exclusionary impact.

And they have historically had an exclusionary impact.

One thing we absolutely know is that their impact has been to increase land prices because all else equal, even if kind of the you know price per square foot stays the same.

If we mandate that you can only buy or sell land in certain discrete chunks, we're essentially creating price floors below which it's just not possible to drop below.

And so what we've found is that reducing lot sizes is a really great opportunity to support again, kind of a core complete community strategy of directing new growth towards infill sites, right?

Incremental infill development is one of the primary things that uh reduced lot sizes help to support.

We also know that this idea of creating new fee simple lots, right?

Fee simple is just the idea that you are able to freely sell and buy your land, um, not subject to other restrictions.

Um being able to do that, being able to carve up slices of land for folks to kind of call their own home, right?

To build wealth around, to build families around, is one of the critical ways in which the town can use zoning to support home ownership.

Um we know we're so limited in our tools to support goals like home ownership.

Minimum, more attainable lot sizes is gonna be one of the key ways to do that.

Lot sizes are part of the puzzle.

Um, another element is the shape of the lots and how those lots are kind of related to public streets.

Um, and so again, related to our lot size proposal, another proposal on the table is to allow quote unquote flag lots and zero frontage lots.

Um quick example of what those look like.

Zero frontage lot is just a lot that is essentially landlocked that doesn't directly touch a public street.

Um, and instead, access to the street is provided via an easement.

Um, a flag lot, again, similar to a zero frontage lot, but there is actually a strip of land that connects the main kind of buildable portion of the of a lot to the street.

Um we rarely have kind of near comparables uh for this sort of zoning work.

Carborough is really um great at allowing zero frontage and flag lots, and so you don't have to travel far to see what examples uh of this sort of development can look like and and the types of kind of cozy, compact neighborhoods that they can help to create.

And so again, um incremental infill development is kind of the name of the game with a lot of these proposals and these sorts of different lot configurations are again a great way to try to support incremental infill development.

Um we also know that without this sort of ability to shape lots in unique ways.

Um our development history and the way that a lot of existing lots look today, right?

Narrow and relatively deep with these inaccessible backyards really makes a lot of otherwise really great buildable land off limits because of uh an inability to kind of get creative with uh with lot layout standards.

Uh again, the one of the related ideas here is freeing up not just how somebody can shape their land, but but also what we ask of them in order for the ability to subdivide their land.

Um our existing requirements for new lots, basically say that if you are subdividing land in Chapel Hill, all of your new lots have to meet certain standards, right?

Um, or they have to front on a street that meets certain standards, which means we ask that somebody subdividing their land provide adequate right-of-way, we ask that they provide adequate pavement width, we ask that they provide curb and gutter, and we ask that they provide sidewalks along just their frontage uh that fronts on a public street.

Um so the proposal would be to uh essentially only ask for one of these things, adequate right-of-way, and not ask for uh anything that triggers the need for either physical construction or payments to the town to cover the cost of the physical infrastructure.

Again, you'll you'll hear this a couple of times tonight.

Incremental infill development is one of the key goals that we're trying to support here.

Um we know that that this is a meaningful step in the right direction because of how much we have seen this rule limiting people that are that are trying to subdivide their land.

The high cost of infrastructure is really going to be disproportionate to the limit of limited benefits that are created for the town.

The cost of you know putting in things like curb and gutter sidewalks, uh expanding the width of the pavement in front of your street, uh, depending on the conditions that you're dealing with, they can range from you know eight to ten thousand dollars in the low end, forty to fifty thousand dollars on the high end.

And they're not costs that are going to be borne directly by developers or home builders, they're typically costs that are borne by homeowners, right?

People that typically live on the land that they're looking to subdivide and have found that there's some extra land that they they could carve off and sell.

Uh and so we we we typically find, and essentially every planning department staff that has consultations with homeowners will tell you that this requirement, uh the payments that are associated with it, the costs that are associated with it, is the single most common requirement that stops a conversation in its tracks when we're talking to somebody that's interested in subdividing their land.

Um we've seen it repeatedly being an impediment to folks that are interested in subdividing.

Um and then on the flip side, you know, we've got to compare that to the benefits created by the town.

Um as I'll discuss, those benefits are really limited and again disproportionate to the impacts that we've seen on property owners.

Another thing I'll briefly mention is that the increased tax revenue that we can generate from new lots, right?

The sustainable revenue from new lots is a lot more helpful than one-time fees or any sort of one-time payment and the restrictions that those can come from, or those come with.

So to just briefly illustrate what I mean by you know limited benefits to the town, um, and I will zoom into this map in just a second.

Uh this is a map of the town's roadway network.

Um the the largest blue lines that you'll see are large arterial streets.

Uh next down are our collector streets, and the really thin kind of wispy lines that you see are our local roads.

And these local streets are the ones that are kind of at the heart of this proposal.

Um the green highlights, uh, those are our sidewalks.

And one thing that you will notice is that there are exceedingly few kind of wispy blue lines, local roads with sidewalks.

Um, it would take a truly gargantuan public investment uh to ever build out kind of a meaningful network of sidewalks along our local roads.

Um the requirement that's existed on the books for for years now, right?

That subdivided lots are the ones that are gonna be responsible for helping to build out that um that infrastructure hasn't produced a tremendous amount of new infrastructure for the town.

Um it's a rule that we in abstract could be a win-win, right?

Using new development to provide new infrastructure, it tends to be more of a lose-lose, right?

We're we're not getting a lot of the new development that we want.

And when we do, um, we get these kind of quote unquote sidewalks to nowhere that don't connect meaningfully connect one thing to another and that end up being kind of an operational headache for our public works staff that have to mobilize and maintain these discrete chunks of sidewalk.

The next thing I wanted to talk about, and Mary Anderson, I apologize, this includes a little bit of math.

Um, so the next thing I wanted to talk about, um, yeah, next thing I wanted to talk about is um looking at that subdivisions from a financial perspective, right?

Um, we know that we have a lot of interests in in putting the ground the town on solid financial footing, and we've discussed in prior discussions around LUMO, how intricately tied our land use decisions are to our kind of financial outlooks.

Uh so I just want to briefly touch on the financial element here.

Um so this is a uh a real set of lots in Chapel Hill.

Um one thing that you'll you'll find if you look in the tax assessed value for these lots is that lot one on the right side of your screen, even though it's almost twice as big as lots three, four, five, and six, has the exact same tax assessed value.

Um this is an example that is convenient because it fits on the screen very well, but it is not at all cherry-picked.

Um you will find this sort of dynamic uh really through in neighborhoods all around town.

Um and what it supports is this notion that when you're dealing with single family lots, the bigger the lot, the less tax value per acre.

Um it's that classic example of tax efficiency, right?

There, they're less efficient revenues or generators of tax revenue.

If you were, however, to subdivide that very large lot one into lots 1A and 1B, a typical payment in lieu of all those infrastructure requirements for lots of this size, unless it, you know, unless there are existing conditions, you know, site constraints that would really blow construction costs out of the water.

We might be looking at a payment in lieu of eight to ten thousand dollars, which depending on circumstances of the homeowner looking to subdivide that land might be kind of a step too far in terms of whether it's worth going through the time and expense of subdividing.

But for the town, subdividing those lots creates at least $3,500 in annual general fund revenue.

You compare that general fund revenue to the payments in lieu, and you are much more free as a town to determine how, where, and when those funds get used.

And most importantly, it's not a one-time payment, right?

This is a new sustainable revenue stream for the town, and the sort of thing that we could see more of if we incentivize and encourage again these small scale kind of tactical subdivisions around town.

Final kind of point on the notion of homeownership.

Um comes to what your once you've subdivided your land, or even if you choose not to subdivide your land, what does it look like in terms of what you can build on that land?

Um we know that there's a lot of interest in in duplexes and other kind of smaller scale homes in town.

Um we have historically had a limit that dates back years at this point that a duplex could be no larger than 3,000 square feet and could have no more than two parking spaces.

Um we have found, right, over the last couple of years that these limits are major impediments to new construction.

Uh we are simply not finding developers that can pencil out a 3,000 square foot duplex.

Um economic reality is just too difficult to make again these these smaller duplexes really work in a meaningful way and at the scale that we would hope for them to be able to work to meaningfully you know add housing stock or housing diversity.

And so ultimately what this falls down to is a notion of financial feasibility.

Um these updated limits are much more likely to support a financially feasible project, um, one that's actually likely to be built.

Um so ultimately that's kind of our goal, right?

New homes that are actually built and available to folks around town.

Um also note that these updated limits support a really wide range of homeownership opportunities.

Uh when we talk about duplexes, I think the traditional view in a lot of folks' minds is one building with two units.

Um we think about duplexes a little bit differently in town.

Um for a while now we've talked about duplexes is the opportunity to build two detached units on the same lot.

Uh so with a 5,000 square foot limit, you've got the opportunity to build you know modest size for Chapel Hill standards at least, modest sized homes.

Um the median, you know, uh home size in the southeast region is about 2,500 square feet.

Um so this gives you the opportunity to build those median-sized homes on a lot.

It also significantly simplifies ADUs, cottages, um, you know, a lot of what we might have previously required you to kind of um really test the numbers to figure out whether you fit under the duplex category or the ADU with a single family or a single family with a cottage, a lot of that now just falls under this kind of easier to track um ADU option, or excuse me, duplex option.

Um each of those units can also be, again, kind of chunked out onto its own sublot, creating again this magical word of fee simple lots that solve a lot of opportunity or solve a lot of problems and challenges when it comes to financing.

Um we know, for example, that in communities that try to get more permissive with ADUs or duplexes, financing becomes one of the biggest obstacles, and the inability to individually sell units is one of the biggest obstacles to financing.

So again, this this is a major step in the right direction.

Uh a couple of final um items for you this evening.

One is around manufactured home communities.

Um these are communities that are in a very vulnerable position because of how our trout rules have have traditionally treated them.

Um essentially all of our manufactured home communities in town were built before they were in town.

Um the town eventually annexed them.

They the town grew to include them over time, and doing so kind of granted them or imposed this thing called non-conforming status on a lot of uh those developments, and it just massively limits um the type of improvements that can happen on those sites over time.

Um so giving them stronger legal status um is really just a matter of allowing these communities to evolve over time, allowing them to you know put in place quality of life improvements that could help existing residents.

One of our final items this evening is around mandatory parking minimums.

Um our proposal is to remove mandatory parking minimums across the board.

Um we know that mandatory minimums are just not aligned with the town's sustainability goals.

This is gonna be a really important step in the right direction of moving us towards uh a less car dependent society.

I say it's a step in the right direction because there are a lot of pressures uh that come to bear on a project when determining how much parking it's gonna provide, uh lender expectations, investor expectations, corporate policies, customer needs, um, but the town doesn't need to be part of that pressure.

