Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the June twenty second meeting of the Chapel Hill Town Council.

We are glad to have you join us.

Um, as a note to the clerk this evening, um, council members, uh McMahon, um Fushi, and Knollert are not going to be with us.

Am I missing anybody else?

Oh, Miller Fushi, did I not say that?

I might be wrong.

Well, we'll go with it.

Um tonight we have one item on our agenda, and we will have an abbreviated agenda with just a proclamation, announcements, and discussion of the land use management ordinance for a limo rewrite.

Um, this was continued from our June 17th council meeting.

Um, before we begin tonight, we wanted to extend our heartfelt condolences to the entire Bedford family on the sudden passing of County Commissioner Jamesetta Bedford.

Jamesetta dedicated um decades of service to the Orange County community, serving in many roles and touching countless lives along the way.

Um, to many, she was a respected leader and public servant.

To those of us who had the privilege of working alongside her, she was also a valued colleague in front.

She was a beloved mother, grandmother, mentor, and tireless champion for persons with disabilities.

She was a steadfast advocate for inclusion and worked tirelessly to ensure that every member of our community was treated with dignity, respect, and fairness.

Even before we learned of her passing, we had planned to present tonight's Disability Pride Month proclamation, recognizing the importance of supporting and empowering people with disabilities.

In light of this loss, the proclamation serves as an especially meaningful tribute to a cause that was so close to G Mizetta's heart and a legacy she helped build throughout Orange County.

With that, I will try and keep it together, and I would like to invite individuals from the B3 community to join me up front.

Tonight we are pleased to proclaim July 2026 as Disability Pride Month in the town of Chapel Hill.

Disability Pride Month is observed each July to commemorate the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law on July 26, 1990.

This landmark legislation helped expand rights, opportunities, and access for people with disabilities and affirmed the importance of full participation in community life.

Tonight we celebrate disability as a valued part of human diversity and recognize the many contributions that people with disabilities make to our community every day.

As neighbors, advocates, students, educators, public servants, artists, and leaders.

This proclamation also reflects Chapel Hill's commitment to inclusion, belonging, accessibility, and respect.

Disability Pride Month reminds us that creating a welcoming community requires not only celebrating achievements, but also continuing to remove barriers and expand opportunities for all residents to participate fully in civic life.

Throughout this month and year round, we encourage our community to join us in recognizing and celebrating the contributions, experiences, and leadership of people with disabilities.

And thank you very much, Jacqueline, for making sure that we did this proclamation before we broke for the summer.

Okay, great.

All right, if you want to look over here.

Thank you.

Ready?

Thank you.

Thank you all for being here tonight.

We are very excited to hear about your new space on Rosemary Street and hope you will continue to engage with the town and congratulations.

I have one quick announcement to share in case folks missed it.

This Thursday, June 25th, the town is inviting everyone to help construct our own community poem reflecting on the United States of America as it celebrates its 250th birthday.

Chapel Hill Poet Laureate Dr.

Donovan Livingston, along with Chapel Hill City School's poet laureate Owen Russell, will be facilitating this workshop.

And if you're available, please come join in.

Council members, does anyone have anything else to share?

Councilmember Ryan.

Yeah, thank you.

So I know we're talking about the LUMO tonight, but since the focus will be on the alignment memo, I'd like us to address some process issues separately.

We've agreed that complete community is the vision for our town, and it's our job to make sure that the LUMO rewrite represents it.

Complete community is based on recognizing that a good place to live for everyone builds a community with multiple good things.

It means that as the elected officials, the decisions we make represent all our values, not just emphasizing some.

The draft LUMO is outlined in the alignment memo represents staff's best first shot at representing that balance.

Some of them a significant departure for the town.

Now it's time for council to have the chance to discuss the major policy points represented here and make sure we're striking the right balance for Chapel Hill.

A majority of council is asked repeatedly for this process.

I'd like to propose that tonight, as we go through Taz's presentation, we work to identify the high-level policies where council needs to debate the balance that's being proposed, and that we develop a timeline for those debates to take place in the fall.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tember.

Thank you.

I want to thank the staff and community members who helped to make Friday's celebration of Juneteenth another wonderful jubilation.

Jubilee, it was so needed.

The laughing, the dancing, the um fellowship.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to that.

On a separate note, I appreciate my colleagues' comments.

I also want to make sure that we as a council give our staff the opportunity to present.

That we um everyone has commented about the timeliness of this of how long it could take.

Uh and I would implore my colleagues to let them get through their presentation and have the stock points that they wish where they ask for the for the input from the council.

Um to do so, please, staff.

Let us follow your lead on this one.

Uh I do not want us to become divided over this.

I really want us to understand um be mindful.

Uh one thing that Jamesetta did that I really admired was she listened very well and helped me to understand her perspective.

And she did that by leading, by listening.

And I ask that we also um practice that this evening and um in any experience that we have with others.

Thank you.

With that, um we have our first and only item, um, which has our land use management ordinance or lumo update.

Um and Taz, maybe if we make you stand, it will go faster.

I'm kidding, but um, but I did see the the chair, which which was a bit daunting, but um, we are very uh pleased to have you um walking us through the Mayor.

We we vetoed his request for a lazy boy chair.

So this is the compromise.

Okay, fair.

It is terrifying, but we're gonna it's gonna be great.

No snacks.

I've got water.

We didn't know which let us know.

Sure.

You didn't provide a podium.

Yeah, we're we are ready when you are to take a moment of personal privilege and just say that I I feel like we're in a good place mentally to start working on this.

Uh we're this is a high stakes project, but it's not a high stakes moment in this project.

I know we got pretty sort of anxious about all this coming forward.

I like to um invite us all to reflect on the fact that this is just the beginning of the review process for council.

We're not asking for any decisions, uh hard decisions to be made tonight.

Uh this is a chance to kind of start linking your policy to the draft per provided by the consultant.

Uh staff's done some work here to try to you know make sure it's aligned, but we are absolutely committed to whatever process we need to work through uh to adjust, uh make it feel like it is your own council because it is your own, and you will be um hopefully looking back some years down the road saying, boy, did we do great work to move our community forward.

And this is just uh the start of of how we get there, and uh I appreciate your interest and uh I'm looking forward to working with you on this.

Thanks, Ted.

Um Good evening, everybody.

Um Taz Lago with the planning department.

I've got uh 58 slides, and I think my presentation will take anywhere from 45 minutes to six hours.

So no, no, no, no.

No, sir.

Um so just a quick uh reminder of what we'll discuss this evening.

Uh I will very briefly touch on some some issues about public participation over the summer months, um, give you all a preview of what the fall schedule with the planning commission and council could look like, um, and then we'll jump into the meat of the evening's conversation, um, how the draft LUMO potentially meets council's interests.

Um, really briefly um on public participation.

A couple of things I just wanted to highlight.

Um throughout this process, I think we've really tried to emphasize that our main goal uh when it comes to public participation uh is to make sure that the public is well educated about the process, about the content of the draft going forward and understands what their opportunities to speak directly to council and planning commission will look like.

Um and so with those kind of high-level goals in mind, um, we're planning to work with, or we we are already working with our communications and engagement department uh to build out kind of a schedule of of events, a mix of of in-person and online outreach over the summer to really get the word out so that folks understand what is in the draft LUMO, and probably most importantly, understand how they can be heard uh by planning commission and by you all.

Um we're also going to be conducting some user testing with kind of key stakeholders uh that work with the LUMO on a technical basis, kind of in their day day-to-day work.

Um it's really one of the best ways to stress test the document and hear from folks again that understand the document on a more technical level.

Um the other thing that's not on the slide, but just a reminder uh you know, a draft of the LUMO will be shared soon.

Um staff really want to empower both the planning commission and you all uh to understand that document as fully as you possibly can before we get to the fall.

Um and so we're offering this notion of office hours throughout the summer as a way to again have council members and planning commission members sit with and and understand the LUMO from staff.

Um it's not an opportunity to workshop the material, but a great opportunity to ask clarifying questions and again just gain a deeper understanding of the document before jumping into uh public deliberations in the fall.

Um which brings me uh to the next point.

What is uh a potential schedule of those public deliberations in the fall going to look like?

Um as you can imagine, um there's a lot of kind of different interests to balance when we look into the fall.

And so what we're proposing is um a potential schedule that that allows for um approval of the LUMO by the end of the year, um, but it's just one potential timeline.

Um as we've kind of worked out this schedule, as you all can imagine.

Uh some of the the most important balancing interests here are urgency.

We want to get this work done as quickly as possible, but also deliberation, right?

We we want this to be a deliberative process in which all the relevant stakeholders um are able to grapple with difficult issues uh in a way that is meaningful for them.

Um so with that, again, we're laying out a potential schedule for the fall, um, but ultimately the ball is very much in your court.

Um you can always add additional meetings.

As you'll see, the schedule is already packed pretty tight, so there isn't necessarily going to be an opportunity to add meetings, kind of infill the schedule.

Um, but if we need more time, that is absolutely your prerogative to have that deliberative process uh that we know that that you all and and the town kind of deserve.

And so here's just kind of a brief overview of of what that schedule in the fall could look like.

Um we've heard an interest in continuing some work session like discussions before jumping into the official legislative process.

Um so we've we've built out an opportunity for both the planning commission and council to have at least two work sessions in the fall, um, kind of in sequence.

Um more work sessions can be added.

Um then again moving into the legislative process.

Uh the goal with the summer leading into the fall is for you all to take the next kind of six weeks to two months to really deeply understand the draft of the LUMO and then come back in the fall and start those higher level policy discussions that Councilmember Ryan highlighted earlier.

We'll use, we'll continue to use the alignment memo as kind of the main scaffolding for those discussions, and then go into the legislative process.

And that's when once we start the legislative process, the ball again is very much in your court as to how much time is needed to approve the new LUMA.

Any questions on kind of those first two areas before moving into the star of the show?

Councilmember Ryan.

Yeah, thank you.

And I I thought you did a great job during the planning commission thing of getting your presentation out as Councilmember Barry was saying, and then balancing this question.

So that worked very well.

I just to comment on the community engagement.

So I think that this is because this is such very, very complicated stuff.

Um that right now, when I looked in the memo and looked at the engagement, there was kind of that you were doing pop-ups and you're doing that kind of thing, which I think are very effective for letting people know what's going on, right?

They can understand that that's happening, but with something this complicated, I think it's going to be very difficult to actually convey what's going on, you know, the the meat of what were what the changes will be in a situation like that.

So I would encourage you to think about um instead of just having the one open house.

I know Durham structure their open houses around the different topic areas.

I don't think we need one to explain better graphics, and I think I think we can do that, and some could be combined.

I just think your topics are very complicated.

Um speaking to that, because you're going to only have limited opportunity with um with our community members, I think everything that we can show graphically we should.

So I would pick a representative neighborhood and just say these are the changes we're proposing to stormwater regulations, and that's what it would mean here, or setbacks or whatever, just so because then people it will be very difficult for most people to read the ordinance language or to read the alignment memo and really understand what those things mean.

So I think the more that we can present graphically the better, and it will help us as well.

Um I certainly agree with graphics.

I guess one question is in terms of user friendliness, that one to me feels like part of we want to make sure that we're communicating and telling that story, but like I don't know that there's a lot of policy decisions about user friendliness.

Like it is what it is, right?

Like that was part of the why of rewriting it, right?

But I mean, is there really a decision point there, or is it just like making sure people know that it's happening?

Yeah, and I think again, these are kind of high-level um topic areas based on the the five interests that were identified by council.

Um I'll just note the user-friendliness uh topic area also includes uh like procedural efficiency, um, which gets tied into you know buy right thresholds and and things of that sort.

Um there is ultimately a lot of overlap between some of these topic areas, so um, we're by no means wedded to you know spending a certain amount of time on on any of these.

Okay, yeah.

And certainly I can see that having some, I guess, or maybe the public will just want to know how it would be easier for them on like smaller things, but I think for bigger projects, right?

The public is not gonna have a lot to say, or hopefully not care too much about um.

I guess my only other question is about um in those regular business meetings.

Where are the places where we see the trade-offs and the and you know, talk about the options?

I guess the options and trade-offs is the piece that I'm the most kind of focused in on, or to me, I don't of nine.

I'm not as worried about all of it.

I just am kind of like pinpointing where are the policy decisions and because I'm not an expert, I need help.

I need your help, understanding what the options are, and then how we kind of think through the trade-offs that are implicit in those things.

So is that part of those conversations?

Yeah, very much so, and I hope that this evening's conversation will also be kind of we we hope to talk through trade-offs and and options this evening.

Um we very much want this evening's conversation to be kind of a preview or precursor of what uh the discussions in the fall would look like.

Um the discussions in the fall just build on the fact that by that point you will have all become very well-read experts in the draft ordinance, right?

And no, no.

So it is really just uh it's an opportunity to continue uh the discussion that we hope again, as manager Voorhees said, start tonight.

Thank you.

Okay, and we can keep going.

Um so with that, let me jump into council alignment.

So the alignment memo that we shared with you all um in uh preparation for this evening's meeting is really intended to do um kind of a an somewhat odd thing, right?

Translate or help explain, right, how the policy guidance that we have received from from you all, how the policy guidance of the planning commission and council has set forth over the last over two years of discussions.

How can that policy guidance be translated into a regulatory framework?

Um this is your document that we are we're moving forward.

Um staff has had kind of a uh a front seat to to helping with that translation, um, but ultimately it's it's your policy guidance that is kind of being given life through a regulatory framework.

Um we've been able to work with a team of consultants that have helped shape what that can look like.

Uh we're drawing on on their expertise, their understanding of other communities, including communities in North Carolina.

We're drawing on staff expertise from a broad range of disciplines again to help uh mold right what policy guidance can look like in a regulatory framework.

And so our goal for this evening's conversation is to walk through those high-level interests that were identified by council in April, identify um opportunities for those interests to be implemented as regulation.

And what we need to hear from you all is are we on the right track, right?

Are we implementing this regulatory framework?

Are we putting forth a document that is kind of fit for service that that implements that policy guidance?

And so with each of the items we'll discuss this evening, um, I think a cadence that worked really well with planning commission was to talk through a particular um kind of policy interest, identify some ways in which that can be translated into a regulatory framework, and then stop for questions, comments, and feedback from you all.

Um the alignment memo is discussed.

Obviously, we'll have the LUMO draft shared within uh the next uh few weeks along with some summary materials to help folks again understand and dig deeper into uh the document.

So with that, um I want to go ahead and just outline um as a reminder the five kind of major policy areas that were identified by council in the April work session.

Um these all fall under the broader umbrella of three overarching goals of complete community, sustainability, and equity uh within those three uh council identified the five you see on your screen.

Um and as we'll walk through for the rest of the meeting, within each of these five policy areas were more specific interests identified by council.

So to just go ahead and dive into it.

Um that first policy area of user friendliness, as I mentioned earlier, it's it's both a matter of uh organization, kind of basic.

Is this a usable workable document?

Uh, but then also administrative processes, right?

Are the town's administrative processes working towards our goals or or hindering them?

And so uh within that um policy area, council identified uh, I think it's six uh more specific interests.

Um I'll I'll note I think there's a good amount of of overlap between some of these.

Um some of the the medier topics uh would be I'd say items three and five.

Um so would likely spend more time on on those two if that's kind of amenable to council, um can also just kind of move quickly through uh the others as well.

Um before I kind of move on, um, would council prefer that I could just kind of stick with items three and five, or do you want to go through all of them at least briefly?

Council, would you like all or two?

All at least briefly, I think.

That's fine.

Others six, I think I'd like to just understand better.

That's fine.

Okay.

Briefly all, but focus on the Yep, you got it.

Um, so making the LUMO clear, intuitive, and easy to use for all audiences.

Um I think this one, again, it it's something that you would expect from any modern public-facing document.

Um, we want to use plain language as much as possible.

Um we're we're reorganizing the LUMO in a way that I think makes intuitive sense.

Um, trying to make sure that information is where people would expect it to be.

Um, just a quick example of that.

Currently, our RCD regulations are nowhere near any section of the ordinance that is titled environmental regulations or anything like that.

They're tucked within a subsection of our overlay zoning districts section of the ordinance.

So somebody that's just kind of briefly scanning through today's LUMO, you could forgive them for for not knowing that we have really robust stream buffers.

Um that's a sort of reorganization that we're really aiming for, making sure that information is where people would expect it to be.

Um and then to Councilmember Ryan's uh point earlier, a lot of the topics in LUMO are are best explained through graphics, and so we're really making sure to lean hard into using graphics as a as a meaningful way of conveying information that again is is sometimes best conveyed through graphics.

Um as I'll do with what basically all the slides going forward, can make a take a quick pause for questions, comments, or or feedback on this item.

All right.

Um this next one, uh there's this notion of making sure that there is better predictability um in how we kind of define permitted uses, less ambiguity in how we define permitted uses.

Um the LUMO is going to take a slightly different approach to talking about permitted uses in in the draft.

Um for those that you know, just kind of a primer on where permitted uses fall in in how LUMO regulates land use.

This is one of the key areas that we regulate, right?

What are the activities that you can do on a particular piece of land?

And when somebody's looking to you know do do do due diligence on their land, it's one of the first things that they look at, right?

What am I allowed to do here?

Um and so we're we're looking to define those permitted uses in a way that uh is both a little bit more reflective of kind of modern business types, um, understanding that there's a lot of flexibility and it's and it's a dynamic environment.

And so making sure that we're defining those uses in ways that are broad enough uh to give um a relatively decent amount of flexibility, um, but with enough again specificity that we're not having people just kind of guess as to to what may or may not be permitted on their land.

Um we've also found that um uh a key feature of the new LUMO is um being a little bit more clear about how temporary uses are defined.

Again, it's it's kind of a technical element of the the new ordinance, um, but hoping to make it again much more clear about how kind of short-term one-off events are are regulated and permitted on on any given piece of property uh any questions or yeah.

