Welcome everybody to the city council meeting.

Uh, first item of business is the Pledge of Allegiance.

And uh, Councillor Lambert Milton, can you lead us in the flight?

Pro Tim Harrison back for this meeting.

Baby cadence is in good hands with Doug for a few hours.

Yeah, we hope.

Okay.

We had nothing pulled from the consent agenda.

So do we have a motion to approve?

All in favor of the motion.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

And that passes.

Next, we have public comment.

And it is three minutes per person.

First sign up is Elizabeth Scott.

Good afternoon, Honorable Council members.

My name is Elizabeth Scott.

I'm speaking on behalf of myself and my Anderson Forest neighbors.

At September's Greenway Committee meeting, City staff said they had no big branch creek cost estimates, but confidently proclaimed that the project could be completed within the $4.48 million parks bond allocation.

However, estimates dated over a month before the meeting tell a different story.

They show that the cost of a segment 1B a segment 1B route through Anderson Forests would alone exceed the entire park spond allocation for this project.

These bond funds were meant to finance three trail segments, not just one.

They show that the cost of a segment to mass these cost overruns, staff announced that Stormwater's pledge to contribute 1.2 million dollars towards a uh towards stream bank stabilization in support of a segment 1B route through Anderson Forest.

However, there will still be significant cost overruns, even with this hefty contribution.

In response to a recent public records request, the city has produced a February 2026 project cost estimate that exceeds $8.65 million.

That's nearly double the park spond allocation, and almost $3 million over the city's revised budget that includes the stormwater contribution.

And litigation costs were not included in this estimate, which means that connector costs could well exceed 11 million dollars.

What's the driving factor behind the projected cost over ones?

Segment 1B, a budget-blowing half-mile stretch of greenway that will threaten a Zone 1 riparian buffer, destroy tree canopy, endanger trail users, infringe on private property rights, and violate long a long-standing conservation easement.

Forty years ago, this city accepted a conservation easement that prohibits the building of greenway trails through Anderson Forest.

Yet after reaping the benefit of this easement for dec decades, the city is proposing to break the very terms of the easement it accepted.

The city needs to keep its promises.

Forty years ago, excuse me, there are less expensive segment 1B routes that can be built without threatening riparian buffers, infringing on private property rights, or breaking long-term promises.

Thank you.

Next we have Chris Crewe.

Happy St.

Patrick's Day, ladies and gentlemen.

If you missed the St.

Patrick's Day parade Saturday, it was my 15th.

It was a whole lot of fun.

It was downhill and ended at a pub.

What could be more Irish than that?

I'd like to talk to you today about preservation.

Growth is inevitable.

It can be transformative, but it's up to us to see that it's not destructive.

Zoning and land use planning are tools that we use to meet this challenge.

With considerable public input, we developed and adopted a comprehensive plan so that our growth could occur in a healthy and predictable matter.

If you routinely overturn publicly supported zoning on demand and by whim, you might as well not have the comprehensive plan.

You will soon be asked to make a decision concerning three zoning change requests that will have a decided impact on the character, culture, and history of Raleigh.

Z 3125, Z 4025, and Z526 all request concessions to profit that threaten the integrity of our historic districts and neighborhood conservation overlay districts.

Changes to zoning created by the people should create additional public benefits.

Convenience and profit is not a real public benefit.

Real public benefit isn't more exclusive housing.

Real public benefit is on loss of cultural and historical resources.

Unique neighborhoods, historic resources, and a vibrant downtown are what bring people to Raleigh.

Fast food, fast fashion, and fast money are bad for our health and well-being.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hannity Ali.

Not seen.

And Misa Saltari.

Octavia Rainey.

Good evening.

First of all, I would like to say that my feelings have been hurt.

I think some of the downtown business wanting to move Moore Square Bus Station is an outrage.

This is not about crime.

This is about being black.

Down at Moore School Station is the largest amount of black people that you will find seven days a week besides the African American Culture Festival.

I'm just insulted by that.

And I will say to the City of Raleigh, before you put that $20 million transportation bond on the table that you are planning on putting.

You gotta come talk to me.

As a matter of fact, I would like to thank Corey Branch for the meeting this afternoon that we'll have in at 6:30.

An announcement to Corey.

I am going to invite you to my other meetings with pastors in Southeast Raleigh.

I'm going across the belt line there.

We have eight that have signed up.

All I need is the date from you, so I can get these meetings going.

I'm going to tell them black people don't bring crime.

That's not true.

That's what you said with the Raleigh Redevelopment Commission to get rid of the black neighborhoods.

That's what you said that they bring crime.

We don't bring crime.

I think the issue, we are not addressing the homeless issues the way we should.

The issue is the mental health.

Those are your two biggest issues that you have.

And you have got to confront those issues.

You can't do me-nilly.

It's not right because black people get the blame.

Black people with no transportation at all.

They need the bus system.

They really, really do.

So my eight passes across the belt land have called me and said this issue is very important to us.

And we want to talk about it.

I am really surprised.

I'm really surprised that they would even put that in Raleigh magazine.

That was an install, and it's an insult to me for my 55 years of activism, and I'm not standing for it.

We do not bring crime.

The issue is mental illness and the homeless.

And until those issues are thoroughly dressed, you're going to have those kinds of problems.

But I am insult to Corey, I look forward to seeing you a 630 and to this city council.

I am going all over the city with this issue.

And I'm saying to them, don't vote on that 20 million dollar bond until I'm satisfied.

Because black people do not bring crime.

Thank you.

Athena Wallen.

Hello, everybody.

My name is Athena Wallen.

Um Happy Creek Week.

Uh, we are a biophilic city with sponge city goals, and throughout this week, we are celebrating our natural resources of stormwater creeks.

Um I continue to implore city leadership to explore policies that conserve or store and maintain stormwater creeks and the riparian buffers and adjacent wildlife habitats to those creeks.

Part of mitigating our ongoing citywide stream bank erosion issues includes acknowledging the widespread neglect of these public utility systems that weave throughout public and private property.