And so this just gives us an opportunity to to relieve at least to some extent that pressure and give developers that that may be able to get creative with their parking, um, make sure that the town is never gonna be standing in their way.

Uh we have heard uh an important uh kind of concern around removing these mandatory minimums, and that's the impact on on neighboring uh on neighbors, right?

Um there is uh you know a well understood concern and fear that um if new development isn't required to provide sufficient on-site parking, that that parking's gonna bleed out into uh existing neighborhoods and become a strain on those neighborhoods.

Um we believe the the possibility of that happening is pretty minimal, but we know it's gonna have to be something that we monitor, and if we identify kind of hot spots, um we have the tools in place through our on street permitting and enforcement um to kind of make sure that we're not creating nuisances in uh in neighborhoods that might be impacted.

Uh my last two slides for you this evening.

Um just around the sign code.

Um, this is a perennial kind of headache for a lot of business owners, small business owners, large business owners uh in town, and we're proposing a couple of um kind of technical corrections that just make it easier to comply, uh minimum letter height, the restriction on something called a raceway, which is just a element of a sign, um, and then allowing certain sign types in uh residential zoning districts.

Um this is just a quick uh example of the different types of signs that we would be allowing in in residential zoning districts, um, including you know some of the Blue Hill districts that currently don't allow these types of signs, despite the fact that they allow large apartment buildings where you would traditionally see signs of this sort.

Uh so again, uh a mix of amendments and improvements to land use decision process making or land use processes regarding decision making, um, and then our standards, right?

What do those decisions were those based on?

Um generally got a set of revisions aimed at larger scale development, um, and then as we move into site plan review, opportunities to help smaller scale buy right development, um improvements to our subdivision process and all of these improvements to lot layout standards, infrastructure requirements, two family housing options are all geared towards really creating more opportunities for home ownership and more housing diversity, um, and then a handful of impactful but uh thematically, not necessarily related uh improvements.

And so uh with that, uh staff's recommendation for you this evening is to open the public hearing, receive and provide comment, and uh continue the hearing to November 19th.

Thank you.

Council questions, council member Miller Fushi, followed by council member Ryan.

Thank you.

I was really excited to see these amendments.

Um my question is about um the conservation districts.

I know that we have a 25% affordable housing expedited review process.

And so I'm interested in knowing in terms of the review that you would still require how that kind of like balances out if there are number of um 100% affordable units that are built in like the north side community.

So, like what's the balance there?

Would they still go through the review process or still have to?

I'm just trying to understand the workings out of that.

Am I making sense?

I'm hearing shades of two different processes.

The the 25% affordability requirement was for the expedited afford the expedited conditional zoning process.

Right.

So that's separate from the north side.

Right, but if it's built in the north side community and they qualify for that, they would still would one cancel out the other.

Is what I'm looking at.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So the the site plan review changes that we're talking about in throughout town, but then with those exceptions to Northside and Pine Knolls.

Um that is those are for projects that would would never have to go through the conditional zoning process to begin with.

Okay.

Um but if a project came through regardless of where it was in town and it triggered those thresholds to go through the conditional zoning process, um, it would still go through that process and still come before council for approval.

Great, thank you.

My last question is um we're hearing you know, concerns um from our community about their ability to continue to give input um with some of these changes.

Could you walk us through um where are the touch points that our community can still have their um voices heard, any concerns?

Yeah, it's that process like with these potential changes.

Absolutely.

So that's kind of the powerful thing about the the public legislative process that um anybody that that comes before you this evening is is entitled to speak to you and and share their opinions directly with the decision makers.

Um and so we've got tonight, um, and there will be at least one other hearing on November 19th, um, where again uh anybody that that is uh interested in in sharing their opinions on these uh proposals has an opportunity to share those opinions directly with you all.

Yeah, my question is really about um as we are trying to streamline our process of how developments go through our entitlement process, um, just being clear with our public about what the touch points are still available for them to still have their voices heard and input.

Gotcha, I'm sorry, I thought you meant the the touch points for for this text amendment.

Yeah.

Um so when when it comes to uh the conditional zoning process, which of all the different processes that we've talked about, um the conditional zoning process is the one where public input is truly and and kind of at its core part of the process because conditional zoning is a legislative process.

Um and so there's gonna be still several touch points related to conditional zoning.

Um the first is at a minimum we do one public information meeting uh whenever a new conditional zoning application comes in the door.

Um we are also working on more equity-based strategies towards engaging with communities um while an application is being considered by staff.

Um the work around uh the 860 Weaver dairy project was a prime example of that kind of evolving strategy being implemented.

Um community connection staff, planning staff really made a concerted effort to engage with the Lakeview mobile home community because of how under-engaged we know manufactured home communities have been in uh town processes.

So that's gonna be a strategy that we continue to evolve and continue to implement that while an application is being reviewed by staff, we don't just have one public information meeting, but we also have kind of an equity-informed strategy and implementation to to reach out to and hear from communities um that have been excluded from decision making.

And then ultimately, once a project um comes to council, like we we always see um community members are welcome to uh share their opinions.

Um I think as we kind of build out a strategy for um you know lifting concept plan review out of the conditional zoning ecosystem, there's gonna be a renewed effort to make public information meetings more meaningful, um, make sure that we are sharing information about applications in again in a more meaningful way, and again, as kind of the the context necessitates, reach out to to neighbors and and hear their concerns.

Councilmember Ryan, followed by council member Barry.

So under site plan review, there's I'm just trying to understand a comment where it said all site plan approvals granted prior to the date of this approval are no longer required and are hereby abandoned.

Is that all site plan approvals that were done in the past?

Yeah, so I mean the idea is that the site plan approval is really just a rubber stamp, right?

That it form it it acknowledged that the planning commission found that the project was compliant with LUMO.

But that's a an acknowledgement, that's a like a determination that staff then make both on the front end to support the planning commission's um approval.

And then on the back end.

So there's a lot of uh there's a lot of permits, um, a lot of development approvals after a site plan review is granted that again acknowledge and formalize the fact that that the project on the ground is compliant with uh LUMO and other uh standards.

And so all we're saying is that since we are no longer going to require site plan review going forward, uh old site plan reviews can essentially just kind of fade away.

They're they're they're less relevant than they or they're not relevant parts of what authorizes development on a site.

So does that mean that somebody who writ had I don't know specific conditions as part of a site plan review, they would those would no longer be binding?

Like, I mean, there that doesn't really happen on site plan reviews, right?

I'm just curious because it's the what the planning commission does on a site plan review is they say, yes, this meets the regulations.

Yeah.

So why would you need to abandon those?

We don't need to specifically, it's a cleaner way of dealing with something that we no longer require.

Um rather than having a patchwork of projects where you know, depending on when the project was approved, you may have to go back and look at well, was there is there a site plan review?

What does it say?

Um nine times out of ten, it's gonna say this project was compliant with LUMO.

Um the planning commission doesn't have the authority, right, to impose like council does to impose conditions above and beyond LUMO.

Right.

I just I just uh it just seemed I didn't know if there were any unintended consequences of doing that for somebody who had an approval and then all of a sudden they need a new process or they need more process on top of it.

Yeah, there certainly wouldn't be new or more process that somebody would be subject to as a result.

Okay.

Um let's see.

So under let's see, I think you answered that one.

Um can you explain what sublot is?

I got a little tangled up in that.

Yeah.

Um so sublot is it's a it's our attempt to um clarify this notion of a townhouse lot, um, which in and of itself is also confusing.

Um so the idea of a sub-lot is um it is a an opportunity to further subdivide um what we would consider a zoning lot, right?

Like the the lines you are most likely to see on the town's GIS map, right?

The town the lines that define likely what your your existing single-family home lot might be.

Um a sub-lot is an opportunity to create additional bona fide recorded, platted lines on the map that allow you to then sell or finance different portions of the lot separately.

Um a sublot does not do is allow you to build more than you would otherwise be allowed to build on that kind of pre-existing zoning lot.

Um so let's say you again, and I apologize for getting wonky here, but let's say you have a zoning lot that allows two units to be built.

Um creating sublots for each of those two units allows each unit to be sold independently, it allows financing to occur independently.

It doesn't allow you the then to build four units, right?

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, that's very helpful.

Thank you.

Yeah, I wasn't I wasn't familiar with those.

Uh uh, let's see.

So that under two family dwellings, there was also a question about having um sublots and then accessory dwellings.

So if you had if you had a main a main lot and you had sublots, you don't get extra accessory dwellings for each one, right?

You only have the number of accessory dwellings that would be allowed for that main zoning lot.

Correct, yeah.

The again, and that's that notion that like when we're talking about units per lot, we're never talking about units per sublot.

It's always per that that parent lock.

Okay.

Um and I know under that section, the maximum footprint has you've allowed to go up.

And I know impervious surface is one of the things that we're I'm sure gonna talk about later.

Was there any thinking towards allowing that footprint to get bigger instead of encouraging folks to stack things, say into a two-story granny flat?

Yeah, so the the larger footprint, I believe was only with the the cottage option.

Um again, it's an opportunity to get a slightly more uh permissive building type.

Um we find that there are just and this is in talking to to home builders, there are weird interactions with floor plans um when you when you hem in footprint size, um, you know, an expectation that you're gonna have a a family room, a kitchen, um other just kind of ground floor rooms that you you find in a typical home.

Um there's just weird ranges of footprint sizes that that make sense for typical floor plans.

Um and so expanding that that footprint just creates a little bit more flexibility for that kind of thing.

Okay, again, that seems to be fighting a little bit with our desire to watch impervious surface, so we'll just put a pin in that one.

Um so I see that that the um you talked about going to a 5,000 square foot duplex limit.

So one of the things, and I've been here a while, many, many years ago, there was a wave of student housing built in town that were these big duplexes, four units on the side, and they were going up all over the place, and the tan said, wait a minute, there were they were having noise complaints, there were there were issues with those things coming in.

So that's why the duplex got shrunk.

So we're in a different place now.

I think we're a little more sensible about things like that, but now we're also trying to make sure that we're getting middle housing, right?

So for me, having something that is a duplex with 25,000 2500 square feet, that's as big as the houses in my neighborhood, right?

I mean, that's a that's not something small or something more affordable.

So um any comments on that in terms of you know, I I would love to I would love if somebody would show me a pro forma to show me how the finances actually work for those things because I clearly don't have that, but um but whether that it because again, that's fighting against another interest of ours, the the buildability and the making sure it happens versus making sure we're getting the kind of development that we really need for the people in town and that meet our housing study.

So we need to balance those two here.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's something we kind of are are trying to grapple with ourselves.

I think ultimately it comes down to the idea that the you know the least affordable duplex is the one that never gets built, right?

