Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the February twenty fifth, twenty twenty six meeting of the Chapel Hill Town Council.

We are very glad to have you join us.

Um tonight we want to expend extend a special welcome to members of Scouting America Troop eight thirty five who are in the audience to learn about local government.

Um it's usually not this exciting, so you picked a great night.

Um this evening we have two items on our agenda for discussion or action.

Both are public hearings.

Um the first is a conditional zoning application for eight sixty Weaver Dairy Road.

The second is a conditional zoning application for eleven sixty-five Weaver Dairy Road.

Uh council members, as a reminder, we will hold a closed session immediately following this meeting.

So uh to begin our meeting this evening, uh, we are honored to formally proclaim Black History Month.

Uh yes.

In our audience, we are incredibly fortunate to have many members of our amazing Chapel Hill black community, and we are so proud to have you here.

Um I would like to invite you all to please join Councilmember Louie Rivers at the front for the formal announcement followed by a photo.

So if you can come and all come back here, facing away from council, we're gonna get you all in here.

Thank you so much for being with us.

We also have um our state representative, Alan Boyncy here with us.

Um huge rounds of applause.

And actually, I could go down the entire line and talk about each of you and how amazing you are, but we're gonna let uh Councilmember Rivers take it away.

I'll read this announcement.

Um Black History Month announcement twenty twenty-six.

Good evening, everyone.

Tonight is celebration and recognition of the contributions of Black American Americans to our community and and our nation.

The Chapel Hill Town Council is pleased to join with your sections across the country and proclaim in February twenty twenty-six as Black History Month.

Chapel Hill is proud to be home to a vibrant black community that's been integral to our town's identity from historic neighborhoods like Northside and Pine Knowles to the courageous activists who desegregate local businesses to today's leaders across all sectors of our community.

During this month, we commemorate the heroism, patriotism, and enterprise of black Americans, many of whom have lived through this lived through and surmounted the scourges of segregation, racial prejudice, and discrimination to wrench every fiber of the of American life and our local community.

During this month, we encourage everyone to celebrate the contributions of black Americans to our town, our nation, and the world, and to reflect on our shared commitment to justice, equity, and the dignity of all people.

And as a young man, I did not appreciate Black History Month like I should, but as I've gotten older and I've had children, I've realized the importance of Black History Month and the importance of raising your children in a community with black people.

Thank you all for coming out tonight.

And I think we are supposed to have a picture now.

So you're going to be human.

There we go.

All right, we take a couple here.

One, two, three, everybody smile.

One more this way.

Great.

Thanks.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to be here with us this evening.

We know how full your schedules are.

And your presence speaks to the importance in this moment and always of recognizing, uplifting, and celebrating Chapel Hill's amazing black community.

Thank you.

That brings us to announcements.

Tonight I have a couple of things to share.

First, Chapel Hill's next People's Academy is scheduled for next Tuesday, March 3rd.

The People's Academy provides an opportunity for people of all ages to learn about the work of the town, how we make decisions, and how you can be engaged.

The program is family-friendly, and it will include dinner.

And also translators will be available for members of our Spanish-speaking, bless you, community wishing to participate.

Please check out our town website or the Our Town Weekly Newsletter to register.

Second, check out Chapel Hill Parks and Rec will be hosting another Black History movie night this Friday, February 27th at the Hargrave Center.

The featured film is The Wiz, and it'll begin at 6 30.

You sound like you want to go.

Early voting continues throughout this week.

And on Saturday for the March 3rd primary.

Then polls will be open all day on primary day next Tuesday.

Please be sure to bring your ID and of course always make your voice heard in this election.

Last but not least, Council meets again next Wednesday, March 4th at 6 30 p.m.

in Council Chambers.

Council members, anything to share?

Yes, Councilmember Miller Fushi.

Thank you, Mayor.

I have two things to share.

First, um I would like to um give an announcement about the 2026 announcement of Ramadan.

Um I'd like to take this opportunity to say Ramadan Mubarak to nearly two billion Muslims in the world, and all those in the surrounding community who are observing this holy month.

This year, Ramadan falls within the same time frame as Lent for our Christian sisters and brothers.

And it has been really nice to be able to have shared conversations with those who are observing Lent and also fasting.

Ramadan is the month-long spiritual journey of fasting and prayer for Muslim communities here in Chapel Hill, the United States, and around the world.

And during Ramadan, families and communities come together in celebration and worship, demonstrating the rich and diverse traditions of Muslim societies and cultures.

It is a spiritual time of reflection and renewal that reinforces mercy, gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, and love.

And it is also a time to remember the less fortunate in our community and engage in generous acts of charity of those afflicted by hunger, poverty, disease, oppression, and conflict.

And as a town, Chapel Hill is committed to diversity and inclusion.

We also recognize that the freedom to observe and practice one's religion, individual convictions, faith or belief without fear is a fundamental right recognized under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

So tonight I want to acknowledge the Holy Month of Ramadan and urge all of our residents to renew our shared commitment to diversity and religious religious tolerance and to performing acts of an aims, giving kindness, mercy, and understanding in the service of others.

Thank you.

I'd like to take a moment for a sombre recognition.

And as many of you know, we recently lost Andre Boynton, who dedicated 30 years of his life to serving the community at the Hargrave Center.

On a personal note, my family and I knew Andre well, and so this hits very close to home for us.

I asked John French, someone who worked closely with Andre to share his thoughts, and he prepared a letter that I believe perfectly captures who Andre was and what he meant to this town.

With your indulgence, I'd like to read it into the record tonight.

Dear members of town council, I'm writing to respectfully recognize and honor Andre Boyton for his remarkable 30 years of dedicated service at Hargrave Center.

For three decades, Mr.

Boynton has been far more than an employee.

He has been a pillar of our community, and his passion for service, unwavering commitment to our youth and willingness to stand up for those who did not have a voice have made a lasting impact on countless families.

Through his leadership and mentorship, he created opportunities for young people that many would not have otherwise experienced.

He provided guidance, structure, and encouragement, helping keep children off the streets and giving them a safe, supportive environment to grow, learn, and thrive.

His influence extends beyond recreation.

He has helped shape character, build confidence, and inspired futures.

Mr.

Boynton's work has strengthened our community in ways that cannot always be measured, but can certainly be felt.

Generations of young people have benefited from his dedication.

Many carry forward the lessons he installed in them.

It is only fitting that we formally acknowledge his service and the profound difference he has made over the past 30 years.

Honoring Andre Boynton would not only recognize his contributions, but also highlight the values of leadership, compassion, and commitment that define our town.

Sincerely, John French.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for sharing that.

And thank you to Mr.

French for sending along those words.

All right, any other council comments at this time.

Okay.

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

For members of the public in attendance and wishing to speak, please sign up with the town clerk at the table on the left side of the chamber toward the front of the room.

If you're here to speak on a specific agenda item, there will be a presentation on the item, followed by council, clarifying questions, and then public comment.

To help keep things running smoothly, Mayor Pro Temberry will call two names at a time.

The first person should come to the podium, and the second person please come to be on deck down in the front of council chambers so that if you are in the middle row or towards the back of the chamber, please start making your way towards the front.

For members of the audience who are here to comment on items not on the printed agenda or on 860 Weaver Dairy Road, I have two things to share.

First, in response to resident request, uh we have interpreters available for Spanish speaking residents who may wish to speak during public comment period.

While in the audience, people wishing to listen in Spanish will have simultaneous translation available from our interpreters via the headsets.

Then when you're at the podium, the interpreters will provide consecutive translation.

Because that takes longer, we're offering those residents additional time.

Second, typically the time limit for individual comments is three minutes.

However, should we have 14 or more people signed up to speak?

We will reduce that time to two minutes to allow more people to speak.

Those with translation will be afforded four minutes.

And additionally, for tonight, um, before we begin calling people up to speak, uh, we want to acknowledge requests from advocacy groups and community members urging the council to pass a formal Fourth Amendment City resolution.

At this time, um we have not come to consensus as a board on how to handle this request.

On its face, it may seem simple, but given the tension and uncertainty that exists right now, it is very complex.

While we've had formal requests for a resolution, we've also spoken with groups and members of vulnerable communities who are asking us not to put them at increased risk by calling attention to the town.

This evening we want you to know that we are listening and to share some information that is important for our community to know.

First, this is an issue that we care deeply about.

We recognize the significant challenges and fear many in our community are facing right now.

We are also deeply concerned about the long-term impacts that this will have on our neighbors.

Second, we want to remind our community that at all times the town devotes considerable time and energy to working with community partners and sharing information across the community.

Our town government remains committed to upholding the constitution and community to standards that recognize human dignity, value all people, and seek equity and justice, particularly for vulnerable populations.

This past year we've redoubled those efforts.

At the same time, we know that advancing and safeguarding rights takes the efforts of the whole community.

We can do our part by building trust, collaborating, and carefully using the local authority we have.

So our actions serve the community and do not put people in greater jeopardy or cause them harm.

We have proactively continued to go out to churches, community meetings, small groups, and sustained dialogue with community leaders who work directly with those who are afraid to leave their homes.

Significant national issues are before us.

Civil rights, the health of our democracy, and the well-being of our neighbors.

We are committed to approaching them thoughtfully and strategically at the local level.

And finally, we are proud to serve a community that stands together and supports one another.

To those who are struggling, we are working with and supporting our community partners, and we are continuing to help.

With that, we will now open the floor to public comment with the reminder that we want everyone to be heard and feel comfortable when they're on the at the podium.

So please ref refrain from commenting or clapping.

Mayor Pro Temberi, would you please call the first two names and we are ready to listen and hear you?

First up is Ashley Trudeau, followed by Trisha Lester.

Mayor.

Mayor, are we just confirming two minutes per speaker at this point based on the list?

We only have 14.

Only have 14, okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

Unless anybody else signs up.

Right under the line there.

I appreciate you being here to listen.

Is this better?

Wonderful.

Appreciate you being here to listen today.

My name's Ashley Trudeau.

I'm a federal employee living in the Chapel Hill Carborough area.

I returned to this area in 2024 after a long absence because I decided that this is my adopted hometown.

This is where I want to raise my family.

And our new family member is supposed to arrive in September, which is very exciting.

And also this is a very scary time to be thinking about that.

My health care protections are being shipped away.

And probably scariest of all is that I know my neighbors are at risk of being ripped away from their families without any oversight or recourse.

We can see ICE and other federal agencies building momentum as a secret police force.

They're building more enormous detention centers across the country, stockpiling weapons and training their agents specifically to violate our constitutional rights.

So the idea of bringing aid by baby into this world is a little daunting.

But in spite of everything, I've really been given a lot of hope by the response of all of our community members.

There are so many people stepping up to help.

But history does tell us that grassroots action isn't enough.

We need our public institutions publicly on our side.

And so we're we're asking you to continue to affirm your oath of office and uphold the Constitution by approving this Stand Up for Chapel Hill resolution.

At the town hall in October, I was able to directly talk to some of you asking you to support this resolution.

Clarifying what is in the town's power to do standing up to federal overreach.

And the public statement we're asking you to make here is to uphold the rule of law.

It doesn't introduce any new policies or declare the town a sanctuary city.

So over the past weeks, we've had so many more people entering this conversation and learning how the city works and what role you can play in this.

And I want you to know this isn't just a symbolic action.

You would be joining this conversation with us and starting to take real concrete next steps to help our community.

So I know that you have the best interests of our residents in mind.

I really do.

And I just hope that you won't let fear cause you to delay action.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Tricia Lester, and I've lived here in Chapel Hill for 34 years.

I'm an informed and engaged citizen.

And I'm here tonight because I strongly believe that the town of Chapel Hill needs to do the right thing and become a Fourth Amendment municipality.

As our elected officials, you have a responsibility to protect us, and that includes all of us.

North Carolinians and our immigrant neighbors.

We need our town council and mayor to lead in this moment with power, not fear.

That was the case when ICE and Customs and Border Patrol were in the triangle this past November.

Durham, which is a Fourth Amendment municipality, was able to draw on the synergy which already existed among city officials and the communication channels that had been built with the infrastructure that was created during the early stages of that work.

All of those things put Durham in a much stronger position when the city was called on to work together with so many different stakeholders through that very challenging period when ICE and CBP descended on Durham and the Triangle area.

In closing, I would reiterate that it's critical that all Chapel Hillians feel safe and protected.

A step toward making that a reality is to proclaim Chapel Hill a Fourth Amendment city.

I hope you all will make that happen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, Mel Soto and Julie Welch.

Hi, my name is Mel Soto.

I'm a graduate student here in the sciences.

I wanted to take this time to talk about and affirm that federal actions have already impacted our lives here in Chapel Hill.

And I don't want the last year's ICE and CBP presence to continue or have any more action.

I want to affirm that I noticed when that occurred, and I saw that there were closures of several local businesses that shut down directly because of the ICE and CBP actions.

I asked them.

I have also heard about changes and how changes to federal and cancellations to federal grants have impacted local job prospects in my field.

And for that reason, I would like the council to support the Stanford Chapel Hill resolution as it conduct it aims to conduct a systematic analysis of what these impacts are.

I also want to acknowledge the impacts of federal overreach in my workplaces and workplaces like mine.

The sciences are a tight-knit community, and the news coming out of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis have impacted my colleagues and caused myself and others concern.

ICBP has been present, I have heard on that campus, and those campuses and the sciences often have high proportions of visa holders and immigrants.

For this reason, I would again like to reiterate that I would like the council to support a Fourth Amendment Workplace Initiative as part of this resolution.

Thank you for your time.

Abby Parcell after Julie Welch.

Good evening.

I'm sickened by the threats posed to families who send their children to our schools.

I have heard from teachers that the ICE actions have created fear among all students and reduced school attendance.

When my daughter was a student here, I never felt there was danger, but today I would not feel such safety and security.

To be safe, we must stand together as a community and make it clear through our policies and actions that we protect the vulnerable among us and each other.

And I know this council feels the same way, and there are concerns that public statements might cause more harm than good to the community.

I feel differently.

We've seen that only through public unified resistance can we show who we are and make change.

Thank you.

Hello.

I've lived in Chapel Hill for almost 25 years.

I've been a graduate student, a nonprofit and university employee, a volunteer, a tenant union member, and even a town of Chapel Hill small area plan committee member.