So um in am I remembering correctly though, I think it was in the omnibus that we changed the way we do uses.

So it used to be that unless something was explicitly stated as a use, you couldn't do it.

Like if we didn't list dog grooming salons and you want a dog grooming salon, you couldn't have one.

And then we changed that to say if something new came in, it would be the next closest appropriate use.

We did we did make that change in the ordinance.

Um it was it's it's essentially a technical correction because state law requires that we treat unlisted uses that way.

Okay.

Um we can't have a blanket prohibition on unlisted uses.

So for some time now we've been required to, if a use is unlisted, we we have to analgize it.

So we're just make we just made that more clear.

Great.

And so I guess it's it's the data center question that comes up for me.

And is that um do we have uses that are that we don't permit or yeah, we um we are anticipating to account for data centers in the ordinance?

Um with it's a really tricky kind of balancing act between creating that specificity, um, dealing with some of the downzoning restrictions that have been imposed by the state, um, but we are looking to address that.

Okay, and then in things other than data centers, or is that your primary focus?

That was um the one of the biggest uses that we grappled with.

Um I'll mention um adult businesses and adult establishments were another thing that we we recognized were not explicitly listed in um the current LUMO, but most communities find find some benefit in being more uh restrictive of those types of uses.

Thank you.

All right.

So I had one question that came to mind, which was um how are we thinking about the downzoning prohibition?

Or I know that we are pretty downzoned anyway at the moment, but I guess how does that impact how we're kind of approaching or how we need to think about um I guess you know, updating the zoning map, or like does it actually matter for the LUMO?

Like how does that how do the kind of continuing things coming out of the General Assembly impact how we're I guess thinking about what we do and what we don't do?

Yeah.

Um I'll say it it matters tremendously, but we're not overly anxious about it.

Um as you mentioned, there's there's actually a huge benefit for once to the fact that Chapel Hill is is very downzoned already.

Um a large part of what the new ordinance is doing is is increasing opportunities for new development.

Um that being said, we we know that there's some fine-tuning to do.

Um we have some some clues about how the law is being used right now with with Durham as an example.

Um and so we are we're still working through kind of putting the final touches on a strategy, but it is it is top of mind to make sure that we can move forward um without you know undue uh cause for concern.

Thanks.

Did I see your hand right now?

Okay, thanks.

Okay, so I think this is um kind of the first of the the two topics in the the user friendliness um policy area that um I think will will merit some significant more discussion.

Um the the general interest here was to streamline development application and review processes while ensuring administrative pathways support complete community outcomes.

Um there's a couple of things that um the new LUMO could do to support these interests.

Um in large part this focuses on again administrative efficiency, making sure that the town's review processes uh move the ball forward rather than hinder us from getting the things that we need.

And so the uh the first thing that the new LUMO could do to move in this direction is to look at Blue Hill, right?

One of the parts of town where we've already seen the benefit or at least the the effect of a more streamlined development review process, um, but look to really bring that in line with with best practices.

And so what the new LUMO could do is um essentially take away uh a portion of the approval process required for projects in the Blue Hill district.

Um that would specifically be the role that the community design commission or the CDC plays in that approval.

Um for those that aren't familiar with how Blue Hill works, um, projects that go through the Blue Hill Development Code require two different approvals.

They require a certificate of appropriateness that is currently uh issued by the CDC, uh, and then they require a form district permit that's currently issued by the town manager.

Those two review processes are both administrative processes.

Even though the CDC is a public body, uh they are not performing a quasi-judicial action, and they're certainly not performing a legislative decision as you all would.

They're performing a administrative action, which is that they are tasked with making a decision based on the specific kind of enumerated criteria in the ordinance.

Um what we have found is that there's a lot of really significant overlap between the CDC's uh certificate of appropriateness approval and the town manager's form district permit approval.

Um this is similar to the dynamic that you all addressed with the omnibus text amendments earlier in the year regarding site plan review, um in which both the town manager and planning commission were making um administrative decisions about the same project.

Um and so this this creates an opportunity to again make the the Blue Hill code uh more kind of efficiency driven uh without materially changing what the built outcomes look like, especially when it comes to complete community outcomes.

Um because the CDC's review of a project can't force a project to do something that the code doesn't already require it to do.

In a lot of ways, it's a great example of how relying on a on a well-written code, code that has baked in community benefits and baked in kind of concerns that represent the sort of development we want to see.

Relying on that code gets us a lot of outcomes that we we want to see.

We know that there are limitations to what the Blue Hill code calls for and requires, but those limitations aren't gaps that are filled by the CDC's involvement.

And so this is one, I think, major way that we can kind of move the ball forward while still making sure that we are getting uh substantive complete community outcomes and just the broader complete community outcome of better procedural efficiency.

Um looking at kind of the other end of the spectrum, uh we know that a lot of small-scale projects get caught up in permitting requirements that can just gum up the works, right?

Can slow down the ability of a small business or a small commercial property owner uh to do even just minor work on their land under today's rules.

If you so much as put a shovel in the ground on a commercial property, you technically need a zoning compliance permit.

Um we we know that that's not necessarily the most efficient way to move the ball forward, especially when we're dealing with kind of minor work on commercial property.

And so what we're what the new LUMO could do is basically align a long-standing exemption for residential property that allows, you know, I'm forgetting the exact thresholds, but it's something to the order of 500 square feet of impervious surface, 1500 square feet of land disturbance, um, projects that are outside of any sort of RCD floodplain, any but environmentally sensitive land, um, projects like that to proceed without a permit.

It doesn't relieve the property owner of having to comply with all of LUMO's standards.

It just relieves them of the procedural hurdle of needing a permit.

Um then finally there's the question of special use permits.

Um we know that this is uh an application type that comes with some very significant procedural rules that are as different as you could get from the bread and butter work, uh, the legislative work of the town council.

Uh the Board of Adjustment, on the other hand, only deals in quasi-judicial decisions like special use permits.

And so following the lead of other communities and placing quasi-judicial decisions in the hand of a hand of the Board of Adjustment again is uh is a good way to um make sure that that particular process is in uh well-trained and well-equipped hands and allowing council to again take that step back and make the the legislative decisions about what type of a use merits a special use permit rather than being in the the project-by-project approval of special use permits.

Um thing I'll just note before um kind of turning things over to you all for for feedback.

Um the changes that we're proposing regarding the the CDC's involvement in Blue Hill do open a question as was highlighted in the alignment memo regarding kind of the future of the CDC without certificates of appropriateness, um the CDC wouldn't really have any other major substantive development review approvals in their wheelhouse.

Um they'd primarily be holding on to kind of older, small scale approvals from old um entitlements or or development review processes.

Um it's an opportunity to think whether it's it warrants kind of allowing the CDC to be sunset um within kind of a period of time after the new LUMO is adopted.

Um with those three kind of major items in in mind um with happy to turn it over for questions or feedback.

Council.

Councilmember Ryan as a shock.

But others can talk to you.

But yes, of course we've in terms of the Blue Hill, I think the other two are fine.

The Blue Hill district, uh, does Brian Peterson regularly review Blue Hill projects?

Yeah, so one of the um one of the elements of the form district permits, the administrative process has always been this urban design assessment.

Um for the early years of the Blue Hill Project uh Blue Hill Code and district, that urban design assessment could be completed by a private third party, um, but nowadays it's it's Brian.

So it it's a heavy review by um somebody that we've obviously seen their good work.

Yeah.

Um so I in terms of the CDC sunsetting issue, I think that's a good thing to put a pin in for a possible discussion at a council meeting, why they think that would work.

Um and right now the CDC are how do variances in Blue Hill get approved?

Yeah, so the Blue Hill Code allows for something um called design alternatives.

Um and that's a phrase that is used um in a in a lot of different ways throughout the Blue Hill Code.

Um, but for most of what's identified as potential design alternatives, uh the Blue Hill Code sets out specific criteria for that have to be considered in order to grant that um design alternative.

Um for a lot of those alternatives, it also sets kind of uh maximum and minimum parameters.

So it'll if it's if it's a um a metric based on a certain measurement.

Yeah, that's yeah, yeah, you don't have to do that.

Yeah, it gives you some give you some wiggle room.

Um and that is a um a procedure that could be kind of turned over to the town manager again, because there are clear guiding principles in the code.

Yeah, I guess what I would suggest is that for things like modifications and design alternatives, if the CDC is no longer part of it, I would love to have the urban designer step in and that help with that.

Thank you.

Uh Mayor Partin, and then Councilmember Sharp.

Thank you.

Um I was fortunate enough to be the liaison to the community design commission the last two years, and I heard questions arise from that group that I I don't know if they were uh raised by the staff.

And so that's where I have some concern about I couldn't see the the duplication at the time because the body, the the volunteer body was addressing it.

And one of the issues was regarded the facade.

How do you make sure that people understand where they're supposed to enter the building?

And that seems simple, but it was something that had been overlooked by at least two developers.

I remember that being raised.

And so I would want to have the um the confidence that to see it in the in your system where you will address those things.

And I think you all may have stepped back because the volunteer board was doing it.

So for me, it's just a matter of how do I know that that's going to be addressed.

Help us understand that.

Yeah, and I think it's a it's a really good opportunity if we were to get the green light on on what this process could look like.

Um it is a like you said, kind of, I think staff have stepped back on certain issues.

It's a really great forward to step, it's a really great opportunity to step forward on those issues and make sure that we are engaging with applicants on a proactive basis as early as possible and working through those issues.

Um they might not be regulatory.

I think sometimes what the CDC was doing was was just bringing their their understanding of good design into the discussion, um, not necessarily again on a regulatory basis.

Um, and that is absolutely something that staff will will kind of carry the torch on.

Just want to make one more comment.

I did hear often um I sensed um some frustration amongst the members of that body because they would make recommendations and then someone would say, but they're not bound by it.

Um so okay, thank you.

Councilmember Sharp.

Um I would be curious in the at some point in the future to get some more specifics about the permitting requirements that small scale commercial because it exists some permitting requirements, and I'm sure some were like you have to make sure the buildings aren't going to fall down, et cetera.

Um, but yeah, I would just be interested in getting more specifics about that, having been on the receiving end of some of the pain points of that process, um, just and having heard anecdotally from other business owners about how painful and um sort of um not just painful but truly uh obstructive the permitting process was for small-scale commercial projects.

Um so yeah, some more specifics, I'd be very interested in in seeing those.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I can just briefly touch on on some of them.

Um keeping in mind that this is all within the context of a LUMO amendment, it's the permitting processes that that LUMO kind of oversees.

So the big thing is this notion of a zoning compliance permit, which for a lot of projects is the very first permit that they require, uh, really before they're free to do just about anything else.

So that process that permitting requirement would come out.

If say the CDC were to also be sunset, depending on where the small business was located, things like CDC review of sign permits, which I know is it seems like a small issue, but if you're a business, especially in uh Southern Village where their SUP requires CDC approval, it's just one more thing that gets tacked on to an already really long list.

So it's it's primarily um those zoning compliance permits, potentially some sign permits, um, depending on what happens with the CDC.

Um unfortunately, some of the more technical review, you know, building permits, health code, that kind of stuff, that's well outside Luma's uh kind of sphere of influence.

Thank you.

I'll just I guess my comment would not be to you at this point, but maybe to the manager, that then I I think that's something that we need to continue to address outside of the LUMO process.

Can I share that interest?

Um I um I guess I agree conceptually that um I don't I don't think that our advisory boards are at this point.

I think we have the expertise on staff to not have advisory boards doing that kind of review of specific projects.

Um I will say that when we had talked about sunsetting various boards, we had also talked about making our advisory boards as policy boards.

And so I think there should still be a conversation.

I don't necessarily even know where I would come down on it, but I think that um thinking about how if that board could be used effectively to give the council um kind of a way to look at um how things are going, are you know, or are there things that you know we want uh an advisory board working on, but I don't think that kind of taking on a regulatory role that then also has no teeth and is frustrating to them.

Is it is a good use?

I mean, so I guess I think boards can play a really important role, but I think we have to give them the right thing to do.

Um I absolutely believe that a that eventually, you know, we we're trying to get to the place where our form, you know, we're a form-based code would do what we want, and therefore we can move quickly to do the things we want.

I think Blue Hill for me is not that.

Um and it's not because it shouldn't have changed or it should have been a vacant lot with like a chain link fence.

That's not, you know, those are like I think that's a false dichotomy.

I think um there are things that when people were really concerned about it and we asked um the person who'd worked on it, they said, Oh, well, yeah, we skipped over this or this, and that's why it doesn't do what you want.

Or when our um complete community consultant came, she said, like, no, this is not an example of complete community, that this is kind of suburban density.

And so I guess to me, partially, I think we should get things right and then let you all go.

But I'm just not sure that one feels right to me.

And I also understand that if there's not a ton of places left to redevelop, then you know, there's a kind of a how much time are you gonna put into changing something that may not have a lot of impact?

So I can understand that argument.

I just think we I would like us to be able to use form-based codes more broadly.

I just think I would like us to do it really well and kind of show the, you know, that's good policy, right?

Is like we do it up here and then we get what we want down here, and I think Blue Hill just doesn't hit all those things to me, although I think it has really great places, and you know, yes, there should be residential and commercial and retail in Blue Hill, like of course, but I think it just doesn't quite do what I think it could.

Um so I think maybe my question too is are there updates we could make to Blue Hill to make it a better form-based code and then let it go and then let it do its thing, or is that just kind of a sunk cost of the major things have already been developed that maybe could have been better had it been different before, and now that's not a good use of time.

Yeah.

It's it's kind of a little bit of both.

So as you noted, uh most of the easiest wins or the most easily redeveloped sites in Blue Hill have been built out.

We're we're coming up, or I think we've just passed kind of the 10 year mark of the Blue Hill Code.

Um and so it is absolutely due kind of uh a refresh with potentially an eye towards that kind of next increment down from the large projects that have already been built with an eye towards redevelopment of some of the sites where we reasonably expect things will go in the future.

Yeah.

Um and so that's that's essentially a mini rewrite in and of itself.

Um when uh this project was originally scoped.

I think we always kind of thought Blue Hill would be left out of the scope for the most part.

Um as you can imagine, I think even in the last three years, the the way in which we talk about Blue Hill has evolved really significantly.

Um I think it's not as radioactive as it was when we when we first kind of scoped out um this work.

And so it's it's definitely on our radar to keep iterating on it.

Um and even in this rewrite, we are proposing um just some some technical corrections um to make it a more workable document, and we'll keep going.

Thanks.

Um I think the Board of Adjustment should be in charge of SUPs since they it is what it is.

Um and I certainly think that small scale commercial projects should be exempt, and I'm curious to kind of what that means or you know what that is responsive to or how that fixes certain things, but I think generally, as a concept, I would just want to know more just to understand it.

But I think that makes sense to me.

Any other feedback or questions, council?

Sorry, yeah.

Will the CDC be reviewing the design standards for LUMO and reporting back to council?

So we we engaged with the CDC um early on in the process around um kind of design related elements of LUMO.

Um we are not currently planning to go back to them with a review of the ordinance.

Um I think we found it was just it was a um we were finding it kind of difficult to get kind of the type of discussion that we I think needed at that time.

Um it's also a good example of um, you know, I think you all received a write-up on the new ordinance from from Brian Peterson.

Um I think that's really the direction we're trying to head in, um, having very knowledgeable staff being partners on this work.

Thank you.

Um always with the caveat, if there's anything that you're you see missing on these slides, please please let me know.

We can that can be part of the discussion for each of these going forward.

Um, so with that I'll move on to the next bit.

I think this next slide actually just refers back to a previous slide.

Um, this notion of making sure that information um is transparent, accessible, and easy to navigate.

Um we saw a lot of that really um building on what we talked about with one of the earlier goals of just making sure that Lumo is well organized, making sure that it uses plain language, that it speaks to and communicates to people in a meaningful way.

Um I think there's also been some some questions leading up to the council meeting uh last week about transparency, I think just with the public, right?

Not necessary transparency about uh the content of the ordinance, but transparency and decision making as we're moving into more uh administrative review processes.

It's just an opportunity again to lean on a lot of the tools that we already have in place, making sure that let's say a form district permit is being issued in Blue Hill.

Um, you know, we can definitely look into uh how can we highlight that kind of information uh in a better way using our our existing tools, um making sure again that that notion that like uh sunshine is the best disinfectant, right?

That folks can can understand and see why decisions are being made.

Um I'll just note it's it's a balancing act, right?

That when we share that information, we just have to make sure that we're managing expectations that we are not inviting comment on a decision that is bounded, right?

That that has kind of legal requirements and how the decision is made.

Um but we can definitely look into ways to better serve that interest of of transparency.

Um any questions or or feedback on that?

Yeah.

Um so another, I think very related um discussion is this notion of balancing efficiency um with the idea that there are certain community benefits that can't be achieved through administrative processes.

Um I think maybe of all the things that have been discussed or goals that have been identified, this probably captures kind of complete community most clearly, um, especially when it comes to just procedural improvements.

And so one of the first steps, right?

The most significant step in in moving forward on this is that you'll see the new LUMO include pretty different thresholds for when a project can be approved by right versus having to go through a council approval.

And so on the screen here is kind of what the new LUMO is, at least the draft is going to include as new buyright thresholds for development.

So these would become kind of the new default levels of development that would be allowed, assuming that all the other requirements in LUMO are met, right?

So new defaults of 30 or more units of residential development, 40,000 or more square feet of non-residential floor area.

And just as for the sake of comparison, under today's LUMO, in our R6 zoning district, the one that is technically intended for multifamily development.

You can't build more than 10 units without a conditional zoning.

And then we also have the so-called 2040 rule that says that regardless of your zoning district, if you're building more than 20,000 square feet of floor area or 40,000 square feet of land disturbance, you're kicked into a council approval.

And so these are significant increases to those thresholds.