Um and we're just finding that at that 3,000 square foot limit, um, we're not seeing you know the the type and and scale of construction that we would like to see.

And we're just seeing folks that are saying we're not interested, um, apart from the the numbers that we might be seeing, which are you know essentially negligible.

Um we have folks that have no appetite, um, you know, people that are potentially building in other communities nearby, when we talk to them and ask them why aren't you building here?

It's too small.

You can't make it pencil out at 3,000 square feet.

Um, and so when we talk about missing middle housing, yes, the size of individual units is a consideration, but the overall density of units is also a major consideration.

And when we allow again these median-sized homes to be built, now we're allowing two where maybe one was only allowed before.

Um, that again, because we're we're increasing density, um, it's not a reduction in in unit size, but it's an increase in in unit density, which which does again hit uh a missing middle interest.

Yeah, and it'd be interesting to look at what Durham does because I know they're actually they are getting some of the smaller unit stuff, and I don't know what what incentives or what regulations they have that are encouraging those, but and some of them I'm I remember seeing like a 900 square foot unit that's going for 550,000 dollars, which blew my mind.

But you know, they seem to be they seem to be meeting the market there for that.

So um I think that we need to look into that a little bit more.

Um during housing choice, we talked a lot about compatibility standards.

Um so how does this increase in the duplex size?

How does it relate to those compatibility standards that are in the housing choice?

Yeah, I mean, I think what we found is that you know 5,000 square feet sounds like a pretty large number.

Um there are plenty of examples of 3,000 square foot house next to a 5,000 square foot house next to a 7,000 square foot house in Chapel Hill, and you don't see major compatibility issues.

Um, you know, two of our uh neighborhood conservation districts that when we think about architectural um significance, um Coker Hills and Flanking on the one south of um of campus, um have single family size limits that way exceed 5,000 square feet.

Um Coker Hills, for example, has a 7,000 square foot limit on a single family home.

Um and so we know that you know well-designed homes aren't necessarily a matter of size.

Um they they can be compatible uh kind of regardless of size.

Okay, I'm rounding the rounding the ending here.

Parking standards.

Are we getting rid of handicapped spaces altogether?

How does that, or is that just not a thing in the in the sizes of buildings we're talking about, there's not ADA requirements?

We wouldn't be touching ADA requirements at all.

So ADA requirements uh exist and operate regardless of land use rules.

Um so mandatory um ADA accessible parking would not go away.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Councilmember Barry, followed by Councilmember Miller Fushi, and we'll go down.

Thank you.

Um you shared with us how we have already practice um the streamlined approach to development um to applications uh when it includes the affordable housing and what is that threshold in order for them to be considered?

It's uh 25%.

Okay.

Um the the three projects that we that you all approved were all 100% Litech projects.

Okay.

All right.

Um so it so we can do it and we can ask questions.

We demonstrated that we were able to have public comment as well.

What I'm curious about is if we were to implement the streamlined approach, um what are we going to use as leverage to get those greater affordable housing um options?

Yeah.

So I think that's where it it is very relevant that the the three projects we've seen come through and approved by the town were 100% affordable.

Um we have we've never really conceptualized the expedited review process as an incentive, right?

As something that moves the needle on a project's pro forma so significantly that it's gonna make it worth it that for that reason alone to provide more than just the 10 or 15% affordable units that that we typically ask for in a conditional zoning.

Um the key demographic that we were we were always kind of building the expedited review process around was LITEC projects.

Um we wanted to condense that timeline to make the most sense for a light tech project's typical development cycle.

Um and so again, we we've seen through economic analysis that informs other elements of the LUMO rewrite, you have to throw a lot of extra value at a developer or a development um in order to get more affordable units and the the expedited review process um as much as it is it is helpful, it it does make a difference.

It we we've never had any illusions that it makes enough of a difference to actually incentivize people to provide more affordable housing than they were otherwise going to provide.

Okay, you may not have, but I seem to recall that that was something that we thought would we mean council.

Um and that was something that we saw as an example when a few of us on this on this current council went to um Asheville.

That was something that they touted.

So I'm glad that you all were there, but we I was under the impression that that was a compelling incentive.

So you're telling me that you never saw it that way.

Yeah, and again, I think it's it's our understanding of this keeps evolving, right?

We've done a lot of um economic analysis, type of the Luma rewrite that we we didn't do back then.

Um so we we have kind of hard data to suggest that how much new value you need to provide to a developer.

Um, but again, even back when when we proposed the the expedited review process, um LITEC projects were always kind of the key interest.

We kept whittling down the the threshold from you know first 100%, because we again LightTech was the the goal.

Then we thought, well, weavers grove, right, was a uh uh meaningful example of pairing uh for-profit and nonprofit developers to provide affordable housing.

We said, well, well, if weavers grove came through, obviously we would want them to be able to um take advantage of this expert ID.

Didn't they proceed they did, they did, and so we use Weavers Grove as as an example of a reason to not have the threshold at 100%.

We said, well, if a Weaver's Grove type project came through, of course, we would want them to benefit from this.

Um and so we really just kept whittling down the the threshold.

Um first it was 100, then it was 40 percent, because 40% affordable is about what Weaver's Grove is at.

Um and we kept moving the threshold down.

Um, but uh you know, candidly, I I don't think that we really expected that we were gonna be able to provide enough value to move the needle for people that didn't already want the needle to be moved.

Um the idea is if somebody was already mission-oriented and kind of bent on providing affordable housing, this was a way to support that.

Excellent.

Okay.

Next question.

Um I appreciated the comment that you made of the town not being another stressor on projects that would be more affordable because they had no parking minimums, right?

So and then you said we'll we'll monitor that.

Do we have monitorization now?

Monitoring now that happens after hours after five o'clock after six.

When does that stop?

So we've got enforcement in any of our areas of town that have uh on street parking permits.

Um the the monitoring would really have to be kind of a complaint-based monitoring, right?

If we start to see hot spots in town um where we're starting to we're starting to get kind of a rash of complaints around, hey, we're starting to see a lot more on street parking than before, it's starting to cause issues.

Um, that would then kind of trigger this at least like an exploration of of what's going on there.

Um there's also an argument to be made that kind of an excess amount of on-street parking from a safety perspective is actually a really great thing.

It it slows down traffic, um, it it does things that we we talk about doing, right?

Narrowing streets, putting them on kind of road diets, um, on-street parking is a is a natural uh traffic control.

So we're not saying that we would necessarily view on-street parking as a nuisance, um, but just that we'd be aware of neighborhood complaints and and if it becomes uh you know a hot topic in a in a particular neighborhood, uh there are ways to deal with it, but we don't necessarily have to employ them.

Okay.

And so as we if we were to move to more on-street parking, would we then look at um the where we allow the for the driveways or in the intersections, how close those cars can be parked to those?

Yeah, daylighting.

Um I think it's California that just recently passed a law that prohibits um on-street parking within like 20 feet of an intersection or a crosswalk.

Uh it's been really difficult because local governments haven't uh put up the signage and implementing it is difficult, but it's a really important um principle of traffic safety.

Um so I think we could definitely look into um are there elements of the town traffic code um that need to be updated as a result.

Um, certainly proactively, I I don't think again that there is any risk that within the foreseeable future you're gonna see this kind of rash of um on-street parking.

Um, but it's definitely something to consider um of uh a daylighting ordinance for the town.

Okay, that's it for now.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Miller Frischy and then Councilmember Sharp.

Thank you.

It's always great to be able to contextualize this.

And um as council member Ryan was asking our questions about the 500 square foot um sublotting.

And um, I was thinking about Gaddis Court that was built.

Could you um do you recall if that lot had to be subdivided and then because I'm thinking like um there are like four units there now?

Um each at about I think 1200 square foot feet, um, but it afforded like that.

It's a little over 500 square feet, but I'm I what I'm trying to say is would you consider that a an example of um what a sublotted um with these new amendments, what that would afford to potentially do?

Um Gaddis Court is is the the sort of project that we we look at to realize how kind of like broken some of our rules are, right?

Four units that required a conditional zoning.

Um that's not something we we really ever want to replicate.

Um I don't know that sublots would have been the the answer to Gaddis Court uh being able to kind of be built by right.

Um but some of our changes with um just subdividing land um certainly could have been.

And I'd need to go back and double check again the the sizes and configurations.

Um but it's possible, right?

That uh you've got again with Gaddis Court and and for folks that just show hands are folks familiar with with Gaddis Court, yeah.

Um so it's it's a four unit development in Northside that um habitat project had to go through a conditional zoning.

Um if it had been easier to subdivide that land, uh it is entirely possible, and again, we'll we'll need to double check um that the one lot could have been subdivided into to two separate lots, um, kind of bona fide a subdivision, right?

Not even a sub lot.

Um with the rules around flag lots or zero frontage lots.

Um they would have had a lot of flexibility in what those two lots looked like.

Um if the the lot further back from the street again needed to be kind of landlocked um without uh direct access, direct like platted access to the street, that would have been fine.

A shared driveway, like what they've got would be totally fine.

Um and it all could have potentially, and I'll double check, but it it potentially could have just proceeded as you've got one lot, you subdivide it, and you build two duplexes on on each lot.

Okay.

Yeah, I think those kind of examples are really helpful for me.

And any time you all can provide those, it's really great.

Thank you.

Councilmember Sharp.

Followed by council member Searing?

Um, okay, my first couple questions are about NCDs.

Um the NCD exemption exemption for the site plan reviews, so still requiring the site plan reviews for the North Side and Pine Knolls N CDs.

Are those those are the only two N C Ds in town that it applies to?

Because we have 13, is that right, N C Ds overall?

Yeah, it's the it's the only NCDs that it applies to because they're the only NCDs that have the special site plan review.

That have requirements provisions within them.

Okay.

Um the lot size proposals.

Um I'm assuming that like the um housing choice text amendment that those do not apply, that the NCDs supersede those lot size.

So the NCDs don't have the N C Ds don't have any independent rules around lot sizes.

Um so lot sizes.

Sorry, don't some of the NCDs like stipulate like one dwelling per acre and things like that?

They do.

So um they they might stipulate a I don't know that they stipulate dwellings per acre.

Um they might have things like limits on duplexes.

So Northside and Pine Knolls, for example, um, only allow duplexes in certain instances, those would still continue to operate.

Um some NCDs have um limits on something called floor area ratio, right?

The size that your home can be relative to your lot, that would still continue to apply.

Um to my knowledge, none of the NCDs have like a unit per acre requirement.

Um I think one of them, I'm fairly certain I read that at least one of them does.

Um anyway, so that would be something I would be interested to seeing because I can and if that is the case and I it was years ago that I read it, so I would have to go back and revisit, but you know, it's an NCD that's close to downtown with houses on huge lots where it would make a lot of sense to do in fill development.