I've been lucky to be in community with people with vastly different life experiences across all the categories that we tend to list.

Education, income, immigration status.

I've also been insulated by my own life experiences from the insecurity that sometimes comes with different education income and immigration status.

But that insulation is as insecure as it is inequitable.

And I'm here tonight to ask the council to take a stand for all of us and especially for those who are most vulnerable to recent federal actions that threaten community members' safety and livelihoods.

I want to remind the newly elected council members of their commitment to pass the Stand Up Chapel Hill resolution and the Fourth Amendment Workplace Resolution.

If our community is called to stand up against detention centers in our state, against data centers that surveil our residents against federal agents who disregard the Constitution, we need to know that our neighbors and our elected officials stand with us.

We're not asking for new ordinances or new policies.

We're asking you to keep your commitments and to affirm your constitutional oath and pass this resolution.

Let's make sure we have training so our workers, residents, and business owners know their rights and how to protect them.

Let's stand together, our community and our representatives.

As poet Ocean Vuang says, the future is not in your hands, it's in your mouth.

By making this simple statement, you affirm your oath and signal to our your constituents that you will respond to and stand up for them.

Deciding now enables clear action in the future if and when it becomes necessary.

We may never know when it's the perfect time to speak, but I fear it will be really clear when it's too late.

We will continue to come and will bring more supporters until until you take action.

So please keep your word and pass the Fourth Amendment resolution and the stand-up Chapel Hill resolution.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Kristen Weigel Veigel, followed by Brittany Bryant.

Hi, I'm Chris Weigel.

I'm a retired uh UNC professor.

I lived in Chapel Hill for over 30 years.

Recently, a sense of vulnerability has affected the daily activities of many immigrants in Chapel Hill.

My 25-year-old daughter is an adopted Chinese immigrant who is a legal U.S.

citizen.

She has a U.S.

passport, which she doesn't carry on her person because ICE and CBB raids have detained many legal residents, primarily based on their racial appearance.

I am concerned for her.

She works in food service here in Chapel Hill.

Many of her co-workers are immigrants here on legal work visas.

Based on what happened in Charlotte and recently in Minneapolis, it seems that legal status is often ignored when the agents are simply trying to fill a quota of people who look non-Caucasian.

Recently, I've been impressed how the government of Minneapolis has supported their immigrant population, people of color, and protesters who were victims of federal immigration agents.

If it weren't for the local citizens and government protecting their neighbors and recording their abuses, we wouldn't know of all of these illegal, cruel, and violent detentions.

The other example, Minneapolis said, was the massive preparation amongst immigrants and their non-immigrant neighbors.

This was not always a government program, was certainly a government supported program.

And they helped them to prepare by sharing information and understanding the legal ways to respond to the federal agents.

In North Carolina, we are fortunate that the organization Le Siembra has been preparing local workplaces through its Fourth Amendment program.

I'm asking the city of Chapel Hill to become a Fourth Amendment workplace, which simply involves training employees on their legal rights in case of a visit by federal immigration agents.

This could make these rights more widely known and encouraged local employers to be more comfortable with preparing for a visit by immigration agents.

Up next, Brittany Bryant, followed by Corina Rojas.

My name is Brittany.

I moved to Chapel Hill only a few years ago, and because of that, I actually still am not really sure what the difference is or the exact line is between Carlborough and Chapel Hill.

And if I don't know the exact border and difference between Carbero and Chapel Hill after several several years living here, I don't really think federal agents being shipped in are going to care or know much of the difference between Carbo Carborough and Chapel Hill either.

And because Carlborough has already instituted these Fourth Amendment protections and a similar resolution.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Karina Rojas, followed by Maria Palmer.

Cruzando la selva no fue fascil.

I'm gonna translate.

Traversing the jungle is not easy.

Twice I thought my daughter and I were going to drown.

But the government of the person can detenise y deportada sinning process.

We thought we had left hunger, danger and fear behind.

But everything changed with this government.

Some of the people who help us when we arrive have been detained and deported without any legal process.

Maria Palmer, followed by Christopher Palmer.

I come to you tired of hearing horror stories of the intentional cruelty that immigrants and refugees are suffering at the hands of our government.

Yet my nightmares are nothing compared to the trauma some families in our community are going through.

Two examples from this year.

A six-year-old telling me that he is not scared of snow and cold because in the detention center he slept in a refrigerator in the refrigerator cages, without even a coat, and he did not freeze.

A young man I visited in a detention center two states away from Chapel Hill who sobbed because he's cold and lonely and scared of his tattooed much older cellmate, and he misses his mom, and he asks if I think she will ever forgive him for going to a party in another county and getting stopped by ice.

He knows his mother is devastated.

He cannot forgive himself for the pain he has caused her.

Just a few days after my visit, the young man was deported.

I know you cannot change the reality of armed thugs acting as bounty hunters, but you can stand up to the bullies and let them know that we are a town that upholds the four Fourth Amendment.

In Spanish we say El que Calla Otorga.

In Spanish we say if you are silent, you concede.

Let me read you something that Justice.

Please no clapping.

Liberty cannot bloom amid hate.

Justice cannot take root amid rage.

America must get to work in the chill climate in which we live, we must go against the prevailing wind.

Paris Miller Fuchi, Louis Rivers, the third, Wes McMahon, Camille Berry, the four of you promised during your campaign in 2025 that you would support this resolution.

Theo Nalbert has since added his name.

When I served on council, somebody told me the most important thing I needed to know was to count to five.

That's five of you.

Please don't delay in fulfilling your promises.

Thank you.

My name is Christobal Palmer, and I'm a member of Carlow Town Council.

I speak tonight only for myself and not for Carlborough.

As a resident of Carborough, I'm extremely proud of my mayor and council for being the first municipality in North Carolina to proclaim itself a Fourth Amendment workplace.

I want you all to understand the frustration and fear of my neighbors, especially after the kidnappings in our state this past November.

We only ask, as many have told you tonight, that you clarify and reconfirm what is already law, that you help your residents defend their rights.

As we've just heard, a majority have committed to doing this work.

Don't delay.

By not meaningfully engaging to ensure that important issues are considered, school closure decisions could be made based on too narrow a set of criteria.

And not engaging sends a message that town leaders like you all are willing to sit back while decisions are made that not only don't support, but in fact could be counterproductive to the town council's stated strategic goals.

So again, I urge you to engage with the school board, for example, through a joint work session, or by publicly sharing your concerns on school closure discussions.

Thank you.

Eric Ferrero, followed by Duncan McLean.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Eric Valera, and I'm here tonight to in support of a resolution affirming the Fourth Amendment in Chapwal Hill.

At its core, this resolution is about affirming the oath that each of you took to support and maintain the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of North Carolina.

Under ordinary circumstances, no one would need to restate this commitment.

But these are not ordinary circumstances.

Last November, Operation Charlotte's Webb demonstrated that enforcement tactics relying on broad characteristics like the type of work that you do, how you appear, or how you speak were used in North Carolina.

More than 370 people were detained in a matter of days, including U.S.

citizens and lawful residents.

Families were destabilized.

Businesses were disrupted, and schools are still feeling the impact.

These, when conditions change, leadership must adapt.

It's been noted that some people believe that passing a resolution would somehow invite enforcement.

The public record does not claim that.

DHS stated that operations were based on statewide detainer data and alleged gaps in jail cooperation, not municipal resolutions.

Silence did not prevent operations in Charlotte, Raleigh, or Durham.

Silence is not a strategy.

Preparation is.

Duncan McLean, followed by Lib Hutchby.

Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak.

So my name's Duncan McLean.

I'm a I'm a U.S.

citizen by marriage.

I have a dual British nationality, and I've been a member of this community for around seven years.

Though I may not look or sound like it, I am in fact a Hispanic immigrant by the U.S.

census definition.

I have a privilege that should not exist because I do not have a Hispanic last name and nor a Spanish accent.

I'm protected from the kind of discrimination that we have seen displayed by IC.

My children go to a local public elementary school that is over 50% Hispanic.

Now my eldest daughter's best friend is a U.S.

citizen of naturalized Mexican immigrants.

When ICE was in the area last year, several months ago, her best friend did not sleep for several nights because there were drones above their home.

Her parents are some of the hardest working, law-abinding, most wonderful humans I've ever met.

They are here legally, and yet they are directly impacted by the efforts of ICE.

During the same time, their school experienced a large absenteeism, over a hundred children missing per day.

I also personally witnessed the many missed important doctors' appointments, many of which have had a real negative impact on those who sacrificed their health because they feared to leave their homes.

Whilst I do understand the linearity of the argument that taking a stance makes us louder and therefore a potential target, I must disagree.

I disagree because I feel that not taking a stance is not the correct approach.

We have seen examples both nationally and internationally that capitulation is not respected by this administration.

Kirstarmer took the approach of capitulation, which clearly did not work.

And so locally in this in this country, the U.S.

citizens, the U.S.

cities that have stood up against ICE are currently winning.

In summary, this is a time for strength.

The vulnerable members of our community can hear the silence, and to them it is deafening.

And I will end with a quote from Dr.

Martin Luther King.

If you are neutral in a situation of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

Thank you.

And our last speaker will be Lib Hutchby.

Thank you again for the opportunity to speak.

As a white woman of privilege.

Who has worked in refugee resettlement for over 10 years?

Before I retired.

About the courage of women and men who have crossed the border because they had to.

They had no other choice.

And in Wake County alone, we resettled people from over 22 different countries.

They were refugees.

They weren't called illegal.

So we're not in the presence of begging.

What we're trying to do is say to you, we appreciate the respect and respect.

The thoughtfulness that you have put into a resolution.

But I think it is essential personally that a Fourth Amendment workplace resolution be passed by the town of Chapel Hill.

It takes a lot of courage to change.

And we have done it in the past.

And we can do it again.

And the rest of my time, I would like to speak to an issue that is also very dear to my heart, and that is water.

It seems that data centers have put us in a water crisis.

And so I just wanted to remind you.

And if you didn't already know this, data centers are energy intensive, requiring 15 to 100 times more electrical power per square foot than typical commercial buildings.

Did you hear that?

300,000 gallons of water.

Parson County is in a drought.

Will Chapel Hill in Orange County be in a drought?

That $300,000 uh 300,000 gallons is every day.

The equivalent of 1,000 residential homes.

So large hyperscale data centers consume more than we can tolerate.

Thank you.

That information came from the Science and Environmental Health dated August 18, 2025.

This is not brand new information.

Thank you, Ms.

Hutchby.

I believe that's the conclusion of our public comment.

So I want to thank everyone who's come.

I know we have been listening, and we very much value hearing from all of the members of our community.

So thank you for coming.

Council, that brings us to our consent agenda.

I believe we are going to amend consent.

Do I have a motion?

I move to amend the consent agenda by omitting the February 26, 2026 chamber annual meeting.

As it is not a council meeting.

Second.

Moved by Mayor Pro Temberry, seconded by Council Member Ryan.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Motion is unanimous.

Should I move?

I move to amend.

So do we need to move again to that take care of it?

Sorry?

A motion to pass the consent agenda.

That's right.

Yeah.

With an amendment, we amended.

Thank you.

Are we fine?

Do we need to do a second?

We think you should go ahead and pass the consent agenda.

I move that we approve the amended consent agenda.

Move by Mayor Pro Temberry, seconded by Councilmember Nollert.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Motion is unanimous.

Okay.

Um we are now on to item number six, um, which is a public hearing for a conditional zoning application for 860 Weaver Dairy Road.

Taz Lagoo is here to lead us through.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of council.

I'll um pull up a presentation for the applicant to present, and then I'll I'll return provide a presentation on staff's recommendation, and then we'll both be available for for questions.

Hello, council and mayor.

I'm already brown.

Um I believe some of you have seen me before, but there are some new faces.

Um I'll talk louder.

Uh this is a uh closing hearing for 860 Weaver Dairy Road, which is a mixed-use project that we're working on uh just north of town.

Uh some of this is going to be redundant from what you've seen before, either through when your time at planning uh commission or previously with the council.

Here we've got to where you can see the different kind of components that we have of the project.

On the western side of the property, we're proposing that we do multifamily, which would be very you know in line with what is already currently there.

Uh in the center section, as I mentioned before, we're calling it a mixed use component, non-residential.

Uh that section is what we're looking for to be more of kind of like a gathering space or some sort of community commercial retail small scale, and then everything going from the eastern portion down to what several people are calling the leg.

That is what we're looking at to be more on the lines of uh for sale townhome communities.

Uh as a little bit, uh so this project and this site is as you can see, has a little bit of hair on it with a couple of different kind of conditions on it that kind of make it a little bit of a difficulty on how to lay it out to get the kind of layout that you know everybody kind of seems to kind of want.

What you can see is we have two apartment complexes over on the other hand side that has green space out on the front, which ties into a dare, which goes into the Harris Teeter project that's to the west.

It ties into old university station, which comes down to Weaver Dairy Road.

Uh the infrastructure will then follow along all the way going from east to west, going into the eastern uh component, which will then be all for sale townhomes, which will then come down and drop down onto Weaver Dare Road on the other side of Coventry.

Um the active adult community that we know of or know about.

Here's another way that I was gonna kind of show you guys.

I know stormwater is is a slightly uh hot topic on this project.

Um so I thought this would be kind of a way to kind of almost do a refresh about how we're looking at stormwater, how we're going to do the grading, and how we're pushing most of the stormwater uh to it.

So you can see there you got four different quadrants if you will.

One is basically pushing back towards the interstate, that is where the apartments are gonna go.

It's about eight acres.

The long center city uh center section, we have a stormwater management, obviously uh upon going back towards where you see the R C D.

We have some underground storage that we're proposing to go on that leg.

We have that top eastern section, which is probably the most um dense area for the townhomes, where that is where we're having another stormwater pond that will it will be a retention pond.

It'll be at a hundred plus year stormwater management, it'll uh sit there.

That'll also obviously you know move and as it discharges the water that it's holding, it'll it'll go into the the streams that are already there, and then we have the leg that comes down that has the uh stormwater pond that will also be a retention pond down by Weaver Dairy Road.

So let you guys kind of take a look at that.

Uh one of the components on this, especially with this being a you know moderately dense townhome community is what type of green spaces will we have.