Part of mitigating a budget to restore these complex systems requires proactive restoration to slow or prevent expensive, unexpected costs of once something goes very, very wrong.

Part of mitigating the issue of how we can equit equitably address creek erosion throughout our neighborhoods is knowing the growing discrepancy of few more fewer homeowners and more landlords.

The more we isolate our residents from these natural systems that function as a shared utility, the less we know how to help advocate for positive change.

Throughout the last couple of years, I have discussed Brookside Drive and the converging issues of development on parcels lined by stormwater creeks and the consequences of nobody taking responsibility.

Quite simply, I decided to be very vocal about it, and I don't know why.

My personality is a silent screaming possum.

I've been up here a lot, but it's because I am very passionate.

And it's because of the kinds of conversations I've had with people regarding the creeks.

I've met more people in the creek than I have on the sidewalks in my neighborhood.

I've bonded over more excitable things in the creek with people than I have in any other Raleigh area.

So I wanted to get more people involved and aware of these these systems.

And I want to let you know that Brookside Drive is having its first ever Creek Week celebration.

March 18th from 3 to 6 p.m., we are having an iNaturalist bio-thon.

So basically, we're going to invite people to come and learn about plants and animals and contribute through a citizen scientist app, which collects data.

I was also awarded the Seek Raleigh Public Art grant last year, which funded the first of three phases of a sidewalk mural along Brookside Drive.

And the reception over that has been overwhelming.

So many people are so excited about paint on sidewalk.

And when I tell them that it's about the stormwater creek that passes right by us, it blows their mind.

Thank you for your time.

Happy Creek Week.

Thank you.

Right.

Mamakai Sanders, good afternoon, everyone.

It's another amazing day in paradise.

Thank you all so much for your service.

Y'all look good in green, by the way.

Happy Saints Patrick's Day for those of you that celebrate, but also to everybody who's here to support the tree initiatives to protect our canopy.

Thank you for showing up.

There's been so much on my mind and that I've wanted to talk about.

And one of the main things on my mind is having attended the COC created a committee of people that are primarily lived experienced, but there's also service providers in that room.

And it's not called that because of you know administrative purposes, and I'll be honest, I can't remember what the name of the committee is now.

But we met last week.

And it was shocking to hear we have a time when people can bring concerns to the table.

And one of the concerns came from a resident of King's Ridge who, when it initially was opened, it was like the pride of the city.

And the comments that she was making about what happens in that building is similar to the comments that Nikki has been making about what happens at the studios.

And so it's it's been weighing heavy on my heart what needs to be done about affordable housing.

Um, because I think everything people are just relying so heavily on y'all to solve a problem that I don't believe belongs to y'all, to be perfectly honest.

And there's a lot of people that are going to disagree with that.

But we would get things done faster and more efficiently if we leaned on the public and the public came together and just fixed it.

And so I just want to present eight ideas, eight or seven, seven to ten ideas that I've been floating around in my head as to how affordable housing can be addressed on a on a communal level.

Um is to work with families who are seeking upward mobility that currently use vouchers.

The quickest way to achieve uh get to affordable housing is to keep affordable housing available and help people move out of it that are keeping it bottlenecked.

Two is to find apartment complexes where you can pay rent 12 to 18 months in advance, maybe a business.

What the idea that I'm looking at is having a business that rents those for um for the people that we work with and have those people be work um considered workers.

Um, so it's like workforce housing.

Select private property owners who currently list on Airbnb or furnished finders or others platforms like that to change platforms to get out of that, figure out how they can transition, purchase properties, especially along proposed BRT routes with potential to add up to two ADUs, purchase or lease properties to use as campgrounds within the city limits, which those are allowed in CXDX and IX.

And also to partner with property owners who are interested in having an ADU, especially those who we want to protect their generational wealth.

And so those are just a few ideas, but thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Clodo Bastion?

Good afternoon, Mayor, good afternoon, Council.

Happy St.

Patrick's Day.

From a real Irish woman.

I am here to talk to you today about trees.

Trees make Raleigh Raleigh.

They shape our cityscape and they define us as the City of Oaks.

They are the first thing visitors notice, and they are a large part of what makes so many people want to stay here.

Sadly, Raleigh's popularity has come at a cost to our trees.

According to the recent Way County land cover analysis and tree canopy assessment, our county's population grew at a rate three times, three and a half times the national rate between 2010 and 2020.

And during that same period, we lost more than 11,000 acres of tree canopy.

That's twice the size of Umsted Park.

Development has consistent has continued since.

This isn't just about beauty.

Trees are natural infrastructure.

The same way county study values the contributions trees make to ecosystem services, such as air pollution removal, carbon sequestration, and stormwater capture at $3.2 billion, or $2,834 per capita.

Trees mitigate heat islands, they clean our air and water, they improve public health, and they enhance our quality of life.

This council and our parks department are already acting.

The leaf out program you'll hear an update on later is an amazing first step.

But leave out alone can't counteract the scale of what we've lost.

That's why I am asking you to support the 24,000 trees campaign, an initiative to plant 24,000 trees by Raleigh's 240th birthday in 2032.

The campaign lays out a plan to recanopy Raleigh by planting trees on state, county, and city land, rights of way, and private properties.

The impetus for this project is rooted in organic collaboration between citizens, local nonprofits, and work from the Park Sustainability, Wildlife, and Urban Trees Committee.

Some of those in support are here today, wearing green, not just for Patty's Day, but to show their support for trees.

Please stand if you support planting trees.

Thank you very much.

Dear Council, I urge you to help facilitate the 24,000 trees campaign to restore Raleigh's magnificent canopy in time for our City of Oaks 240th birthday celebration.

The coalition stands ready to help.

Thank you.

And I brought you some stickers.

Hold on.

If I make where should I?

Thank you very much.

All right, that concludes our public comment.

Okay.

Robert Hubbard.

I have been asked why we continue to speak to oppose council's decision to approve greenway routing through Anderson Forest backyards.

I am reminded of Proverbs 18 verse 17.

The one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him.

City staff had numerous opportunities to influence council and the public with written materials, glossy presentations, and surveys.