Um, and so I'm just wondering how that would work with those NCDs if if it is an issue anywhere and maybe wrong that it is.

Yeah, sorry, like one greenfield, I think was the one that has Greenwood, sorry.

Yeah, has a um that's one I was thinking of.

Thank you for that.

I think that's the only one.

But yeah, that's that that's the one I was thinking of.

Yeah.

And those for now would would supersede any other changes that we make to lot size requirements or anything like that.

Okay.

Um the general structure of like the relationship between N C D rules and anything else in LUMO, is that the N C D rules will always supersede.

Okay, and that's essentially what both of these two points boil down to, correct?

Like the pine knolls and CD and okay.

Like the pine knolls and CD and Okay, so there are a couple places in reading through all of the actual amendments to the LUMO in the packet that we were given.

I'm not gonna lie, I got super lost.

Is superfluous.

I get that.

There were a lot of places where site plan review was mentioned in other places where it's crossed out or the town manager does it or something.

Can you just can you give me a little more clarity on how if there are different kinds of site plan reviews happening, which will remain and which won't, and um who will be doing them and when?

So the really frustrating thing for us is that the way Lumo has used the term site plan review, it's it's basically created a proper noun, right?

An official process, planning commission site plan review.

It's created a proper noun out of a very generic phrase, right?

Just like the reviewing of a site plan.

Um so the only thing that we uh that the proposal would would remove is that that proper noun, like planning commission's capital site plan review.

And that's a a defined process that um only happens for projects that that do not go to council for conditional zoning.

Um it's all by right development projects, and the the kind of sequence of events for a project that has that currently has to go through that that plan and commission site plan review is um you know, they submit an application for site plan review, staff review it for for months because the mandate is is the project compliant with LUMO?

And so that requires pretty significant review, uh revisions, you know, back and forth between the applicant and staff.

It then goes to planning commission.

Planning commission makes a decision based on staff's technical review.

The decision is is it or is it not compliant with LUMO?

And then the project has to come back and get something called a zoning compliance permit.

And the process for getting a zoning compliance permit looks almost exactly like the process for getting site plan review, except it it doesn't end with a planning commission meeting, it just ends with staff signing a permit, formalizing that they have kind of again gone through the review of a site plan, right?

Like not capital site plan review, but just the technical review of an application.

They've gone through that process and found that it's compliant with LUMO.

So the site plan review process and the ZCP process are redundant.

They are entirely redundant.

Okay.

Thank you.

That really helps.

Um the next one, um, there were also a lot of places both well, there were a lot of different places in the different amendments, and then also in your presentation where we talked about um the types of modifications that would be allowed after council approval.

Some in the case of um, you know, like you were saying, um, you know, it's been a lot of years and conditions and prices and things have changed, etc.

And um let me see.

Sorry, let me just read this one note I made to make sure I'm asking the right question.

Well, anyway, so there were a lot of places where where what we are falling back on is um you know, like one quote I noted was changes continue to comply with the approving action of the planning commission and all other applicable requirements.

Let's say council, let's take that out because I think that was in reference to the site plan review.

Anyway, um do we have any um less mushy measures on which we are basing whether or not the changes still adhere to the spirit of what council approved.

Yes, yeah.

So we have um written into the ordinance, we have clear metrics for um kind of the the mushiness that we allow, right?

The flexibility that we allow.

Um it's things like the the distance that a building that's shown on a site plan, the distance that that could move on the site plan, um, the distance that um a uh a driveway entrance, right?

The main kind of vehicular entrance to a site, the distance that that could move along a street, um we have specific metrics around how much additional floor area a project could build out relative to what was approved by council.

Okay.

And there's a couple of other metrics that again very clearly define measurable thresholds.

Okay.

So that's that's in the ordinance itself.

The other thing that will always remain within council's authority is to commit an applicant in writing to a particular condition of their approval, right?

The the conditional in a conditional zoning.

And one of the things that even with any of the changes that we're proposing to make, one of the things that can never be modified at a staff level is the written text of a condition in an ordinance.

So if a project comes before council and you know there's an element of the project that either staff recommend, hey, we really need to lock this in, um, or if council find that, hey, this really needs to be kind of locked in.

Um, there's always going to be the opportunity to make sure that that element of the project, some feature of the project, um, if it doesn't clearly fit within those defined metrics that I mentioned, um, that that could be locked in using a written condition in the specific project's approval.

So potentially going forward as a council will need to be reviewing conditional zoning applications with an eye to the fact that we need to maybe be more specific about the conditions that we want to make sure aren't going to be modified in five years, et cetera.

So that may be something that that then as a council we would need to adjust our expectation of how much things might change once we've approved them.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's a an that would be an important lens for council to view the projects through, and it'll definitely become a critical lens that staff review the project through.

Okay.

Um our goal is always to get you a conditional zoning ordinance that's that's ready to go and that's identified those hot spots, right?

What are those areas of interest that we really want to bring your attention to and really hold an applicant to?

Okay.

And what in that instance is the difference between well, okay.

So essentially there could be, you know, the plan is modified in a certain way that isn't specifically addressed in the conditions of the conditional zoning permit.

And so therefore, okay, I think I've I think that worked that out in my head.

Um, and one just very oh, wait a minute.

Um, okay.

And then in a lot of places it said that this thing would like a certain thing would be taken away and repealed, but then reserved for future use.

Yeah.

What does that mean?

Um that is honestly just a drafting technique that that makes the ordinance slightly more decipherable.

Um we do it in a situation where let's say you've got a list of you know section, I'm I'm totally making up numbers here, but you've got section 5.25 of LUMO, um, and the item that you're trying to strike is 5.25 A.

Oh, I see.

So like striking for referring back to.

Yeah, strike well, well, striking and reserving just means you're striking it, um, but you don't have to then renumber every item that comes after it.

Got it.

Okay.

So it's just a it's a convenient drafting tool when we're kind of plugging holes in an existing ordinance.

Okay, got it.

Okay, that's it.

Council members hearing Thanks Um Yeah, I had a couple questions.

The first the first one I just wanted to um to uh follow up a little bit with my um fellow council member, council member Barry's question about the um incentives for affordable housing in streamlining the conditional um zoning process.

And I you know, I just want to push back a little bit on your answer there that you gave council member Barry.

I mean, I you know how I love looking at our town websites, and I I went back as after you gave that answer to her and I looked at our town website, and indeed the town website page on this uh expedited process for affordable housing, um, it talks about incentivizing the whole point of the process is to incentivize the creation of more affordable housing in Chapel Hill.

And you know, similarly, if you look at any of the um news stories about some of the projects we approved under this, you know, expedited process, obviously the you know, the the entities who have gotten that approval saying, wow, this really was an incentive to build you know affordable housing in Chapel Hill, and isn't this a great thing to do?

Um I understand you're saying, well, if we just remove or apply that incentive to everybody, we'll get more of everything.

Um but you know, I think what the you know, we live in um a society where people want to make money, which is fine, but isn't it wouldn't it just be the case that we'll get more of things that people can make a lot more money on and less of things that projects that are you're maybe not making any money or done by a nonprofit but are affordable?

So you know, why if our whole point was to incentivize affordable housing, why would we give up that lever when there are so few legal ways that we as a community can actually really incentivize um building of more affordable housing?

Yeah.

I think some of this speaks to just kind of the the dangers of vague language, right?

The term incentivized can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

I can't answer for, and I I will will not try to explain discrepancies in what's on the town's website versus what I'm saying tonight.

Um when I use the term incentivize, right?

What I'm talking about, and I think the the context of the question was how can we how can we make sure that we're not losing a tool that kind of pulls people up, right?

That gets somebody that may have otherwise been looking to build a project with 10% affordable housing, how do we get them to build a project with 25% affordable housing?

Um so when I'm talking about the term incentivize, um, the the specific meaning I'm trying to kind of lock in on uh because again, vague language and the discrepancies in how we define language can can lead to a lot of unnecessary kind of complication.

When I say incentivize, I'm I'm talking about inducements, right?

How do we induce somebody that otherwise wasn't going to do something to do that thing?

Um that's where when we when we talk about in order to induce somebody to go from 10% affordable housing to 25% affordable housing, you've got to provide a lot of additional value.

Uh and the time saved um through the expedited process does not provide that value.

I mean, you're looking at probably millions of dollars to be able to move the needle that much.

Um what we do know is that the proposal or that the original process, right?

The original expedited process has done a great job of supporting folks that build affordable housing in town.

Um again, we've had three developments, all 100% light 100% affordable light tech projects come through.

Um you could, I'm sure, make a you know uh a statement that if we if we look at the term incentivize, maybe in a different way, that did we help DHIC or Taft Mills, did we help them choose Chapel Hill as opposed to choosing some other community to build their 100% affordable Lite Tech project in?

Um we may have done that, right, through creating this uh expedited process.

And we'll continue to do that, right?

Um of the things that we've talked about with uh the broader LUMO rewrite is really going the next step that conditional zoning shouldn't even be an issue for somebody building a 50 or 75 unit 100% affordable project that we can build in density bonuses and other mechanisms that allow again a DHIC, a Taft Mills or any number of other Light tech projects to choose to build in Chapel Hill because we create um easier processes that go way above and beyond uh the improvements that we're talking about for conditional zoning.

Okay, well, just when I look back at those projects, which are some pretty good projects we approved under that process, it just seems like it was a it worked well, and I'm not sure what we can replace it with if we're gonna give it up.

So I think that was the point of my question.

Could I speak to uh uh councilman?

Can I add to that answer as well?

Like I'd I would challenge the council not to look at it as if you're losing something in that that process would still be available for affordable housing projects.

What we're attempting to do is to also provide a streamlined version of all of our processes.

As we going into the larger rewrite, we're working to improve all of our development processes and streamlining and and it's not about incentives or benefits to people, it's about the fact that we have a cumbersome process that is very lengthy and sometimes unnecessarily so.

So as we're looking for ways to remove steps that are redundant and to increase those efficiencies, this is just part of that process.

So I don't want you guys to vary it as in this isn't an attack on that process or that process is going away.

That would still be there.

And these other um reductions in time for these other types of projects isn't necessarily going to look exactly like that, but it would add an ability to get through our development review process um with more certainty and stability than we may currently have.

Well, I understand that just seems this is an incentive that's worked well.

And if you have a piece of property and you're trying to decide, you know, should I build a you know building on an apartment building on it that doesn't have any affordable you know units, but you know, makes me know whatever $500,000, or should I build uh you know a apartment building on it that has you know 25% affordable units, but makes me $350,000 in profit, and I can you know the incentive is to quickly move much more quickly through the approval process than you know than I can make.

I think financially it might make sense.

So that was the basis of my question.

So I have one uh I've uh if I could just say one more thing to that.