One of the points that I brought up last time is the green spaces that the reason why I put the square footage on there is to give context because this is a larger site, it's roughly 45 acres, and to give it in context of like how big just those little sections are that you see on there, that equals about the same square footage of land that you would see in the middle of Southern Village and that green space that's in their commercial space.

This is showing you how we plan on phasing the apartments.

We have a phase one that'll be on one side, how we'll bring that all in.

Uh phase two will be the other side.

So the point is that we'll do a temporary surface parking lot for phase one.

Once phase one is stabilized, which means that it's at occupancy level to where it's considered to be stable, which is north of 90%.

Then what we'll do is we'll build a parking structure.

The parking structure then will uh service both you know uh phase one and phase two, and that's worth there.

This is another one that you can also see just for context, the green space that's out in the front of the phase two, that's roughly a half an acre.

And then you can see that the green space that's kind of across the street, that's roughly three acres.

This gives you a little bit more of a sense of size and scale, you know, with you know, showing you know a renderings of people distance uh from the buildings to the street.

Here's another one that I had presented also with the planning commission and also the previous uh when we opened up this to give a sense of the back end of the parking structure to the interstate, and then you know, if you look at the front of the building, you can see the distance of the park, the proposed road, green space, um, a path which is 14 feet, and then more green space, and then the transmission lines.

So it kind of gives you kind of a scale of like depth.

Mixed use component.

Uh that right now, I I will tell you I do not have any plans at this time.

Uh what I've told you know, most people is like I kind of want to see how the project develops.

I want to see how the multi-purpose path gets put in, how active it is between the office use uh that's up front and all that.

And you know, realistically, I I I'm looking at it from a standpoint of small scale retail, something that would be there that like you know kind of pull people in from not just in this community, but like I mean the fact that we're putting in almost 4,000 linear feet of multi-purpose path that ties into a lot of space, so it ties into the everywhere to everywhere plan, which is the next slide.

The connectivity you have two different routes on this.

You have the north-south route that ties into uh this bus stop from the apartment site, I believe is less than two tenths of a mile.

And then you have the everywhere to everywhere plan, which you guys all know.

I'm a big fan of.

And then this one is actually will bring, I believe it is 3,800 linear feet of multi-purpose path that'll tie into, and then connect at the top to when you it can continue to go with the easement that the town already has to go over to uh Weavers Grove and other parts of uh Chapel Hill.

Again, project aligns with the town's goals.

Everything that you guys have in sub-area D that was already uh planned out in the future land map.

We feel like that this fits within those goals.

We looked at it from a complete community standpoint.

I mean, you know, from walkability from transit, from variety of housing, you know, civic space, green space, whatnot.

We feel like it it checks all the boxes.

Um we also feel like we are not trying to mix different types of product types on top of it.

So we have the apartments next to apartments, we have the non-residential component piece in front of the office building or behind the office building, however you want to look at it, and then we have townhomes next to townhomes.

So putting a little bit more like on like the affordability plan.

We're obviously adhering to the town's uh inclusionary zone.

We're offering 10% of the multifamily uh apartments uh up for as a discounted rent to help with the affordability crisis that we're going through.

Um as you guys can see there.

We feel like that's probably a really good thing for especially with the apartments if you think about it from like the walkability to you know uh grocery stores, walkability retail.

Obviously, like the reason why I actually do really like this site is it's close proximity to office, right?

So employment, and then you also have the ability to have hop on mass transit, which uh like I said, where the apartments are, you know, you're less than two tenths of a mile.

I believe it's actually 0.18 mile from the bus stop to the uh apartment complex site.

Uh I won't go through this.

I believe you guys have had time.

This is basically the same thing.

We're adding, I mean, that probably the biggest one that is probably uh what most people want to talk about is the stormwater management.

We are looking at this at a hundred-year storm.

We're meeting that design.

We're doing retention ponds to be something that can probably you know add a little bit more of quality to the area with looks and feel.

And I will leave it at that.

And I'll let Taz asked, and then I'll look wait for your questions.

All right, good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council, Ramadan Bark.

Um I will provide just a brief overview of the the project from a staff perspective, and then my myself and the applicant will be available for for questions.

I will provide just a brief overview of the project from a staff perspective, and then myself and the applicant will be available for questions.

Again, we're kind of familiar with the general location of the site.

Staff's kind of recommendation for you this evening is that the project is aligned with the town's complete community goals and the general comprehensive plan requirements.

We find that the modifications to regulations that have been requested by the applicant serve the public purpose to an equal or greater degree and are thus reasonable to be included in the ordinance before you this evening.

And ultimately, we recommend that council approve the project subject to the conditions that you'll find in ordinance six.

I think the the applicant kind of touched on the high-level elements of the project accurately.

I'm happy to get into more details if you all have questions on that later.

The applicant also at town's recommendation conducted a tree survey along the shared property line between their project and the Coventry neighborhood and identified certain rare and specimen trees that could be protected.

And so there's ordinance language that commits them to protecting those off-site rare and uh specimen trees that is a significant kind of expansion of our general rules around tree protection for a developing site.

We've also added uh language in the conditional zoning ordinance that creates some additional flexibility of how the quote unquote dog leg of the site could be oriented or designed in the future.

Um we have heard uh concerns about the orientation of that portion of the site that's directly adjacent to the Coventry neighborhood, uh specifically concerns regarding traffic.

Um, NCDOT's standards are going to govern here, and NCDOT is going to be one of the primary regulatory bodies that determines the best location for the site entrance on Weaver Dairy Road.

And so what we've proposed is language in the ordinance that gives the applicant the ability to be responsive to NCDOT concerns uh without necessarily having to come back to council for for approval that that allows them to be responsive.

Um project from a complete community perspective next.

Just a heads up, we're trying something a little bit new with how we talk about the complete community uh strategy and development.

Um so let us know how we're doing.

Um just as a reminder, you know, the complete community strategy gives us kind of four high-level um elements of guidance on how we would kind of rate or think about new projects.

Um, this notion of planning for the future strategically, expanding greenways, being green and sustainable while providing new housing and planning for excellence in the public realm.

These are the high-level guidances that we get from the complete community strategy, and they each speak to and kind of link to other elements of the comprehensive plan.

Um so when we look at and we staff have looked at this project through that complete community lens, um we find that it holds up really well.

Um that notion of planning strategically and planning for growth in in line with our general comprehensive plan needs.

Um find that the project is located in kind of where you would expect and want to see new growth.

Um it's an area that is highlighted for growth through the comprehensive plan, and it meets um the complete community strategies, kind of general guidance for prioritizing infill over sprawl.

Um another critical element is the notion that we we want new development to provide as much as it reasonably can, knowing that it can't provide everything for the community.

Um a strong element of commercial space or a strong interest in commercial space is part of our complete community interests.

And so we find that it's it's pretty uh meaningful that this space, despite its constraints, does reserve space um for future commercial development.

Um as was mentioned by the applicant and is kind of central to the complete community strategy, is our everywhere to everywhere green weight network, uh, and this project uh offers a very meaningful new expansion of that network.

Uh we've also found that the the project um retains um pretty large portions of existing tree canopy on the site, um which speaks to the the way in which the project is is generally pretty responsive to and sensitive or responsive to um environmental concerns on site.

Um we've also, as part of this you know, review looked at the project from through the lens of our complete or excuse me, our uh natural features model.

Um and what that model kind of confirms, which is something that I think you know kind of intuitively you can judge from noticing that the site is is bound by an interstate and other established development on on all other sides, is that the site is not particularly sensitive from an environmental perspective.

Um and so the general concerns about uh conservation are are definitely lessened on a on a site of this sort.

Um and finally, from uh from a place making perspective, um, the site is making kind of meaningful use of of something of an area that is highly constrained.

Um various iterations of council have reviewed and and discussed earlier iterations of this project.

Um, and we we've all seen from a staff perspective that it is uh a constrained site.

Um and so working with the town's urban designer um and other planning staff um I think has really pushed this site to to to meaningful placemaking again in a in a constrained opportunity setting.

Um ultimately staff's recommendation for you this evening is to to close the hearing, uh consider the resolution of reasonableness and consistency R2 and consider uh the ordinance approving the conditional zoning 06.

Um with that, I'll um hang around for questions, and I think the applicant will be available as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council questions?

Councilmember Ryan?

Uh let's see.

You are you were never required to close the hearing.

Um that is entirely at your discretion.

Okay, but it is an option available to us tonight.

Okay.

Um when you said there's no negative downstream impacts, you only did an analysis of the hundred-year storm, correct?

That's correct.

So the um the downstream or I didn't, the applicant commission the site.

Um the the downstream impact analysis uh studied up to the hundred year storm just to kind of track alongside our requirement for what is required to be treated on site.

Okay, thank you.

I think the next question is for the applicant.

Um, if it's technically, you need support, I get it.

There you go.

Um so on the um on your affordable housing plan, uh the rental properties, you're proposing 10 percent at what AMI are you looking at?

We offered up at 80 percent AMI.

Did you do an analysis of what you could offer, say at an 80-65 split or all 65?

No, we were basically just looking at like where the cost construction cost is going with multifamily and running that to see what what it could kind of stress test.

Okay, because we we've had people tell us that 80 percent is pretty close to market rate.

Now I don't know if that's with new construction at the rates you're paying, but um, so in some parts of the triangle I could see, I would not say that that's probably accurate for here, but in some parts of the triangle I could see that being accurate, but not here.

Okay.

Um and on the driveway that goes down to Weaver Dairy Road, I know that this application would give you the option of moving it without coming back for any kind of a modification.

Do you have a feeling on where you'd like to put that if you if DOT would let you put wherever it is, do you still prefer the eastern location?

Are you going to try to put it farther to the west if you're available if you're able to?

Yeah, we I'm gonna let Wendy take that one.

Okay.

I can talk about that.

Uh good evening.

I'm Wendy Ramsden.

I'm a landscape architect with Thomas and Hutton, and we did the landscape architecture engineering and surveying on the project.

So um hopefully I can answer your questions.

But yeah, we did look at uh we've looked at and laid it out both ways to have the driveway on both sides.

And at this point, we we would prefer to leave the driveway where it is for a few reasons.

And that's the eastern that is on the eastern side.

Yes.

And there are a couple of yeah, there's a few reasons for that.

One is that um it gives a better continuity of pedestrian safety and pedestrian experience by having them, once they get into the site, not have to crisscross the main road through the site because of where the rest of the Greenway Trail lands.

Uh one of the other things that we looked at was the separation of the buildings from the adjacent Coventry community.

And right now, the way we have it laid out with the driveway on the east side, we have 66 feet separation between the townhomes and the property line.

That gives us an opportunity to do uh two levels of planting, one between the road and the property line, and one between the road and the townhomes.

It also allows us to do a better job of grading or maybe a more efficient job of grading.

What it means is that the road as it comes in can follow the terrain better so that we're not doing so much grading against the property line and against the adjacent owners' private property there.

If we had if we swapped it out, um the townhomes would be much closer to the property line.

They take a much bigger flat space.

And so then we'd have to start really adding retaining walls and doing terracing that flattens out and creates more separation, like it would be a a larger, sometimes there would be a space where the adjacent owner would look into almost a wall.

Um and we were trying to avoid that.

So when we look at the other side though, there's only there's less than 50 feet between the townhomes and the western side.

And so we have put a retaining wall there and we've set the greenway trail and plantings into that space.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

I think uh Mayor Pro Timberry was asking for clarification on your last statement.

On my what?

You moved away from the microphone, and so I lost part of that.

So if you could read, please.

Yes.

Uh about the the last statement of the grading?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

So the road, um, you know, it's 24 feet wide.

We're following the train better.

We're able to more gradually uh change the angle of like the topography and the slope on that.

If we were putting the town homes closer to the property line, we would have to do more terracing, and it would we need bit larger flat areas for the town home for the slab that the townhome sits on.

And so there would be more retaining walls against the adjacent property and more larger um separations of elevation.

Thank you.

And and that would also mean more tree clearing.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivers?

Yeah, this is quick.

This is for TAS and the plan and staff.

I did appreciate the new way you present it.

I think that was really helpful.

So thank you.

You got a question?

He wanted to give feedback as asked on the new uh complete community reporting.

Uh Councilmember Nollard.

And then Councilmember McMahon.

Um I've seen a few questions about like uh traffic flow, traffic study signals, things like that.

Can you walk us through what recommendations were made on any kind of traffic related movement and the design choices you've made and if those diverge from any recommendations, what the limiting factors were?

Uh well, the TIA was done separately.

That's uh uh separate traffic engineering firm.

Um we went, we reviewed all of those recommendations with DOT and with town transportation.

And what we've heard back right now is that DOT does not believe there's anything that warrants a traffic light there.

You don't get to just choose to put a traffic light in.

DOT has to approve it and work with you to do that.

And there they don't have they don't have any data that says right now that there's a a good reason to put a traffic light there.

So to be clear, DOT is the one holding the authority, they've declined to exercise it.

Yes, and they will have to approve any sort of turn lanes, crosswalks, uh any lights, anything like that.

They have the final approval on.

They do work with the town, but they have final approval.

Um Councilmember McMahon.

Uh, this is for the applicant.

Thank you very much for doing the 100-year stormwater study.

Um it's good to see those numbers.

My question for you is what is the cost for you to go from 100 year to 500 year?

And I want to frame it in that I pulled up the the point precipitation frequency estimates from NOAA and basically a six-hour event at this address is 5.46 inches over six hours at the 100-year level, and like 6.8 inches at 500.

So if we had a 6.8-inch rain over six hours, that would exceed the capacity of 100 years.

And I'm only asking this because I think the spirit of the requirement for the town is that we want to make sure that we're not causing any more um significant impacts downstream.

Uh what is the cost to go from 100 to 500 for this project?

Uh do you know?

Or I asked that question.

Uh and I've yet to find anybody that knows the answer.

I've asked that question.

I've yet to find anybody that knows the answer to it.

Right.

So I mean, we can tell you that this, and like with the overall study that we've done, we've actually seen that we're actually improving the area.

Because at this time the site has actually been manipulated in the past, and so you have steep slopes, and so we're actually smoothing things out.

So we're actually lessening the impact of runoff.

And so that's what I know of that I can speak to.

So I I've asked that question.

I've I've reached out to other civil engineering firms.