But, and this is, I think a really important caveat, especially with the residential development with non-residential as well, they don't really start to bud up against kind of the lower bounds of what the town has traditionally seen come through as conditional zonings.

So part of this, again, these new thresholds are still intended to preserve the council's ability to negotiate for community benefits on larger projects.

And then for those projects that are going through administrative review, some of those community benefits, things like EV chargers, better tree canopy, um street trees, um better stormwater management, those are all just going to be baked in as new LUMO requirements that all projects would potentially be subject to.

And then we for things that we can't regulate or they can't require through the LUMO, as we'll talk about in various portions throughout the presentation, there's going to be incentives tied to certain community benefits.

Uh, again, to try to fill in those gaps for smaller projects going through administrative processes.

Any questions, feedback, or comments on this part?

Um I you didn't mention it here, but you mentioned it, I think at the planning commission meeting.

I think it's an important point here that one of the things that you're accomplishing with that second by asking for the by specifying the units, is it will help us get more units at a smaller rate instead of just doing a blanket.

I I really appreciate your efforts to do that.

I think that's really important and very much in line with what we're trying to achieve here.

So I think that's great.

Um and I you talked about the incentives tied are tied to community benefits.

I just want to make sure, I'm glad that we're baking a lot of those in.

I know one of the trade-off points I think we need to talk about is there's some benefits like affordable housing, and then where that is gonna bud up against some of the recommendations for environmental standards or tree canopy standards or neighborhood characteristics standards.

I think that's another place we're gonna have to be really clear about what exactly is being proposed.

And again, anything you can show graphically will be super helpful so that we can sit and say, okay, yeah, I think this is a great trade-off, or you know, for me having the affordable housing and allowing them to have no trees on a site is not a great solution as far for me.

So and you know, again, I'm gonna learn more about that, but just to figure out I think it's gonna be important for those to be some of the things that we talk about.

Yeah, absolutely.

Councillor McCullough?

Mike Ryan.

Um as you speak of closer because it's not coming out there.

Sorry.

I will, I was starting to pop, so okay, but remind me.

Um can you um can you just explain how you got to the that kind?

I I completely agree.

I think the paradigm makes a lot of sense to me.

I think making it so that people are incentivized to do smaller units, which is one of the only mechanisms we have to get at affordability, sadly.

Thanks, North Carolina.

Um can you just help explain kind of how you landed here?

And is it is it really just about um what kind of we think the places where we don't really get community benefits?

Is it driven by some sort of understanding of market realities?

Is it both?

Like how did you get to this as the number?

Yeah.

Um thank you for that uh question.

So um I think it's helpful to take them in in chunks, the residential and then the non-residential.

Um with non-residential, we know that the biggest community benefit um that the town has has placed the largest priority on when it comes to residential development is affordable housing.

Um so that was really our our starting point and the the kind of most significant piece of analysis that we did.

Um we we shared the results of this analysis during a work session now, I think well over a year ago.

Um we basically asked uh some uh folks that are well versed in both the development economics and kind of planning principles.

This question of how small is too small uh to provide affordable housing, right?

How small of a development can you get before the economics of providing even a single unit of affordable housing really kind of breaks the pro forma.

Um so they they arrived at a range and we kind of built out a uh margin of error because even that analysis based on data from from two years ago with changing dynamics in in the economy is probably already a little outdated, and so we we tried to build in a margin of error.

Um that was one major component, understanding just that smaller projects simply cannot afford to incorporate uh affordable units um into their mix.

And then we looked at, as I mentioned earlier, just the the history of actual conditional zonings in Chapel Hill.

Um if you look at um kind of every conditional zoning with a residential component since the beginning of conditional zoning in 2018.

There's only been two developments that were smaller than 47 units, and those two were Gaddis Court and Peach Apartments.

So mission-oriented, purely affordable projects.

All of the mixed income projects were at least 47 units and typically in in the hundreds of units.

Um so that gave us again that comfort that even with this expanded number of 30 or more, we're not really encroaching on the territory of projects that are already going through conditional zoning on the residential side.

Um we built up the numbers from 30, as you'll see, the kind of the higher intensity town center districts have a higher threshold.

That's just intended again to under to respond to the notion that development downtown is gonna be more expensive than in other parts of town.

Um the town center innovation district is not a district that currently exists anywhere on the map.

It would be an opportunity for the town to kind of strategically place it on the map if they you know, if if we kind of identified key locations.

Um that's the the residential component.

The um that middle column again was just with this notion that Councilmember Ryan mentioned, uh, not just wanting to express those limits in terms of units, um, but also identify just a total floor area limit so that we could get more units, but at a smaller average size.

The non-residential floor area is admittedly a much less exact uh exercise.

It's really an exercise engaging kind of town council's appetite for more buy right development.

Um we did a survey kind of benchmarking of of other communities around the state.

Most don't have explicit thresholds for getting kicked into some sort of council approval.

Um Asheville was actually a kind of a standout in that it has a clear standard.

Their standards are 100,000 square feet of non-residential floor area.

Um when you start to look at what that translates to on the ground in Chapel Hill.

I think there were some examples that were shared as part of the council questions uh last week.

Um this is just a judgment call, but we thought 100,000, roughly the size of a Wegman's would be too large for kind of Chapel Hill's uh just development appetite in most districts.

You'll notice in an industrial district, um, the new LUMO would allow up to 120,000 square feet of non-residential floor area.

Um but when you look at other largely neighborhood scale development around town, midtown market at 20,000 square feet, the uh the building that top of the hill is located in at about 50,000 square feet.

Um the um the shopping center that um I still call it FIDO, but I think now it's feeders supply company, uh Antanyas Cookies, which is also really good.

Um that's at about 40,000 square feet.

So a manageable scale of development.

Um so that's what the new Lumo proposes is kind of that new starting point.

Um, but ultimately it's it's a judgment call of what does council feel comfortable with.

Um also one other thing I'll notice just in terms of community benefits.

We typically find that commercial development, um, there's just less room for some of these other community benefits.

Um, and we know based on our our tax situation, kind of our general financial situation.

Um we really need more commercial development.

So it is kind of a community benefit in and of itself.

Council membership.

So are these, I mean, there are obviously way more than four zoning districts.

And um, so are these the only, and I I sort of am recognizing by the language that you use that you've lumped a number of different types of zoning districts together in the way you presented this.

Are there any other places that would have other thresholds?

Are these an example or are these the only thresholds that will be in the new LUMO?

Yeah, thank you.

So these are the only examples where the thresholds would be higher than they currently are.

Um there is uh there's at least one zoning district that has no threshold.

Um the existing OI3 zoning district would continue to not have a threshold.

Um, and it's it's kind of predecessor or its successor would also not have an explicit threshold.

Um it's used very sparingly around town and you know, could be used as sparingly or as not as as council would want.

Um then there's also the um you'll notice the the table here starts with mixed use districts.

Um there's the kind of traditional residential districts in town, so the R- districts, right?

Um the thresholds in those districts are not changing.

So it's currently that 20,000 square feet of floor area is the kind of maximum that you could build in those districts, and that's staying the same in large part because we just we would never reasonably expect large non-residential development in those districts.

We obviously have a long lot of interest in smaller scale, really kind of hyper local commercial development, but it's unlikely that that would ever need to exceed 20,000 square feet.

So multifamily districts in this table only refuse only refers to um mixed use essentially.

Yeah, anything else residential that doesn't include commercial just reverse back to that 20,000.

Yeah, and that's I think the best way to think about it would be the existing kind of R5 on down into the really low density districts.

That's where we'd be keeping the the existing 20,000 square foot limit.

Okay.

Um there's also um I think this is mentioned in in the memo, but the um the lowest intensity of the town center districts is the TC1 zoning district, and that would maintain the current thresholds.

Um that's really seen as a nod towards where that district is currently used, which is currently basically only the hundred block of East Franklin Street, so from Columbia to Henderson.

Um it's on the National Register of Historic Places, but it's not a designated historic district in the town.

And so that's just one way to kind of maintain some level of protection along that block.

Doesn't preclude higher intensity development, but just kind of make sure that there's still a strong kind of town voice in what the future of that particular block looks like.

And then there's uh again a couple of other caveat districts.

Um the MUOI 1 district, for example, um, would keep its current thresholds.

Um that's a district that's used in in just one place in northern Chapel Hill, and it it includes both areas that are outside of town limits and some areas with really significant uh displacement risks in town.

Um and so we don't want to drastically change the the thresholds there either.

Okay.

Um but with the draft that'll be coming out in a couple of weeks, um, all of that will be outlined in in very clear detail.

Um there's a a page and a half table that that outlines that, like literally district by district.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

So are there other community benefits that that this doesn't take into account if it's only based on affordable housing?

What is it?

I guess what is it not taking into account that we can't just require.

Yeah, so and we'll address this with some of the other items throughout the the presentation, but things like greenways, for example.

Um we can tell somebody we can have standards that say you must build a 14-foot-wide concrete path through your property.

Um, we cannot regulate that that become a publicly accessible community asset, right?

That that's not something that we can require.

Um it's something that we can have some strong incentives around.

Um, and so for those smaller scale projects, they'll have some pretty significant incentives that would push them towards that, if that's what our E to E map calls for.

Um, but otherwise we'd be looking to get that through a negotiated conditional zoning.

Um there's other community benefits like and um I forget the exact date, but we we talked through kind of the the community benefits that we we most often see come through conditional zonings.

Um greenways, we've seen some projects offer up um pretty significant amounts of um environmental conservation, way above and beyond anything that our current standards would call for.

Um that's also something that we again would see through a conditional zoning.

There, the scale of the project itself would likely kick it into a conditional zoning.

Um, you know, South Creek was the prime example.

Um any project that has 80 acres to preserve would likely be surpassing one of these thresholds.

Yeah.

So size is a it's a rough measure, but it ends up being a really good proxy for a project's ability to either have the land necessary for some of these community benefits or to be a development that's intense enough to be able to accommodate the cost of those benefits.

Thanks.

Councilmember McCullough.

Just procedurally, I want to point out that we're still on one.

And this is one of the least complicated ones.

And I'm concerned that if we're going into this much depth and the non-complicated one, that we will be here until midnight.

And so I just wanted to point that out.

Thank you.

Um other questions.

Okay.

Um next item, again, this one is uh, I think fortunately, really tied in with with some of the other items that we talked about.

Um the new residential thresholds are really tied towards supporting missing middle housing.

Um so that brings us to the end of the the main the first point on on user friendliness.

Um the next kind of large um area of of interests identified by council was around housing diversity, attainability, and supply.

You guys identified five different key interests within that.

Um, and I'll we'll move through each of those in turn.

And so when makes sense to do that, given that we're kind of doing questions and input at the same time, which I think is quite appropriate, but just wondering what you think makes sense.

I would honestly just defer to you all as to what you think is is most appropriate without knowing the topic that they're interested in speaking on.

Yeah.

I mean, it it wouldn't be a large detour in in the conversation if you wanted to take a quick break for public comment.

Um you guys okay with taking a break for public comment, just so we're not waiting until the very end.

Okay.

Um I don't think I need to go through the whole spiel of how we handle public comment, but um uh oh, here we here we go.

This is so exciting.

The table is raised.

Um so there's only two people, and um if you could both come on down and be ready, and we are very much looking forward to hearing from you.

Right.

First, we'll have Barbara Driscoll followed by Jeanette Bench.

Thank you.

Uh hi, I'm Barbara Driscoll.

I'm co-chair for conservation at New Hope Bird Alliance, the local Audubon chapter for Durham, Orange, and Chatham counties.

I also live in Chapel Hill.

Uh Newhoop Bird Alliance has a number of concerns with the LUMO memo to council.

A particular concern is this statement.

Some of the most significant opportunities for increasing by right to density density, excuse me, will come from adopting a new zoning map after the updated LUMO is adopted.

This is contradictory to best management practices and to the green growth toolbox recommendations.

A zoning map, which includes a citywide conservation plan and identifies areas where habitat should be conserved, should be step one.

Developing density rules without knowing where and how they will be applied does not allow the public to understand or know the potential impacts of density.

Studies on cost of community services have shown that sprawl is far more expensive than compact development, combined with protection of natural areas.

And I want to emphasize combined with protection of natural areas in this, as this memo concentrates only on compact development and not protection of natural areas.

Another comment which makes no sense is the recommendation to increase thresholds because development's good just because.

Considering the various challenges faced by the town, new development is a community benefit in and of itself.

I don't agree with that statement.

Chapel Hill should create a citywide conservation plan as part of the zoning map, which we haven't seen.

Council should put permanent conservation easements on existing greenways and repairing corridors to prevent future destruction of these valuable areas.

New Hope Bird Lines is not opposed to denser development.

However, this memo indicates more density without any evaluation of the consequences or planning for integration within our community, especially canopy loss and stormwater issues.

The protection of wildlife habitat increases resiliency against climate-related weather hazards for communities.

We have already seen the impacts of continued growth and more impervious service on stormwater runoff.

Greenways will conserve habitat if they are maintained, if they maintain forested areas at least a thousand feet wide over as much of the greenway as possible.

In addition, Newhope Bird Alliance advocates for improved lighting ordinances like dark sky lighting and limits.

Both Kerry Raleigh, Chatham County have incorporated a number of dark sky lighting practices.

Bird-friendly building code should also be incorporated that reduce window collisions for both residences and commercial buildings.

And 100% of the canopy trees and at least 75% of other planning should be native plants.

Public engagement is a critical component towards public acceptance.

To only have one actual public engagement meeting is not to respect the community.

Chapel Hill is an engaged and informed population who should be allowed more time and opportunity to comment comment on a document that will impact town growth and the environment for the next 20 years.

A more robust engagement process should be included that includes opportunity to comment and engage council.

And I have one comment just based on the current um presentation is um how will you enforce graphics in the LUMO?

Because I worked in enforcement, I'm not sure how that would work.

So that's just a question.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello.

Um it's going to be short.

I share many of uh new hoop Audubon's actual concerns as well, is not protecting the greenways or the green that we have in town.

Um I don't think it's even why go to the public, unless you can tell me exactly which addresses are going to be impacted by this.

Um this document, no one's gonna show up for show and tell um with any meaningful questions over the summer.

That's probably just wasting staff's time.

Um, you know, I'm reading this quarter mile from a greenway.

How are you gonna convince people to build greenways?

Um when now their neighbor, as far as I could tell, could build a seven-story apartment building next to them.

And I don't know for sure if that's true, but when I read the document, that's what I read.

So um telling them that we have this vision for more middle housing, especially when the taxes went the way they did with all this increased building, and then the majority since the commercial building went up uh appraisal value went up less than the residential did, the residents got stuck with the tax bill too.

So I think you're very theoretical, and unless you can show exactly what you're doing, which I can go into GIS in Orange County and map out a quarter of a mile and figure out what addresses are going to be impacted, then you know you're doing this, and when the first building goes up, that's when the public will notice.

And so um, and that's when whatever council will hear about it.

That's what happened with form-based code.

That's reality.

I mean, nobody but Barbara and I and a few other people in town are kind of town council nerds that follow this stuff that listen to council meetings.

So, you know, they're going through their life and they don't know that their property is now rezoned because it's a quarter mile from a greenway.

So um that would be my suggestion is to make it very practical, not make a decision until you know the properties because all the HOAs are exempt.

Do we know who's in a HOA?

Is it a HOA that'll enforce it?

Um conservation districts, historical districts, I don't know.

I mean, one was called out in the document.

But you know, this is like you're trying to implement a very good idea, but the practicality um needs to be spelled out there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's it.

Presentation.

Yeah, sorry.

That's mine.

Okay, that one's pretty sorry about that.

All right, so um happy to jump back in.

Um as I mentioned, the the next kind of major policy area um to discuss was housing diversity, attainability, and supply.

Um and the first kind of specific uh interest within that was this notion of increased density interspersed with amenities, green spaces, and connected to destinations by transit, uh, transit lines or greenways.

Um of the specifics um and how we um expect you know the new LUMO can translate this policy guidance into a regulatory framework is one to to increase uh that buy right residential density in most zoning districts, um which you'll see is that the new LUMO will will take kind of a an incremental approach.

Um in many zoning districts, the the default um density won't necessarily increase beyond what's already been accomplished with um the omnibus changes to things like minimum lot size.

Um that incremental approach um would be based on things like proximity to greenways, um proximity to to higher capacity roads like our uh collector streets and and arterial streets.

Um in each of those cases, what would be allowed is basically the next increment in density.

So by way of illustration, in in an R1 or R2 zoning district where the um the default intensity or or density is only two units per lot.

Um if the property was, as was mentioned, um uh earlier uh within a quarter mile walking distance of a greenway entrance, that next increment of density would be four units per lot.

And so that's what would be allowed uh based on that proximity to a greenway, or based on uh a particular property being located on an arterial or collector street.

Um and as you move up through the zoning districts, it's again that that notion of whatever the baseline density is, the next increment of density would be allowed near greenways or higher capacity roads.

Um that kind of system would would be in place until we get to the mixed use multifamily districts, and that's where um that higher by right density threshold really starts to kick in to promote more density in in certain districts.

Um but again, I think when it comes to meeting the interests in in greenways and transit, um this is a really solid way of doing that without having to rely on um a townwide zoning update.

Um any questions or or feedback or comments on this item?

Yeah, I just a quick comment that I second the planning commission's.

Oh, sorry.

I second the planning commission's um notion that we haven't updated that street designation map in a while, and that some of them may not be really where they need to be if you're gonna use it as a zoning tool.

Um I actually was looking at that map in conjunction with this.

Jumping in.

Um sorry.

Sorry.

When was that map last updated?

I don't know the last update.

Um I will say it's not um it's not the sort of map that is um is designated in the way that you might assume is you know, it's it's not a judgment call as to, or rather, it's not a policy decision that a particular street is a local street or a collector.

It's intended to be a very kind of factual analysis of what role does a particular street play in our our broader kind of network of roads.