Um I think our our discussion here and our our kind of calculations as to whether we expand the expedited process to everybody would be very different if we had been approving projects with 25% affordable housing, right?

If we had been approving projects where we had a demonstrated project where the expedited review moved the needle, um but that just hasn't been the case, right?

We've only seen approved projects 100% affordable, um, or the one project downtown where it was million dollar condos um that were subsidizing affordable units.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Um so there was a project that moved through the process more quickly.

But was ultimately denied by I don't want to take up everybody's time.

I have one other question and then I'm done.

Um so the so um given recent legislation that passed in the North Carolina legislature uh at the behest of the University of North Carolina here, none of these changes that we're discussing tonight apply to any of the very large um housing that UNC is thinking about building on property it ends.

Is that right?

I don't want to jump too far into you know uh interpreting the new law um that is broadly speaking likely to be the scenario we we know the state law changes very drastically our jurisdiction over university owned property.

Okay, so none of these changes would affect all the housing or any or development that's been um contemplated by UNC.

Uh so then similarly, and I know I've asked this question before, and this is part of this part of this question.

So these changes to our neighborhoods that have existing homeowners associations where those homeowners associations bylaws in are in conflict with these changes, these changes would not affect existing neighborhoods with homeowners association bylaws that are in conflict with these changes.

Yeah, I mean the the traditional relationship between zoning and private um restrictive covenants would continue to apply.

Um it becomes legal under the zoning, but your your neighbors could still sue you to Kingdom Com if you if you did something that violated their covenants.

Thanks.

And so and I appreciate that we've talked about this at Nazi.

You're not gonna have to have uh listen to me asked that question for very much longer.

Um, but I will ask it one more time.

If you all as part of the you know million dollars of consultants time that we've spent on these, you know, and this rewrite and everything, I would love it just as one member of this council.

If we could just have a you know, somebody go down to the courthouse and come up with a map that has all the parts of Shapel Hill that are exempt from these changes.

So it'd be the UNC properties, anything that's zoned differently downtown, and then these HOA um neighborhoods that would be exempt as well, just so that we can understand, you know, when we're looking at these um changes, who's which neighborhoods are affected and which neighborhoods aren't.

So I'm just making that request.

I've made it before, but I'll make it one more time.

Thank you.

Councilmember Barry.

I know you're all a tired of this topic, but I'm gonna go back to it because I need some clarity about it.

Um as we expand the streamline, which I'm in favor of.

My question is, how do we continue to support the development to encourage the development?

How do we induce the development of affordable housing units?

That's all I'm asking, because this was touted to us as a lever that we could use.

And so now this will be something that helps everyone who comes to us to develop.

What I'm asking is what are the other levers that you are using?

They may they probably are already in existence.

I'm asking you to to just expand upon that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Expand rather.

Um so one lever that that isn't at all in Lumo is just staff capacity and the amount of staff support for projects.

Um we're we're always going to be able to find ways to provide additional staff support for projects that need it.

Um the other major lever is is still to come, right?

I think we've and I as I mentioned with uh the Luma rewrite, we are looking at ways to really shift the current expectations about when a conditional zoning is even necessary.

Um and one of the ways to do that, again, because of the economic analysis that we've done that's helped kind of inform our understanding of what it takes to actually induce um a developer to provide affordable housing.

Um we know we've got to throw a lot of value at them.

So a lot of very large density bonus, right?

Um changes in the thresholds of when a conditional zoning would even be required.

Um so kind of a procedural density bonus is another thing that we're considering and we've discussed as part of the LUMO rewrite.

Um, all with an eye of, you know, we we know the sweet spot for a light tech project is is anywhere from kind of 48 to 75 units based on the current qualified allocation plan from the state.

Um that ends up being kind of a sweet spot in in size.

Um and so building those density bonuses around a notion that um if you're a hundred first if you're a hundred percent affordable project, um you might be able to get up to 48, 50 or even more units without even having to come through a conditional zoning, um, that you're built through a much more traditional way of of land use development, which is um at most you do a traditional rezoning to make sure that the kind of the baseline zoning district is correct for your site, and then you go through a staff technical review.

So that'll be kind of the next iteration um we of incentivizing and and supporting um those types of projects.

But it it requires again just such a fundamental change to to LUMO at its core.

That's why it's it's reserved for the LUMO rewrite.

Um I have um I guess some concerns, but also questions about the the concept plan review.

Um so we have some applicants who say it's valuable.

Um but I can certainly understand like we don't want it to be a barrier to people coming through or being able to start their application.

Um but I guess um I guess I'm wondering it sorry, I can't I can't count to eight, so clearly I can't, you know, I can't deal with this uh question.

Um I still have an interest in making sure that people have the option to come to us as the decision makers and also as the people who are accountable to the public.

Um I think there is kind of a you know, I understand what you're saying about not wanting to um get stuck in um in parcel by parcel planning.

So I guess to me, the the way that we would do better is to have a staff review, like a high-level review, um, and then allow people to come if they wanted for a concept plan to talk to council about you know whatever they would like to know from the the body who will be approving, and it's not meant to scare people off or add um, you know, make it so that only huge out-of-town developers can maneuver our process, right?

Like I understand that there's a trade-off there, but I guess I'm wondering why we can't kind of do something where there is this complete community staff review, um, then it can come to council for concept plan review if developers want it.

Um then we're able to give some earlier on feedback so that the body who is responsible for approving also is able to give that feedback before things are so baked that the developers don't really want to change things.

So I think what what sounds like you're proposing is is make concept plan optional.

Correct.

Um that is that is a possibility, right?

Like there's there's nothing technically, I think, wrong with making concept plan review an optional process.

Um I think the risk, and and we mentioned this kind of briefly in the staff memo, the risk is that something that's technically optional over time can become kind of a de facto requirement.

Um that is a risk that can only be mitigated by you all, right?

That there's kind of a a compact that the kind of uh gratitude or the grace that was extended right into the community was that uh concept plan review becomes optional.

Um whether or not it stays truly optional uh becomes a matter of norms, right?

And we we all know there's this constant tension between what's what's codified in law and the norms that that really make that stick.

So ultimately it's it's a risk that um if if y'all are willing to bear that risk and think that that's a valuable trade off from a technical perspective, um, an optional concept plan review process wouldn't be problematic again from a technical perspective.

But I guess the piece that I'm also asking about, and that's helpful, so thank you for that answer.

The piece that I'm asking about too is can we switch the order so that if people want to go through kind of a high level review with staff and then come to council once staff because I don't often feel like um I'm the best person to speak to some of the things right off the bat, you know, people come with the like blobs, and uh I can pretty much say whether I think it's an appropriate use.

I can say some of the things we always say, which is please make sure there's affordable housing on it, please make sure you work with our urban designer, and please make sure that if there's a critical greenway connection through it, that you're doing that.

And you know, we we know the things, right?

But um, but it doesn't feel like it feels like we're doing that and staff's gonna do that.

And so to me, the value is having staff do the the do that part, and then it you know, if people want to come to us and say, hey, here's where we are.

Are there additional things that council really has a unique interest in in this part of town or whatever it is?

Um, or based on the complete community framework, are there things in particular here that are missing?

Um that that feels like a valuable use of time to me if people want to do it.

Yeah.

But you know, but I'm not the one constructing the new process or who's you know what I mean.

So I'm I'm trying to understand why that isn't kind of a reasonable, or maybe I'm asking, is that a reasonable way to approach?

So that starts to, and and thank you for clarifying that, because I think that that starts to look pretty categorically different from what concept plan review is today, right?

Um it sounds like it could it could look like two one of two different things.

One is um, again, still an optional concept plan review that says if you're gonna take advantage of this optional review, you have to go through a certain amount of staff review first.

Um so it's like a conditional optional concept plan review, right?

Optional concept plan review with conditions.

Um that could still be fine, right?

It's still be way before, ideally before an actual conditional zoning application comes in the door.

Um it does again, it it changes the calculus of is a developer actually going to do more work earlier for the opportunity to come before council.

Well, I was actually thinking, and I'm sorry to interrupt, but I I wasn't necessarily thinking that developers would have to wait in order to initiate an application process.

That, you know, because I because I've asked this in the past, and one of the um understandable answers that I've gotten is that staff doesn't want to put in a ton of time before someone's actually put in an application, and that makes sense to me because you could get 500 applications a year and like eight of them come through, right?

So doing a ton of evaluation on things that will never happen doesn't seem like a great use of time.

Um I guess what I'm asking is you know, whatever you call it, an optional something where once someone has had, you know, and they can start their application, they can start working with staff, and then there's an opportunity before they've baked the project to come to council and say, hey, this is the right direction we're going.

Any other feedback?

And then I'll also be able to feel like I can give better feedback because there's something there beyond the blobs.

Yeah.

That starts to look more like some sort of an optional check-in midstream, right?

Once somebody's submitted a conditional zoning application.

Um I think that starts to look a little bit more problematic because again, it's kind of this midstream check-in with the decision maker in a way that again, it's not contemplated by any state law process.

Um it has happened, I think maybe once in the in the case of the East the UNC East Town project where there was a work session after the applicant had already submitted their their conditional zoning application.

I think there it was a bizarre instance in which it was technically like a contemporaneous conditional zoning and concept plan review happening at the same time.

Um it's it's odd, it's potentially problematic.

Um, and again, conflating those two things isn't something I I think I'd be comfortable speaking to like the extent to which it may or may not be something that we would want to consider adopting long term.

So I mean, is that something that you could then think about?

And again, I'm I'm really not trying to and again, I I want to focus on outcomes, not on process, right?

And process serving outcomes.

So if there's a way to get better projects that that people feel more confident about bringing, and that we can at the end of the day say, I'm happier with this than I would have been otherwise, as the body who again has to approve and also is accountable to the public, it feels like a win-win to me.

But again, I understand there's complexity there in terms of you know um the timing or something else.

But I I, as one of nine, would be interested in understanding more.

Um the other thing that that kind of connects to for me is um the lot sizes, which I'm generally quite supportive of.

Um, but there's this whole section about the urban tree canopy that we still don't have standards, but that there are like these seven blocks on a map that don't meet healthy standards according to the people who know these things.

Um I guess how are we dealing with this problem?

Like how are we using overlay maps to determine things and then have somebody talking to developers about hey, you know, generally healthy over here is 50% in residential.

Um we think this is a great place for there to be a stronger tree canopy requirement, and that would be the thing that you know, that would be part of the community benefit we're asking for here that's not as relevant over here because it's just not an issue over here, right?

So I mean, there's the bigger picture of how do we make sure that we have healthy tree canopy across the town, but then it feels like are there ways that we are leveraging our knowledge of what's going on with our overlays with our maps to then have one personing up front instead of kind of what I think the in the um answers you talked about the process going forward would be one-on-one meetings with certain staff members and willing council members.