Nobody really kind of can point to it because nobody in this area has built one.

So I I it's an unknown.

Um did you ask the town uh staff what their thoughts were on that, or was there any communication about going?

Well, the question of like what it would cost.

Well, not the cost, that would be on you.

Um but thinking about second question, follow-up question of that is what kind of conversation there was about um systemic the role that this property plays in the entire system of stormwater infrastructure in that area.

Yeah, I mean, you know, to be blunt, um we could do something that's you know far exceeds you know what people are asking.

But unless everybody else is meeting us in that area with a hundred-year storm, and the fact that in this area there are older developments that have no to little stormwater management.

What you're asking me to do is kind of like, okay, so we hold it, but yet nobody else has the same level.

So what you're asking from a runoff standpoint, you're not going to see the impact that you want, right?

Because even though if we have a stormwater management up to what you're asking and the cost and the impacts of it, that's okay, that's great.

Um the majority of where our property is running is going back towards the interstate.

But the problem is is what we would be going into.

There is no stormwater management or there's very little stormwater management.

So the runoff and especially everybody else that's around us has little to no stormwater management.

You're going to continue to see the same runoff that you have.

So to really make a greater impact in this whole area, you need to ask everybody else that's in developments in this area to also step up to a hundred year.

That would be probably the most impactful thing that could probably happen to see a real change.

Thank you.

Yes, Councilmember.

Uh Mayor Pro Temberry.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, we can't go back and ask the people who have already built to, am I correct?

Because you're nodding with me, to put that in.

So we are concerned with what um a new project, what the impact would be.

And um so we can only move forward, right?

We can't we can't cause that.

So I just wanted to comment on that last statement that was made by the applicant.

Um will, unless something's happening and I missed it, how will the trail tell me about the trail reaching Weavers Grove?

Go ahead.

Okay.

So what we're doing with the trail on the site is we are taking it from an existing trail at the west end.

We're bringing it all the way through our site, and and it's not just an easement, we are actually building the trail.

So we're building 3,800 linear feet of trail that comes through our site and comes down to Weaver Dairy Road and meets the sidewalk there.

Additionally, we are putting in a thousand-foot spur that goes from sort of the junction of the east-west-north-south parts of the property and goes up toward a greenway easement that exists along the edge of I-40 through the Carroll Woods property.

We are building to the property line.

We are not building to Weavers Grove, but it is part of a larger uh master plan of the system.

Okay.

So along 40, adjacent to or on the property of the property.

On the property.

Okay.

And that agreement has been reached because the last time I heard.

No, there's no, I don't believe there's any plan to build a trail there currently, but there is a recorded ease, uh recorded greenway easement in that portion of their property.

Could staff help me understand that a little bit better, please?

Um, I I don't recall the the date that the easement was was created, but um probably 10 10 to 20 years ago.

Yeah, yeah.

So early early 2000s, um a greenway easement was um was acquired by the town.

So um we have the right to build an easement uh through kind of the northern portion of the Carroll Woods property uh adjacent to the the I-40 right-of-way.

Um it's land that you know it's lines on a map right now where we could build the easement, um, but there aren't any you know funds available at the moment or or kind of uh imminent plans to build it.

Right.

So we have an easement.

The town has an agreement of an easement, but have we heard differently from Carol Woods that they would be okay with us taking action on that easement?

So it and so let me just clarify for those who might be new to this conversation.

When we last met, I believe it was when we last met or a previous meeting, we had the executive director to come and speak to us from Carol Woods who said we are not in favor of this, and I recognize that we have an easement, but I'm asking if the town has heard differently from Carroll Woods.

I think part of the um and I I've had some discussions with with them as well offline, and I think part of the the potential disagreement was around exactly where the the greenway would be located.

Um the easement location with it being closer to the the I-40 right-of-way, it's great that we have it.

It's not necessarily the the best place to put that that greenway.

Um so I think there had been some earlier thoughts that um the same um utility right of way that that runs through the applicant site and through the northern portion of the Carroll Woods site, um, that that could be used instead of putting the greenway closer to uh the I-40 right of way.

Um that alignment um along the utility right-of-way would have required Carol Woods um consent, because that's that's land that wasn't otherwise agreed to or you know given any sort of permission for uh a greenway, but the existing greenway right of way or easement um doesn't require permission.

I get that that is the permission, yeah.

Right.

I get that it doesn't require permission.

My question was, and then I have a follow-up question based on your answer that you just gave.

But my original question was has the um has the position of Carroll Woods changed?

Yeah.

I I wouldn't be able to represent their their specific position.

Okay, but you haven't heard that it has.

No.

Okay.

And then you just raised the issue that that that area, that easement is not ideal.

Could you share why um if we could get further away from I-40, it would be nice.

Um, you know, whenever we're putting kind of pedestrians, bikers, um, folks not in cars, um, we would we would like to give them as much separation as possible.

Um, but ultimately building greenways is largely kind of the art of the possible, right?

We will put them where where we can if we can't put them exactly where we want to.

Okay, thank you.

Um do you uh new technology, sorry, you'll okay.

Let's see.

The okay now back to the applicant and to Thomas and Hutton.

Um you were talking about the the planting that could occur if you were to build the the driveway.

If you were to put the driveway on the eastern side, which is your preferred side, there could be plantings between the project and the road, and also plantings between the project and coventry.

Correct.

Is that correct?

But you would not put those if the driveway were on the other side.

Well, we would have to put in the 10-foot landscape buffer that's required by code.

But the but the um townhomes would probably be sited only maybe 15 feet from the property line.

That's how that's how it would fall out.

So the townhomes would be much closer, that the structures themselves would be much closer to the property line with uh narrower, a narrower portion of planting.

Okay.

And more grading for sure.

Thank you.

And I do want to raise, I appreciate um the community members who sent in uh comments and thoughts and um I'm just looking at one.

The storm water, that's a huge concern of my um I do agree I won't get into comments here.

Um I um I'm curious why the necessity for that many townhomes.

I'm concerned about the density there.

Right.

So help us understand why that many.

Sure.

Well, um, I guess there's a couple of things to look at.

One is we did take a look at the density of the townhomes here compared to what else is already around.

But when you look at the density of town homes on our side, we are only getting 5.2 units to an acre.

Coventry currently has 7.2 units to an acre.

So we believe that the density is quite compatible.

We don't see that there's a disconnect between those two.

We have also chosen to uh I think you probably and not that it was this applicant, but you probably remember a previous application where we actually had multi-family on that side.

But it in this particular project, we have purposely chosen to put everything at the east end as a townhouse product, just so that it is compatible with what is already there and respect what the neighbors have.

Okay.

So in comparison to Coventry, it's less dense, is what you're saying.

What about excuse me?

What about um the square footage, the footprint?

How does that compare?

So not the number of units, but the footprint.

I don't know how big the Coventry units are.

Okay.

But if you're going to put forth that argument about the units, I would also be curious about the square footage.

Um I don't know that that's a reasonable argument because I would like to know how much footprint, because that's what's going to be impacting, right?

Well, that's impacting impervious.

I I assume that part of their concern about density is traffic.

And so, you know, traffic is the number of units, it's not how big each unit is.

I was thinking about impervious surfaces for myself because I'm thinking about the stormwater.

And the elevation difference between that site and Coventry, and then further downhill.

Having witnessed before Chantal the challenges that those communities were suffering on both sides of Weaver Dairy, and then to see what happened with Chantal.

That has me, you know, we're not supposed to give in to our fears, but we certainly shouldn't be ignoring what is causing alarm.

And that is so that was where that question was coming from.

So I thank you for clarifying.

And I'm gonna pass for now.

Okay.

I'm gonna close for now.

Okay.

Someone else has a council member sharp.

Can you clarify um uh how the affordable units would break down in townhomes versus apartments?

Um I see I'm I just saw some different numbers about you know what percentage of townhomes would be affordable and you know it looks like it looks like the apartment numbers and the townhome numbers are different.

They are.

Um I mean we're at a hearing to the inclusionary zone, which is 15 percent.

Uh what is the would be market rate, which is you know, half at 65, half at 80 percent.

Right.

And then the apartments being for the for rent side would be 10.

Okay, okay.

So 10 percent of apartments, 15 percent of townhomes.

Correct.

And they would be evenly dispersed percentage-wise with what we're offering.

So if we're and then um all of the townhomes are for sale users.

Correct.

And are they how are they how do they work into the phase one, phase two?

Are they just their own phase?

Do they happen at the same time as the phase one multifamily?

How does that no the multifamily would come much later?

Come earlier.

So the townhomes are much no, the multifamily will come much later.

Much later.

Okay.

So townhomes first.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

I think my question is for our attorney.

Um so when we are thinking about new development versus existing development, and we think about the standards that that we would hold um a new property to, and I understand, I do understand your interest and concern.

I guess my question is um uh according to our ordinance and according to um according to the law, what what are the standards that we are expecting of a new project versus I guess this question of expecting older developments to update um or to upgrade their stormwater capacity?

So, what is the expectation in terms of um the standards that we have for new development?

I mean, I guess I'm I'm imagining that we don't expect new development to remediate, they just can't make things worse.

And maybe we hope they'll make it better, but that they're supposed to be a neutral Mayor, you're a hundred percent correct, they're not supposed to make the situation worse.

Um, and that's your standard.

So you're absolutely correct.

Thank you.

Um I guess oh well now I lost my other question, but what else is new?

Okay.

Any other council questions before we move on to public comment?

Okay.

Do we still have under well, yes.

Do we still have under 15?

Okay.

Yes.

Lovely.

Okay.

So that brings us to public comment.

Each person will have three minutes to speak on this item.

Spanish speakers using translation will have double that amount of time.

We ask that you speak into the microphone so everyone, including our viewing audience, can hear, and that you wrap up quickly when the timer goes off.

Mayor Pro Tem Barry will call up the first speaker, and we ask that the second speaker also start making your way to the front.

And we uh look forward to hearing from you.

Please do uh allow us to hear the speaker so no um clapping or uh clicking or any other noise so that we can listen and hear what you have to say, we appreciate it.

Thank you.

So we'll start with Wendy Ramsden, followed by Linda Ide.

Nope, I don't have any comments.

I'm just here to answer questions.

Okay, Linda I will kick us off, followed by Bruce Renberg.

Linda Ide will kick us off, followed by Bruce Runberg.

Hi, everybody.

My name is Linda Ide, and I live right next door to the proposed 860 project.

We understand the things that the town is gaining from the project that they value, and we understand the financial value of the concessions, the variances that are being granted to the developer.

So my question is what happens for the concerns of the immediate neighbors.

The council, I believe, can require two things to moderate the negative impacts of this very big project on my neighborhood, Coventry.

First, we'd like you to ensure that the developer installs a 15-foot-wide planted buffer of shrubbery and trees next to the 15 feet of power line easement that are on the 860 property up and down the eastern boundary.

A 15-foot wide buffer because when mature, none of the tree canopy or the shrubbery's girth can encroach on that adjacent power line easement.

We ask you to do this to moderate levels of road traffic generated fine particulates, which I spoke about last September.

They are a major known hazard to human health.

And trees passively help to moderate those levels.

Also do it to help moderate storm runoff along the boundary.

And do it to screen headlights from the road and driveways at night.

Do it to help reduce noise a little and to make the looming nature of these three-story 860 townhouses, which are uphill from Coventry, to make them seem to be less conspicuously looming over our neighborhood.

And if as a result, only four townhouses fit across the remaining width of the leg.

Mr.

Brown should accept that limitation.

It's only one portion of the large townhouse development.

Secondly, require the developer to find a way to slant the road coming down the eastern boundary below the townhouses across to the west as it passes by the bottom row of townhouses.

May require dropping off one or even two townhouses to allow that slant to happen.

And one thing that I would envision as a possible arrangement is to have the detention pond divided into two halves with the roads slanting directly across it.

This is about the only way that we can have some better spacing between this intersection and the Coventry traffic light, which could make all the difference in whether or not we ever get a traffic light at that entry road.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bruce Runberg, followed by Ursula Wirth Firth.

Good evening.

My name's Bruce Runberg.

I live in Coventry.

I'm a retired civil engineer.

A group of us has met with the developer, Mr.

Ernie Brown, and we appreciate the time he's spent with us.

Also the town staff, Taz Legou, and North Carolina Department of Transportation's Chuck Edwards to better understand the project.

In summary, the applicant's property has many significant challenges.

The LUMO states the applicant will mitigate impacts on surrounding properties and the town as a whole.

But if you look at simply the leg, it's too dense in terms of the square footage that they've put in there.

And it needs to be reduced.

Also, there were a lot of discussions about the moving the road from the east side to the west side, which can be done.

I won't go over those again, other than to say it's quite significant.

The traffic impact study recommends a turn lane.

It's not shown.

But it was currently rated as an F.

That's failure.

And it's going to get worse for all of us nearby.

In addition, we believe that condition number 33 relating to phasing of site improvements would have the potential result that the site access road number one by Coventry would be the only means of access for the project for quite some time.

So with these various challenges, and I'm not enamored as much as the applicant, nor the town staff, that because there's a lot of loose ends on this project.

So we recommended the council hereby expects that residents of Coventry and other surrounding properties be provided opportunities to participate in the redesign of the approved district specific plan and accompanying detailed plans for the leg.

There are a lot of variances and followed by Brian Grimwood.

Good evening.

I want to make this very short.

My major concern is, like everybody else will say that too, is the traffic problem.

But I think in general, I think it's just a very daring thing to put a huge project in this area and uh expect people to adjust, even though uh it's this is not easy, and I guess you're all aware of that.

I would suggest that at least the population that moves in there should be decreased, which would decrease the cars, which is going to be uh impossible to manage.

We have already waiting times now, getting out of Coventry where I live, and making a left turn.

And many people have already suggested that soon we need a traffic light there.

And now all this additional traffic will uh come in addition.

So this is my major concern, and I would think uh those high rises should be low rises and fuel people moving in there.

I was paying for the Mr.

Good evening.

This is Brian Grimwood, and I live in Coventry.

My uh comments are that you remember July 6th, 2025, 2025, uh Chantal.

How many inches of rain did we get in about what, six hours or eight hours?

It was like almost 12 inches of rain.

In an acre, there are 325, almost 326,000 gallons of water per acre.

They are proposing an 18-acre impervious surface, which means immediate runoff.