Um and that's where you get arterials are just like in the human body, there are the big ways of moving people uh through town into other towns, you know, the big roads.

Um collectors get you that next level of um kind of uh access to a neighborhood, um, and then local streets are are the capillaries, right?

Just getting into the very the fingertips of of the street network.

Um so it's not intended again to be a subjective analysis or or anything other than objectively looking at where a road is positioned in the network.

Yeah, I would I would assume that it's like an objective designation that we use data to make those decisions um but yeah, if that hasn't been updated in in some time, I would I would think that that would be pretty necessary.

Yeah.

It's also, and uh I'll just note part of the reason it likely hasn't been updated town wide in in some time is that it's not something that's uh really amenable to changing much.

It's it's very rare that a street um unless there was some sort of major kind of infrastructure project.

Um it's very rare for a street to, for example, jump up a level.

A local street is almost always gonna remain a local street.

An arterial is almost always gonna remain an arterial by default the collectors in the middle kind of stay in the middle.

Okay.

So you don't feel like it's super critical that those maps be updated before we apply these.

Yeah, I mean, we'll we'll definitely take a look and make sure there's nothing that is kind of widely out of sync, but but by and large, it's not something that that's particularly dynamic, um, which is a benefit when it comes to um kind of pegging certain land use decisions to to something like that.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

I am curious, is it in the limo or is it somewhere else where we will talk about sidewalks or other pathways because um while I want density, I also want people to be able to move about safely.

Yeah.

Um it's it's in the LUMO um in part tied to what's on screen now.

So um one of the things if you look at the the collection of or the different designations of streets and then where we have sidewalks, our local streets have a a kind of a minuscule percentage of our local streets have sidewalks and we we have no plans or money or we we don't anticipate that to change.

Um once you get into our collector streets, you start to see a much higher percentage of our collector streets with sidewalks, um same with our arterials.

So higher capacity streets are where we we as a town um kind of channel our resources.

They're they're the first to get plowed when it snows, um, and they're the the first most typically for us to put um dollars and cents behind with public investment.

Um and that's why we would, you know, the the new LUMO would propose to to channel more density towards those areas um where there either is already robust infrastructure or we have the best fighting chance to get and build more infrastructure.

Thank you.

Um when we talk about the you know, the interspersed with amenities in green spaces, I guess is that a place where we're just not able to address it in the LUMO, but it gets addressed elsewhere.

It just feels like there's a like it's sitting there, but we don't have a way through LUMO or anywhere else, or it's just not telling us how we get that part.

So how do we do that?

Yeah, so it's it's really difficult to force the creation of new amenities or force the creation of new green spaces.

Um so a lot of this comes down to um getting as many people as possible close to amenities in in green spaces, or making it as easy as possible for folks to get to those amenities in in green spaces.

Um that's uh an element of you know being close to a green wave, uh promoting more density near greenways.

Um and then I'll also mention as part of um I think some other items through here, um, we are looking to promote green space and um again the the construction of new amenities throughout the ordinance.

Um and so we're we're trying to kind of hit it from from both sides.

Um get more folks near existing amenities in green space, and then promote the creation of new amenities and green spaces.

And so I guess what is the way then that we actually promote new ones, understanding that like, yes, it makes sense to have that's why we have a TOD plan, right?

You know, that certainly if you're already on a transit corridor, that that's the place that makes sense for more density.

But I guess um how do we address the amenities in green space then if it's um I guess off of a major transit corridor.

Yeah.

So some of it comes down to there are certain places where we we likely can't expect vast new green spaces.

Um but knowing that for larger developments, and I'll absolutely get into this in more detail, knowing that in larger developments there are opportunities to require some conservation um of existing kind of open space, um, that's a a major element.

And then when it comes to amenities, I think it it goes back to that that core element of what a zoning ordinance is, kind of channeling our former town attorney zoning is is permissive and restrictive, but it's not mandatory.

We we can rarely force somebody to do something.

Um we can tell them what they can or can't do.

Um so really opening up the here's what you can do part of that is a really promising way to get more amenities around town.

Um I guess the other question then is um, and I think you're gonna get to it later, so you can just tell me to hold on.

That's fine.

But um when we do talk about tree canopy and other things where then there are places where we're saying, well we're not going to require it if if XYZ and I guess I'm wondering how we kind of how are there other ways to require decent standards so that we are connecting wildlife corridors and dealing with shade and all these other things while of course not making it super prohibitive to develop new housing particularly at price points that we appreciate.

But I guess how do we think about that understanding that like it's not really if it was only aesthetics then that to me makes sense.

But I guess when we have these other really important kind of environmental and live a bit like you know making these places part of a bigger network of something then how do we kind of balance that or how how what are ways to deal with that?

Yeah I will definitely come circle back to that it's it's it's part of the uh the memo and part of the the presentation.

Thanks all right so moving on to the the next kind of core item here um and this ties back to what we just talked about um this notion of expanding permissions for missing middle uh middle income and missing middle housing in a mindful way um we're really looking as I just mentioned um to tie that increased density um to things like greenways and higher capacity roads um I think this is again just talked about all of this but this is essentially what I um talked about earlier where the the proposed baseline density as you'll see in a lot of these um zoning districts is not changing what is changing is that proposed additional density that's allowed if you are close to a greenway or if you're on a higher capacity road um I know that's essentially the same information we just talked about with the the prior interest um are you all okay with kind of just rolling into the next interest on this one I think my only comment on that one is that if we have people who are who are council nerds who um and this is you know not to call out our speaker but really to appreciate the fact that they're coming to talk to us but if they think that there's going to be a seven story apartment building near Greenways how are we kind of messaging and helping people understand what's actually being proposed like I think that's a fair comment not that I think we're doing it but just that how do we give people a concrete idea so that they do want to come and engage and they want and they feel like it's relevant um how do we help them understand what the changes mean and kind of what is something that would happen in a much high higher intensity zoning district than like our one.

Yeah I think that's just it's um you know we're we're only a couple of weeks away if that from sharing the draft ordinance I think as those details are kind of out in the public for for folks to engage with directly um I think I think we're really confident in what the the proposal would look like.

So that that's one element of just making sure that the information is is actually out there.

I I absolutely recognize right now we're we're only talking about it and in abstractions of level of abstraction yeah for sure.

And so that's one element and then it's incumbent on all of us right to just make sure that we are we're we're sharing that information in a in an approachable way and that's going to be a big part of what we work on over the summer to to make sure that you all are are well educated on on what the draft includes and the public.

Yeah this wouldn't be the sort of thing that would be depicted graphically in in the lumo itself but certainly I think I think maybe I'm hearing about the engagement right yeah yeah a light request that that this would be the sort of thing that we we work on some graphics to make sure that it's it's understandable and yeah absolutely into the summer and beyond.

Thanks I think maps and help helping people see like oh this is my house and this is what that looks like would be a way you know to productively engage people because I think often it's scarier when it's just a seven story apartment building next to my house and and um comparative things might be helpful because people tend not to think about what a single family only restriction is, you know and and you've heard me complain about some of the big huge things I've seen on on some lots.

So if you can say this is the worst that a single family only could do and this is the worst that um this fourplex could do on the same size lot that kind of comparative visualization I think would be helpful for an engagement as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

One of the interests I had as we were talking about as we're entering into this is stories versus feet, and making sure that people understand what a seven foot story apartment could be versus what a seven foot, I mean a seven story, not foot, sorry, seven story apartment.

That's like me height.

Um not quite there.

Okay.

Close.

But close the stories versus feet.

So I do you have an interest in that?

Is there going to be is that going to be addressed so that we're not running the risk of misleading people into thinking we had two projects that came up almost simultaneously.

I think we voted on them the same night.

And one was actually shorter than the other, right?

It was it was a seven-story commercial versus I think a 12-story residential.

People were up in arms.

It wasn't just that.

It wasn't, it was also where it was located.

But they didn't realize that the 12-story apartment or residential, the mixed use was actually shorter than that seven story commercial.

So that is I want as we talk about being plain spoken, I would love for us to address that.

Is that going to happen?

Yeah, so the the LUMO when it comes to maximum height, we'll only talk about that in terms of feet.

Something that is yeah, uh equal across.

Um to the next uh piece here.

Um we know there's this interest in maintaining or increasing affordable housing production across town, including within market rate projects.

Um quick things to mention here.

Um as we've discussed in in prior work sessions, um, we're really looking to build out a very strong set of incentives um that'll support smaller projects that are able to provide affordable housing.

Uh we know it's really difficult uh for small projects to afford it, but we want to kind of be in the fight with them and and provide a lot of meaningful incentives.

Um there's also an opportunity to make sure that the residential community priority process uh conditional zoning district, the RCP C Z D, um which council approved back in 2023 as kind of a tailor-made zoning district for affordable housing.

Um there's an opportunity to to continue to make sure that that zoning district is kind of um out front of the rest.

Um so a lot of the improvements that council made to the conditional zoning process as part of the omnibus were we're essentially taking the lessons learned from that RCP C Z D and applying them across the board.

Uh the Luma rewrite is an opportunity to now make sure that the RCP kind of takes that next step forward and continues to provide even more opportunities for streamlined review and kind of tailored uh but not over the top relief from certain um substantive requirements.

And so that's something that we'll be kind of weaving in uh to the new draft.

Um any questions or comments or feedback on on these items.

Yeah, just a quick comment on the incentives.

Um again, I would like to have a chance for us to talk about if there's a floor under certain things like stormwater incentives and tree canopy incentives, having those requirements waived, or if we're willing to go to zero on those, I think that would be good.

And also, I don't know if you considered offering incentives for environmental um actions as well as affordable housing.

So for instance, somebody who builds a very energy efficient house or installs solar or preserves part of their land or does extra things on the RCD.

Um I think that would be interesting as well, since that's another one of the benefits to the town that we'd like to uh encourage.

Yeah, 100%.

Um I'll touch on the environmental incentives um later.

Um, but just know that they are they're definitely there.

Um relief from environmental regulations is not expected to be a major part of incentives for affordable housing.

Um we we don't want to uh weaken environmental regulations to in in that particular context.

Can I just use first name for example candidate?

Yes.

Um yeah, I from my understanding from our previous small group discussions was that the development incidents would not they mainly be focused around.

Maybe I'm confusing this development incentive with a different development incentive, but my impression is that those incentives would mainly be centered around density.

That's right.

So this is these are specifically development incentives to support affordable housing.

And so those are going to be density bonuses, height bonuses, procedural bonuses, but nothing that's tree canopy, stormwater, et cetera.

And if anything the density, increased density might kick in stronger.

That's right.

Yeah, with something like subdivisions, for example.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I'm glad to hear what you said about not sacrificing environmental protection.

I'll have more to say about that when we get to number five.

Um but I but uh I'm not sure if this is the right place to say it, but I'm wondering about the possibilities of including affordable business as well as affordable housing as possible.

Oh, doing this.

Just not that's a thoughtful question, council member.

We can talk more about that.

Okay.

I was saying instead of I understand.

We can talk more about that.

Yes.

All right.

So moving on, the next um interest that was identified was this notion of encouraging smaller and therefore more attainable units.

Um ways that we we plan to do that.

One was was discussed already when we talk about buy right development incentives, and I apologize for that that 30 or 30,000 being so small.

Um, but one of the ways we plan to do that is expressing those thresholds of buy right development, both in terms of the number of units, but also in terms of an upper limit in terms of floor area.

So you could imagine a property comes through with 30 units by right, um, or they come through with with 45 or 50 units by right, as long as they're under 30,000 square feet.

Um just by default, those units are gonna have to be smaller.

Um and those are numbers that we can play around with.

Um obviously when you're at 30 and 30,000 or 45 and 45,000 as it might be in some other districts, you're basically pushing for sub-1,000 square foot units.

Um we might decide that that that's maybe too small, that that pushes us too far to the spectrum of you know uh efficiencies or one bedrooms, and maybe we want some more two-bedrooms in the mix.

And so we can play around with these numbers and and fine-tune them based on um on input from from you all and from planning commission.

Um the other opportunity to so that's that's a kind of the the larger end of the spectrum.

The other opportunity to to be promoting smaller and therefore more affordable or attainable units is how we talk about maximum size limits for triplexes and fourplexes.

Umly regulated under floor area ratio in in today's LUMO, which is just difficult, not particularly helpful tool for that particular type of housing.

Um what we're proposing with triplexes or fourplexes, what the new LUMO would do is basically use the same tool that we've been using for duplexes and just start to apply that more broadly.

You'll notice um, you know, the current maximum for duplexes is 5,000 square feet.

The proposed maximum for tries and fours would be 6,000 square feet.

So a significant increase in the number of units, but not a proportional increase in the total size.

Um so as you get more units, we'd be the new LUMO would be kind of kind of pumping the brakes on on the total size of those units.

Um and then another um opportunity here for for smaller and more attainable homes relates to manufactured homes.

Um the the existing LUMO has uh pretty outdated kind of mechanisms in place that really segregate manufactured homes from from every other type of housing, whether that's site-built construction, modular construction, um, and what the new LUMO could do is basically take a kind of homes are homes approach that manufactured homes, site-built homes, modular homes, they're all treated the same with no kind of arbitrary distinctions between construction type.

Um any questions, comments, or feedback on on these items.

I just want to make sure that we are I guess saying though that these are average unit size max, they are not, we cannot regulate the size of units, correct?

That's right.

Yeah.

So we can regulate the box, which is the overall the total floor area max.

But obviously I understand that we're nudging people in directions with then you know how many units you're allowed to and how much floor area max you have.

Yeah, so in that table, the middle column, the total floor area max would be the only regulatory element.

Um the the third column is just for illustrative purposes.

Yeah, understood.

I just think the public often thinks we can regulate that.

Yeah.

Um, so again, with um with this housing interest, another kind of critical interest that it I was identified is this notion that uh we're ensuring context-sensitive infill um that fits within existing neighborhoods.

Um so one of the tools that the proposed LUMO would include um is this notion of transition requirements.

Um these would be rules that apply it at the boundaries of zoning districts.

So um near downtown, for example, you have pretty high intensity zoning districts directly abutting um significantly lower intensity districts, uh, a district where you might have multifamily on one side of the property line and then a single family home on the other.

Um so these transition rules are really designed to ensure that there is a um uh a meaningful transition from higher intensity to lower intensity.

And so they would control things like the placement of potential kind of nuisance site elements, um, nuisance if you're a neighbor, right?

A dog park, a swimming pool, um kind of noisemakers.

Um they would control building height as it as a property kind of moves towards a lower intensity zoning district, requiring kind of step downs in building scale, um all with an eye of making sure that on those boundary lines you've got some meaningful and kind of gentle transitions.

Um there's also an opportunity here to again promote that infill development by allowing more commercial development in more areas of town, but not just opening up the doors to commercial development.

Um so one of the things that the new LUMO could do is basically identify a class of smaller scale commercial property or commercial uses like small scale retail, small scale food and beverage, and start to allow those to kind of permeate some residential districts.

Um I think 3,000 square feet is is the current proposed threshold.

Um, that you could do a 3,000 square foot shop, a 3,000 square foot restaurant in some lower intensity zoning districts.

Um if you're along uh an arterial or collector, we're not proposing to put you know a restaurant at the end of a of a small kind of residential cul-de-sac, but um allowing some of that uh development in places where you wouldn't typically find it.

Um we know it's kind of a difficult thing for some developers to do to be a kind of a vanguard of that type of development, but we at least want to create the opportunity for it.

Um the other the next couple of things I wanted to touch on really speak to this idea that um ensuring context-sensitive infill can be achieved through kind of generally applicable standards, um, standards that don't have to specifically target infill development, but just make for for good um just good public-oriented development generally.

Um so one of those rules is is our front yard parking standards that currently only apply to uh single family and and duplex development.

Um the new LUMO would would expand that requirement to triplexes and fourplexes.

So making sure that with these triplexes or fourplexes that would be allowed in more places in in town, um, that they wouldn't be just fronted by a sea of parking.

So really controlling and making them more in keeping with their their neighbors simply by having them subject to the same rules.

Um and then this has been, you know, this is something we're really excited about is this notion of street tree requirements.

Um once you get beyond fourplexes, I think the the idea is that street tree requirements would start to kick in uh for any development with five or more units or any commercial development.

And we know we you see all around town how much of a difference trees along or near the street can make.

So any questions on these?

Elizabeth.

I think this is just probably applies to a few different places, but I'm super pleased at how many times I saw street trees in the memo.

Um I am wondering if you know we are putting our sort of like flag in the ground about street trees and how many of the places where we are like we require street trees, is that going to be a move point because of DOT and utility easements?

Like we can say we want street trees, but I mean I know that that is generally like the the fly in the ointment for street trees.

And so will our requirements just be completely nullified by those other organizations.

Yeah.

That that is the biggest challenge when it comes to street trees, that and fire access.

Um what we are are planning to do is is have the proposed LUMO kind of set out criteria that the the first place that trees should go is is either in the right of way or no more than 10 feet in from the property line.

Um so really pushing for let's have these trees close to the street.

Um in a lot of cases, that zone of the right of way and then even 10 or more feet from the property line, as you said, DOT rules for things like clear recovery distances, utility easements, a lot of that could put a hamper on this.

Um and so then we would just have the the trees be located as close to the property line as possible, given those other restrictions.

So still trying to put the trees in place, if at all possible, um, but just knowing that there are standards kind of outside of our control that are gonna make it difficult in some cases.

Um this may be another one of those places where like we're uncovering something that we need to make sure that we are addressing outside of the LUMO.

Um in that like I understand all we can do within the LUMO is make our you know, sort of ideal standards, and then if there are things that interrupt that outside of the LUMO, then that's the case, but then that means that we need to deal with that outside the LUMO.

So I want to put like making street trees a thing we actually can do because also because I would hate to see the way that we deal with this, be that be that all of the trees end up on the inside of the sidewalk right next to the buildings, which then makes it impossible to plant other trees between the bodies and the cars, which is where they serve the most purpose, um, because we've already planted a tree like four feet away on the other side of the sidewalk.