We have been largely restricted to three-minute comments like this to make our case to you and the public.

I therefore ask.

Did city staff fail to conduct due diligence and proceed with its first survey?

Unaware that the scenic easement through Anderson Forest prohibited trail development.

Yes.

Did the city spend thousands on the survey consultants and public meetings prior to being informed of easement restrictions?

Yes.

Did the first public survey describe our grass backyards and children's play areas as wooded?

State that the greenway would follow the easement and fail to mention the taking of private property?

Yes.

Did only 24 percent of first survey respondents favor the route council has approved?

While 49 percent favored a street side route?

Yes.

Does city staff then discard the first survey results?

Yes.

Did city staff place 12 street signs and hang door notices about the start of the second survey in an adjoining neighborhood while days later informing an end Savarge residents by mail via postcards?

Yes.

Did the city then change voting procedures when voting totals began to narrow?

Yes.

Did the survey use a photoshopped image that removed a large raised sewer manhole, plus riparian trees and vegetation from my backyard?

So that the trail could be shown closer to the creek?

And further from residences?

Yes.

Did the survey image fail to show the proposed safety railing?

Privacy fencing and screening?

Yes.

Did the survey fail to inform the public of flooding dangers and higher construction and maintenance cost?

Yes.

Did members of your parks, recreation, and greenway advisory board call out city staff for biased images and biased surveys?

Yes.

Did your advisory board vote 9 to 5 not to support the staff recommended route?

Yes.

Did staff fail to inform you and the public that the Midtown St.

Albans plan recommended a different bicycle pedestrian route?

Yes.

Did the survey fail to mention that a scenic conservation event would be violated?

Yes.

Was the public also unaware of the extensive violation of riparian water quality rules?

Yes.

Does your approved route violate the city's own greenway guidelines?

Yes.

So many points, so little time.

In short, does city staff present the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

No.

Thank you.

All right.

So that concludes our public comment.

And next we will move on to the report and recommendation of Planning Commission.

We have Vinham Walter and is Nicole Bennett here.

Fortunately, Chair Bennett is not able to join us this afternoon.

Good thing Councilmember Silver said all his nice words last week.

My name is Vinum Walter.

I am a assistant director in planning development.

I want to talk to you about what the Planning Commission did at their penultimate meeting.

So we have some holidays upcoming in April.

We always forecast these for you as you take into account when to set your public hearings.

You have some items already scheduled for public hearing.

There's a text change to zoning conditions and three rezoning requests scheduled for April 7 at your evening meeting.

And then we do have no items scheduled right now for your afternoon meeting in April on April 21st.

And the items coming out of Planning Commission this afternoon.

We are suggesting two of those to add to your April 7 evening meeting and three for your April 21st afternoon meetings.

So I'll walk through those.

The first is a couple of parcels on Page Road.

This is a request to rezone just over an acre from rural residential to industrial mixed use with a three-story height limit.

This is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

The associated annexation was on your consent agenda and scheduled for the 21st, which is what we are recommending here.

And the planning commission recommends approval.

The next request is three parcels on Trailwood Drive and Crump Road.

This is the southernmost of the three requests on trailwood that are pending in front of the city right now.

So this is just under eight acres, going from residential two with the special residential parking overlay district and the neighborhood conservation overlay district, and also some R 4 with that same special residential parking overlay district, all going to R 10 with conditions.

This is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

It's inconsistent with the future language map.

Again, the associated annexation, also on the consent agenda day, so that was scheduled for the 7th.

We are recommending the same date.

Planning Commission is recommending approval here.

1523 Crest Road.

This is 2.66 acres going from your residential mixed-use three-story district with your special residential parking overlay district to residential mixed use, seven stories.

There is an urban limited frontage being offered as well as some conditions.

This one is consistent with the comprehensive plan, but not with the future land use map.

Planning commission recommend uh recommends approval, and this is suggested for April 21st public hearing.

You can see this just on the west side of Avon Ferry Road south of state's campus.

C4925.

This is 319 South King Charles Road, uh request to rezone less than an acre from R 4 with the neighborhood conservation overlay district to residential six with conditions.

This is consistent with the comprehensive plan as well as the future language map.

Planning commission recommends approval by a vote of 9-1.

The suggested public hearing is April 7 here.

And then the comprehensive plan amendment.

This is CP 125.

This would is privately initiated and would realign a portion of a future street between that would run south of uh Make and Pond Road down towards Lake Bay Trail.

Uh this is consistent with the conference plan.

Planning commission recommends denial and instead suggested that you might consider removal of the second segment.

And again, we are suggesting a public hearing for April 21st, 2026.

What questions could I answer for you before you said public hearings?

Any questions?

Yep.

Just a couple.

Hi.

Um the one in that's one that's in Durham.

Um we passed the annexation line, and this one is outside of the ETJ, but obviously there's all that purple around it.

So can you speak to how this fits into that policy?

Absolutely.

So as you all know, we have uh negotiated annexation agreements with our neighboring jurisdictions.

This is inside our annexation agreement line, uh negotiated with Durham, and so it was included in that uh priority annexation area that you all uh acted on last fall.

Okay.

Any other questions or is there a move?

I move we schedule a public hearings as noted by staff.

Second.

All right, all in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

Right.

That passes.

Thank you so much.

Uh we have uh special items, and uh, you are on again, Ms.

Walter, uh Ferry Road Assemblage.

That's right.

So this you saw this at your previous meeting and uh continued discussion of the item until today, putting off your decision about when to schedule the public hearing.

So this is a request for just under nine acres.

The it's consistent with the future lady spec of the comprehensive plan.

Planning commission recommends approval.

Um we're suggesting April 21 for this item as well.

Since you saw this last, the conditions have changed.

The first two conditions remain steady as presented at the uh as offered for the last meeting.

And then they have added a condition here that would um provide additional notice as well as relocation assistance.

Right.

Uh questions or comments?

No questions.

I just wanted to move to set the hearing for April 21st in the afternoon.

Okay.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay?

Unanimous.

Thank you.

All right.