And so then to me, again, we're still every project is still going through different departments instead of having like a complete community czar who's like, well, this is the thing that we would really want over here, maybe not so much over here.

This place needs neighborhood commercial, whereas this place needs tree canopy, this place needs storm water remediation, and this is a perfect place for like all of it to really be asking for just affordable housing or a greenway network or whatever.

And so I guess like the process to me still feels very old school.

Yeah.

And one thing to clarify, you know the response in the the council questions, the idea that um uh an applicant would be able to meet with staff that represent a variety of different um specializations or or interests in the town.

Um that's gonna be refined, right?

Um, what that actually looks like, whether it is individual conferences where you know staff have an opportunity to really drill down into specifics, um, or is it a more holistic review?

Um that's also a possibility.

What oftentimes ends up being the case, and this is kind of the unenviable position that that the planning department is in is that we are a representation of um that holistic review.

We are a representation of the nexus of um oftentimes competing interests, um, that if it really is just individual specializations kind of firing off their wish list, um, that doesn't, like you said, lead to kind of a holistic review.

Planning department staff are you know, our kind of our specialization is balancing competing interests.

And so I think probably the most effective kind of evolution or version of some sort of staff consultation is always going to be something that is led by a point person that understands those competing interests.

That could certainly be uh, you know, informed by things like tree canopy.

Um we can understand you we've got our natural features viewer, for example.

One of the things we have talked about and that we are already doing is uh one of the first things any planning staff does when they're kind of getting acclimated with or accustomed to a new project and starting to consult with an applicant about how to improve that project is what does the underlying data in the natural features model tell us what is environmentally important on this site.

Um and we're trying to find ways to incorporate that into how we advise applicants.

So we're already doing it.

Um and it's another, I think, really good example of this idea that the best way to get beyond kind of project by project uh decision making is to make sure that there are clear articulations of council priorities and that planning department staff, other town staff can use those again, those clear articulations of council priorities to to weigh the relative benefits and costs for project and to make it very clear to applicants uh what their needs are.

Um ultimately, as we've we talked about on many occasions, council is a policy-making entity, and we want you all to be able to exercise your policy making chops much more so than your like site planning chops, right?

Um I think most of you would agree that that is a shared interest.

Um and this is really an opportunity to do that, right?

To to move you away from digging into projects on a on a project by project basis and instead focus on those kind of clear and actionable articulations of your policy interests.

Yeah, see, I want to do that until we hit the point where where legally we can't do it without me.

Like I would love for you to do all of it actually.

I would love to make high-level policy and never talk about it again.

But North Carolina doesn't really lend itself to that, right?

There are things that we can negotiate for or suggest strongly that like that otherwise we wouldn't get things we want, right?

I would say that those negotiations are still happening, right?

And they are they're primarily still happening at the staff level.

Um council is the critical kind of linchpin to formalizing those negotiations and making them move from hey, this is a really great thing.

This is something that the town is very interested in, which are discussions are always happening at the staff level.

Uh, council's involvement and the power of the conditional zoning process is it takes those discussions which are still happening at the staff level and will continue to happen at the staff level, and we'll have more vigor at the staff level if there are again these kind of clear articulations of council policy.

Conditional zoning allows council with kind of the the bang of a gavel to take those discussions and turn them into binding requirements.

Um that won't change under this kind of streamlined process that might reduce FaceTime with council, but it doesn't reduce council's um kind of authority or power.

Um thank you.

Um if the this is back to the site plan reviews, um, if they're confusing and don't lead to actual better outcomes or give false expectations about what can happen with neighbors, then why would we continue to do it in the NCDs?

Like I understand that the NCDs say something, but if it's not working, why wouldn't we why wouldn't we make that change everywhere?

Yeah.

So it it really goes back to again is as part of kind of the broader LUMO rewrite, had this kind of implicit agreement that we're not gonna change the NCD rules.

Um that being said, right?

Um planning commission um recommended that if site plan review is removed everywhere, which again they they strongly support, that it also be removed in the NCDs.

I think for for exactly the same reason that you're articulating.

Um that is ultimately a political decision.

Um if council thinks that it's it's okay to again kind of break with that implicit agreement in a in a admittedly very narrow way.

Um we're we're happy to follow your lead on that, but um we would need that direction from you all.

I understand.

Okay.

Um this is gonna be like a silly question, but I feel like I have to ask it.

Do we have authority to not allow certain uses like a charter school?

We we do have authority to not allow specific uses, but they have to be specifically enumerated in LUMO.

So we have to um we have to have a line in that giant table of allowed uses to say firing range, for example, is is the type of use that oftentimes comes up.

Let's keep that one.

Yeah.

Um it's got to say firing range, and it has to say not allowed.

Right.

Um state law specifically says that just the fact that a use isn't enumerated in the use table doesn't mean that you can say that's not allowed.

Um if it's not enumerated, you have to compare it to the most uh reasonably similar use that is enumerated.

Um but we can always identify things and say that they're not allowed.

Thank you.

I know we have I I'll I'll save some for email because we have public who wish to speak.

Okay.

I had John Reese, but I think he has left.

So that means Ian Scott and then Ansel Pritchard.

We can trade the he can trade the order.

He took his code, he took his computer and everything.

He can speak at the end, Jeff.

That's welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Ian Scott with the Chamber for Greater Chapel Hill, Carlborough, also speaking on behalf of the Home Builders Association of Durham Orange and Chatham Counties.

Two organizations have a joint task force that was formed last year to work uh alongside this LUMO rewrite process and provide uh input at every public phase.

Uh we've reviewed uh extensively our uh group of uh engineers, architects, attorneys, developers, and land use professionals taking a look at this uh package of uh reforms and and do believe it meaningfully advances the town's uh really important goals for housing affordability and availability.

Uh this is not a panacea.

This is not going to fix uh all affordability in the town, as you all know, uh, but we do really think this will make meaningful improvements uh and allow the diversity uh of housing types uh to be more readily constructed in town.

This remains a major goal for employers uh in the community who continue to struggle to meet uh their own workforce needs uh and compete for talent in this community because too many people struggle to find a place they can afford to live.

It remains our uh single biggest local policy goal for the chamber.

Um we really applaud you all for your ambition setting uh significant and meaningful targets uh around housing supply and availability and affordability.

Uh we think this will help advance those.

We also really want to applaud staff for bringing forward this uh thoughtful package.

It's been in uh illuminating for me to listen to the conversation tonight.

Uh I've appreciated everybody's comments and attention.

I think there's some great remarks that have been surfaced in this.

There's always room to improve.

Uh but we also want to remind you that the real ticket here is the comprehensive soup to nuts rewrite of the LUMO in comprehensive in coordination with the uh connected communities plan to enable a more transit-oriented future.

We think that still needs to go forward.

We wanted to, we know that's still your intent.

We wanted to encourage that while we're applauding uh staff's work on the interim.

I think this is a very uh important step we were grateful for to see uh and look forward to continued discussion as you debate this package.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Uh Ansel Pritchard, followed by John Reese.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I'm here on behalf of Habitat for Humanity of Orange County, North Carolina.

Uh I know we sent uh a letter uh to council in support of these text amendments, and um I just wanted to uh reiterate uh a little bit of that here just briefly.

And you guys were mentioning Gaddis Court earlier.

I wanted to like scream from the audience.

They're 1400 square feet units, by the way.

So uh but you know, when we um when we think about what uh the future of uh affordable housing uh from habitats perspective looks like uh in the future, as much as we would love uh the new affordable housing standard for habitat to be uh weavers grove communities of of scale, um there's obviously so much, only so much developable land uh available uh within Chappa Hill.

So while we do have some communities of scale planned uh down the road in the coming years, we see the real opportunity uh is is in the info lots uh is is smaller scale developments like uh Gaddis Court and and we really believe that uh a lot of these uh we're in full support of all of these text amendments, but uh those that especially apply to um lot sizes um and uh changes in infrastructure requirements will I think really help us find additional opportunities in the future to uh to create these uh affordable homes, which will save us in time, uh save us in development costs, and and really help us uh get more and more families access to their first affordable home, providing those opportunities uh in Chapel Hill.

Thank you so much.

Okay, John Reese, followed by Renuca Sol.

Hi, sorry about that.

I've got a cold.

Good evening, members of the town council.

My name is John Reese, and I'm a Chapel Hill resident.

I'm here tonight only representing my own thoughts.

Tonight you are being you're being asked to begin the consideration of some substantive and progressive changes to the LUMO.

I think they are great, and they hopefully will allow more housing to exist within town limits.

I obviously don't need to tell any of you how scarce housing already is in town, and in fact, why these changes are being proposed.

I'm especially fond of duplexes and other multiplexes are great too.

I did a lot of traveling this summer, and in all the places I visited, I encountered some beautiful duplexes and multiplexes that integrated perfectly with the single family homes next to them.

But you don't have to go far to find some good examples, and this is kind of interesting, it's a bit coincidental.

Um, in Northside on Roberson Street, I cite the Gaddis Court project, which I think is very beautiful.

Um Habitat built some gorgeous duplexes there last year.

Anyone who is concerned about this housing type, I invite them to drive down Robertson Street, right across from the softball fields and take a look at the blue duplex.

We have them elsewhere in Chapel Hill, but they're mostly not allowed.

Let's flip that back.

I like to believe that Chapel Hill is a welcoming community.

Let's welcome some new neighbors by allowing housing choices that permit new units in our existing neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Hi, Renukasal.

Um, I'm a Chapel Hill resident.

I'm here because I strongly oppose the proposed LUMO changes.

I have lived in Chapel Hill for 20 years, and I've had I have admired and valued the openness and vigorous debate that have characterized our town's decision-making process.

While our debates about land use have often been heated, they almost always have resulted in better decisions for our community.

Last year, a majority of the council voted to remove the citizen advisory committees that provided additional expertise to their decisions.

You'll be voting on whether to approve LUMO changes that will further reduce public input on important issues affecting town residents.

While these changes are intended to streamline and speed up the review process for future development, something developers have long lobbied for, they disenfranchise Chapel Hill residents, your constituents, who would be left with little to say in town decisions that impact them and even less opportunity to help improve proposed new development projects.

Here's a partial list of what we stand to lose.

The town's design standards, which is the past in the past allowed council and the public to have a meaningful sense of what was being proposed, would now be replaced by automatic acceptance of vague general layout plans.

Content restricted public information sessions would replace public hearings, resulting in significantly less public engagement, which will in turn increase public frustration with town decisions.

The role of the town council as a duly elected body representing Chapel Hill residents will have a significantly diminished role in shaping future development.

If the council's role is merely to rubber stamp staff decisions, then it can no longer effectively serve the public interest.