That is five almost six million gallons of water.

Now, if if you look at uh the headwater, the the the drainage for that uh area, that 15 acres that uh they're including in their development, which is really 30 acres that they're developing, and the other 15 is is the wetlands.

Uh there's maybe about 50 50 acres of of uh land there for drainage that uh would amount to with a Chantel storm sixteen million and a quarter gallons of water.

Um the greenway, as I understand, would be uh also add impervious surface.

So in addition to the 18 acres of impervious surface, maybe another two acres, I don't know, uh two acres, but at two acres uh per acre, that would uh mean uh 651,000 gallons just from the greenway.

How do you how do you propose to manage that?

And if the developer can't be required to remediate, then I suggest that the town council go ahead and kill this project.

It's highly, highly uh uh uh aggressive and over ambitious, and the town actually do something with remediation in that area and not have the just the blue lines on the maps and saying, oh, we've got a hundred-year plan.

Do do something with it and make some real control water control.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mike Gillam, followed by Al Howlett.

So I'm Mike Gilliam, and I live on Steeplechase Road, just on the south side of Weaver Dairy, the fourth house down, and last summer Chantal was raging.

We stood at the at the front of our neighbor's yard and watched as his house was flooded, his yard was dug out, and two cars were destroyed.

Now we've heard tonight how how the development plan includes water retention up to a hundred-year storm.

But some of you walk the territory and you know how much uh ground cover there is with trees and leaves and soft dirt that is does water retention and slowing down flooding.

If the storm is worse than the hundred-year storm that we keep hearing about, the flood uh the retention ponds and other devices for maintaining uh damage stop.

The f the retention ponds themselves become impermeable surfaces like the pavement, the roads, the walkways, and the parking areas we heard about.

So we have to consider what happens at with that next Chantal and what do we do about it.

So I'm urging, and our neighbors are urging that you really consider what happens if we see another Chantal.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Al Howard, followed by Lois?

Al Hallett, followed by Lois Howlett.

I used to say it all the time.

I can never remove it.

My name is Al Howlett.

And before I start, I just want to say my heart is heavy, and I hardly get hard to with the problems I heard at the earlier part of the evening.

It just really got to me, but I am concerned about where I live and about Chapel Hill and more local problems too.

And I live in Coventry, and I will speak about the narrow strip of land that runs downhill from the main part of the project.

We call the leg down to Weaver Dairy Road.

And one more reason to move the twenty-five proposed town homes from the leg up to the main part of the project is blasting.

I do test bad blasting and explosions and loud noises.

I hate the idea of defacing our earth when we can avoid it.

We learned about blasting from a neighbor over near Ernie Brown's Chapel Hill Crossing Development.

A seismic monitoring firm strongly urged neighbors there in writing to agree to a pre-blast survey outside and inside their homes, including photographs and diagrams.

So as we understand it, when the blasting is over, if their walls have cracked, they can get compensated.

And we've learned there's a meeting with their neighbors there every two weeks about the blasting.

How long will this go on?

A geo tech study of 860 Weaver Dairy found rock as shallow as 75.5 feet below ground and shower rock may also be encountered.

Blasting may be required.

The report warns that if there is blasting near structures like our houses in Coventry, special measures must be taken.

To build houses on the lake, they would have to board deep into the steep slopes and remove soil and rock.

As you know, they're asking to disturb 78% of the steep slopes while the maximum allowed by the town is 25%.

There's going to be blasting, I think.

The geotech report also says that in recent years there have been wet detention ponds which do not perform as expected.

So just because of these four old detent these ponds, uh, and is the one we know about uphill at the Duke Health that failed during Chantal.

And where does the water go?

It goes down to toward Eastgate.

Please move those townhouses up to the main east west portion of the project.

Leave the steep slopes and beautiful forest land on the lake alone.

Let Mother Nature be at least here.

And a couple of other points.

No obligation they have for any commercial use.

You're changing it to mixed use, but the way it reads, there's no obligation to do that.

And thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Lois Howlett, and I am a resident of Carroll Woods, and I speak about that forested leg that you've just heard about.

First, I'll remind you that this project failed to be endorsed by the Planning Commission here because there were too many questions about it.

There still are too many unresolved problems and some uh confusion over the developers' plans.

You know, we're not against development, and we're certainly not against development for affordable living, that's for sure.

I mean, we're really proud to support Weaver Grove.

My main concern is this forested lake that comes down and borders Coventry.

This area slopes has very various steepnesses, some beyond the maximum allowed for development.

The leg is covered by a 50-year-old native forest, which provides shade plus rain and carbon dioxide retention.

How do forests mitigate flooding and uh erosion keep erosion on their from happening on their steep slopes?

It's by trees, lots and lots of mature trees.

I'm not just talking about one or two.

The rain, you know, slowed down all the way down until it gets to the ground, which is all permeable, covered by leaves, held by extensive roots, uh root network underground.

In contrast, um well, I I gave everybody a drawing.

I hope I got it there in time.

Now you can really see that um the development, and it's got five big black rectangles, each has five townhouses in it.

Between them are roads to get to those townhouses.

And um there are going to be retainment walls.

I'm pretty sure I heard that there's one right next to the greenway, and if there is, you know, there's this chainling fix fence on top because they don't want people to fall off.

So I don't think it's going to be super convenient for these houses, some of them to get to that greenway unless they go down to the street, probably.

Anyway, the only really permeable area is that retention pond in my mind.

You see, there's there's a big road, which is going to be the main entrance, and that's going to be a pretty busy road.

You know, there's like probably two cars for each house in there, and that's 25 houses.

So I'm concerned when you look at this, and you can look at Coventry next to it visually.

Where would you like to go to have your family?

We do have some families in Coventry.

I would not like to be in this position where there's no playground, no green area.

There's a pretty busy road on the right there, and uh on the left.

I don't know how available that that thing is, the greenway.

And his big beautiful green areas are way up there.

They're not going to be developed till a lot, lot later.

This is the first thing to go.

So please think about your new resolution.

The best way to is to be green and sustainable.

So that may mean leave that forest in place and put the townhouses up higher.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

William Thomas, followed by Christine Burnt.

My name is William Thomas.

I live in Carroll Woods, right?

Adjacent the east side of Coventry.

There's a little stream there, a perennial stream that shows up on your watershed protection maps that lies between Coventry and Terrell Woods.

That little stream runs north and splits into two forks, which are not perennial but intermittent streams.

It looks like, from what I can see of the developer's plan that there are no buildings up there.

But I would just want to throw in the word that we can expect more severe storm events in the future.

Global warming tells us scientifically that that's the way things go.

Storm events will be more violent.

So I urge you strongly to pay a lot of attention to the stormwater considerations and to stick by your guns on the buffers you're now requiring around those perennial and intermittent streams.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Christine Burt, followed by Bob Burnt.

Well, the previous speaker gave a good introduction to my comments on stormwater tonight.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

One thing we've learned about climate change is that past conditions are not a reliable guide for the future.

And Chantel was a rude awakening for our community and the extent of water that came down the stream that the previous speaker just talked about.

So with this as background, we have some suggestions for you tonight.

The first is to model the Chantel storm.

We request that the council consider that the 860 project demonstrate that post-development runoff will not exceed pre-development runoff conditions for storms equal to or greater than Chantel by modeling the actual July 2025 event.

Secondly, to control volume, try for more green uh infrastructure techniques like infiltration basins, bioretention, green infrastructure, and forest preservation, as one of the other speakers mentioned.

These are all green techniques to help reduce the volume of stormwater.

Number three, um, analyze the overflows.

As Mike Gilliam said, um, we we understand that there is a hundred-year storm uh guide for the project, but we don't know what's gonna happen greater than a hundred years.

Where will the stormwater go over the hundred-year storm?

So therefore, we request that the town require the developer to analyze where the overflows go and map them so that we can see what happens when the storms are greater than a hundred years.

And I know the stream that's runs on the east side of Coventry is gonna be one of those problem areas because that's what their second analysis showed that you couldn't, it can't be modeled past even a 25-year storm right now.

Fourth, we want independent review.

The two stormwater studies were completed by Thomas and Hutton, and he is also that firm is also the applicant on behalf of the owner and contract purchaser.

So we asked the council consider requiring an independent third party review of the two existing studies to confirm assumptions and processes used.

So in summary, um the town council in ordinance 06 must find that the project is reasonable and in the public interest.

It must also find that rezoning and site specific, the district specific plan mitigate impacts on surrounding properties and the town as a whole.

We suggest that these unanswered questions regarding impacts of stormwater events like Chantel means that more analysis is needed before the council can make these two findings in the resolution and ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bob Burnt, followed by Hank Elkins.

Good evening.

I'm Bob Burnt.

I'm a resident of Coventry.

Um I want to talk about two items that relate to the access road and uh the buffers.

And the first item um the project plan show only the required minimum buffer between the entrance road and the Coventry property line, and instead of the required minimum 10-foot buffer adjacent to covery that is currently proposed, we request the town require a type B buffer, type D buffer with a width of 30 feet, which is required next to entrance roads, which is where this buffer is located, and also we ask that the town require um preserving existing as much existing tree canopy as possible within that buffer.

Um as Linda I noted, um the buffer currently current location needs to be moved over at least 15 feet because of the overhead power line easement for the power line serving Coventry.

The buffer may also be need to be moved over to not overlay overlap the right-of-way for the proposed project entrance road as it is currently shown on the plans.

Um the other issue for the entrance road is um ordinance A requires the applicant to provide a westbound turn lane on Weaver Dairy Road with a hundred feet of storage plus appropriate deceleration and taper, which we believe is a hundred feet to make it a total of 250 feet for the turn lane.

Um there is not enough room for a 250-foot turn lane with the project entrance road in its current location.

If a shorter turn lane is built, it would also require increased disturbance of much of the privacy berm in front of Coventry units and likely require additional property from Coventry for roadway right-of-way.

We believe the town should require the entrance road to be moved to the west to accommodate the full length of the required turn lane, or require the applicant to work with DOT town staff and Coventry residents to find an appropriate entrance road location and turn lane length.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hank Elkins, followed by Anna Williamson.

Mayor Anderson, members of the town council.

My name is Hank Elkins.

I'm a retired senior research associate at the Columbia School of Public Health in New York.

For the prospective inhabitants, however aesthetic this project may be.

Why?

Well, affordable, yes, but a medical disaster.

And why is that?

Simply because multiple well documented studies have shown that living close to a highway with high pollution and noise is associated with cardiovascular disease, that's heart attacks and strokes and cancer.

And so lured by low dollar cost, prospective inhabitants may not suspect they're walking into a health disaster.

The data are incontrovertible.

The humans simply do not adapt to prolonged exposure to noise or air pollution.

But consider a would-be sleeper, uh inhabitant.

Uh far from a soothing melody, the screeching blasts from 18 wheel beomeths would shake his bed.

But just when he might cozy down into his pillow, another thundering blows a roar, rattles his head.

The next day, frazzled and weary, the sleep-deprived father staggers into work, and the mother drowsily feeds her four-year-old the pride of their family.

The young boy looks great, but unbeknownst to the parents.

And for those who live close to the highway, the ultra fine particles and the nitrogen oxide plus loud intermittent noise constitute a deadly mixture.

Associated with multiple types of cancer.

This is a prospective for inhabitants.

Unknowingly that they may wander into a disaster.

But you as a town council do know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anna Williamson, followed by Martin Johnson.

Tonight I speak for the forest itself.

More than just trees.

A powerful tapestry of beauty where billions of creatures coexist.

I deeply wish for this diverse life to be preserved as much as possible in its habitat, its ecosystem.

The forest offers invaluable lessons, love, harmony, and beauty, which I have enjoyed for 14 years as a resident in Coventry and Carroll Woods.

My hope is that the designers will commit to protecting as much as possible of this natural work of art.

In doing so, they will ensure that future generations of families who will live there can share in this beauty, as I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

We'll conclude with Martin Johnson.

We'll conclude with Martin Johnson.

Fast, fast.

No, I don't.

Oh, no button.

Okay, great.

Um, so Martin Johnson here.

I wasn't planning to speak tonight, but I was listening to the comments earlier and thought I needed to come down.

Uh, over the past couple of days, I've been talking to parents uh who are part of the Ephesus Elementary School District, other school districts that are at the threat of being closed.

And talking to the parents, uh, many of them had really hard time doing Chantel.

They were houses were flooded, they had lots of property damage, but a flood brings your community together.

It's a moment I think that brought all of us together.

We care for one another, we can be stronger out of it.

But the thing that there's Ephesus parents are worried about now is losing a school.

And losing a school tears your community apart.

It's tearing, I just encourage you to go to the Chapel Hill Town Council of school board meetings and watch those parents talk.

They were there four hours last week, each trying to desperately save their school, trying to figure out how do we get this to work, what do we do about this population lost?

And then I think about council's past, 2016.

We had the Legion site.

We could have had 600 houses there on that site.

The councils of that time decided no, better to save the land, leave it for a park.

We waited, we waited, we waited.

We eventually got, you know, a couple years ago, agreed to put some housing there.

That housing will open four or five years from now, and there might not be a school down the street.

So this is just like really serious stuff.

And we're not also going to talk about this project specifically.

In 2020, you asked the town designer, Brian Peterson, your own staff.

Draw a sketch here.

We want to see housing here.

This is a place where we want to see housing.

We want we want it.

He drew a sketch, it looks exactly like what you have before you today.

So to my mind, it's why would you ask your town designer to give you a project and then wait, turn down one project, someone else comes back, turn down that one.

I feel like if you want a project here, you need to say yes.

Say yes to 800 houses, say yes to keeping our middle schools and high schools open in another generation.

Say yes to those parents.

Again, their kids were born in 2020, they're now losing their kids' schools.

Think about them as you vote.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Um thank you to all the speakers.

Um, council, back to you for any comments.

Councilmember Nollert.

Um I'm not always first to go, but um actually entirely coincidentally, the comment that I have been thinking about making on this project dovetails pretty nicely with what Martin just said, in that so I'm I'm 32 years old, and on Monday I became a homeowner.

Um scary, pretty exciting.

Uh I I got a town home.

It's the only type of product that I can afford in Chapel Hill, and I don't I don't want to leave.

So I was really excited about it.

