The Charlotte City Council held a zoning meeting on March 18, 2024, beginning at 5:00 PM in the Council Chamber at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center. The meeting covered 23 consent agenda items, 5 decision items, and 20 hearing items, with extensive public comment and deliberation on several high-profile rezonings. The meeting concluded after 10:00 PM.
Several councilmembers emphasized the need to address cumulative infrastructure impacts, update the UDO to raise minimum standards, and improve community notification processes.
Good evening, everyone. We are going to begin our meeting in just a few minutes. Welcome. Welcome to the government center. Welcome, welcome to the government center. We're going to begin our meeting in just a minute or two. I will say if you do not have a seat in the chamber, and there's some seats here and there, but if you do not have a seat in the chamber, you're going to have to move out into the foyer, and there are televisions there where you can watch and see everything that's going on. Okay. So just make your way out to the foyer if you can if you do not, if you have not secured a seat. Stephanie Kelly, City Clerk. Good evening, Liz Babson, Assistant City Manager for the City of Charlotte. Good evening, Dante Anderson, Mayor Pro Tim and District One Rep. Is anybody here from District Seven tonight? Jar Picard, District 6. Good evening. I'm Victoria Watlington and I have the pleasure of serving you at large. Terry Hagler Gray, Senior Assistant City Attorney. Excellent. So we begin our meeting with an invoction, an expression and inspiration, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. The invocation by a Charlotte City Council member is intended to solemnize our proceedings. We celebrate the religious diversity of our entire community, including those without religious faith. And tonight, Councilmember Johnson will uh provide us with the invocation. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim. We can bow our heads. Dear Lord, please grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change. The courage to walk boldly and lead boldly to change the things we can and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen. Amen. Amen. Please rise if you can for our Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge allegiance. Underg. So tonight is our zoning meeting, and I will go through the explanation of the zoning process. The zoning process begins with applications submitted to our planning staff for review. There are two types of cases here on the agenda this evening. We have our decisions and then we have our hearings. Decisions on cases for which a public hearing has already occurred, so there's no further public comment on the decisions this evening. For our hearings, if anyone wishing to speak, is we ask that you come and see the city clerk before the beginning of that particular hearing. And we will have staff presentations, of course, for all of our hearings. They do not have a time limit. The petitioner will have three minutes combined to present on the case, unless there are two different exceptions. The first one is if there is opposition that's signed up to speak against that petition. And then the second one is if staff is in opposition of the petition, then in both those cases, the petitioner will get 10 minutes, and the opposition will get 10 minutes in aggregate, and then the petitioner will get two minutes for a rebuttal. If there is no one that's supposed to speak up to speak against it, then staff will just provide a brief presentation, and the public hearing will be closed and we'll move on. The petition goes to the zoning committee and planning commission for review and recommendation. And that particular committee is chaired by Mr. Welton, and I will pass it over to him so he can introduce that committee. Mr. Wilton. Thank you, Madam Mayor Pro Tim.