Next we have uh the topic of a legislative agenda for a short session of the North Carolina General Assembly, and we have Symmetria Jones.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

So I'm before you today to walk you through what the short session is at the at the General Assembly, and we have an agenda in front of us.

I'm gonna explain the short session, review the basics of a legislative agenda, provide you all with feedback that you offered us, some proposed legislative priorities, an example agenda, national and local advocacy efforts, as well as recommendations.

So just a refresher, a legislative agenda is a roadmap of priorities or goals that a governing body or organization sets to inform advocacy efforts at the local, state, and federal level.

So each general each session of the General Assembly convenes for two years, which they call the biennium.

The long session, which was 2025, begins in the odd number years of the biennium and traditionally adjourns around July.

The short session begins in the spring of the even numbered year of the biennium.

So this year, our short session will begin on April 21st.

So there are a variety of things that can happen during the short session.

This is prescribed by statute.

There is a joint resolution that's passed that lists all of the rules that the General Assembly will follow, including what types of bills legislators can consider during the short session.

Those include the budget, local bills, constitutional amendments, appointments, adjournment resolutions, recommendations from study commission, statutory commissions, and other committees, appointments and nominations, election laws, litigation, state or local pension or retirement systems, joint resolutions and impeachment.

One thing that's not up there are bills that have made crossover.

So just a reminder.

Crossover is a date by which bills have to exchange chambers.

Last year, that date was May 8th, I believe.

So bills that made crossover can also be considered during the short session.

Some deadlines to remember.

Bills that are authorized by a study or statutory commission or committee have to be filed in the House by Wednesday, April 29th, 2026, and in the Senate by Monday, April 13th, 2026.

For local bills, that deadline is April 13th in the House, and Tuesday, May 5th in the Senate.

Just as another reminder, a local bill is an act of the General Assembly that applies to 15 counties or less and the cities within them and towns within them.

They're often introduced at the request of the local government, and they generally proceed through the legislative process without objection.

They do not go to the governor for a signature, and they're generally not subject to veto either.

There are certain types of bill or issues that these local bills cannot consider, like cemeteries, ferries, bridges, but that's prescribed by the state constitution.

So a little refresher of what a legislative agenda is.

You will have seen this several times by now, but just want to preface it before we move forward.

An effective legislative agenda is objective, concise, actionable, informed, strategic, focused, responsive, attainable, practical, and consistent with stated mission and values.

So some considerations to keep in mind when thinking through a legislative agenda is jurisdiction, what the city or what the state actually has a jurisdiction over.

Do you need legislative action at all?

The timing and alignment with the biennium, politics, as well as advocacy partners.

So to get into the feedback, you all at um are at your retreat and post-retreat offered a variety of guiding principles.

You anonymous or unanimously agreed that you wanted these guiding principles to kind of operate in the background.

So they will do operate in the background in perpetuity.

Those principles are to protect and expand municipal funding streams, promote the city's strategic plan, leverage relationships with public organizations and public-private partnerships, protect and expand municipal authority, and to advance policies that support residents.

These policy themes are actually aligned with the strategic plan.

So you all determine or elected to use the strategic objectives that are in our the 26 through 29 strategic plan, and those are community safety, economic development and innovation, environmental resilience, housing, organizational excellence, quality of life, transportation, and transmit, so that creates some alignment there.

So this visual illustrates how you all ranked a variety of priorities.

And just to kind of add some context, you all individually ranked the top three goals that you would like to see on an legislative agenda, excuse me.

Um there is the visual kind of cuts off what the language says I'm gonna provide what the six priorities were.

Um they were to invest in policies, programs, and strategies that help residents and small businesses remain in neighborhoods experience growth, coordinate and collaborate with the North Carolina Office of Violence Prevention to enhance community partnerships and expand crime prevention tools, modify the state building code to facilitate the creation of townhomes, duplexes, triplexes, and other forms of missing mental housing, partner with county, state, and local transport transportation authorities to assess the feasibility of pursuing a comprehensive transportation plan, increase opportunities for local governments to purchase lease or otherwise use underutilized county or state-owned parcels for private or commercial development, and to identify opportunities to improve the reliability of water and stormwater infrastructure.

So you all provide a number of ideas, some were specific, but these goals are more broad but flexible enough to encompass some of the ideas you offered last year.

So this visual shows how the priorities were ranked.

And the one goal that clearly comes out on top is to increase opportunities for local governments to purchase lease or otherwise use county or state owned property.

The next two, numbers two and three on that chart were actually tied for second, that is to modify the state benefit to facilitate missing middle housing, as well as to partner with the county and state and local transportation authorities to assess the feasibility of pursuing a comprehensive transportation plan.

The one that received the third most votes is the goal that wants to invest policy invest in policies, programs, and strategies to help residents and small businesses remain in neighborhoods experiencing growth.

So the next few slides are going to offer a few examples to emphasize that these are only examples, and they are offered to demonstrate how policy goals can be used to guide advocacy.

They're not necessarily goals or ideas that came from you specifically, nor are they set to suggest if they should be pursued one way or the other, just to kind of offer the example.

So for the first goal to increase opportunities to purchase lease or otherwise use county or state owned parcels for land.

An example is first right of refusal policies.

These generally are clauses and contracts that allow party the opportunity to purchase or lease real property from the owner before the opportunity is extended to a third party.

A similar type of legislation was introduced in Virginia and was supported by the Virginia Housing Alliance.

Their particular bill would establish a first right of refusal during the sale of multifamily housing that receives state or federal assistance and is at risk of expiring.

So their goal is to keep the affordable housing affordable.

The bill was introduced in Virginia, it passed both chambers, but it was vetoed by the governor.

Massachusetts enacted a similar law to preserve publicly assisted affordable housing.

It gives the first right of offer and refusal that is triggered if an owner proposes to sell a covered affordable housing project without ensuring conf without ensuring continued affordability.

That law was enacted in 2009.

In 2014, a study was done and demonstrated that that law helped to preserve 81 existing affordable housing developments, totaling more than 12,000 units.

Smart stair or single stair reform allows buildings to require fewer staircases, which some advocates will believe will lower construction costs.