And part of what personalizes the reason I wanted to personalize wanting to vote yes on this project is precisely because I know there's been commentary about the townhomes, and I know that it is linked to the issue all of us are seeing in the news, which is the schools.

I'd like to have kids this decade.

Um if you know any single young women that you would recommend to me, you know, feel free.

But um the point is if I do have kids this decade, they would go to our school system.

We have trouble enrolling enough kids in the school system, and I think the housing that we approve or don't approve is connected to that.

Um so my dating life aside, I am gonna support this project.

No one is required to find the ONE dates, to be clear.

Uh Councilmember McCullough.

Lord.

Um where to start.

Um I don't know if people know my background is in sustainable communities.

And I think if you speak a little louder, okay.

Is that better?

Yes.

My background is in sustainable communities and applied ecology.

And and part of the reason we are where we are, both in terms of the housing that we have and in terms of the destruction of the forests and farms that we've had is because of sprawl.

And sprawl over the past generations has destroyed an incredible amount of watersheds and forests, and it's caused everybody to have to get in their cars to go anywhere, which means more roads and more highways and more impervious surfaces.

And fixing a problem is always harder than starting from scratch.

Uh and our ounce of prevention is long, long, long, long gone.

Um gosh, it'd be nice if we can save every bit of forest that's left.

Um, but we cannot.

The more densely that we build, the less land per person we use up.

The fewer trees per person housed we use up.

And that is our goal right now, because that's where we are.

Um I am glad that this project, the evaluation, they use the natural features map.

Very excited about that.

Uh this project, as we know from our housing, um, our housing report a few years ago, we needed 500 housing units a year to catch for 10 years before we would catch up.

Um, and that was before the university decided that they were gonna bring us 500 more students per year for 10 years.

And so we're even farther behind than we would have been.

Um we need this housing.

Uh we don't have a lot of vacant land in Chapel Hill, and we desperately need this housing.

We desperately need affordable housing, uh, even if it's only 80% AMI, as our esteemed colleague here has said, we need attainable market rate housing.

We'd like to have more families.

We'd like to have more young people.

We want Chapel Hill to survive beyond where those of us, you know, when those of us with gray hair are gone.

I am very pleased that the developer has done what they can to address the neighborhood concerns that they did this downstream stormwater analysis, that they that they tweaked the buffers.

And I'm convinced that that the stormwater situation that we are seeing proposed is the is really the best that we can get.

Chapel Hill is one of the only ones that does only towns that does a hundred year storm requirement for stormwater.

That puts us ahead.

But it's but it's the right thing to do, and that's why we did it.

I was lucky.

I I know that the lovely people who took me on a walkthrough may be disappointed with me today.

Um but I appreciated going on the walkthrough and being able to see the place with my own two eyes.

I've been I've been doing a lot of stormwater runoff for my my career, and while I am not a um hydrologist or hydrological engineer, um I know a good bit about about the basics.

Um I have a hard time um thinking about how we make new projects that we desperately need, have to fix the problems that were I'm so sorry.

No potential scam.

To fix the problems that were created by the generations of sprawl that did not know better.

Um I I have a hard time saying we have to we have to stop this development.

Um but I also think it's important to recognize that that people seem to think that the all the stormwater that falls on this green leg is retained, and and it really isn't.

Um under natural circumstances, um a complete forest will will have about 10% runoff and about 25% to deep infiltration.

Um this green leg is heavily compacted in a lot of the areas because it's got an old farm road going through it that's compacted, that's not going to infiltrate well.

Um we have uh no great deep infiltration in this area because our soils are clay, and so we already have under the best of situation in this green leg, probably 30 to 40 percent runoff without any development on it at all.

And that's a ballpark, but it's gonna be a pretty pretty valid ballpark as it goes.

Um and so if we have a hundred-year storm control, um what we're finding what we'll find is that up to a hundred-year storm the situation will probably get a little bit better.

Um, and the and the Chantel situation would be only just a delta between a hundred-year storm and what would come over.

Um we're never going to be able to address a Chantal storm.

It's just not cost effective, it's just not practicable.

Um, but it is important to realize that at some point we're gonna have to figure out how to fix the existing stormwater problems that were created by the past because we have uh Jordan Lake nutrient rules coming up, and we're gonna have to start doing more about stormwater.

So, yeah, given all those things, um I'm supporting the project.

Sorry for rambling, but um Councilmember Ryan followed by Councilmember Sharp.

Okay.

Thank you to everybody for all your hard work.

Um I'm still concerned about the downstream stormwater.

Melissa spoke eloquently about what our problems are, why we have them, and really what the limits are of what we can do about it.

We can't mitigate a Chantal.

We just that's just not something that's possible.

Um the applicant's clearly meeting his obligations under the law and went over and above doing the study, which I appreciate you doing.

Um I think that one of the things that this shows me, and with the concerns that you're bringing, is that the town needs to do better.

We need to, I know we will be looking at our stormwater policies and our stormwater plans, and I think it's really important that we're not trying to address those larger problems, some of which are inherited, some of which are from climate change, that we're not trying to address them project by project, but that we have a town wide plan and that we're working on that.

So I look forward to when that work comes back to us.

If the project's approved, I ask the applicant to work with the neighbors to make sure trees are preserved.

I know you've committed to the protecting the root zone, which is great, and that the buffers are adequate as the applicant is meeting our legal requirements.

So I but I know that he cares about doing good work.

I know that he cares about the people next to him.

So whatever you can do as you proceed to help make sure that uh that there's that these two developments are good neighbors would be very appreciated.

Councilmember Sharp.

Um I think that in this one for me it's it's really helpful to sort of try to come down from the uh sort of higher level issues of sustainability versus um you know housing stock and affordability, et cetera, just because those are in such tension in this project and really, really hard to um navigate and uh they just there's there's for every for every benefit there's a trade-off there.

Um and I I would also like to say, just in terms of higher higher value issues for voting for or against something, I really am really resistant to using the um struggles of our school system as a reason to approve development projects as a family who did pull our children out of the public school for reasons that don't have anything to do with our ability to find housing and as someone who is very supportive of the public schools, even though my children aren't in them.

Um I think that that is a much more complex issue that has that goes above way above the decisions that we as a town council can make.

So um, yeah, I I would really prefer if we start leaving that out of these conversations.

Um I think this leg is the problem.

And I would assume that that leg is where it is because it can't be elsewhere.

It looks to me like if you tried to put those town homes further north, the streams and things that are there would be impacted.

There's just no place else to put them.

I'm assuming that the density of the town homes and the number of them and of the multifamily things are because that's what you have to put there in order to make this project pencil out.

I really appreciate that there are for sale units of town homes, not just apartments.

That's something we keep asking for, is something other than multifamily housing and for sale units.

It is on infill, which is where we want things to be.

Um I actually, while I know that traffic is a major inconvenience while we work towards a more dense, walkable town that utilizes in fill spaces.

There is no way around the fact that we will put bodies who might choose to own cars and get around with cars in those spaces.

There's just no way around it.

Um however, we have to develop with an eye to these greenways and you know, putting things on transit corridors, et cetera, in order to get to a place where all of those bodies don't feel like they need cars.

All of that said, which is all to say, I see a lot of positives about this project, like a lot of positives.

There are still so many question marks for me, the commercial part being a really big one.

Um I completely understand why that might not be a feasible part of the project and why it's hard to ensure that.

Um, but I think it would do a lot for the entire surrounding neighborhood if that was something we knew would happen.

And I also just think regardless of whether you chalk it up to stormwater or traffic or whatever.

And I appreciate the stormwater measures as well.

I agree.

I think that you're it it might actually make the situation a little bit better there.

So whatever you chalk it up to, there's no way around the fact that this leg and the amount of spaces there is a huge huge issue for the neighbors.

Um if our job is to make sure that plans adequately mitigate negative impacts on the neighbors, I'm not sure it's possible in this leg.

Um and I think that you've worked really hard to make it possible, but there's only so much room.

There's only so much buffer you can give.

There's only so many trees you cannot cut down.

Um I just I just don't think it works here.

As much as we might want it to work, and as much as you know, in 2020, we might have said, please put housing there, in the building realities of 2026, it might just not work without being really, really, really impactful for the people around it.

In the building realities of 2026, it might just not work without being really, really, really impactful for the people around it.

So for me, it's a no, but not because there aren't a lot of positive things, but just because you can't get to a place where it fits here.

Councilmember McMahon.

Thank you all for coming out again, giving me the tour.

Where's Al?

Hey, Al.

This project is not the one you want to have for your first one on council.

Um but here we are.

There's a lot of goals we have here, I have personally for being in this seat right now.

One of them is the creation of greenways.

We're way behind on building greenways.

Uh transit-oriented development.

We're looking at building our bus rapid transit.

We need multifamily housing along that corridor.

Uh the stormwater issues on the leg have given me pause and want to stop this project.

But I look at all those townhomes to the north, and I think of looking at the 100-year retention as being potentially a positive for the area.

Just as one of our speakers talked about the creek on the east there between Coventry and Carol Woods, I can see that being a major area and a major contributor to downstream.

Umbers show that uh 100 water retention would save and is you know, we would get it would be like 5.46 inches over six hours.

Like it will capture some water.

Um if we have it or don't have it, we still have this issue where we're not adequately addressing the the concerns of the downstream neighbors that really have little to do with this project as much as our town's sluggish approach to addressing Le Chantal.

For example, um last week we were at a uh uh uh meeting at Duke where they're talking about building the future of infrastructure in a way that really addresses our climate change needs, right?

We're not there yet.

We're still doing project by project, we're still here talking about one project and not how it's integrated into the ecosystem of our of our watershed.

So what that's gonna require beyond this project is um getting our stormwater plan in place.

For example, uh we've got three million dollars in appropriations that are coming up.

I hope people show up and say, you know, perhaps we could apply some of that money to neighbors downstream for upfitting their yards or their culverts.

Um where can we find money to actually help people who are downstream from a project like this?

Because the whether or not it's here, you're gonna get rain down there, you're gonna get flooding.

Even if it's here, you might get some extra flooding.

But we have this mitigation in there for 100 years.

So at the end of the day, I would love to say no to the entire project because I want the town to engage in a larger approach to really looking at a systemic response to our stormwater needs.

But I can't give up the greenway.

I can't give up the housing along the um bus rapid transit corridor.

Um I'm a yes on this project, knowing that we have to make a commitment to the downstream neighbors to actually improve um infrastructure for them in a meaningful way.

Um I've talked with a lot of neighbors down there, and there's stuff we can do that we should start working on right away.

This this storm is coming, we're gonna have storms the spring.

I've seen stormwater staff in my neighborhood in Lower Booker Creek down there cleaning out trees and working on things.

So if neighbors who are going to be impacted by this potential stormwater runoff needs to come to us, come to the um staff and figure out concrete ways that we can help do that.

Um thank you all again.

Uh this is a very difficult project, but there are so many benefits to the type of housing we need that's transit-oriented and the greenways that I can't say no just because of the leg.

And I look forward to everyone holding us more accountable to what we can do to make sure that um the impacts downstream are mitigated better.

Thank you.

Mayor Pro Temberry.

Thank you.

Do you have one question that I feel to ask before?

The unit sizes of the affordable units, this language is causing me to get tripped up here.

So the affordable unit, the affordable units will include unit sizes and bedroom mixes in the approximate same proportion as the market rate homes.

What does that mean?

Are you asking?

I'm asking you.

About the for rent or for sale.

Tell us about both.

They're going to be equally proportioned, the same square footage.

We're not gonna like shrink down the affordable units.

They're just they're gonna be with mixed within.

Same size as their as the others.

Correct.

Okay.

So when you say proportion, proportion to what was my question.

Oh, so if like if you say like I got a hundred units there, 30 percent of them are two bedrooms, 32, 30 percent of them are one bedrooms, and 40 percent of them are three bedrooms, you'll have the same percentage.

Okay.

Will there um having worked with community home trust, I am familiar with how some in the past, early on when it was created, some of the units were treated much differently.

So will the finishings what will be different?

Anything?

No.

I mean, realistically, I'm I'm gonna be honest.

The finishes inside, you know, where you can make differences, it it makes no difference.

It's insignificant, right?

I mean, it's all the other stuff that really impacts cost.

Right.

So I asked because it had been done.

If you look at uh, yeah, but it's it's not anything.

And to be and I I don't build the four-sale housing, but like even the home builders like the ones that's working on uh Chapel Hill Crossings now, the Hugh Street, they're not changing the interiors either.

So you're not building the for sale, someone else is building those towns?

I don't build a for sale.

I do the other stuff.

I s I work with a home builder to so after this type of process that we go through, I then work and court home builders based on what you know our vision is for it, and bring them in, put their footprints in, and then I run all the way through site plan design all the way through it through staff, and then they basically meet me at the time where we have permits.

Once we have permits, then we work in conjunction with those portions I'm gonna do versus what the portions are gonna do.

Okay.

Thank you very much for that.

Um it's my head is all over the place.

I'm finished.

Thank you, Ernie.

So I was just thinking that having become a single parent.

Can you hear me now?

Is that better?

Okay.

So my kit my youngest, I have um uh singleton and then twins who just turned 31, and the older child is about to be 35.

And I became a single parent when they were teenagers.

And I have to tell you that a lot of people felt bad for me becoming a single parent, but the decision making came down to just one person, and it was much easier, right?

So I didn't have to share.

And I've been sitting here listening to my colleagues who are sharing in this decision making.

And um I appreciate housing because that was something that I faced.

I needed housing.

I moved in with friends because I couldn't afford it on my own for myself and my children.

Um I needed to have access to food.

Uh and it's why I do some of the volunteer work that I do.

So I'm sensitive to that.

I'm also sensitive to having access to green space and greenways.

Uh I have been very fortunate to be near those.

And um the storm water.

So I I am struggling to get past, and I'm not trying to say that new development should fix it all, but it's hard for me to get past the images and not just the images, but actually to see it, see the rain that falls, and we are sluggish.

I appreciate you saying that.

We have been sluggish.

And is it responsible of us to say, well, it's our bad.

It's not yours.

It's not your fault.

So we're gonna let you, we're gonna let you add to it.

You're gonna protect your area, but I am very concerned about it increasing that.

I know I'm in the minority based on who's spoken, but I ask that we each think about that risk that we're willing to take.