Um so I really would like us to lean into working with Awasa and the utility, I mean the utilities and yeah, all the utilities and DOT on figuring out how we make this an actual thing that we do rather than just like an ideal that we can't ever achieve.

Yeah, absolutely.

And we're we're moving in that that direction.

Owassa is already kind of interrogating a lot of their standards.

Um, so we know we've got kind of a it's it these aren't like immovable objects, they're just slow moving, but we can we can keep pushing.

Um in terms of the location of street trees, the standard would uh heavily prioritize street tree location based on the shade that they would provide um to sidewalks.

Yeah, yeah.

Um and we we go from there.

That that's kind of the starting point, and then we we build some flexibility in.

Okay.

Yeah, shade, and also just because I know that like if you're a pedestrian on the sidewalk and you have a tree between you and the cars, you're like, oh, that feels like a lovely avenue to walk along and safe rather than like I'm hanging out here next to speeding traffic.

And uh uh that's one of my bugaboos too, because the DOT forgiving design, we forbidding trees is very counter to the vision zero, which is slow everybody down.

Um but but what I'm wondering is that that um I'm hoping that however we write this, given that this is one of my windmills I'm tilting at at the TPO.

Um if that change if DOT changes that, that we would not have to then go ahead and and change our regulations.

We would be ready to slide right into doing it once DOT removes that uh prohibition.

Yeah.

Um yeah, I'm just um I'm glad to hear that you're addressing the context sensitive infill.

I'm just, I know I was encouraged when I look at Durham's LUMO.

They actually have very specific regulations.

So things kind of work with what is there existing.

And I'm just not sure that I'm seeing that with ours, especially if that for me is really intimately tied with the question of allowing four-plexes.

So I'd really like to see, you know, how the height restrictions are just again graphically what that's going to mean and what you know, take a neighborhood like Colony Woods and somebody wants to build a four-plex on the lot, what happens.

And you know, maybe it fits in great.

Maybe these other controls you have are going to work just fine.

Um I know that was a concern earlier for me with the 5,000 square foot duplexes.

So I just would um I just would like to make sure that that new development is a good neighbor to existing development.

And that doesn't mean throttling the new development.

It doesn't mean not having it, but it just means that it should bear some relationship to what is there existing.

Yeah, absolutely.

And we've looked at the Durham example.

I think the Durham example is essentially taking the the shortest building on the adjacent lot and saying that you can't build more than 12 feet taller than that.

So essentially one story taller than the shortest building on the adjacent lot.

Um but it does allow you to go way back.

I mean, it's not restricting your floor area to, you know, like you can build deeply into the lot if you want.

Yeah.

Just has to have some relationship height wise.

So anyway, I know you guys will be good at figuring out where that line is, but I just that's an important interest of mine.

Yeah.

Elizabeth.

Um yeah, thank you for bringing that up.

I mean, because then it looks like maybe we went past this potential discussion point in the memo that you gave us about whether or not um triplexes and quadplexes I um should be allowed more broadly in across the board in residential zoning districts.

Um I would um I would land very heavily on the side of keeping them to the arterial and collector roads to start um so that we can so that that density can happen more gently, more naturally.

Um, in line with the other ways that we're applying higher density limits.

Um yeah, I I like the way you've done it.

I think it's sensitive to I think it that it is very much the answer to making yet larger buildings in what have been single family neighborhoods sensitive in their implementation.

Yeah.

And I will just note there's there's a really potentially really interesting opportunity to meld those interests that you identify particular zones based on street type or proximity to greenways, um, where as a proposed limo would do, you don't have some of those height-based restrictions based on you know what's what's the the old pattern of development.

Um but maybe outside of those areas, if there is an interest in being more permissive with with triplexes and fourplexes, maybe that's where you you say, well, we're gonna allow them more broadly, but um they can't be more than one story taller than the adjacent property or something like that to really kind of um that could you know really hit the sweet spot between um the two interests.

Sorry, just like a follow-up to that.

I think though also um we we run into the issue of it's not so it's not only a matter of scale, it's also a matter of um use and in a college town like bigger for rent buildings being built in residential neighborhoods might not necessarily be workforce housing or family housing.

Um and so I think it's not only a matter of scale, and so keeping those collected to areas where perhaps students could walk to the bus might make more sense and be more sensitive.

I think I um I think I might see that a little bit differently than you all, but I'm not totally sure.

Um I think I would rather, I guess I can understand the um the benefit of having some sort of um standard, however, like I think one story higher to me feels like then you're getting really the massing of buildings will be very big on the lot, and I would prefer not.

I would prefer them go up a bit, just I guess what I'm thinking about is kind of where I grew up.

Like I have a picture in my mind of what it looks like to have triplexes and quadplexes in neighborhoods, and it just feels like um it feels like a house, I guess.

So, you know, um, I get the question, I guess, is how do we how do we kind of achieve what feels like good massing?

Um, that's something, you know, again, like I don't necessarily want something to be going way back on a lot.

Like I I would rather honestly it be a little taller without it being weird without having a huge building, you know, a really tall building next to a single family home.

Like I understand that.

I guess I'm just I would rather have something a bit taller, or you know, if you're talking about cottage courts, obviously that's a different you know, way of laying out a lot.

But like when I think about where I grew up, there would be three or four stories of house.

Uh each one would be its own unit, and that to me felt also better than like one huge house where students, you know, are more packed in.

And then to me, I don't really care as much about students.

I I think students should live in my neighborhood.

I just think when it's like a huge 8,000 square foot home, then it kind of feels like a frat versus you know, separate units where people are just you know living in all sorts of ways.

But I guess is there bless you, is there a way to kind of get at what feels like it fits in with neighborhoods that it feels like you know, kind of reasonable-sized homes that isn't like huge massing, but also has something, you know, to have it have some congruence without it being kind of restrictive to the point where we have maybe not the intended outcome.

Yeah.

Yeah, and playing around with the massing, I think would be the would be the opportunity here.

Um a rule boon to triplex and fourplex construction within the last couple of years was that those now fall under the residential building code.

What that means from a zoning perspective is that the same restrictions on on what we can regulate for single family now apply to those as well.

So aesthetic regulation is really off the table.

But being thoughtful with massing, we know that that is that is a really fruitful way to work through these issues.

So if there's an interest in in getting more permissive outside of just kind of the designated uh Greenway arterial collector areas, um we can look at what some massing related ways to kind of mitigate that impact could look like.

Um I I guess I had one other question, which was when we're talking about um kind of smaller scale commercial, when you think about like a daycare in a in an R1 neighborhood and it's 3,000 square feet or so, like that's a lot of daycare.

And I don't necessarily, you know, I think we mean need more daycare.

Like it's not a use that I object to.

It just seems like if you're accommodating a building for like 50 to 75 kids instead of 10 kids, that becomes a different traffic management, just like that becomes a different thing, right?

And so I guess I'm wondering how we kind of definitely want more small scale commercial in all neighborhood, you know, but is there a way to have it be I don't know, that just seems big to me, but maybe I'm not like thinking about it in where it would actually be because it's hard for me to picture.

Um and Degers are a good example.

I'll actually touch on that in in just a little bit.

That's all right.

Yeah.

Lisa.

I just wanted to um echo what what you said about the fact that triplexes and tri and and quadplexes um have a place in an in a neighborhood.

My grandfather built those from the 20s through the 60s um in downtown Lexington, Kentucky neighborhoods, and they fit in because of the form.

And so um, I want to point out two things.

One is that form may be the way that we can address that issue of compatibility.

Um, but I also want to point out that the demographics of the country is moving towards the fact that probably half of our population uh is either single family people or or couples living living alone.

Um in two people that are older, you know, I would have been a perfect candidate for this when once my you know my nest was empty and I was divorced.

And and um living in a neighborhood, you know, I ended up in a single family house because I wanted to be in a neighborhood, and that was the only way I could be in a neighborhood.

And I think that we need to acknowledge that that is a growing population everywhere as well as here, and that by trying to make that kind of housing available, um, we make it possible for uh older people to downsize and open up the bigger single family only homes for um families.

Thank you.

Um that brings us to um thank you for the the comments on on the housing interest.

Um next, that brings us to economic development and land use.

Um this one's actually pretty short, so we're making very good progress.

Um the uh the first kind of interest here, and I know this has been touched on with some um some other ideas that we've talked about already, is again supporting neighborhood scale commercial uses that put folks close to their daily needs.

And so um as I mentioned in relation to amenity space and and green space, there's there's two sides of the coin of kind of putting people close to their daily needs.

Um there's making sure that there are more people near uh existing commercial amenities, and then there's creating more opportunities for new commercial amenities.

Um and the proposed LUMO would attempt to address both sides of that coin.

Um on the one hand, um, as we've mentioned already, the proposed LUMO would look to increase by right residential density, not only with with existing districts, but it also will create this kind of palette of new districts that once a zoning map is being talked about and uh debated publicly, those new districts become now a tool that the council can use to deploy and create more density near existing commercial development.

Um that's one side of the coin, right?

Putting more people near existing amenities near the existing daily needs.

And then the other side of the coin is um getting more of those things built around town, more commercial development around town.

And that's that that interest that we talked about earlier, um, or that that proposal we talked about earlier of smaller scale commercial development, the sub-3,000 square foot retail or the sub-3,000 square foot uh restaurant uh in more parts of town.

Um then there's also this notion of let's get away from residential only mixed or multifamily zoning districts.

Um time and time again when when properties come through for conditional zoning.

Um there's been this discussion of what's the appropriate zoning district.

You would think that it would be a an R6 or R-something zoning district, but they end up going for something very different than that.

And that's just because at a baseline level, our current multifamily districts just aren't very um supportive of commercial development.

What we want to do is basically once we get past the lower intensity residential districts, mixed use just becomes the default that's permitted in in higher intensity districts.

Um then daycares.

Um we know this is actually like a really critical part.

Um one of the one of the most essential daily needs is having access to good child care.

Um the the current LUMO standard is that daycare centers, and so these are kind of commercial daycares, not just somebody that um that you know keeps a few kids at their home during the day.

Um commercial daycare centers under today's LUMO are allowed in some of our residential zoning districts, but only along uh higher intensity roads along arterials and collectors, um, which is limits it puts huge chunks of of town land off of land in town off limits to these kind of really vital commercial uses.

Um so what the new LUMO will will do is allow daycares um essentially anywhere in R1 or R2 zoning districts, but limit their size if they're on local streets.

So if it's on a cul-de-sac, um I think the current LUMO draft um is gonna be like a 3,000 or 4,000 square foot limit.

Um Mary Anderson, I very much hear that interest or that that concern about 3,000, 4,000 square feet is is still maybe a lot of daycare.

Um and so that might be something that is worth kind of re-interrogating and bringing down a little bit to be thoughtful about some of the traffic and other impacts.

I'll also note, and I realize it's not in the slide here, but just getting more permissive with home-based businesses is another kind of key feature that the new LUMO could take us in, or a direction that the new LUMO could take us in.

Just kind of easing up on permitting requirements, allowing more than just one non-resident employee if you're running a home occupation, just making that again a little bit easier without creating the concern of a of a nuisance for neighbors.

Any questions, feedback or comments on these items?

Amy and then Yeah, um on the daycare centers, I think the 4,000 is too high.

That's 50 or 60 or 70 kids is would be a lot in an R1 neighborhood.

Um my son went to a daycare in a um in a brick ranch, it was probably 12, 1500 square feet.

They had two or three classes of kids.

Um, you know, there wasn't there weren't huge lines of pickups.

It was something that would be compatible.

The 4,000 would be like allowing a McDonald's in the neighborhood.

It's just that it would be a lot.

And are we being explicit about daycare centers?

Because we had a developer to come before us recently proposing daycare center.

And I was curious about it because there were two daycare centers very close to that location.

And then the developer said, or another permissible.

That's what they're going with now.

The developer, but it could be the developer's representative, I should say.

But it could be another um permissible usage that is with the daycare center.

So I just want to be clear.

Are we talking about explicitly daycare centers?

Or are we talking about daycare centers and other businesses that qualify for that?

Yeah, this would be specifically daycare centers.

Um, and just because of that, that notion, we we want to be really permissive with this particular use because we know it's kind of so integral to the community's needs.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay.

Um, this next one, um, again, this idea of aligning land use patterns with complete community principles.

Um, you'll notice here I've basically referred to a lot of other goals that we've talked about.

Um I think this is again one of those really zoomed out big picture topics that once you start to pull the pieces together in the different threads of how we're addressing or how the proposed LUMO could address a lot of these other interests, you you basically get to a point where we've got land use patterns that are very closely aligned with big picture complete community principles.

Um questions or comments before I move on to the fourth of our kind of major policy areas.

Um the second to last maybe is the more optimistic way to talk about um this next policy area is built environment and public realm.

Um again, you all identified uh several kind of specific interests within that.

And we'll we'll talk about each of those in turn.

Um this is again one that um is is addressed by a lot of the other goals that we've talked about, um, really balancing uses um to meet that kind of ideal mix of of different types of uses.

Um mentioned this notion of small-scale commercial and and various ways of getting more commercial development um around town, of getting more or the opportunity for more development near amenities, um, and then as I mentioned before, um kind of allowing mixed use as the default in in larger developments.

Um the other or the next kind of major interest in around the built environment is this notion of accessible and well-distributed civic spaces.

Um just like access to commercial development, this is basically the same coin uh with one side of the coin being let's get more people close to existing civic spaces, and then let's find a way to promote more new civic spaces.

Um that first bit of how do we get, or second bit of how do we get more new civic spaces?

Um a really significant shift that the proposed LUMO is going to include is um introducing what's called an amenity space requirement.

Um for multifamily residential development, the amenity space requirement would basically replace the recreation space requirement.

And then for commercial development, this would be a brand new kind of site design requirement that requires plazas, other open spaces.

Um it can't require that they are public or publicly accessible, but it can require that they are are built and it can heavily incentivize open spaces or plazas that are that are close to kind of the public realm that are near the right of way.

Um this again is a really good opportunity to put in place kind of the the built environment building blocks of really good third spaces without going beyond what we're allowed to regulate.

So creating the opportunity for more civic spaces.

And then of course, flip side of the coin, uh new zoning districts that promote higher density and higher density within existing zoning districts, so that we don't have you know, you can you can put more density close to our parks, you can put more density close to the library or or other kind of key public amenities.

Um any questions or or comments or feedback on on these?

Um the first one just brings to mind for me.

I mean, we just had I just had a meeting with a developer who I presented my new least favorite building, um, which has replaced the Texas donut, apparently, which is the pool donut.

And um, so I'm just thinking about that in terms of our outdoor amenity space.

So they're like, look, we put a pool here for in the middle of this donut and it provides zero green space, zero public access, zero activation of anything.

It's just a pool for the people who are renting there.

Um so I kind of wonder how we encourage people away from that type of amenity and towards something that serves the public good a little bit better.

Yeah.

Um I think the the best way to do it is to heavily incentivize the thing that we we prefer.

Um so I think it's actually going to be like a two to one ratio that public spaces or amenity spaces that are um adjacent to sidewalks, adjacent to the public realm, um, would give you twice as much credit towards meeting the amenity space requirement for a development than let's say a pool that's wrapped by the building or a rooftop amenity or something else that is impossible to ever be kind of public facing.

I don't know that this is the council's interest, but like I totally do not like Texas donuts at all.

And I just think they are not they don't create like good spaces and the massing is not appealing, but I guess I'm wondering is that something that we can move people away from in some way?

Just generally.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um I will get to that in like two or three slides.

Okay.

Do I know where I still?

Well, never.

How's the sitting?

We're all gonna be here for a while.

We're actually making really good progress, so thank you guys.

Yeah.

Um other feedback on these items?

Camille?

Yeah, I just want to say yay, third places.

Thank you.

Um, so the next uh kind of majority.

Sorry, I have one final it just came in and out of my head.

Um is there a way to like give people a menu of things they could provide?

Or, you know, for example, like when we were looking at whatever it's called over by Homestead Park, and they were like, we're gonna provide outdoor amenity space, and we're like, no, you're next to a park.

Like that's we we don't want that.

Like it's you know, we would just rather have a different something.

Like, are there ways to have people provide certain amenities in certain places?

Um yes, there it's definitely possible.

It's not baked into the draft to my knowledge of like uh like a proximity requirement or like an uh uh an adjustment based based on proximity.

Um, but that could be a very meaningful addition, right?

If you are uh and we could kind of dial in what that adjacency looks like.

But like you said, if you're if you're right next door to Cedar Falls Park, for example, um probably doesn't make a risk.

You know, what I really would prefer you use your additional space for.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and we talked a little bit the other night about finding a way to as we get more into operationalizing complete community that we would have an idea in this area.

It's like your everybody here is right near Cedar Falls Park.

So we can say, yeah, there's you know, you only get a half credit if you build your own rec space, but you'll get a full credit if you did something else, right?

You know, we have a list of things you can do.

And since we know what this area needs, if you do any of the things that we want, you're gonna get extra credit for it.

If you do things that we already have, that's fine, but you're only getting a certain amount.

So I think that's another way that we could work that in in a way that makes sense with the the bigger goals that we have.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that it's a good representation or it's a really good example of how um a big part of what we're trying to do with the new LUMO is create a new scaffolding.

Um that we then have um you know, annual omnibuses or whatever the the cadence is, um once we once we do that additional planning work, we can really start to give even more life to to some of the the baseline requirements.

And so that is a thing that a LUMO can do is kind of give certain preference to certain things based on location.

Within reason, yeah.

I think there's there's an opportunity for it.

Um I'm sure that there are limitations that we we're not thinking about right now, but um always yeah, yeah.

But it it definitely doesn't seem like um out of reach.

Especially since it's an incentive structure, right?