One is to increase funding for LITEC or to reenact the state LITEC program.

Some of you may be aware that there was a state version of the LITECEC program that has expired, and there have been several bills over the last few sessions to reenact that program.

Funding for the workforce housing loan program, which is run by the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency.

Protection for renters, as well as more grant opportunities for small businesses.

So just to reiterate, those were examples, just to kind of mirror how their how their legislation could be used in these areas.

So an example agenda, what I did here was list the guiding principles at top, which you see in green, and aligned the some of the policy goals with the policy themes.

So the first one is housing, amend the state building code to facilitate the creation of miss and middle housing.

You can see that that neatly aligns under the housing policy theme.

Similarly, transportation and transit, the policy goal relating to the feasibility of pursuing a comprehensive transportation plan, neatly fits under the policy theme of transportation and transit, economic development and innovation, the policy goal related to purchasing or leasing underutilized properties, as well as the goal related to investing in policies and programs to keep residents and small businesses in their neighborhoods.

Neatly fits under the policy policy theme for economic development and innovation.

Just a refresher on the national advocacy efforts and local government issues.

This is our this is the legislative agenda from NLC for 2026.

Their policy priorities are to simplify federal requirements for communities, improve housing attainability, promote public safety, strengthen infrastructure investment, build future focused communities, build community resilience, and reduce legal and financial burdens on local governments.

The U.S.

Conference of Mayors, similarly, their 2026 policy priorities relate to federal housing legislation, extensions of ACA premium subsidies, reauthorization of various federal laws, FEMA reform, and targeted fixes for the SNAP program.

And lastly, the National Association of Counties, their 2026 policy priorities are to promote better outcomes and behavioral health, homelessness, and criminal justice, enhance disaster mitigation, advance federal practical and predictable federal investments with local flexibility, and to preserve local decision making.

So here are the recommendations.

Option number one is to adopt the guiding principles, policy themes, and legislative goals as presented, and direct staff to draft a formal agenda for use at the start of the 2026 sort short session.

Our second recommendation is to refine.

So we could send the you could send the pot the proposed goals to the economic development and innovation committee to refine the language and obtain resident feedback.

The third recommendation or option is to absorb the material presented and have staff return at a later council meeting for direction.

Oh take any questions you have.

Thank you, Ms.

Jones.

Do we have questions?

Council Prophet.

Okay, good off.

Hi.

Thanks for your work on this.

This um is something we asked for a long time ago.

So it feels like we're making progress, which is a good feeling.

Um I am curious.

Can you go back to any one of the example slides?

Maybe the um state-owned property one.

Sorry.

I forgot that was in there.

Okay.

Well, while you're clicking, I'll just keep prattling.

Um I guess my interest is in like which of this would go be passed through.

So for instance, like the text on the left resonates and and is in line with the policy policy priority I have.

Some of the examples you described in the sort of like sub bullet of first rite of refusal, like those ones you described with affordable housing, feel like we we already have other mechanisms by which we reach um affordable housing that's about to go offline.

Like we feels like we already have other tools, and so that particular example is not of interest to me, and I'm rather I'm like more interested in like how do we get our hands on land that's just waiting for new affordable housing to go on it.

And so I guess it's in broad way, like kind of what of this slide is going into the agenda.

Right, great question.

So it will be the text on the left.

The examples on the right are just to offer kind of the realm of possibilities, understanding that there could be many more types of um legislation that comes down or is introduced that may align with that goal.

Well, I will say um the big gorilla in the room is the tax loopholes and tax exemptions.

So uh, you know, to me that would be number one on any list, and I I mean it fits under these goals.

I'm I'm all for the first, you know, do the principles, we have the buckets, and then it's a matter of going back through, seeing what you know made crossover, what's in committee, um, what are the tangible bill numbers that could affect this legislation.

Um I'm I'm all for that.

I will say on the state property.

Um I know when I was talking about that, I was less about a legislative vaginia than I was working with the executive branch to just affect transactions.

We have a uh Secretary of Sparza and the Department of Administration.

There's a number of, I think RFPs pending um in the City of Raleigh, and what can we do to facilitate that to help them?

We've we've submitted some letters um to them, but um I would say there's also executive branch um coordination as well as legislative.

Yep, Council Lambert Melton.

Um I'm prepared to make a motion to adopt the um the priorities.

I also just wanted to add to the mayor's point.

I actually learned over the last few months that the county has less flexibility over their publicly owned land, and I do think that is something that could be a local act if they were able to have the type of flexibility that we have as a city that may be able to unlock some more partnerships.

So that I think does fall into that one bucket, and then to your point, obviously um the state seems to have a more simple process for their land, and there is a great deal of underutilized state land, particularly in an amenity-rich areas like downtown Raleigh that are mostly used for surface parking lots, which are really not contributing at all to the fabric of our city.

So that would be priority one for me, and it was priority one for the council.

But with that said, um, you know, I move to adopt the um short session legislative agenda.

Second.

Any other conversation?

Not all in favor, aye.

All opposed, nay.

Thank you so much.

And thank you, Mr.

Isley, for being here.

All right.

Uh next we move on to the report and recommendation of the city manager.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

We have two items in the report today, and then I will have a follow-up item from the budget work session from last week.

The first item is a request for modification of loan terms for the Arbor and Millburnie Road Apartments.

We have Erica Brant from Housing and Community Development here to present this item.

Good afternoon, uh Mayor and Council, Erica Brandt Housing and Community Development.

So I um am here today with a request to make some loan modifications for two affordable rental properties that was brought to staff by the current owner of those properties.

So I'll start off with a little bit of detail about the two projects, about their history, and then we have a representative here from the current owner, Essential Housing LLC, uh, Mr.

Eric Commonidi, who will make the loan modification request.

So the two projects in question are the Arbors, um, which is on the kind of northeast part of the map on your screen, um, and Millburney Road Apartments, um, which is in within the belt line.

Uh these were both uh projects that have 50 units each with all units being affordable at 50 percent AMI.

So we'll start with the Arbors project history.

This project was developed in 1996 by Mills Construction.