How we're willing to put others in harm's way.

Um, someone said earlier about attending meetings.

I too have attended Chapel Hill Friends meetings.

And Wendy, let me finish before you.

Um, and one of the things that I have learned, and actually wasn't from the meetings, it was from my time as a parent at Carolina Friends School.

The truth is continuously revealed.

And so we are all struggling to find the truth where we are today.

Tomorrow we may learn more.

I'm very appreciative of Melissa's comments because that has given me some comfort.

But I have to say I am not comforted enough to support this project.

For I also have concern about the ambigu.

That's not the word.

Thank you.

Couldn't get it that word out.

The um I'll just give the definition.

The lack of clarity surrounding your commercial.

Um it doesn't serve us well.

Just go ahead and take it out.

Um but that's not what this is zoned for.

So there are several reasons why I am against this.

Yes, we need housing.

Yes, we need greenways.

Are we willing to pay that price for those?

Thank you.

Just gonna remind everybody that we do have another item.

So if we can get to those who haven't spoken, and if anyone else has anything very quickly, we will certainly make time.

Any other comments?

Councilmember Rivers.

Yeah, I greatly enjoyed this discussion.

And to be honest, I came into this meeting a strong no against this project.

I walk the property, I really appreciate it.

Um I appreciate what Elizabeth said.

That the the dog leg is an abomination.

It's I mean, to be kind of blunt about it.

And what makes it so abominable is the fact that it's the type of house we want in the wrong place.

Which I I find incredibly frustrating.

But I'm also moved by the words of my fellow council members Wes and Melissa.

I think there is a chance that this the housing in that dog leg, which is probably the most guaranteed house, and I see the rest of it as potential housing, kind of ephemeral.

I'm not sure if it's actually gonna happen because they're in current marketing conditions, but I'm not an economist, so it's beyond me.

But I see that um that house in I think there's a chance for the stormwater that is implemented there to actually improve stormwater surrounded areas.

I think it will still be a nuisance to the neighbors.

Um, but I think it may actually help with the stormwater there.

So um I think I am leaning towards support in this project after this healthy discussion amongst council.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Miller Fishi, anything?

Councilmember McCullough?

I just wanted to show throw in just a couple more quick things um on sustainable community-wise things.

And and one is about the commercial.

When you look at a uh a good mixed-use area, you can't look necessarily project by project.

It's the area, it's the walk shed.

What is within the walk shed?

Um, and even if you can't have it in your next door, if you can walk to it in five or ten minutes, um that counts as a mixed-use area.

So I just wanted to throw that out.

And I I also wanted to point out that one of the reasons we are moving sluggishly on addressing existing stormwater problems is because we cannot legally do anything.

We cannot force people, property owners, to do things on the property that they have already done their building on.

If they have they have we have no legal way to make them do anything, which means it all has to be voluntary, it all has to be paid for by somebody, and I don't know where that money will come from.

And um, and it has to be done at a scale that's meaningful.

So I'll be short.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

That's exactly why I'm against this project, because if we say yes to this and then we find something else out with our stormwater plan that is to come to us later, we can't go back and change it.

Um Taz, I'm sorry to ask a question at this time, but could you help me understand the commercial component?

I meant to ask this earlier and I forgot.

Um what it sounds like is it cannot be developed as housing, but it could potentially just never be anything.

It's possible that it remains undeveloped.

Um if that's kind of what the market pushes it to.

Um the I think there's been some discussion about um what the required percentage of commercial on the site would be.

Um the the zoning district, that mixed use village CZD has a default requirement of like 25 percent commercial.

Um we've found obviously in nearby sites on on MLK that mandating commercial tends not to be a productive strategy and to council member McCullough's point that there's some there, so requiring it right on site is not required.

Right.

That was not coherent, but you know what I meant.

Um thank you.

That's helpful.

Um I want to um thank the community members for coming out.

I know that you have um sat through a long meeting, and um we really do appreciate you coming and um and conveying um not just your concerns but your interests and things that you see from your perspective.

Um this is the third or fourth plan I think we've seen for this site.

Um I am very grateful for the work to really more closely align this with our complete community strategy.

Um I do really like um how you um how you showed us complete community.

I do think one things that that's missing is our housing goals.

Um I don't want us to pretend that's not a really important part of that work.

Um it is not that this is the town that this is somehow the organization's goal, this is the town's goal for a reason, and we went through a very long process to figure out what we need for the health of the community all around for for all of us.

So I do want us to really include that housing and um for me as one of nine um for sale housing is really really important.

Um I also think that the the close to a mile of New Greenway where people can walk or bike for recreation or access to Harris Teeter is a big deal for this part of town.

Um and I do think eventually this does need to connect to Weavers Grove and allow for people to access the really wonderful amount of retail and commercial in in Chapel Hill North.

Um I think with respect to the questions and concerns from the neighbors.

Um really pleased that the staff and the developer have come up with um greater protection for the specimen trees and for the things that I think we've had we've seen that have been a worry.

Um I also appreciate the additional modeling beyond what we require to understand this the stormwater.

Um I I will say I have been pushing really hard for us to talk about stormwater and to have a more coherent conversation and and we're gonna do that.

I also want us to set it to set our expectations.

Um I think council member McCullough put it really well.

We cannot require private property owners to remediate things that were done in the past that should have been done better.

That doesn't mean we can't be really smart about stormwater and do better.

But I also don't want us to set the expectation that we are going to fix problems on private property that have been flooding out their neighbors too.

Um we cannot require a new neighbor to fix old neighbors' properties.

Um and we can certainly think about systems and how we're going to do better as a town.

But Sean Tal, we will never ever be able to remediate that level of water.

I am almost six feet tall.

That water line was up above my head.

That is not something that we should be promising anybody, and nobody should walk out of this meeting thinking that we can deal with that level of water in any systematic way.

So I just think it's really important that we set the expectation clearly about what the town can do.

And that's from the first item on our agenda tonight or items not on the printed agenda.

We need to be really clear about what the town can do and what we can't.

Um as I understand it, um, what will be built will be similar or slightly less water than happens currently.

Um in terms of the mixed use of the commercial component, time and time again.

We've heard that commercial follows root tops.

I understand that we want that we want residential near existing commercial in this case.

Um request that I would make is that the developer and our economic development team continue to look for opportunities there.

Um and certainly um think about how the new development would gain from some sort of commercial component and that the existing neighborhoods as well.

And similarly, I know that our vision tier zero team will be working really hard to make sure that the future placement of the road and hopefully we can advocate for a light, but I know that's again not our choice, but I know that we always work really hard to make sure that if there's something that rises to the level of something we can advocate for with DOT, we will.

So with that, do I have a motion?

Just before we have a motion.

The I think this is fair.

If this is going to move forward, I think it's fair that we address the type D buffer that was requested for the entrance.

Um because I am concerned I live in this area, so I get to see it often.

I see the signs, the zoning signs.

Um I'd like to know what the developer's response is to that.

Well, I would say that we with two layers of buffer, there is the required buffer at the property line, and there will also be a second string of planting that is between the road and the townhomes that we already do feel like we are going, you know, above what the requirement would be between the two uses.

Um but that said, I I will say that there isn't a lot of extra space in there to do extra planting.

And if we had to move everything over 30 feet, I mean that's the width that that takes away your greenway draft.

Okay.

It just only so much can fit.

Okay.

And we purposely put town homes next to town homes so that the uses would be compatible.

I heard that about the compatible uses.

Could you then put in the 30-foot um put in the 15-foot tree plantings adjacent to the power line easement?

Uh we can put it.

There was a request for that as well.

Am I misunderstanding what that request was from our public?

I'm trying to be as thoughtful as possible and get as much for these neighbors as possible.

Right.

So there is a request that adjacent to the power line, the utility line, where it has to be 15 feet clear that there be another planting.

Is that already accounted for?

Or could you address it?

Yeah, we have we have the easement or the assumed easement is shown on the plans, and we do have some planting between that easement and the um road.

And we are also so the easement uh they do allow in the first bit of the easement to have also shrubs and understory things.

And so we would be able to have the eye-level um screening would be able to fill in in that space also.

Wendy, would it be 30 feet?

No, it wouldn't be 30 feet to it would not be 30 feet.

How much would it be?

I think we'd be looking at something closer to 22.

Is there room to make it greater?

Doesn't have to be 30.

Is there room to get greater?

Um we can explore if we can if we can tighten that up and we can also explore putting some opaque fencing into some of that space so that it creates more separation.

Okay, I appreciate that consideration.

Um I also want to be sure that folks understand that my desire to look at the stormwater is not to fix um what is happening down, it's not to make it worse because I already see what's happening.

So I'm not asking you to um it's great if you make it better.

I don't want it worse because what's happening now.

I know we need to wrap up, but I want to make sure that my comments are clear, and I'll work as hard as possible right now and be succinct.

That what those of us who are struggling with this, and that includes those who voted yes, is that we are very concerned about the damage that has already happened before Chantal.

And so that is what gives us great pause in why I voted no because of how dense that is.

I appreciate you working with us.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh Councilmember Ryan, thank you for your indulgence, and I will be very quick.

So I've heard this has been a really great discussion.

Um the things that I've heard is Melissa, thank you for your comment about mixed use being local, not necessarily site-specific.

And Louie, thanks for your derogatory comments about the leg.

I think that's what I think that's one of the big problems.

That they had to find a zoning category that you could fit into.

Right.

So I my question is I I think that it would be lovely to have commercial on this site.

I question whether it will ever be viable to be built.

Would there be any way to if you were released from some of your requirement to build at least some of your commercial property that some of the density could be taken off the leg and moved into that interior site?

So for clarification, you're asking me if I'll move the commercial to the leg.

If you, if we reduced or eliminated your commercial requirement.

So you know, just for all clarifications, the commercial piece that I'm talking about, I'm not really seeing it being like a retail center.

I'm really seeing it being something kind of small, right?

Something that's going to kind of pull stuff people in, right?

Things just for you guys, uh y'all all know I live here.

Y'all know I got three kids.

You've heard me say before, I got an eight-year-old, ten-year-old, and a six-year-old who lost his game last night that I coached in basketball.

So what I'm looking for right there is to be something that we would all want to go to, kind of hang out, right?

Not anything big.

I've been exploring like you know, putting golf courses, I've been exploring like tree house designs.

I'm not looking to try to put like a Dutch Brothers or Walgreens or anything like that.

It's really meant to be something that'll be kind of interesting.

I think the question is not whether the the retail is exciting, we would love it.

It's that if it's really not gonna happen, could if you were not required to do it, could you move the town homes into the middle?

Or some of the town homes.

Some of the townhomes.

We definitely can explore it.

Yeah, we definitely could explore it.

I mean, it's more than we could look at.

I mean, it's it would just be kind of copying what's kind of already there and moving it over.

I I mean I think that that might be uh somewhat of a solution to some of the problems that that we've seen.

I know that staff is now having to like wonder how we how we do that, how we do that.

Yeah.

And I wonder if it's a good idea.

Hold on.

We were just talking through some of the the mechanics for how that could happen.

Um it's not uh it wouldn't be a change to the ordinance most likely, just a probably a notation in the district specific plan that indicates that that area is kind of reserved for non-residential commercial uses.

Um if if you want to kind of give the applicant the the flexibility to make that change in the future, um we would just need to make sure that that's noted um on the plan.

And we wouldn't have to reduce there, we wouldn't need a variance for the or a modification for the for the commercial percentage.

Yeah, so the that's already been reduced to zero.

There's there's no mandatory commercial space uh on the site.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I also just when you asked about phasing, by the way, the leg is the last phase, not the first phase.

So just from an FYI standpoint, when we go to build a lot of things.

Oh, then I misunderstood.

Council, can I can I see um interest in um allowing the flexibility to do some of the townhomes in the middle if that works out for the applicant?

Can you like it to be a recommendation?

I I would yeah.

I mean, I would like it to be a requirement, but yeah, I would like to ask a clarifying question about that before I express my interest.

Is it um you know, would we just be saying we will give you the flexibility to do this if you wish, or would we be saying move the stuff from the leg over to where the commercial was going to be?

Because that is a hugely different proposition.

That is different.

And it sounds like we don't have that leverage in here because what's written into this is that they're not required to have developed commercial, correct?

But could we adjust the ordinance to make it say that they are required to move you?

Uh the attorney is trying to speak.

I'm sorry.

From what I've heard, it sounds like that's something that he'd offer.

That's what he's told this group, so that's that's that's what I'm hearing.

He would consider but is that that's a s you're selling that off, right?

You're selling the lake once you get it approved, you're selling that off to another developer.

Now once I get it approved, no.

Okay, then I misunderstanding.

I will be taking it so conditional zoning here.

Then because I don't build the townhomes myself, I will then be working with home builders to use their footprints of what they want to put there, and then I'll go through the site plan approval process as well as pulling all the permits.

So the home builder themselves will not come into this phase until it's ready for to start construction.

They'll do the townhome side, I'll do the other one.

Same as what we're doing on Old Chapel Hill Road right now.

I'm doing the apartment side, Stanley Martin is doing the South side.

Okay.

In the interest of time.

Council, you have been offered the option to allow the developer flexibility, or you can keep it where the middle portion is either some sort of commercial or retail, or it's nothing.

So we have to change it, right?

No, no, no.

I am asking right now council's interest in those two options.

Would you rather have flexibility or would you rather keep it for a commercial component that may never happen?

Those are the options in front of us.

But the issue is that the flexibility doesn't mean anything if we have zero assurance that that might happen.

If we give if we give the option of flexibility.

I understand townhomes.

But we can give all the flexibility we would want, and they can choose not to exercise it.

And so if we vote yes on something where they're allowed flexibility and that leg stays exactly the same, that changes nothing.

Of course.

But we're the choice.

That is the choice, and it means that there is the possibility that some of it moves into the middle.

Right now, that is not a possibility.

So there is a difference, but we are not able to require that that anything be moved.

It's about giving flexibility or not.

That is the question in front of you.

Otherwise, I'm gonna ask that we just make a motion.

We're not we're not approving a site plan now, correct?

Okay.

So I think I would like that flexibility.

Great, okay, other ones?

Yes.

Anyone else?

Okay.

So I would like a motion with um with an amendment to give you the flexibility.

So moved.

Second.