Finally, these LUMO changes are effectively a backdoor way of expanding throughout town the failed form-based code model adopted in July 2014.

While the zoning district has facilitated the construction of many new expensive apartments, it has not produced any net gain in affordable housing, nor has the redevelopment of the Blue Hill district reduced reliance on cars, created a walking environment, or offered protection from floods.

Given the disappointing results so far of reducing public participation development review, doubling down in this approach seems terribly misguided.

I request that you reject these changes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

David Schwartz has left.

You don't have to do that.

It's been a while.

Thanks.

Mayor and Council, thanks for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Jeff Green.

I'm a resident of Chapel Hill.

I'm a member of planning commission, but I'm here to speak on myself.

I support the entire package of amendments and want to applaud staff for the changes they've included here.

I recognize the full LUMO update will include additional changes whenever that happens.

And there will be additional opportunities to make critically necessary improvements to our regulations.

At the outset, I want to note that the current Luma includes layer upon layer of regulations which restrict development in which interact in unpredictable ways in individual development.

Density, setbacks, tree canopy requirements, FAR all create limitations, and it's very hard to figure out exactly what you can build.

The housing trace amendments in 2023 made some changes, but the fact that approximately more or less zero duplexes have been built makes it clear that we haven't gone far enough.

As an aside, remember all the horror stories about how those amendments would destroy neighborhoods.

The proposed amendment to increase the maximum square footage of duplexes to 5,000 square feet is useful, but why is there a limit?

You can build a single family home as large as you want.

One of the single family homes next to mine is 6100 square feet, more much more than double the size of my house, but no one says boo.

In addition, the 40% tree canopy requirements that apply only to duplexes, not single family houses, should go away.

It's another requirement that doesn't apply that privileges single family detached homes.

One example on Oakwood Drive, there's a large new house that has replaced an older house that was torn down in 2023.

The new house not only doesn't meet the tree canopy requirements that apply to duplexes, but it's also more than 5,000 square feet in size.

And you know, there was no review, no neighbor opportunity to comment.

Even if it had been legal at the time to build a duplex duplex, it would have been illegal to build this exact structure as a duplex.

One kitchen is fine, two kitchens is illegal.

I appreciate the thought behind the tree canopy requirements, but if we're serious about expanding housing options, the same regulations that apply to single family homes should also apply to duplexes.

We shouldn't privilege aesthetic aesthetic concerns over the need for more housing.

They're arbitrary.

Many communities have eliminated them.

None have uh restored them after eliminating them.

Uh lot size minimums uh reducing is a great idea.

We're not a rural community anymore, allowing flag lots, some of the infrastructure changes.

Um look forward to um seeing how these uh changes get approved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And that was the last speaker I had.

Council, back to you, and this will come back to us.

So thoughts?

Councilmember McCullough?

Yeah, why don't we just if everyone wants to speak, we can just go down the okay, the line.

Um I appreciated the fact that the planning commission read it so carefully, and I think it's uh important to note that they had only one kind of objection to it.

Um, and that was whether or not we should still keep two meetings for conditional zonings.

Um I'm I'm very excited about this.

I think overall it's an opportunity to catalyze some missing middle and incremental development of gentle density.

I think that um rather than thinking about it in terms of making an opportunity for developers to make more profits, we need to start thinking about it in terms of facilitating smaller developers to do incremental development and and um small things to for a for a person who owns a uh a lot to build a duplex and and let their kids live on one side and um rent out the other, it creates opportunities that weren't there before.

And I think that those opportunities are going to be important as we try to bring families back to Chapel Hill.

Um we got a letter from a woman who who just was lamenting the fact that her newly married daughter and her husband would can't couldn't afford to live in Chapel Hill.

Um so however we can facilitate any smaller development to a to um to bring in more gentle density and gent and density at all, um, creating more supply.

We've already seen as benefiting in terms of affordability with the small A affordability, accessibility, availability to people who can come in and get starter homes.

Um I love the idea of of flexibility with the idea with uh buildings being able to evolve over time.

That's what makes up a place that's old work when you've got European cities that have been there for hundreds of years and they evolve over time and the buildings stay.

We don't want our buildings to be um this is one thing, and when it's like Walmart, you know, 10 years is its lifespan, and then we're gonna tear it down.

We want to build things that are beautiful that are permanent and that will stay and serve many, many purposes over their lifetimes.

Um I would like to to point out that um the zero frontage and the flag lots are actually a historic use in Chapel Hill.

I walk and bike all over the place, and I pass uh many places where there's these flag lots where you go in, and at the end there's either a single home or there's a little cluster of homes.

Um it's always been part of Chapel Hill, and there's no reason that it should not be allowed now.

There are too many things that have been historically patterns in communities like Chapel Hill and in Chapel Hill that are now just illegal, and that's stupid I'll be super short because I went off enough already.

Uh I actually support I think nine out of the 12 of these of these uh changes, I think they're good.

I especially like the um manufacturer homes one.

I think we need to support those communities, the signs stuff.

We've all dealt with community or businesses that are individuals dealing with signs, you know, stuff like that, the site plan reviews, some of these streamlined things I think are good.

I just I don't like the conditional zoning change and the infrastructure.

I think we need to can to continue to um require that there be infrastructure for our development, um, and then the duplex size limits.

I'm sort of torn about, but you know, I don't like that.

So I support a lot of these things, but I think you know the conditional zoning thing is a bridge too far for me, but no surprise there.

Thank you so much, and thank you for um bearing with us as you continue to answer our questions.

Um I want to say that um I support us simplifying and being more um deliberate, intentional with what we expect, what we want, and that is what I'm hearing.

Um I had the good fortune to be fed.

You all know that is that is something that I enjoy.

But I went to a community on Spring Lane near you, and it's a cluster of homes that were built uh, I think in the 1980s.

There was one already there, but there are some there are four others that are there now, and they share a parking area that accommodates 11 for those five units, but that parking area takes up less space than your traditional uh driveways.

So I'm always open to being enlightened and um having dinner with that community where they share backyards.

There's an easement on everyone's backyard so that um if we're neighbors, I can come right over, um, which is awesome.

It's intentional.

I would love to see us get back to that type of neighborhood community building.

So this is good.

Um I'm sure I'll have more questions when we return, but um I appreciate this.

Thank you.

Oh, one other thing.

It would be really helpful to have um as we talk about connected communities.

Thank you, Mr.

Scott.

Um talk about how we will address that as we densify.

You know, are we gonna have connected roads?

Um, are we gonna have greenways and how will those play together?

How will they help?

Because that's been a major um challenge for me to consider things as we densify.

How do we address the um the increased population?

Which I want, but we need to keep them moving.

So, how do we do that?

And um shucks, I lost it.

There was a second thing.

Um that's okay.

I'm sure I'll be able to voice it for the 19th.

Thank you.

Okay, uh, let's see, site plan review.

Yes, staff should be doing that.

I think staff should be doing the NCD reviews as well.

I hear your general idea about why not touching them, but whether it's now or later, I think that that would make a whole lot of sense.

Um just like to say up to front, I do um I support most of the changes in here.

I think it's moving in the right direction.

Thank you for all the hard work.

Thank you for not making us wait for the LUMO.

I think that was that was very good.

Um I will I'll echo the mayor in just saying I'm happy to streamline everything up until the point where we stop getting the things that we want.

So that's you know, that's the that's kind of the tipping point for me.

So let's see, the concept review.

Um I think that there are developers who find it valuable.

I find it valuable to be able to look at it.

I mean, instead of thinking about it as a concept plan review to think about it as a complete community review, and just to say, look, we have these high-level interests.

Like recently we learned that a big landowner in Chapel Hill is doing a master plan that doesn't have a greenway in it.

I would certainly like to talk to that person as they're developing their concept plan to say, hey, we're really when you come back to us, we're really gonna be looking for that.

That's that's a key thing for us to have here.

I know staff can say that as well, but counselor the people at the end of the day who raise their hands, right?

So we have we have some lever, we can pull some levers that staff can't.

So I think that there is a lot of value in the concept plan review.

Um I would I would consider making it optional.

I think that would I think that would be okay for groups that didn't want it to come in.

Um if there was a I think if if a an application came in that clearly was not meeting complete community interests, um, I think it might be good to steer those into a concept plan as well, just so they could hear from the decision-making body, hey, this is really not what we're looking for here.

You're welcome to bring whatever you want to bring, but but we're telling you right now this is not likely to succeed because of these reasons.

So I think that I think the concept plan review um does have does have value.

Uh conditional zoning, um, it's interesting.

My first thought was one of the things Camille raised um about the whether we were losing an important incentive for affordable housing.

That was my understanding was why that had been implemented.

Um so if it I mean it's been what a year just about that we've done it, and it produced one non-LITEC project.

So I don't know that we can say it's failed.

Um I just somebody else pointed out that we need all the levers we can for affordable housing.

So if we make if we make the whole process, basically you're talking about the whole conditional zoning process would would become what we do now for that expedited affordable housing project process, more or less, right?

And um so I think that again, I'm not sure we've given it enough chance to see whether we really get incentives for the affordable housing development.

I do have issues with us losing that second hearing.

We've been told now that um by our attorney and advised that changing um our resolution at the last meeting and trying to wardsmith from the dais and doing that is a really bad idea.

So that if we when we have those two meetings, we have a chance to tee it up and say, okay, we have an interest in having this happen, so then there's time between that first meeting and that second meeting to say, okay, well, you know, we'll let the appropriate people figure out what that needs to say.

I know we had a developer at one point coming in and making promises about housing payments on the fly that then later couldn't be met.

And so I think that that's just as a way of doing business.

I think we need to allow time for those things to happen.

So again consider I I think it I think the two hearings is good personally.

So um special use permits, um, I think those are fine.

The subdivisions, um, my question about those is just and and I know you acknowledge that we have impervious surface impacts, we have tree impacts, and we have not as a town grappled with the inherent conflict between densifying and retaining natural spaces, and you know, somebody mentioned for aesthetics, it's not for aesthetics, they do jobs.

Those are they they do work environmentally for the town and for the people who live here.

So I really would like us to say not just like, well, it would be hard for us to do this, so we just can't, and you know, I think we can I think we can do a little better.

One of the things that might be worth considering is instead of saying, let's, you know, I know we heard why maybe some of the tree canopy requirements aren't good or not fair.

One of the things if we could strengthen our regulations writ large, so strengthening our RCD or strengthening other things like that, making a payment and lose for big projects with tree canopy where we could use it to buy open space, we could do other things instead of trying to do it parcel by parcel by parcel, which is going to interfere with the kind of infill development we want.

If we can figure out a way to do some big things that in general improve the overall environmental quality of the town while still allowing those parcel by parcel by parcel things.

So I really don't want to give up at this point and just say it it's a hard problem.