The city invested at that time uh a loan of 500,000 at an interest rate of 5.25 percent with a maturity date in 2046.

In 2020, um both of these projects, the Arbors and Mill Burney Roads were acquired by Harmony Housing LLC, and the original loan documents were modified as part of that ownership transfer.

So at that time um the interest was paid by the seller, a new interest rate of zero percent was negotiated, um, and the maturity date remained the same.

And then in 2023, City Council approved transfer of ownership for both of those properties from Harmony Housing to the current owner Essential Housing LLC.

And the periods of affordability for both projects were extended by 20 years.

Um so for the Arbors, that's in 2066.

Millburnie Road Apartments has a similar history.

Um 1998 instead of 96, a little bit higher interest rate and a larger investment from the city of 750,000.

Um that 2020 transaction occurred, the principal had been paid down and the interest was also paid by the seller, new interest rate of 0% established.

And then similarly in 2023, um the maturity date was extended to 2068.

And so I will now turn it over um to Essential Housing to make the loan modificate modification requests and to answer any specific questions.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

I'm here today to uh request approval to transfer the two loans on the Arbors and Millburney from Essential Housing to Harmony Housing.

In April 2023, when Essential Housing bought these two properties, we also purchased 29 other properties in North Carolina using a line of credit that was shared between ourselves and a different company.

That line of credit is over $700 million, and the shared nature of that financing has become very, very complicated.

By way of example, when one owner sells a property in the line of credit, the other owner can be forced to make a principal pay down on their portion of the line of credit.

That can result in a uh one of the owners not receiving any cash from a sale but having to make a very large principal payout.

Sometimes that's 10, 20, 30 million dollars.

Essential housing is a nonprofit, and we simply don't have 10, 20, 30 million dollars to uh pay down our principal every time the other owner on the credit facility makes a sale.

Uh therefore, in order to preserve our ability, our flexibility, and uh our mission of creating an uh operating more affordable housing, we need to sell these properties, these two properties, as well as 29 others.

Uh we're requesting that the loan be transferred to Harmony Housing because uh there's very little proceeds from this sale.

There's no requirement in the loans to pay down the loans uh on a sale, and there just simply isn't really the cash available to make that principal pay down.

Questions?

Yep.

Go ahead.

I think uh remember Brandon kick it off.

Yeah, I was just gonna say um so basically you know this the properties will continue to remain um as they currently exist as affordable housing, and this is just to change you're changing ownership, so this is uh needing our approval on the loan statement to change the name of that.

So we have a new person that owes us in the end.

That's exactly right.

Uh none of the affordability restrictions will train change, so it will continue to have the exact same rent levels, the exact same services.

It would just be a different face operating the property.

Okay.

Councilor Pump.

Yeah.

This might be a question for our staff.

Um I am just curious what the city's role is in like vetting the like vetting the new lenders and the new owners and you know, if we feel like we have sufficient legal authority to ensure the affordability terms are are still met.

If I may.

Uh there's a land use restriction agreement covering the properties, which is between 30 and 50 years for all 31 properties we own in North Carolina.

That will continue uh to be in effect.

It's on title, so the affordability restrictions must continue exactly as is for uh the remainder of that land use restriction agreement.

And if for any reason the re loan repayment is not repaid, like what happens then in that situation?

Uh there will be no change in the affordability restrictions.

I don't know.

No.

Yeah.

For instance, if you stop paying your loan to the city today, then something something would happen.

And I guess I'm just wondering like what would happen, what will happen under the new ownership if there's any like default on the There are actually no monthly required payments on the loans as they stand.

They uh mature in 2066 for the Arbors and 2068 for Millburnie.

There's no interest associated with them or required principal payments, so there's no real ability to default on the loan.

Did you have a question?

Um, thank you.

Just to clarify, before when you purchased this in 2020 or 2023, that was from Harmony, and now we're wanting to the ownership to go back to Harmony.

Am I correct in understanding that?

That's right.

Harmony purchased these in November of 2020.

Uh Essential Housing, my company purchased them in April of 2023.

Three years later, because the complexities and how we chose to finance this, putting a lot of pressure on our ability to grow and balance sheet, we're requesting to transfer the properties back to Harmony.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

They're a nonprofit just like us, and we think they've done a very good job with these properties before we own them.

Councilor Patton, did you have another?

Or does anybody have a motion?

Move for approval.

All in favor of the motion?

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

The next agenda item is one that we talked about for several months as we are in the process, deep in the process of our budget development for FY27.

So today we have Jennifer Stevens and the County Tainstor here to talk about the property tax update.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

Jennifer Stevens from Finance.

I'm here to introduce Wake County's tax administrator, Marcus Kinraid.

Today's presentation is going to continue the discussion from the council retreat.

And today we're going to focus on the value losses associated with property taxes, which have impacted the city's current year, FY26 fiscal year.

The main reasons for this decline are the continued approval of commercial appeals from the 2024 revaluation, an increase in brownfields exemptions, and the significant increase in affordable housing exemptions, primarily from those multifamily complexes who are using a not-for-profit ownership structure.

And then at the end of today's presentation, we'll share some trends that can be used to consider in our upcoming FY27 budget process.

So I will turn things over to Marcus Kinraid, and then also here to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council.

It's a pleasure to be here.

I wish I carried a more positive message.

Your staff asked me to come and present in detail some of the reasons why both the city and the county are struggling with our FY26 property tax base, and as that feeds into the FY27 property tax base.

My best estimate of what I believe the value of your tax base will be.

And in April of every year, it is still an estimate because there's a lot of things going on in Wake County, so we're still out working in the field.

But typically I hit it pretty close.

And for FY26, everything is tracking pretty well per the estimates, except for real property, which is intriguing because typically that is the easiest component of the tax base to predict.

So for FY26, the Raleigh tax base is a little over a half a billion dollars short on real property.

And there are three main reasons for that.

The first is appeals from the 2024 revaluation.

We typically offer three levels of appeal when we do a revaluation.

The first is an informal appeal, and it is exactly what it sounds like.

Someone approaches us and says, hey, we think you're wrong, and they present any information that they believe supports their argument.