And I believe we are first.

Sorry, moving to close the public hearing.

So I moved.

Moved by Councilmember Ryan, seconded by Councilmember Nollert.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Nay.

You want to keep it open?

Okay.

I'll join the nine.

I okay.

I want to close it.

Motion passes unanimously.

Um I was gonna join Okay.

I need um uh motion to adopt R2 is it which is re reasonableness and consistency.

Moved.

Okay.

Move by Councilmember Ryan, seconded by council member Nollert.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Nay.

Motion carries eight to one.

Um now I need a revised O6.

So move.

Second.

Do you need us to say more?

Great.

Uh moved by Councilmember Nollert, seconded by Councilmember Miller Fushi.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Nay.

Motion passes eight to one.

All right.

Uh thank you very much.

Thank you for um to members of the public.

I believe that um the project has changed quite a bit due to your engagement.

Although it may not be the exact outcome you wanted.

I do appreciate that you all showed up and that you made the project better.

Um and thank you to our staff and thank you to the applicant for helping us to get to a better outcome.

All right.

Uh we have one more item and then a closed session.

So I'm gonna remind us that we can keep moving along.

Uh item number seven is a public hearing.

Uh as you're leaving, please do be mindful that we have to continue our meeting.

So if you can take your conversations out into the hallway, that would be appreciated.

Um item number seven is a public hearing for conditional zoning for 1165 Weaver Dairy Road, and Catherine Shore, our senior planner, is here to walk us through.

Good evening.

I will um welcome the applicant team.

Wendy Ramsey is here to represent that team as well.

And I will come back to provide the staff's recommendation.

And then we'll both be available to answer any questions you may have.

All right.

I will reintroduce myself in case the viewers who haven't sat through the list.

Like a long time ago.

Welcome back.

Wendy Ramson, I'm a landscape architect with Thomas Matton.

And you will all be happy to know that I really only have four slides here.

So um I am here to present the light bridge project.

This is uh start by showing you exactly where it is and kind of explain some of this.

So it is a small parcel.

It's an infill parcel.

1.8 acres.

It is on the south side of Weaver Dairy Road.

We have frontage on Weaver Dairy Road.

The uh to the west, we have a plaza that was built about 10 years ago that is medical offices and a pharmacy.

Um to the north, there are medical offices.

Um, and then a little further north than that is the um is the Carolina North.

This is actually just a walk away from the last project.

On the east side, we have Timberline Chopping Plaza, and I will just note that the buildings directly to the east of us are part of Timberline, but they're the outbuildings.

It's the bank, and it's what's there is we're sort of facing the service areas and the parking lot at the bank and the retail outbuilding that's there.

And then to the south and southwest of us, we have housing.

We have residential, there's some mobile home, and there are some multifamily.

So that starts to transition into the residential.

So I will note that this parcel is located in the MLK North Focus Area and the sub area D.

That area, sorry, that designation supports multifamily shops, offices, commercial townhomes for a secondary use.

And so it basically supports the mixed use that we are asking for here.

All right, this is the district specific plan that we are asking you to approve.

We are looking to rezone to an MUV to accommodate non-residential and residential uses on the same parcel.

That allows this infill site to act as a transition between the non-residential along Weaver Dairy Road and the residential neighborhood to the south and southeast.

So the parcel has two possible vehicular entries.

One is on Weaver Dairy Road.

That would by design have to be a write-in right out because there is a concrete median in the center of Weaver Dairy Road there.

There is another opportunity for vehicular access, which is down in the lower lower left corner, partway down the property line.

There is an access easement into the parking and vehicular circulation area of Weaver Crossing.

And we would intend to connect those two points and use them as a as our vehicular circulation in the site.

It sets itself up nicely for being able to push the non-residential right up to the street.

So there would be there would be the landscape buffer, and then there would be the res non-residential use.

And then we would have the parking in the service area that would be away from the street.

And in this particular case, we are looking to have that central area be shared.

It would mostly be used in the daytime, obviously the parking by the non-residential use.

But there would be trash collection in there that would be shared between the residential and the non-residential users.

And there would also be under the center part of the parking lot, underground detention, and that again meets the hundred-year storm treatment and peak flow and all that stuff.

And so that would be the mitigation that would handle would handle stormwater for the whole site.

And then we the area that is on the south side that is south of that vehicular access point is fairly small.

We are looking to do some infill right now.

We're looking at four townhomes.

We are asking for permission to increase that amount if we can come up with a design and find a builder that will build something that is more dense.

But but we will, you know, we are working to get what we can in there.

That would be phase two.

Let's see.

Okay, this is how the project is expected to develop right now.

You can see that we are looking to put in a daycare center that would be right up at Weaver Dairy Road.

There would be the landscape buffer and then the building.

There would be a pedestrian connection that comes all the way through the site.

There's a sidewalk that comes all the way through the site to the back of the daycare to the housing, and then also over to the west to the sidewalk system that exists within the Weaver crossing development that's there right now.

That central area you can see it defined a little better now, how the parking would work, and then the on the west side, you can see where the trash collection is.

There's space there for trash to be able to be picked up, and then for the truck to be able to maneuver and get out of the site again.

And then the darker black lines in the center, that's the location of the underground attention.

Let's see.

Currently, the adjacent use to the east is parking and service yards of that bank and some retail space.

It's also down a slope, and there's fencing there that belongs to the other owner.

And so we can't do a pedestrian connection right now, but we would like the opportunity to have that be a possibility in the future.

We would love a pedestrian connection.

And I suspect that at some point in the in the future, that area will be redeveloped.

And so we are looking for an opportunity to provide spaces for interconnectivity.

We're going to allow for the increased imperial use on our site so that if and when in the future we can connect to an appropriate place on the adjacent property, we will have the ability to do so easily.

And then I think the last thing really is just that we've included pedestrian side walks through our site and connect to you know the north and the west.

Weaver Dairy Road has transit lines, has bus lines.

When you go just to the left of my image here, you get to Martin Luther King Gulvar, which also has transit lines.

And so it really is a great opportunity for a place of employment, a service, and some residential in a place that is already really well serviced.

It is truly an infill, an infill site.

And I will just uh close by briefly saying we did go to the planning commission on February 3rd, and I felt the project was well received there.

Um and sort of go quickly through these the consistency with the complete community strategies and how we feel we're we're meeting those goals.

Um this is a small infill parcel, and we have tried to do what we can to expand the uses and the services in the area.

The proposed housing, the units will be small.

I can't say exactly how big, but the developers looking at something in the 1600, 1800 square foot category.

Um, that range that's not going to be huge, you know, three, four bedroom units, they're going to be smaller units.

Um, the area is very walkable, and we are providing connections from within our site to all the existing sidewalks and that are in the area.

Um there's less than a quarter mile to two different routes and the future BRT route on MLK.

Um, as far as place making, one of the things we did backtrack just for a moment.

One of the things we did with the townhomes is we have provided a small outdoor gathering space for them so that they do have some outdoor space that you know we're not near, we're not right adjacent to a huge park, and the whole project is only 1.8 acres.

We're not providing a huge community green space, but we can provide some outdoor communal space for those residents that are in the in the townhomes.

Um, as far as respect for surrounding uses, we have put the non-residential next to non-residential, and we are looking for the townhomes to provide a transition between those non-residential uses and the existing neighborhoods to the south.

And then, of course, our stormwater is going to meet the the ordinance, the 100-year ordinance.

And that is all I have, but I'm happy to answer questions.

Thank you.

Do you want me to leave the plan?

Or oh, you're coming in.

Hello again.

I'm Catherine Shore with the planning department, and I'm here to present staff's recommendation for the conditional zoning application at 1165 Weaver Dairy Road.

This is uh located in the North MLK focus area, sub area D.

It has frontage on Weaver Dairy Road, and it is very close to the Martin Luther King Jr.

Boulevard intersection with Weaver Dairy.

It's also near Sparrow Street and Banks Drive, but they don't have direct connections to this site.

We are recommending approval of this project because we find it's in alignment with your complete community goals and the comprehensive plan.

We also believe that the requested modifications serve the public purpose, and we recommend that you approve this project subject to the conditions in ordinance A.

So a brief uh summary of this project.

They are requesting a rezoning from Office Institutional 3 C C D to MUV C C D.

I do want you to know that their initial application was just for a commercial use to neighborhood commercial, and through conversations with staff, we did suggest that they add this residential component so that would end rezone to the mixed-use village to align with your complete community goals.

The district specific plan would allow between four and 12 dwelling units and a non-residential use between two buildings.

And if approved, the project could build up to 104,000 square feet.

The non-residential and residential uses will make use of shared parking and refuse facilities.

They're not offering any affordable rental units, and they will follow inclusionary zoning if the units are for sale.

For context, this requested zoning district accommodates the land uses and development scale proposed, and the conditional zoning allows for site-specific standards while also allowing the applicant to request modifications to our LUMO standards.

We considered this application using your complete community goals when evaluating this project and found that it does meet the goals of your complete community.

That was repetitive.

We believe it's in alignment because it is consistent with the future land use map.

It's an infill redevelopment on a high frequency transit corridor.

It is a mix of residential and commercial uses, which is consistent with the feature land use map.

We also feel like it makes meaningful use of a constrained site.

This project activates the streetscape by reducing the uh required buffer widths on the frontage uh with Weaver Dairy Road and also includes canopy and understory trees for uh shade for pedestrians.

This project doesn't rely on vehicles and utilizes shared parking, plus encourages pedestrian connectivity within the site.

We also used our natural features model to review this project and found that there's minimal influence of natural features on this site.

The planning commission's review found that it was consistent with the comprehensive plan and recommended approval subject to the review of their recommendations.

They recommended considering adding more units, considering um preserving as many trees as possible and considering stormwater management.

So since the January 21st text amendment changes that this council passed, this is the uh this conditional zoning, well, any conditional zoning only requires one hearing.

And this is the first conditional zoning application that has come before you since that text amendment.

And so this is the procedure that you can expect moving forward for zoning changes.

The procedure before you that we are recommending is to open the hearing, receive and provide comment, close the hearing, and then consider resolution three of reasonableness and consistency, and then consider the ordinance approving the zoning.

And I'm here, and the applicants here to answer questions.

Thank you.

I would pass this right now, but let's go to questions.

Yes, Councilmember Miller Fushi.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, this is for the applicant.

Um do you have any idea of um how much more of units you could possibly get here?

No.

Uh so we did start off earlier with more units on site, but it really eliminated the buffers and didn't provide, didn't didn't leave any room for us to have some outdoor gathering space.

What number was that?

Uh it was five.

Five is and they are small units, they're only 20 feet wide, they're not huge units.

But um working with staff and working with the urban designer, we were encouraged to reduce that to four so it could fit in, and so it there could be some better amenity space outside some better gathering space.

Um the units are the intent is that they will be rental town homes.

Rental?

Yes.

Okay.

Have you thought about working with an affordable housing partner?

The developer has not uh looked into that too closely yet.

Um and I will say that you know, one of the reasons we've asked for the flexibility to go maybe up to 12 units is because if there is a possibility of working with somebody who can give us maybe like a stacked maybe we can get eight units, right?

Uh we're just not sure exactly what is gonna be there right now.

They don't have an architect on board for um for the residential, but they would like to provide as many residential units there as they can, and if they do go over the five units, then they will work with the um with the affordable housing staff and work on that.

Great, thank you.

Yeah, uh Mayor Pro Timberry.

Thank you.

Oh, I like this also in that area.

Um preschool.

So I'm curious about that.

I know that we need desperately need more preschools, but I'm curious about that area because there are two preschools less than half a mile from that.

So your applicant, your client thinks that they will have the demand there.

They they are aware of that.

Okay.

Not a market analyst.

Okay.

Uh so uh but so this approval would allow that that non-residential building to be used for almost anything that would be allowed in the MUV zone, not simply a daycare and a few.

Okay, that's so that's just what that's the that is the current plan.

Okay, yes.

Good.

Um would you consider would they consider later to do multi-use in that building, or would they prefer to keep it well?

They would definitely the developer would consider doing multi-use in the building.

Yes.

Um daycares typically do not like to multi-use with other uses because of some.

But but if it was going to be maybe uh, you know, I don't know, some kind of vocational school and and an office.

Yes, they could do that and with apartments on top, yes.

They would they would consider doing multi-use.

Or even senior and okay, I'm gonna go beyond.

I'll wait until comments.

That's it.

Thank you.

Okay.

We've been um our LUMO is our new LUMO is going to allow for um additional units by right.

Um that's the plan.

And so I'm just wondering, this seems like one of those examples where we're preventing perhaps something we want because of additional requirements that would be made.

Um, and I'm just wondering if you didn't have to um do a percentage of affordable on such a small amount.

Would you would there be the opportunity to make them for sale?

Since basically you're just going under.

Uh I'm not sure I'm very coherent at this point, but I guess my question is I I don't know.

Uh I'm not the developer, and and I don't see him here tomorrow.

And that's fine.

I but um that would be the second phase.

The first phase would be the north building and the infrastructure on the site, the parking, the vehicular access for emergency vehicles coming and going, and the underground storm detention and all that kind of stuff.

So the um the residential would be the second phase.

Okay.

Are there members of the public wishing to speak okay?

Um council, you have the opportunity to open and close the public hearing this evening.

Real quick comment.

Um, we've got a lot of seniors in that area.

Just consider it's a great marriage between um elderly in close proximity to very young.

So exploring that.

So I'm just gonna planting that seed.

Thank you.

Yes.

Uh move we open the hearing.

Second.

Um move to close the public hearing by uh council member McMahon, seconded by council member Miller Fushi.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Motion is unanimous.

I move R3 for consistency.

Second.

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

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

I move.

Motion is unanimous.

I move.

Um seven to approve.

Move by Mayor Pro Tem Barry, seconded by Council Member Miller Fushi.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Motion is unanimous.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for this.

It's lovely.

It is lovely.

Um, the exciting news is that we are now moving into closed session.

Would you please read make the motion?

I move that the council enter into closed session regarding matters related to project seats pursuant to GS 143-318 point one one a four.

And the Wallace Deck pursuant to GS 143 318.11A5.

Second.

Move by Mayor Pro Temberry, seconded by Councilmember Miller Fushi.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, please say nay.

Motion is unanimous and meeting adjourned.