I think that would be like I don't know how you all feel, but I think that's like a really really good thing to have that capability.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um so the uh next big interest um was this notion of creating more mobility infrastructure and connections that enable safe low-car or car-free lifestyles.

Um as we've we've already talked about, um the proposed LUMO will really heavily incentivize uh developments that provide new greenways.

Um this is actually a uh a really good connection to what was just being talked about around kind of contextual amenity space.

Um we would essentially see in in the new LUMO is um you know, we've got recreation space requirements for subdivisions, amenity space requirements for for multifamily or commercial development.

Um if a project that is subject to those requirements provides a greenway that is on the town's adopted plans, right?

They can't just like say I'm building a greenway, right?

If it's on the town's adopted plans, that could fully satisfy their rec space requirements or their amenity space requirements.

Um we can't require that they build a greenway and make it publicly accessible, but we can incentivize it, and this would be a strong way of doing that.

Elizabeth incentivize it how by relieving them of other standards that that might be significantly more onerous on their property, right?

So the amenity space requirement, for example, I think starts at 10%.

So basically 10% of your your land area has to be devoted to amenity space.

Um if you're looking at the trade-off of building out 10% of your land as amenity space, or let's say you've got a couple hundred linear feet of greenway um to build, um, and then you don't have to dedicate that land to amenity space.

Um it could very well be in in folks' kind of best interests to provide the green way instead.

And would somebody actually like if we required people to build a greenway, would they actually build it and then like it would be connected to other pieces that were public and they would put a wall?

I mean like I mean I'm not trying to be charge a toll.

I'm not trying to be an incendiary.

I just am like, why are we assuming that people would be like, no, this is private.

Like we're gonna like this is connected to this whole other public network, and we're gonna make it worse for our own residents by like by putting a fence or you know, like why why would we think that would happen?

Or why do we need to incentivize instead of just say like this is you just need to build a greenway here, like this is on the network.

Yeah, because they might not build a wall, but they might put up signage that makes it a very inhospitable place that makes it very clear to folks that they would be um you know flirting with with things that they might not want to have to deal with, right?

Um that even if there aren't physical barriers to kind of free movement, um we we would prefer to not see any barriers.

And so that's what what this starts to include.

Of course, I mean I'm not like asking for yes please to barriers.

I'm just like wondering, would someone actually want to do like would someone actually or do people do that?

Yes.

Yeah, I mean again, we we see well actually I take back that question.

I like already know places people would do that.

But I guess I'm just like what you've done it?

No, and near me.

Okay.

All right, never mind.

I got it.

That's moving on.

Um then there's again that that notion of um the flip side of getting more greenways is also just putting more people near greenways.

Um so we've we've talked about this in a couple of different contexts of allowing more density near greenways.

Um and then again, some of what what the new LUMO does is um you know has opportunity to just build on on existing requirements, right?

We know that we're on really strong footing when it comes to requiring infrastructure in the right of way.

Um that continues to be carried forward.

It elevates um the role of things like the mobility and greenways plan, eventually the E to E plan.

Um so let's say our baseline standards would just call for a five foot, six foot sidewalk.

Um if if your street frontage also happens to be on the E to E map, um maybe you're building that that 10 foot wide cross section or 14 foot wide cross section instead.

Um any questions or or other comments on these items.

But we did have smaller developments don't have to provide.

There's a certain level at which people are not being required to like provide that type of infrastructure, right?

That's right.

Yeah.

Um and typically I think we're we're putting that around the the threshold from like four units to five, um, asking uh a fourplex to build sidewalk or or something like that where we're where it doesn't exist is can be tricky.

Um and we'll again that that's one of those thresholds where we can be we will be very mindful of not doing what admittedly the the LUMO has done in the past of technically allow something but then kind of layer on these requirements that don't make it feasible.

Camille Okay, so in that situation, would we retain the right to build a sidewalk with our resources with our own resources?

Yeah, I think we would need to really drill down in the specifics.

Um there would be an opportunity to pull from uh well, so at baseline, yeah, within the right of way, we always essentially retain the right to to build new infrastructure.

Um it's just a matter of finding finding the funds.

Right.

I just wanted to make sure that it if these are new developments.

Not talking about old ones, if they're new developments that we have a way to later when we do come into those resources, we can go in and fill in those gaps.

Um where the smaller developments couldn't afford to do it themselves, but then wouldn't say to us, oh, you can't build on my property.

No sidewalks.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I mean, there's there's always the Trump card of condemnation for the purposes of for like for a public purpose.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um to the extent that we can avoid that, um, you know, in in the subdivision context, for example, um, we would always require that there's adequate right-of-way when you subdivide.

So um if you're subdividing along land that has really narrow existing right-of-way, you would need to provide sufficient right of way to meet our standards.

Um, yeah, there will there will always be kind of some pathway for for the town to to build the infrastructure.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

So um the next interest um was this notion of uh supporting reduced dependence on parking through context appropriate standards.

Um this is one area where um uh we really kind of struggled with what kind of the the appropriate response would be.

Um we uh as a you know the town council made a really significant step forward with the omnibus of eliminating parking minimums.

Um I will say the um the proposed LUMO is is really looking to um support development patterns that just reduce the need for cars, right?

Trying to deal with it from that demand perspective.

Let's just promote the town, allow the sort of town that's sort of development patterns where folks can live um with less dependence on cars.

Um thing that the the proposed LUMO will not include, um at least that you know the draft that's coming out soon, um, is lower the vehicular parking maximums.

And that that's not like a uh that's like a really difficult thing to have to say, right?

That we're not gonna be reducing those parking maximums.

Um because what we have heard pretty convincingly from folks in the development community is that our parking regulations are kind of the least of their concerns when it comes to how much parking they have to provide.

Um and we don't want to be in a position where we are pinching developers between our rules and the expectations or even just like hard underwriting requirements of their lenders or or investors.

Um a really interesting idea that came out of discussions with the planning commission recently on on this particular point was this notion of even if we don't reduce parking maximums, are there ways that we can make let's say the the 80th percentile of parking on a particular lot make that incrementally more expensive by saying it well if if you're building within you know 80 to 90 percent of the total maximum allowed for your lot, um those incremental units or spaces have to be permeable pavement or or something along those lines.

Um so that's something that we can we can continue to explore.

Um, but it it's unlikely that um that we could really translate again that that policy guidance into a regulation that lowers the total maximums.

Um questions or comments Melissa um so now that I mean I'm I'm very glad that we're recognizing the realities of um the business because we don't want to be a thorn in the side that prevents things happening.

But now that there are um some good examples of successful car free developments in the country.

Um and given the high cost of building in parking, I'm wondering if there is a way that we can incentivize no parking um building that granted might not be a big barn burner um but may tempt some innovative um smaller developers to to think about it.

Any possibilities?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think with with any incentives, it all comes back to that notion of at the policy level, what are we willing to kind of give on, right?

So um we could, you know, if if we hear from you all like, hey, if if a development doesn't provide or has less than a certain amount of parking, um they might get relief on amenity space, they might get relief on some other standards.

Um it's I think you know if we get a green light to to do something like that, um it's not difficult to kind of build out a a menu of of incentives that that could meet that interest.

Um Elizabeth Manini.

Um yeah, I would love any creative approaches to this that we can find because I think it's a real bummer bummer that we have to keep keep our current parking maximums.

Um because I think that as much as we might want to support development patterns that promote the reduced use of cars, the only way we're really gonna get people out of their cars is if it's harder to um drive than it is to bike or walk.

And so by keeping ample parking everywhere, I think we sort of shoot ourselves in the foot that way.

Um so yeah, anything we can do to get away from that in other places, that would be great.

Yeah, and I just glad you meant brought up the planning commission's ideas about making that top tier parking more expensive.

Um we've already gotten rid of parking minimums in most places, correct?

That's right.

Somebody who wants so somebody who wants to come in and build a no parking building can do that.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I guess that makes me think about what the incentive structure then should look like, since we do allow it, but then do we want to encourage it even further than that?

And um somebody at the Planning Commission also mentioned incentivizing solar in parking lots and thinking about ways to do, you know, again, that could be a reduction in amenity space if you cover some of your parking with solar panels.

So I'm so sorry.

That's okay.

Go ahead for it.

Um pretty much there.

Yeah.

Um those things that belong in the limo these incentives.

They could.

Um I think parking regulation is something that we we don't feel any concern about our our authority there, and so tying some incentives to it could could make sense.

Um I think already one thing that we're we're expecting to see in the proposed LUMO is um and that I know this is kind of a a nudge towards making um parking a little bit more uh just just harder.

Um we currently have requirements around canopy trees in parking lots.

Um the the new LUMO would would basically increase the the requirement that um it's currently it's currently um based in like a maximum distance that any parking space can be from a canopy tree.

Um the new Luma is gonna decrease that um by an incremental amount.

Um so ultimately you're gonna see more trees in parking lots.

Um and some amount of that requirement can be offset with things like shade structures, um, solar canopies, things of that sort.

Can I ask a question that again you can tell me to wait?

But when we talk about um like site preparation and how many trees people take out and also like tabletopping and things like that, like can those things be dealt with?

And again, like I know it that there's this delicate balance, like we don't want to make it basically prohibitive de facto by saying, like, well, you can develop this site, but you can't take out any trees to get on the site, and especially like you've said before, like if it's a really small site, the machinery is still a certain size, so like you still have to be able to get in.

But I guess like what is a reasonable requirement of keeping trees and also replanting, which I'm assuming is a lot easier.

But like what are reasonable standards there where we kind of get what we want and we don't have to wait 50 years for for like a seed to grow.

Yeah, um, I will definitely get to that um uh coming up.

Great.

Uh all right, so I think is that conversation on this one?

Um so the next item, and I think this is the first time it's not the first time I'm showing pictures, but we've got some some pictures uh to illustrate some of these concepts.

Um this is I think uh a really major uh set of new rules that we're gonna see in the new LUMO um really designed to address that notion of uh better building form, better site design with a purpose, right?

With the purpose of better walkability, more connection, um, more people-centered environments.

So there's kind of a uh a slew of different uh form related standards that the write-up from from Brian, I think really did a good job of of discussing what the impact of some of those standards could be.

Um I'll just briefly touch on those.

Um maximum building width, a major tool at combating the kind of Texas donut form of development.

Um we want to be mindful that there are economies of scale with with larger buildings, and so not prohibiting large buildings, but some rules in place that really start to control what that building width looks like.

Um the other key idea here from a site design perspective is that we we know that one of the the least hospitable kind of site orientations is when you just have a sea of parking between the street and whatever building you're trying to get to.

Um and so in a lot of our mixed use and commercial districts, um, there would be some heavy restrictions on the amount of parking that can be located between the building and the street.

Um and that's really intended to be kind of an evolution, um, kind of the most simplified version of a build to zone, um, really targeting what's that thing that we're trying to mitigate against.

By and large, it's parking, and so that's where this the standard comes from.

Um limitations on blank walls.

Um we know that from a from a pedestrian perspective.

I'm gonna walk by just swaths and swats of blank walls without windows or doors or some other activation does not promote a good pedestrian realm.

Um so there would be limitations on that.

Um we've already talked about amenity space requirements.

mitigate against by and large it's parking and so that's where this the standard comes from um limitations on blank walls um we know that from a from a pedestrian perspective having to walk by just swaths and swats of blank walls without windows or doors or some other activation does not promote a good pedestrian realm um so there would be limitations on that um we've already talked about amenity space requirements um active depth requirements are another really interesting tool um what in in some much more onerous forms of active depth requirements are very specific about you know some percentage of your ground floor facade has to be like a truly active use um but that that again gets very prescriptive on on how the interior of a building is used um what this would basically say is that you can't have parking um for a certain amount of the facade of your building at the ground floor um you'd have to wrap it with with some sort of other use um building step back requirements is another tool that we've seen to to good effect um again to to recognize that that taller buildings are a necessary part of more density uh in town um but there are small tweaks that we can incorporate into how those taller buildings are designed um to make them kind of better integrate into uh you know kind of the existing downtown fabric um and those will again be kind of tailored to particular zoning districts you might see some zoning districts that that don't have these step back requirements and others where we really want to focus on that pedestrian realm would include step back requirements.

Any questions or or comments feedback on on these Amy Yeah I think the stepback requirements are really important um and I would think anywhere that there you expect it to be a walkable area should have the stepbacks um you know I'm trying to think of a place I don't know that East 54 will ever achieve walkability in our lifetime but you know like if that was a much bigger building and taller like well whatever because nobody ever walks there right but I know we've just approved a building on Martin Luther King that's like seven stories straight up right next to one of our main walkways.

So I love that we're gonna have a standard and that we can actually enforce it and um would just hope that we don't start given modifications on that one that that is something that we recognize is really important to urban walkability and form.

So I think that's great.

I understand why you don't want to get more regulatory on that um on the active depth requirement it just makes me sad when it's always watching undergrads on the elliptical machines but maybe a positive for some folks undergrads on the elliptical machines.

It is like actually just kind of a gym or you know like something that's not really on herself too and council I'll just mention um because I don't want to suggest that the stepbacks are doing more than they are we are proposing kind of a set of alternatives that somebody could use to comply with the step back requirement um recognizing that one of the trade offs with stepbacks is less buildable floor area but a a key interest with stepbacks is is really having that um that strong vertical line across a building that roughly denotes kind of a lower portion of the building and an upper portion of the building controlling.

Yes excuse me sorry strong horizontal line that creates vertical separation.

Yeah um so that's that's the strongest interest there we we know we can't directly regulate things like facade material or something like that.

So the the physical regulation around stepbacks is the starting point and then there would be some alternatives that don't require the step back but still meet that interest of of the strong horizontal line.

Yeah I would I think that um I would be for reconsidering that alternative I just sat through a CDC meeting a couple months ago where they had some very spicy things to say about a building that used uh vertical articulation instead of the stepbacks and in their opinion not very successfully and not really accomplishing what this is set out to do, right?

It's supposed to make you feel like you're down low.

I mean I could see if they if a building used trees for instance right and you had a building that went straight up and it had trees on both sides so now you've got an LA and now you've brought you've brought the ceiling down right I can see that just the vertic the vertical articulation or putting a band around it I don't think it's really going to do and the CDC was not happy with that.

So just if you can think about that that would be great.

Elizabeth Yeah I just want to second that interest just because I think that in addition to like sort of like bringing down the feel of the height of the building that one of the major things that a step back does is increase the light and air between especially if you have big tall buildings on either side of a street I think the step back really helps with the sense of not being in a tunnel and so I I would also have an interest in reconsidering an alternative.

Yes.

There are standards around parking garage screening.

We would essentially require a pretty significant amount of screening with trees or other um like landscaped screening.

I think we've seen some really good examples where meaningful landscaping can do a lot to hide kind of other um design sins, if you will.

Um and again, landscaping is something that we we've got good footing to regulate.

Yeah, just to follow up on that real quick.

So I as I drive up 15501 all the time when I get to 54, I see the it's the Gwendolyn parking.

And you know, because it butts up against another building, you couldn't I don't think you could landscape screen that.

That's what I had in my mind was literally that the vision of the parking lot.

That parking deck where I was like, oh, that could use something.

Yeah, and it's Gwendolyn.

That is the um the result of uh plans that have gone unbuilt, right?

The the Glenn Lenox like master plan calls for another building um between 54 and that parking deck.

Um so we could require that as screening.

Is there any yeah, can we have them?

I don't know.

This is not my area, but like is there just something that you that is not super onerous that can make that look better?

After the fact, probably not.

I mean, they've got their development agreement, and yeah.

No, no, they're they're done.

Yeah.

But like if there's a building that goes unbuilt or that it's just obvious, like it's gonna, there's gonna be a view of it somewhere.

Can it a mural, anything, like anything.

Getting into that sort of regulation of of just the facade um treatment.

We start to stray outside of kind of standard protocol for for what we can clearly regulate.

Um that's where again focusing on things like landscaping that um admittedly no amount of landscaping is gonna hide the the upper stories of a of a parking deck, but at least for the folks on the ground.

Well, yeah, the public realm is kind of what I'm more concerned with.

Exactly.

Okay.

Thanks.

Oh, can we tell people they can't tabletop their sites?

Um so I'll get to that in the in the next bit.

Um it's kind of tied in with tree canopy preservation.

Um, oh, yeah, you told I already asked, and you told me you would get to it, and then I got impatient and asked again.

Continue.

Um, so this is the the final of the five um major categories.

Um I think it's also the longest.

There were uh six uh items, but as you'll see, we're we're kind of consolidating with some of these.

Um I think the first three are kind of the meediest, and then um there's there's less information in the second half of this section.

Um so the first kind of critical interest here was this notion of respecting the RCD uh and its protections for for stream buffers uh and and habitat connectivity.

Um and so I will say, you know, top line item here is that the the proposed LUMO is not going to reduce buffer widths or really any other major kind of hallmark restrictions in the RCD.

Um we're really looking at at tweaking or augmenting R C D rules.

Um, but again, not reducing buffer widths um by any means.

Um really interesting standard, and I think this was touched on by um one of the earlier members that of the public that spoke, um, is is being mindful of how our lighting standards interact with R C D.

Uming that the R C D is much is about much more than just I say just stream protection.

Um there's there's also a really significant habitat protection that that a lot of R C D can provide.

Um thinking about how that relates to other standards in the LUMO.

Um our lighting standards currently don't make any consideration of R C D on a developed site.

So our lighting standards currently say that at your property line you have to control overall lighting.

Um but you could technically you know light up the R C D on your site to to whatever level you want.

And we know that that would be really detrimental to the habitat value of the R C D.

Um so the updated LUMO would include standards that basically treat R C D boundaries the same as property lines.

That you you do have some sort of requirement for controlled and lower lighting levels at R C D boundaries.

LUMO currently allows SCMs, right?

Stormwater control measures within the upper zones of the RCD.

And what the proposed LUMO could do is basically tweak that to say that if you're going to build SCMs in the upper zones of the RCD, that they've got to be built to green stormwater infrastructure standards.