Like we need to we need to figure it out.

Um in terms of use regulations, that was fine.

The two family dwellings.

Um I think you know, if the Gaddis Court was two, it was what 14 and 14.

So they would be 2800.

I think the total was over the five square feet.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, those those worked out fine.

Again, they um I'm a big fan of getting housing that can house anybody, not housing that is simply designed to house lots of students.

So I don't, and we don't have much ability to regulate there.

So I'm gonna have to think about that one a little more myself.

But I it was useful to see those square footage numbers from from Gaddis Court.

Um, it's always useful for this stuff if there's an actual physical thing that I know, and you can say it would look like this.

That's super helpful to me.

Um, let's see, the new lot standards, that's all fine.

Uh, the parking standards.

Um I'm a little concerned about eliminating parking maximums.

I mean, I think we're very much trying to keep parking down, and we've seen some developers, that's not a thing.

Okay, then I I stand corrected.

Uh recreation.

There was um we do have an ongoing interest in making sure that as we get our greenway system developed, that we make sure that we are getting the rights of way we need, and that we're getting um we're getting actually public access on these.

I think it's great that you're allowing those to count as recreation space.

I think that's appropriate, and that makes um that makes a lot of sense.

There's some language in there that talks about the developer um may provide such areas.

I just want to make sure that we are requiring the things that we can require in terms of that, because that's a real cornerstone of the complete community work.

Manufactured home developments is fine.

I even read the definitions, those look okay.

Do I get a badge for that?

Um, but yeah, so in general, I think I support much of what is going on here.

There's just a few places where I think we need to do some more thinking, and for me, the big ones are that making sure that that um that the conditional zoning process is really working and that we're we're able to negotiate for the benefits that we want, and that when we're doing these subdivision regulations and things that we're taking care of environmental issues as well as just providing for more building.

Thank you.

Thank you again for this.

I was really excited when I saw the amendments.

I support them.

Um like Melissa being able to walk around neighborhoods and seeing what was allowed before.

Um, and then seeing the progression of you know what we made illegal um has really gotten us to the point where we are now.

And so I really see um the work that we're doing, these amendments um is really shifting council's role to um to really be that visionary body that sets the standards in the code itself.

This is the opportunity that we have.

Um, and when we set those standards, then developers adhere to that.

Um, so I'm really excited about it.

I live in the Northside community, and I walk around my neighborhood, and we run the gamut of the different types of housing.

Um, we have small apartments, we have duplexes, we have the little courts, we have single family homes.

Um we have a rich variety of housing types, and as a result of that, we have a rich variety of people.

And as a result of that, we have a rich variety of people.

I tout that my neighborhood is probably the most diverse in the town of Chapel Hill, and housing has afforded that diversity, inclusiveness, um, and affordability.

And so um I'm really excited to see having been on council for almost four years now, to be at this point is super important.

Um, and I'm looking forward to seeing it through.

Thank you.

Um okay, I think like most of my colleagues, um, I appreciate this process and us getting some um movement on amending the LUMO since the overall rewrite is taking so long.

Um, and I also am sensitive to the fact that people feel like they haven't been given an adequate um opportunity to engage.

I think just the last text amendment went through on the LUMO was such a robust process, and so compared to that, this is not the same, but I I also hear that you all have done a lot of LUMO engagement over the intervening months, and I think that that suffices in these two um meetings.

Um I um I think the I think one of the things I'm most on the fence about is the concept plan review.

Um, I think it was also the thing that was most divided the planning commission, just because I have found it to be an effective process.

And um of the things that I keep referring back to as I think through this whole thing is um recently we as council members were invited to sit down with a group of architects and talk through um, you know, basically asked them what we wanted to ask and have them tell us, you know, lend their side of the story.

We don't get to hear from architects very often.

Um and I asked them the thing that I'm most curious about and I'm most interested in is how do we get high quality development and high quality buildings?

Um size, I think is secondary to that factor.

Um I think that any kind of size and iteration of building can be functional and an asset if it's well designed.

Um landscaped, I did appreciate seeing the place where you um swapped in landscape review for architectural drawings at one point of one of the little cross-out areas.

Anyway, um, but anyway, the one of the things that the architects said, they had two conflicting messages at one point.

And one was that the long engagement and iterative process that involves that includes the concept plan review can end up with better outcomes.

Um that you know, we can land in some really good places because of all of that back and forth.

Um, but then their overall message was when I kept saying, okay, but how do we get high quality design and how do we get high quality development was deregulate?

They just kept saying deregulate, deregulate, deregulate.

The reason that you keep getting these same things, because I said, why do we keep getting these same things?

Why do we keep getting these same things?

And they said, because you built a box.

And so the only things that will fit in that box are box-sized and box-shaped.

Um I hear that loud and clear.

I will say that my gut reaction to that is terror.

It really makes me anxious to think about just opening the floodgates and crossing our fingers.

Um and I think that that's a reaction that a lot of people in town share.

Um, and I appreciated at one point you talked about the the risks involved of um having an optional concept plan review.

I think it would be very, very helpful to everyone if we also addressed the risks involved of some of these other changes that we might be making that are um maybe not things that worry you all as much, but that worry other people.

And the more that we can be open and direct about what those risks are, um, I think the more people the less people will feel like those are being ignored or um devalued.

Um and then again, because it is terrifying to think about opening the floodgates.

I think the more that you can give us, like today very helpfully said here that there are a list of specific metrics that we would fall back to when we were saying how much is too much modification.

The more you can tell us what remains in terms of oversight when certain amounts of oversight are being removed, I think would really help people like me who are like, okay, we're gonna do it, we're gonna jump, feel less terrified about that.

Um, because I'm I'm um there are only so many times you could be told the same message with that, and then keep being like, no, I want it, I want it to be like this.

Like, well, you're not gonna get what you want if you keep stomping your foot like that.

So I hear that loud and clear.

Um yeah, so I think the more we can just um be direct and honest and talk about the things that scare people and um address them as much as possible, the better.

Um last tiny thing, just in response to um council member Ryan's comment about the tree canopy and parcel by parcel.

Um, yeah, I think that as a as a board, our job is not to make parcel by parcel decisions, but trees feel like kind of a pretty important parcel by parcel thing because if we're gonna talk about like big areas and wide percentages of tree canopy, and then we have like five houses over here that are a desert, that's not great.

So I don't know where we land on that, but just to keep them, I mean, yeah, the trees are a big deal.

We need to keep the trees, and I would far much rather go to the place where we do regulate, though I'm not sure we're allowed to um tree canopy for single family homes than take it away for everybody.

Like let's put more, let's let's let's hang out to our trees everywhere instead of just being like, well, we can't do it in these places, so let's get rid of it.

One more quick last thought.

Um I share council member searing's discomfort with the notion of the uneven application of regulations because of the NCDs and the HOAs.

And um for me, there is the political will to revisit that in whatever way that ends up looking, and that would probably not that's I understand would not be part of this um omnibus amendment, but further on down the road, I think that we keep hearing again and again that that is something that may need a other look.

Thanks.

Um thank you again for bringing this.

Um overall, I think these are generally good changes.

Um I really hope that we're ensuring that our new consultant is on schedule.

Um I'd also really like us to consider how we can start kind of bringing forward components as they're written in some way, so we're looking at the policy level.

I don't want to red line it, I promise you.

I really don't, but if we're getting a 600-page document of complex code at the end of the process, I think it's gonna take us also a really long time to get through that and approve it as opposed as opposed to addressing the policy level issues that are coming through.

And I know that's hard.

That's harder than I'm making it sound.

But I think if we don't have a way to bring things up to the level they need to be, but start talking about them along the way, then we're gonna be, I don't know into what year, but not the one I want to be in to um to be approving a really important document change that we need very badly, as you all are more aware than I am.

Um Mayor, we talked a little bit about that.

Uh that you know, we could have the best uh ordinance ever, but if we just sort of drop it on your lap at the beginning of June while you're trying to finish the budget and get ready for your summer, that that's a recipe for a poor outcome.

And so we are planning to bring to you some information in in January that sort of starts to help you wrap your arms around you know how this is gonna go, what it's gonna look like, what you should be expecting.

So that's great.

We understand that, and we're gonna be trying to work over the over the next several months to not do the the former version of how we roll this out.

Thank you.

Much appreciated.

Um I'm gonna stick with my request for concept plan review.

I liked council member Ryan's idea of an optional commute complete community review.

Um I don't think I'm not as worried about people feeling like it's necessary because it exists.

I think if people um if people choose not to do it, then they've chosen not to get feedback that could be helpful to them that might make things easier down the road, but it wouldn't make me vote differently on their project later.

It would just, you know, that's I I think that's a really important way of getting um better outcomes.

Um I think overall, I think just moving, you know, we just need to be much more mindful and intentional about our community engagement, how we communicate and how we set expectations about how feedback will be used.

Um I think we are um rightfully, you know, making a lot less touch points, and so the ones that we have for the community need to be really impactful, regardless of whether we have concept review or not.

I think we just and I know that's not what you meant, Taz, that it would only be if we got rid of concept review, but um concept plan review, but I just think the way we I don't know besides the planning commission, it's really hard for me to know what the public has said about almost anything at this point.

Um that is hard.

Um I think tree canopy and impervious do need to be addressed, and it may not be perfectly addressed through LUMO.

I know that's one blunt tool, but doing density really well is really hard, and we already have places in towns that are models for what complete community is, and we need to continue to focus on ease and speed of process, and but in service of outcomes.

Um not just speed for speed's sake, but because we know there are real concrete outcomes that will be better, um, which I believe is the case.

Um I keep on healing hearing from the development community that if we make things clear and easy to do what we want, that they're good with that.

And so I want to make it really, really easy to do what we want, and I may want to make it not so easy to do what we don't want.

And anywhere that you feel like we need to be more clear or we need to have better policy up front so we can do that, then I want to have those conversations.

Um I want to make complete community really easy.

Um, and that's this interconnected vision that doesn't sacrifice the environment for housing or vice versa, that those things are supposed to exist together and we have good data to support the fact that those two things can be done together in Chapel Hill, that we do not have to um give up one for the other.

So I'm really excited that we're moving forward.

It's a little like it's just a show that we are moving in the right direction.

So thank you for that.

Um, and I'll look forward to this coming back and thanks for bringing back some kind of additional information that we've asked about.

Um with that being said, we are done.

Um it's only 912, could have been worse.

Um, and I appreciate you all, council.

Great conversations tonight.

Um, and we will see each other again November 12th.

Did I make that up?

No.

Oh, do I need to do something to continue this?

You look at the day.

Oh, okay, because you looked like I had forgotten something yet again tonight.

Um six plus three.

Yeah, six plus three.

Um, thank you, council.

Um meeting adjourned.