For the 2016 revaluation, we had a 5 percent informal appeal rate, and that steadily declined from 2020, it was at 4.4 percent, and in 2024 it was 3.7 percent, which was curious to me because we had over a 50 percent increase in value between 2020 and 2024.

As we shifted to what we call a formal appeal level, that's the local board of equalization and review.

They're members of the community who were appointed by the county commissioners.

They typically have experience in the local market, either as an appraiser or accountant, a banker, real estate agent.

And their job is to sit and have formal hearings and listen to appeals.

And we were doing well for 2024 up until about the first week of May.

The cutoff for filing Board of ENR appeals in 2024 was May 15th.

And the first and second week of May, all of the jurisdictions started having budget meetings and talking about budget proposals and things like that.

And some of our municipal partners, not Raleigh, were looking at fairly steep tax rate increases.

And what we saw was we believe that created some fear in the community that their tax bills were going to increase at the same rate that their tax value did.

So we saw a rush to appeal the second week of May in 2024, and that pushed the appeal rate on board of E and R appeals to 2.1%.

So that was up compared to 2016 and 2020.

And then that trend sort of followed on through to the State Property Tax Commission.

The State Property Tax Commission or the PTC is the state board of equalization and review.

And it's more like a court of law.

So there were 1,500 PTC appeals filed countywide, and a thousand of them were in the City of Raleigh.

And that's sort of makes sense.

Most of the commercial construction is in the city.

So of the 1,050 that were filed, we still have 619 of them that are open and unresolved.

Now keep in mind that 377 of those 619, I consider one appeal.

It's one bulk residential appeal by a developer.

So 619 looks big, but just keep in mind that 377 represents one.

Of the open appeals on the residential side, the total value under appeal is 120 million.

And on the commercial side, the value associated with the open appeals is 4.9 billion.

For closed appeals, you can sort of see what the trend has been.

We've lost 11.6 percent on average on residential appeals and 12.6 percent on commercial appeals.

Keep in mind that an appeal at this point that's resolved at the State Property Tax Commission will result in a refund for FY25, a refund for FY26 plus interest, and also reduces your FY27 tax base.

If it's resolved after we issue bills for FY27, it could also uh result in a refund for FY27.

So there's a lot of unresolved tax matters at the State Property Tax Commission.

We also have several unresolved PTC appeals in the downtown special district.

Parcel count is low, and the value of most of these parcels is high, so those 51 appeals can affect their base too, quite significantly.

We're pressing as hard as we can on the council for the appellants to get these resolved, but at the state level, we don't control the agenda, we don't control the rules, and we really can't compel them to come to the table.

The Hillsborough Special District has nine open appeals, so they don't really have a significant problem in that special district.

In terms of total value exempt, excluded or deferred for the city, we just decided to show you the exempt value in the year after the most three recent revaluations.

So in 2017, the value exempted increased by a little over 500 million.

In 2021, the value exempted year over year increased by a little less than 100 million, and then in 2025, the value increase year over year was 1.22 billion.

So what we saw for fiscal year 26 was unprecedented compared to prior years.

The second reason that the base is short is attributable to brownfields.

Brown fields are simply contaminated soil.

And typically where we see these the most are in downtown Raleigh and inside the 440 belt line.

That's the oldest part of the county.

It's been redeveloped over and over for 250 years.

And at some point there was probably something there that contaminated the soil, whether it be an old industrial site, a newspaper site, it could be a dry cleaner or a service station.

Typically, there is some type of contamination on that soil.

And there is an exclusion in the general statutes that will allow an owner to partner with NCDEQ to obtain an agreement that if they will redevelop that property and mitigate the contamination, they can qualify for a brown field exclusion.

That property is taxable while under construction.

Every year we go out and we estimate the percent complete of new construction on January 1.

So hypothetically hypothetically, if someone's building a $100 million tower on a brownfield site, and we determine on January 1 of 2025 that it's 90% complete, we will put a $90 million value on that structure and tax it.

The following year, January 1, 2026, it's now complete.

The owner applies for the brownfield exclusion, and if it qualifies, we have to reduce that complete structure value by 90%.

So it goes from $90 million at 90% complete to $10 million as complete.

So it's a huge swing in value year over year.

Now you get that value back because the exclusion phases out over five years, but it's a big swing.

In fiscal year 25, the City of Raleigh lost $514 million in value attributable to brownfield exclusions that qualified for their first year.

$233 million was taxable in fiscal year 24.

Then we added $281 million based on it being complete, and then you lost 90% of it the first year.

Again, an unprecedented increase in brownfields.

The tax loss attributable to that $514 million is $1.8 million in city taxes.

Affordable housing.

Now let me preface this by saying that the county nor I are against affordable housing.

And I know the council places a huge amount of effort on affordable housing.

The current general statutes that cover affordable housing are North Carolina General Statute 105-278.6A8.

A nonprofit organization providing housing for individuals or families with lower moderate incomes shall be exempted from taxation if entirely and completely used by the owner for charitable purposes, and the owner is not organized for profit.

Now two things that are not covered in this statute currently is it does not define what lower moderate income is, and it does not define what ownership is.

And this was a situation where an affordable housing apartment complex was owned by a for-profit entity.

They owned 99.9% of the structure.

And they granted 0.1% ownership to a nonprofit.

There were LITEC credits involved, and it was 60% AMI protected with deed restrictions.

But the Mitchell County assessors said, well, the nonprofit only owns 0.1 percent, so that can't possibly qualify.

So they denied the application.

It was appealed to the State Property Tax Commission who sided with the appellant.

They said this this is equitable ownership.

It doesn't matter that the for-profit doesn't have full legal ownership.

We believe they have equitable ownership.

The Mitchell County Assessor appealed that to the State Court of Appeals, who also agreed that the property was exempt, and they established a four-part test to determine if equitable ownership qualified for a full exemption.

And it had to do with who has control of the operations, does the nonprofit serve as the trustee for the operation?

Is there a possibility for future increased ownership?

And what is the intent of the participating parties?