So something that is more in keeping with just kind of natural landscapes, less kind of artificial in its construction.

If you're going to build what?

If you're going to build stormwater control measures, so stormwater ponds or anything like that in the RCD.

The proposed LUMO could basically put some design standards around what those need to look like.

And it would need to include some escape hatches, right?

We know that this green stormwater infrastructure is really dependent on good soil and low water tables, which don't exist in in many parts of Chapel Hill.

And so there would need to be some some built-in flexibility to make sure that this doesn't become too onerous of a requirement, but again, starts to kind of nudge folks very strongly in the right direction.

That culverts, so these are just man-made underground conveyances of water, so underground pipes would not be subject to RCD regulations.

But it's just one I want to make sure that there's full transparency around.

LUMO currently exempts man-made conveyances and it lists like ditches and gutters as examples.

It just doesn't list culverts, even though they they pretty clearly fit the bill of a man-made conveyance.

And so this would just clarify that rule.

So a three by 10 pad.

So that's really looking at like your home is already in the RCD and you need to put in a new HVAC unit or you need a new storage shed.

Right now, those types of very small projects go through a lot of permitting requirements.

For something that we we are legally obligated in many cases to allow them to do, um, but we we make them jump through a lot of hoops to get there.

Um we know that things like getting a professional survey of your land can be very expensive, and you might be on the end of a very long wait list to get that done.

And so this is just meant to address kind of those concerns without making any other kind of significant tweaks to R C D rules.

Um so any questions, comments, or feedback on these items.

Melissa, and then Amy.

Um yeah, I am thankful that that we're looking at R C D protection as much as possible.

Um I am of the opinion that we should actually increase the RCDs, and one of the reasons I I am very concerned about the existing width of the RCDs is the upcoming um Jordan-like nutrient rules and how we're going to be meeting those.

Umpoint source runoff from yards are are quite possibly gonna be very significant nutrient sources and the more buffer that you can have you know vegetated buffer between somebody's lawn and and the stream is gonna be really important.

Um so I'm I'm I'm just worried about about that.

I'm I'm interested in how much we can get away with increasing that in anticipation of those rules coming.

And how we incentivize or require more more natural vegetation in that R C D buffer area for those water quality protections.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's definitely something we'll be very mindful of.

The the Jordan Water Lake Jordan watershed rules basically apply to the southern half of town, um 15501 south.

Um so we know that when those standards come through, it's it's going to be a significant chunk of town that's going to be impacted.

So we will be we'll be watching it very closely.

Um Amy and then Elizabeth.

Yeah, I Melissa, thank you for that.

I think that's a really important reminder.

And especially as we've been having discussions about um the natural features map and the difficulties in actually turning that into ordnance and using it as a protection device.

So I've heard many times that the RCD is really congruent with most of the important areas to conserve in town, and we know where it is and we can measure it, and that's really gonna be our primary conservation mechanism.

So I think recognizing that, I would also be in favor of strengthening it.

Um I think I don't know if we can expand it, but which I would be fine with.

But if that doesn't happen, we currently allow pretty significant amounts of incursion into, especially into the upland and into the second zone.

Um I would like to look at limiting that.

I think that would so that we preserve more of it.

My understanding, I when I moved into my house, I have RCD and I called and I said, what is this thing mean?

You know, what if I want to cut down trees?

Like, oh, you could cut down all the trees if you want.

You just can't build a fence in there.

And so I think that Melissa's suggestion that we also start tying it to maintaining natural vegetation so it actually can do its ecological services and conservation work.

If that if that's where we're pinning all our hopes in town, we really I think we need to we need to do better and stronger there.

Um we had a stormwater uh report, LUMO review a few years ago, and they said if you take um if you take flood storage out of the R C D at a certain level, you have to replace it at another level.

So we're not actually decreasing flood storage.

We're in you know, in the area that we're maintaining that.

So I think anything that we can do.

So if you if you build into an area and all of a sudden water can't go there anymore, you have to give another place for that water to go.

You can't just send it on down.

So um is I and I only play a stormwater expert on TV, so ask somebody who knows something.

But that's my understanding of it.

So I think that I would love to see ways, suggestions for again, if we're pinning our hopes on this as the conservation effort in town, that we actually strengthen that.

Um I really like the green stormwater infrastructure idea.

I think that's great.

The planning commission said I recognizing why you have to have alternatives, but they suggested that you make it a little bit of a pinch to do that.

I know you were you could put green infrastructure somewhere else, just have more green and you know, make it a little bit so you're not one-to-one that you if you want that alternative, it's gonna pinch a little more.

But so yeah, thank you.

Elizabeth, um I the small product the um exempt small projects being exempt from R C D permanent requirements gave me pause just because I'm wondering if we're gonna end up with small dwellings built in floodplains.

Um so I mean um a couple of things.

One, uh floodplain rules are are totally uh distinct from from R C D standards.

And this is allowing such small um uh projects that it it it really wouldn't be a meaningful opportunity to build habitable structures.

Just to clarify, I thought that they were are you removing people from RCD requirements or from the permitting requirements?

Yeah, so we are um it's it's a little bit of both.

So the the way to remove them from the permitting requirements is if you're doing a and I I apologize for digging into the weeds a little bit, um, but if you're um if you're doing one of these very small projects, so less than 30,000 uh 30 30 period square feet of impervious surface, um you then don't have to prove um that you are staying below the um you know I forget the exact numbers, but like the I'm making this up off the top of my head, the point two, you know, 20 percent impervious that you're allowed in the upland zone.

Um so we're basically saying if you're if you're that small, you don't have to prove that you are 30 out of however many hundreds or potentially thousands of square feet of of impervious you might be allowed otherwise.

But it's tiny.

It's tiny.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Melissa, can we say that they can only do it if it's not feasible in the rest of their yard?

We can.

I think standards like that are always really difficult to enforce.

The like um no practical alternative.

Uh there's there's various ways to to word that sort of thing.

Um it just injects a level of of subjectivity um that we try to avoid.

What would be I think you know, I agree with strengthening the RCD, you know, with the I guess I would like to understand better what that means, and you know, as we're densifying, I it seems like at a very high level reasonable to me to then strengthen um the places where we're saying like we just you know you can go, you know, you can go higher over here, and we just really don't want you over there.

But I guess is there a you know a practical on the ground way to understand that trade-off and like what we're really saying there?

Because I guess as someone who's just not an environmental scientist, like I don't I don't really know fully the implications of allowing people to encroach on the RCD or what it would mean to strengthen it or to make it you know um wider.

Um again, not trying to prohibit or kind of um quell people doing projects that we want, but like truly um making sure that people aren't doing stuff in places that we just that we know they kind of it's not a good idea, or I guess preventing people from doing things in places that we've learned over time, like don't go that well.

I mean, I understand a floodway is a much different thing, but like you know, there are places that now we're like, oh, if only we hadn't let people build over there, we wouldn't have this problem.

And I guess like how like help me think about what that means in this context, knowing that we're you know, we're obviously not like allowing people to build Camelot, modern day Camelot, but like what why wouldn't we want to strengthen our CD buffers as we allow for greater density in you know in lots of other places in town?

Yeah.

Um I think ultimately it's a value judgment.

Um it's it's difficult to very clearly measure or or compare the trade-offs in part because it's it's so site-specific, right?

Like for a particular project, um reducing the permitted impervious surface or land disturbance within the RCD might be a complete deal breaker.

Um for others, it might be perfectly feasible to incorporate that into uh a very meaningful site plan.

Um so it's difficult to I think really gauge those those trade-offs.

I think generally speaking, we we know that we have definitely in in the region, we have among the most significant protections for for stream buffers.

Um we have other kind of broader scale environmental protections outside of town, right?

Things like the rural buffer, like the just the fact that we are as a county very rural in nature.

Um that paired with the notion that we would have more strict stream buffers within town, um, it's just a question of is that the direction we want to be headed in.

And then it sounds like the other way to potentially get at that is to when we look at doing our zoning map is to then be a bit more granular on things that we know we do want to actually protect.

Um, but is that is that possible to do that in that way versus R C D I think it depends on, you know, we're not, for example, proposing the creation of a new conservation district or or anything of that sort, um, in part because of just the the quality of data that we have to work on to inform decisions like that.

Um but also um so that there's that limitation.

Um but I think and you'll you'll likely see that a lot of R C D is in like R1, R2 zoning districts.

A lot of R C D is tied up in the backyards of of single family homes.

Um and so just by default, like there's not gonna be it's unlikely that we would see a lot of additional density beyond just the the few things we've already talked about in those parts of town.

But then we hear about people doing kind of stuff in their backyards that then is actually impacting their neighbors.

So I guess I'm wondering how we're preventing those.

I mean, I'm assuming that will still just not be allowed.

Like you just can't do you can't just go into the R C D in the backyard of your you know, single family or whatever, you know, your R1 neighborhood and start doing major incursions into the RCD just because you're R1.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, and that's the thing.

We're not we're not proposing weakening any of those restrictions.

Some of that is just an existing enforcement kind of quandary, right?

Like by virtue of it being kind of deep in people's backyards.

Um it's complaint driven.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, snitches.

Yeah, no, that's not the word I chose.

We don't want we don't want snitches, but I will say that it is very often violated by people who don't know what they're doing or get enthusiastic about a project.

But yes, I see a lot of that.

So my deck is the glory of gone off.

Oh, I'm sorry, I was just gonna say that it sounds like we need to do more than Creek Week education along those lines and start creating an understanding of what how the importance of the importance of the RCDs absolutely.

Yeah.

We have like signs of life from Louis, so we can move on.

Um again, we're we're getting very close.

I think this is the uh second to last kind of really meaty topic.

Um there's been this really strong interest in improving tree protection, expanding tree canopy and reducing urban heat.

Um so this is I I think actually closing the loop on a couple of items that were brought up earlier.

Um a new standard um that the proposed Luma is going to include is really looking to be mindful of trees uh along the property lines of developing sites and how um we can protect adjacent buildings, protect neighbors.

Um we're proposing to do that in a couple of different ways for larger development projects, and we say larger here, we're talking about an acre or more.

Um there'd be standards that basically say um if there are trees at or even near your property line, trees on the adjacent property whose roots extend into your site, into the developing site.

And if those trees are large enough that they could endanger nearby buildings, um you've got to protect them.

You've got to protect the critical root zone and and make sure that you're not degrading those trees to the point that they could endanger neighboring homes or neighboring buildings.

Um we're also in that vein of larger projects, have some more flexibility to work around new standards, um, larger projects, an acre or larger, um, would be required to protect and conserve, truly conserve a portion of their existing tree canopy.

Um that would introduce a standard that this does not exist in our existing tree protection rules.

Um under existing tree protection rules, you really can clear cut your entire site.

So this would inject a level of genuine tree conservation requirements.

Um would also be extending tree canopy requirements to most new development, including single family homes.

Um talk about in a little bit more detail in the the questions, uh responses to questions uh before last week's meeting.

Um these standards would be part of a basically a tiered system where smaller single family homes or smaller duplexes would be exempt from tree canopy requirements, but then uh larger single family homes would have more significant tree canopy requirements than some of the missing middle housing types.

So there'd be kind of two peaks that large single family homes and then large uh multifamily would have the highest standards, and then missing middle homes would have kind of would would be would fall on that trough, but would still have tree canopy standards.

Um I think again, uh a question or comment from uh member of the public around native and adapted species.

Um we would require that a percentage of tree canopy was native.

Um playing around with what the the right level is there.

If it gets too high, we basically don't have the capacity with nurseries in the area, even large commercial nurseries just can't keep up with demand when a project has to provide 75% or 100% of their new trees as a native species.

Um again to that vein of look let's give the tree protection ordinance some real teeth.

Um we want to really heavily incentivize conservation of existing rare and uh specimen trees, so just larger trees and then uh significant tree stands, um, which um are just large areas of contiguous tree canopy.

So uh we're kind of coming at that from both sides.

You get a lot of bonus when it comes to meeting your tree canopy requirements.

You get a lot of bonus for saving tree uh tree stands and rare and specimen trees, and you get dinged extra for cutting down rare and specimen trees or uh significant tree stands.

Um and then uh mentioned this already, but uh street trees would be uh a new requirement that are imposed to again get trees um where they provide even more meaningful direct benefits um to folks on the ground.

Where would be a place that it wouldn't be if it says most?

Where would be exempt from that?

Um so that is a um I don't think that's actually a like a place-based most, but uh like a size of development.

So I think it's with uh residential development of five or more units, and then essentially any commercial development would require street trees.

So basically we're we wouldn't be saying that uh a duplex or a triplex would have would be required to do street trees.

Camille Yeah, um these all sound good, but I'm um feeling conflicted.

So I know of one uh pair of neighbors where neighbor A keeps having their homes um sewage disrupted uh because of neighbor B's trees, the root system, right?

Uh and so if we're looking to densify, how do we manage that?

How do we this is an older, these two homes have been there for a while, but how do we address that and plan for that?

Because we want more homes, we want more people.

And then we want the vegetation, they have to coexist, and how do we not penalize one for the other?

So that's one conflict.

The um second conflict that I'm struggling with is um our capacity to pick up those leaves, right?

And we say we want more leaves.

So I just want us to think about this.

Um as we push for this, I am for trees.

But the realities of how are we going to manage so that speaks to our budget and how we build up our capacity to manage that.

We just got an email from someone who just learned about a decision we made last year with the leaves.

I I'm I worry that we are giving conflicting messages.

With the sense of I don't know if you can if you can address the first one, that would be great.

The second one, I think that's more for us to think about.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think for the first one, um I'm thinking of you know, uh weeping willows, for example, have really aggressive roots that seek water and will find their way into just about any sewer pipe or you know what have you.

Um we could think about some standards that uh control the the planting of particular species of trees near property lines.

Um even as I'm saying that it would be an enforcement nightmare.

Um, but it it that could be the sort of direction we head in.

Um we already prohibit, for example, the planting of invasive species.

Um and so in that vein, we could we could think about standards that prohibit the planting of of other kind of uh kind of magnolia, right?

Yeah, other nuisance species, yeah.

Magnolia trees are also known for that.

Uh I experienced it in a home growing up.

Okay.

I just want us to think about some of the unintended consequences that are out there.

Thanks.

Amy.

So thank you for the first bullet there with looking at the tree protection of places where we're coming in with adjacent development.

Just a question.

Is there a reason you've chosen that?

Yeah, so it's they're paired together.

So there's there's one set of standards that uh or the criteria for deciding which trees need to be protected is that notion of basically is the tree tall enough that if it fell, it would fall on a building.

If so, we protect the critical root zone of that tree.

Um and we say the the rules would say that no more than um no more than 15% of the critical root zone could be impacted, um, which is a pretty stringent standard.

And it's more stringent than uh some of our other critical root zone related standards, because here what we're we're trying to accomplish is as close to a certainty that that tree is going to survive because there is that like health safety um element to protecting the tree.

Yeah, I think there's a there's another element, kind of the principle of development doing no harm to their neighbors.

And so even if if I have a row of trees in the back and they're not about to fall in my house and they come in and they just whack away at the roots and then they all die.

I think that's that's not desirable either.

So I would love to for you to think about just saying if you know if you have a tree over X caliber, then you have to protect the critical root zone that's on your property.

And just as uh as a good neighbor kind of initiative.

And you don't know that if that tree fell down, somebody wouldn't be in their backyard or you know, whatever.

I just I think that I would I would suggest that.

And I know, and I can't remember the details, but it seems to me that there was one development incentive, I think, for affordable housing, whereas you got smaller and smaller, you did not have any tree requirement on your lot.

I would love to see everybody have to have one tree.

Like even if you're building pretty densely, you make room for that one one little bit of green.

I think in the in the south, that makes a lot of sense.

Elizabeth Um I like the one tree idea.

Um sorry, let me go to my notes so I know what I'm talking about.

Um I'm wondering if we can have our well, first of all, there was a thing in the in the memo that um here it's worded as large development projects must conserve existing tree canopy, and in the memo it's worded as um in most zoning districts development sites that are one acre or large would be required to conserve at least 10% of the existing tree canopy on the site, which feels really different to me, because if it's already if it's a site that has like four trees and you're like we only have to keep 10% of those four trees, that doesn't feel sufficient.

I and I I'm wondering if I've misunderstood tree canopy the entire time, and that it's that when we talk about percentages of tree canopy, it's like percentage of what's there already rather than like the percentage of the area that we want to keep.

So I guess I need some clarification on that of whether or not large development properties have to have 10% tree canopy, period, or if they only have to preserve 10% of what's there.

So the the conservation of existing tree canopy is not something that currently exists in in LUMO.

Um you're correct.

So the the standard that we would be proposing is that for the conservation of existing tree canopy, it's it's just 10%.

Um if there are four trees, they only have to preserve a fourth of a tree.

Yeah, the equivalent of of whatever that that looks like.

Wow, that doesn't seem right.

Yeah, and what we what we could think about doing is and it's it's tricky because let's say those four trees are in the only point where that site could actually get access to their their site from the road or something like that.

Um that's where it it just becomes very uh tricky to require conservation of existing trees because we don't know where they're gonna be on a site, and that's gonna change from site to site.

Um so we just have to take a light touch, but recognize that that is a new standard that does move us in the right direction.

It moves us towards better tree protection.

So that's that's the existing tree canopy standard, which would be new.

The kind of umbrella tree canopy standard is different though.

So you can like plant towards the property.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So that's where for a site that was subject to this existing tree canopy protection.

Um they would also then be subject to a just kind of an umbrella tree canopy standard.

Um typically between 20 to 30 percent, I think as high as 40 percent for some types of development.

Um and that that establishes all right, here is the amount of tree canopy that you need to have on your site, and you can meet that in many different ways.

You can meet it by preserving more you by preserving even more existing trees, and we heavily incentivize that.

Um you can meet it by planting new trees.

Um those are the two options you can preserve or plant new.

Okay, that makes sense.

That helps me with that distinction.

Um and then I was wondering if, and I don't know if this is possible or not, but you know, all the talk about we we obviously had this one like very protracted um example of the trees from a large development site falling on the neighbor's houses and the neighbors' trees all falling down, et cetera.

And I know when the the arborist who came to speak to us about that, he he referenced uh project at the end of my block, in fact, and he said just go look and see what's happening there.

And that's a single family like remodel project.

But indeed, their um silk fencing is like cut right down into like right up next to these giant trees, and it's on their property, and I know that our requirements are I think currently we don't have requirements for single family homes, right?

Like for tree canopy, and we're adding those actually in the lumos.

Is that so that's great?

Um, but these huge specimen trees are I think probably pretty severely compromised.

Um and I'm wondering if we can extend some of these other um protections that we're that we're trying to enforce for larger developments to single family homes in the same way.

Yeah.

So um we were basically creating some tiers here.

So larger sites, knowing that just by virtue of them being larger, there is more opportunity to be responsive to different constraints.

So if we say, hey, larger site, you must protect some trees along your property line, it's easier for them to pivot.

Once you get to smaller sites, it just becomes harder to pivot to those constraints.

So what the proposal would be for smaller sites is that if a tree is identified on the developing site that again has that potential to endanger a neighboring property, a neighboring building.

Um there instead of a you must protect, it becomes you you either must protect or you must remove.

Um so we either need to proactively remove it so that it can obviously cannot become a danger to the neighboring property, or you have to protect it.

But it it builds in just that additional level, that additional level of flexibility because it's a smaller and already more constrained site.

One of the other things that made me think that this made me think of my neighborhood is that not only are these falling trees an issue for structures, um, the trees in our neighborhood are constantly falling on the utility lines and causing major havoc and like setting fires and things.

Um is that something that we can also include, like when big trees are being compromised and are in danger of falling on utility lines?

Um yeah, I think that's something we we could certainly incorporate into the like protect or remove element.

Um I think that would be a good idea.

That's a huge issue in I think probably the entire town.

But then my last tree-related thing.

Um what is my last tree related thing?

Oh, I know that our ordinance for what happens if you um like the fines, et cetera, for if you do not, I'm sorry, I'm losing words at this point.

If you don't uphold all of these requirements live in our LUMO, and way back when I asked if we could strengthen those within this LUMO rewrite, because I think we've seen some pretty striking examples of people not upholding these requirements, and we kind of do nothing.

Um so in order to ensure that they have any reason to uphold these requirements, I would love to see our um enforcement measures have some teeth, like stronger fines.

I don't know what's I don't know what's allowed within state law may have limits on what we can do there, but um yeah, just make it something other than just a nod towards don't cut down the trees, like actually don't do it or we will come for you.

Yeah.

You can say that if you uh yeah, uh I think you you hit the nail on the head.

There are some very um stringent limitations on on fines based on state law.

Um I think in at least some cases, I think there's just been um a perception about the existing tree protection ordinance doing more than it actually does.

Um so things that I think to a very reasonable layperson seem like a violation of the ordinance, um, just haven't actually been violations that that we can enforce against.

Okay.

Well, whatever we can do to really um not only incentivize, but also whatever the opposite of incentivizing is.

I just have one question.

So larger development projects must protect trees that could endanger nearby buildings.

So and I heard you saying that if it's on your property, then that's that's what you either have to protect or remove.

But what about that what about the roots coming over?

I mean, are we allowing smaller developments to like to do something to the tree on the other person's property that then endangers nearby buildings?

It's not the I mean, yes.

So we're not we're not imposing new.

I mean, I know I didn't like frame that in the most positive way, so you can just like flip that right around.

Yeah, it's just it's it's really difficult um tree law, right, is uh is a whole well uh well-trodden field of of law.

People build their careers on on tree law litigation.

Um it's really um or at least build like successful practices uh off of that.

Um it's just it's really difficult when we're dealing with um roots, right?

Like trees are just this weird thing that um like it might look like it's on one person's property, but elements of it extend onto your property.

Um and it's just really difficult, especially when we're dealing with smaller projects to extend those those protections.

Um and there's also like a sim uh a symmetry issue here that when we're dealing with smaller development, we're more likely for there to be just more equal footing between neighbors.

Um, whereas larger sites, you might have this like kind of David versus Glyath situation uh that we can help try to mitigate against.

It's helpful.

Okay, thanks.

Um next issue, and and again, we're very close, so thank you guys for for your patience.

Um, is this notion of of modernizing uh stormwater requirements?

Um right off the bat, um there's there's been talk about stormwater and and single family development.

Um the proposed LUMO would uh lower the threshold at which single family development, individual single family homes are subject to stormwater requirements.

Right now it's 20,000 square feet of land disturbance.

Proposed LUMA I think would knock that knock that down to 12,000 square feet of land disturbance before stormwater management is required.

It's again a trade-off.

Um, if you start to require SCMs or other stormwater management for really small single family projects, um you're potentially looking at just a lot of small SCMs that have to be inspected, have to be maintained, run the risk of failure.

Um so there's there's just a balancing act associated with that.

Um and then kind of one of the key features of where we're headed with stormwater management is expanding the the requirement for the hundred-year storm.

Um what that would roughly look like is that subdivisions with four or more lots would be required to meet the hundred-year storm standard, and then any development with 40,000 square feet of land disturbance or more would be required to meet the hundred-year storm standard.

Um we know that there's some really significant cost-related trade-offs associated with this.

Um, but that is kind of the the proposal at this point to to move in that direction.

Um and then the other kind of key element on stormwater is this notion of understanding and mitigating downstream impacts.

thousand square feet of land disturbance or more would be required to meet the hundred year storm standard um we know that there's some really significant cost related tradeoffs associated with this um but that is kind of the the proposal at this point to to move in that direction um and then the other kind of key element on on stormwater is this notion of understanding and mitigating downstream impacts um the way our stormwater standards are already designed is already a very strong guard against downstream impacts but incorporating uh some assessment and potential mitigation of those impacts um in the very off chance that they actually exist uh would be kind of a a good kind of belt and suspenders approach um any questions on on stormwater melissa I'm just I'm just wondering if that that first one it's um when you have there's there's I mean I know in on my dog box I've seen a number of generously sized houses double and triple their sizes with additions and so does this apply to modifications or just brand new new ones I need to double check um how that that standard is phrased I think we are um trying to get away from circumstances where um a a small increment of new development would kind of open up significant new standards um but that doesn't mean that we can't have any allowance or can't address additions at all we just need to like strike a good balance there yeah I I mean when you when you have when you have a a not small house doubling and tripling the the footprint um then the stormwater the stormwater issues are are similarly magnified and seems like that should there is there's an acronym that you use and you used it earlier and I don't SEM or S C M S C M Stormwater control measures.

Okay so that was not used and really if you're talking with us assume that Camille doesn't know okay um because then I get lost and I'm looking to see I don't see it referenced in our material I'm glad that you know and I want to catch up.

Okay.

And so especially if you talk with the public there are going to be a lot more Camillas than there will be Melissa out there.

Absolutely thank you for the reminder.

Any other questions on stormwater?

Okay.

All right um moving very well along here um sustainability incentives um this is just kind of a clear yes like we are working to build out kind of a package of incentives for building to green building standards whether that's LEED or or stretch 40 or some other um even more uh kind of ambitious standards um there's an opportunity to to build those incentives in primarily for commercial development because again we we know that there's uh a kind of a finite world of things that we can incentivize finite world of um things that we can tie those incentives to and so for residential development we're really trying to focus on um affordable housing and and other community benefits but there is a real opportunity on the commercial side um to get some of these uh sustainability measures in place with with some density bonuses um any questions on that I guess my only one is um and I feel like you've said this before so just bear with me but um when we talk about kind of not wanting to incentivize too many things and that we're doing you know affordable housing for the residential side I guess I'm not sure I'm totally understanding the logic of like you couldn't also incentivize um sustainable building standards for residential and either they could be eligible for multiple incentives or they could choose one or like why wouldn't we do that I guess or why doesn't it work?

I think it's because of the the risk of them choosing something that that is less of a priority for the town and commercial development obviously can't provide affordable housing that's something that only residential development can do and so in those cases where we we want to um you know it's like you you don't give somebody choices where you you don't reasonably want them to pick one over the other I think that's kind of the the thinking here Amy Yeah I I I would just kind of like to revisit that because I think both are important and I know one of the I said earlier you know complete community is about balancing these interests across all the different things all the different good things we're trying to do.

Yeah, I I would just kind of like to revisit that because I think both are important.

And I know one of the things I said earlier, you know, complete community is about balancing these interests across all the different things, all the different good things we're trying to do.

So I wouldn't want a system that said nobody's building affordable housing anymore because this they get the density they want just by popping a solar panel up there and it costs them one-tenth the amount.

And like you have to figure out how to make it commensurate.

But um, but I think it's worth either one.

Like if I can get an affordable housing unit, that makes me happy.

If I got an all-solar house, that would make me happy, you know.

So um I see if there's any way to figure out where that commensurate line would be so that it would be doable.

Um and just until you're talking about density bonuses.

Can you give us an idea about what they would be?

Is it five percent more, 40% more?

What what kind of numbers are you thinking about when because you've talked about them a lot through here?

Yeah.

Um it depends on on the incentive we're trying to, or the community benefit we're trying to tie it to.

So for residential development, we're talking about really significant density bonuses to the order of um 60% increases in floor area ratio, 50% reductions in minimum lot size, um 60% or more increases in the amount of units or floor area that you can build without having to come to council for approval.

Um and that's all based on this notion that we know that affordable housing is just super expensive.

And so if we want a chance at those incentives to work, we've got to throw a lot at the project.

Um for these particular density bonuses, they're much more modest, um, more in the order of uh like 10 to 20 percent.

And and do you have I know you guys went out and got pretty careful data on the what the affordable housing incentives would take.

Do we have anything similar to that, or are you thinking that this is this is just a sort of uh an informed guess at what it would be?

Yeah, this is more in the latter category.

Um we we don't have the the analysis to really like put a fine point on what the bonus would look like.

Okay, thank you.

Um very quickly through the next couple.

Um this is just one of those things where you know the the interest is in um strategies for for climate vulnerability um or addressing climate vulnerability.

And I think this is one of those things where a lot of what we've talked about in sum really addresses climate vulnerability, street tree requirements, stormwater standards, um, a lot of just kind of the the ecosystem of standards that we're proposing speaks to climate vulnerability.

Um and then how is it kind of how is it doing more in places that need more?

So I think when we're when we're talking about an area is ultimately pretty small, right?

Chapel Hill is grand scheme of things pretty small.

Um of the areas where um you might expect um from a design perspective, greater climate vulnerability, large swaths of um of pavement, so parking lots.

Um mentioned earlier we're we're looking at uh or the the proposed lummo will likely include standards that just require more trees in parking lots.

Um so that's an opportunity to kind of hone in on we know um urban heat island impacts really are are amplified by large swaths of pavement, so mitigating against that.

Um I think that's probably our most targeted uh standard.

Um but then just like street trees, right?

Making sure that trees are close to people is one of the the biggest benefits of street tree requirements beyond the aesthetics is just bringing trees close to people.

Um so that's another kind of targeted approach to bring the benefits closer to the people.

Thanks.

Um and then if there are no questions, I'll just go straight to the the last slide in terms of standards.

Um there's been this this question, right?

Of how do we protect land for for conservation, stormwater infrastructure, um, and other kind of careful uses.

And as has been alluded to in before, it's the RCD, right?

Our RCD is um already so closely aligned with the meaningful kind of environmental resources in town and really making sure that we're not um disrespecting the R C D is going to be a key, even as I think there are a lot of calls to make RCD standards less stringent that we're you know pushing back against.

Um I think I I um conservation to me should potentially mean something a little bit broader than the RCD.

And um I would love it if you know I think one of the things that I heard that was talked about a lot before my time with the Jennifer Keys Matt is identify the things that you want to make sure you keep.

And I think access to open space and um natural areas is pretty important and not something that is easy to do once you get outside the town limits for people who are you know limited in how they can get around.

Um and so if there are places in town, and you know, and then also thinking about all the places in the world where they're trying to add urban forests back.

Um so I think that beyond the RCD, it would be important for us to identify some places where we have open space within our town limits that it's important to conserve um for any number of different reasons, um, just you know, as a public health benefit, as a environmental, you know, resource, blah blah blah, all the reasons.

But um, yeah, I think that there are probably areas we should be thinking about conserving beyond the RCD.

Yeah, 100%.

And I I think uh with that in mind, I I think a very important caveat or edit to this slide would probably be RCD is our most effective zoning related conservation tool or regulatory conservation tool.

Um yeah, there's there's a lot that we can do um incorporating things like the natural features model to um think about where should we be investing in conservation using land acquisition, other tools in our toolbox um to get at that conservation interest um is definitely something that we're we're hoping to incorporate and and and do more of um just outside of Luma.

Amy, and I think there's room too for some places in town to look at um we've kind of had a policy for a long time that significant pieces of public land are sort of been set aside for affordable housing.

I agree with our promotion of affordable housing and the uses that we've made of it.

Um but I know for instance, there's a um plot of land on Bennett Road that was actually dedicated to the town for open space many years ago, and there's been talk about repurposing that for affordable housing.

And I think that I think for places like that that are still pretty natural, it's not a very buildable site because it's very hilly and uh it's not a wonderful site to use anyway.

Um so I'd like to see the town open up that discussion a little bit and say again with complete communities, we have multiple interests that we're trying to build on.

Housing is a very important one, but also environmental protection and keeping those spaces as places where people in that area can go and can be are important as well.

So 100%.

Um thank you guys so much.

Um you all have beaten planning commission's uh record as far as getting through this material.

Low bar.

Yeah.

Um just a reminder, right?

Um, draft LUMO is coming up shortly, and uh please do take advantage of um staff office hours.

We really want to help um equip y'all to to learn about the draft in a meaningful way over the summer.

Um so with that, thank you all very much.

Thank you.

I'm gonna get a t-shirt that says uh oh, Taz is sitting down.

Um, council um Louise.

Oh, hi, hello.

I this is maybe for staff and for my fellow council members.

I'm not sure if we should be going into detail on individual points like this.

I mean, it's kind of what we did, but I think it would be more helpful and kind of what I heard through our discussion is like where are there points of conflict?

So I heard like we talked about affordable housing, but some of those goals are gonna conflict with tree canopy.

Actually, the tree canopy discussion is got conflict with a lot of other goals we have.

So, like, you know, I'd like to kind of identify those points of conflict when we meet back and try to focus on those instead of going to such detail in the future.

Yeah.

Can I so just um I think that that very much gets at what we've asked for in terms of trade-offs and options?

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Camille.

Um I should encourage that.

Can you help us do that?

So during the course of the next conversations, could you help us be mindful?

Uh um I think I mean when they come up and I can see them, but I think one concerned about is like this is such a complex document.

And we're gonna have these, so like we kind of focus these high-level priority goals.

And like in order to seek conflicts, you need people who are more enmeshed in the details.

So, like we need the we need what we need is like the details that are underneath each of our priority goals, someone to help us identify where those details are gonna start conflicting with each other.

And that's probably gonna happen all the time, and maybe we're just okay with it, but I think that's like you know, probably something for someone who's more enmeshed in the ride in and the details of the new modal race for us.

Yeah, and and I think that's a really important discussion for us to have for the community, just to say, hey, these are the things, these are the different choices we have.

This is what council has decided that, and this is you know, staff's giving us the the options and the trade-offs, and I would I would be very supportive of that.

And I don't I'm not expecting that we're gonna have answers for a lot of those, but going back to what councilman councilperson Ryan said, just highlighting that because there's gonna be people, and I kind of heard it in the public comment tonight where this was really important to me.

And I think you're not recognizing it because I hear you talking about these other things that are important to other people.

So, like if we could just identify these trade-offs and let people know in advance, and like we're working the best we can, but we're not gonna be able to save every tree, and we start thinking about like root network systems and all these other things.

It's the start yeah, there's a reason why tree law is such a complex thing, and like people in natural resources spaces try to avoid tree regulations, if at all possible, because it's so complex.

But like we need to message that.

I couldn't agree more.

I think I I've been calling them like policy options, but I think that's right.

Like the areas where we have decisions to make versus things that are kind of not as laden with decisions, and I think um I do think Taz that you're like the best position to help us really figure those things out and help us kind of just grapple with those, and I think at the end of the day, I really trust that this council will make reasonable decisions, but I also think to like communicate to the public the why for each of us to be able to do that.

I think it's really important too.

And I also and I actually'm okay with making decisions that aren't always popular, but I want people to be able to hold me accountable for those decisions.

And I feel like when it's just like a big thing or it's a lot of detail, then I think it's harder for the public or even for me to totally follow.

Like, what am I voting for?

I also don't want to get to the point in the fall where it becomes what I think was maybe like an older philosophy of like, well, you can just vote yes or no.

And I'm like, no, I don't want to vote against the LUMO.

Like I would never want that.

Like that to me is not progress.

So I don't want there to be things that I feel like would endanger at least a majority of the board feeling comfortable or like going through that, those policy options.

I think it's really important, and then that's just so we can communicate as well to the public, and they can um unhire us if they don't like the choices we make, and that's I think important like for all of us.

But um thank you all.

Thank you, council, for coming an extra day.

Thank you to staff for coming an extra day.

Um it's summer break.

Um we're gonna try and be rid of ourselves for a little bit.

Um obviously we'll be, I'm sure hearing about and thinking about this topic, but I appreciate council all your work.

Um, I think the good conversations are really important, and um thank you for just all the work that we all do on behalf of the community, and I think um we're gonna come back in the fall, rejuvenated and ready to go.

So I am sure I will talk to you all, but have a great break.

Um staff, congratulations on having some time to do work and not present tests.

And um with that, meeting a jerk.