So now the Court of Appeals has created binding precedent to determine what ownership is in terms of affordable housing.

They still didn't define what lower moderate income meant in terms of the property tax statute.

So the trend for exemptions in affordable housing in Wake County, you can see how this is really, I think I'm going to use a word I heard the mayor say, snowballed in the last two years.

In 2024, it was 1.428 billion.

And for 2025, countywide, it increased another 776 million to 2.2 billion.

87% of that is in the city limits of Raleigh, or $672 million in value lost to these structures.

Now, when I say these structures, I'm talking about old apartment complexes, existing apartment complexes that have been taxable for years.

These are not new apartment complexes.

There are no LITEC credits involved in these apartment complexes.

There is no government financed mortgages or debt involved with these apartment complexes.

So there is no follow-up other than the owners following up to make sure that they're in compliance.

They record restrictive covenants, but the covenants are dissolvable at any time for any reason, with or without cause.

So there is no protection to make sure that these apartment complexes are affordable long term.

Here's an example.

This is the view at Lake Lynn Apartments.

It was built in 1986 and it was taxable until 2024.

It was purchased in 2020 for 81 million dollars by a 99.9 percent for-profit investor from New York City who partnered with an out-of-state nonprofit to create the ownership model to apply in 2025 for a 70 percent exemption, and they qualified.

So the city and the county lost about 75 million in value year over year just based on this one apartment complex, which equates to about $650,000 in taxes between the county and the city.

This is one example of 40 that occurred in 2025.

The impact of this affordable housing loophole in Wake County for FY26 cost the county $4 million in property taxes.

It cost the city $2.38 million in property taxes.

And obviously, the only way to cover that kind of loss is either reallocate money and reduce services or raise your tax rate.

And you have to spread that pain on the residential property owners who live here.

As we look ahead to fiscal year 27, I've never had to do this in 18 years as the tax administrator.

This is the first time I've ever had to do this.

We have a $315 billion tax base, and we had to go through every exempt application we have received to quantify how much value we anticipate losing for fiscal year 27 because it's so significant that it matters.

So for the city, we've received $115 applications for the affordable housing loophole exemption compared to 40 last year.

We've triaged the current value, and it's roughly $830 million for the city.

It's $1.2 billion for the county.

If we apply your current tax rate to this anticipated loss, it's another $2.95, 2.2.95 million in city taxes lost.

It's $6.2 million for the county.

Just out of curiosity, if they do close this loophole, is all this grandfathered?

So there's there's there's a bill that exists that's been created.

It's not public record yet.

Um the goal is to close this loophole and recapture any funds that uh we anticipate anticipated being lost for fiscal year 27.

But there's no there's no guarantee of when that may happen.

So the self-help organization, um a nonprofit based out of Durham, did a presentation to the House Select Committee at the General Assembly.

They did an analysis of the scope of this, if it continued to grow.

And they looked at the high median incomes in Way County and the low rates compared to 80 percent AMI rental rates, and they determined that the potential scope of this could spread to 94 percent of all the multifamily units in Wake County.

94 percent.

So if you want to translate that to value and tax loss, the the current total value of apartments in Raleigh is just shy of 18 billion.

There's already 1.8 billion exempt.

There's 830 million in the pipeline to be exempted, so that leaves a net taxable value of 15.3 billion that's at risk.

And if you apply your current tax rate to that, that's another 51.2 million in potential losses of city taxes attributable to this loophole.

So the urgency to plug it is real.

I already mentioned the House Select Committee on Property Tax Reduction and Reform.

They've met several times.

I've gone to all their meetings, they have asked for my feedback, I've gladly provided it.

There's also now a Senate Select Committee on tax reform.

They have not met yet.

I'm sure you all saw the proposal by Senator Berger to place a moratorium of 12 months on revaluations in North Carolina.

That would affect Wake County.

We're on schedule for a 2027 revaluation.

So there's a lot of unknowns at this point, but we're working as hard as we can to at least make sure this loophole is closed.

Anytime I get a chance to talk to an elected board, I like to remind the community of the existing tax relief options that are out there for all residents, and to remind them that the June 1st is the date to apply.

Um we've ramped up our efforts over the last five years to remind people of these tax relief efforts.

We send out um email blasts to 150 community partners every year in English and Spanish.

I'm happy to say that the participation rate in Raleigh has increased 15 percent since 2021.

But there's work to be done here too because the income levels allowed for this existing exemption is still quite low.

So that's another effort where we would need to get the General Assembly to help us.

If I could think of any good news, I I'd gladly say it right now.

I'm sorry.

Questions?

I'm I I won't say thank you for that presentation.

Uh Council Branch?

Um I'm going to go back to your last point because your presentation mainly target our commercial properties and what's happening there, which means our single family homes, our residents are filling those burdens, especially our seniors who still own their homes.

Um can you speak to any work?

Because I know it's Mark, it's been a while since we've talked, but the last time we talked, I know there is from my recollection uh look at looking at the urban counties and trying to get the state to make some adjustments for about 10 or 12 urban counties as far as that number being so low as far as relief.

Is there any thing you could speak to there or where we're going there?

Um Representative Peray, who who uh is from the southern part of Way County, she filed a tax relief bill last year.

I think it's House Bill 81, if I remember correctly, and that referenced a 70 percent area median income threshold for tax relief.

Uh there's still some pushback on that because um there's a belief in the state that that violates the uniformity provision of the Constitution because 70 percent AMI is a different number in different counties.

So we'll see if that gets any traction.

Uh I I assembled a peer group of assessors, and we worked with the County Commissioners Association to come up with a different idea, and that's reflected in Senate Bill 349, which was filed last year, and that um eliminates the marriage penalty in tax relief.

Um and then it also, which we thought would be a big help, it drops the deferral portion of the circuit breaker tax relief.

There's only about 192 households in Wake County that take advantage of the circuit breaker tax relief because it doesn't relieve taxes, it just defers them.

It kicks them down the road, and at some point they'll have to be repaid three years' worth with interest.

And most seniors that I talk to, they don't want to leave a burden behind to their heirs.

So that hasn't been popular.

And what we proposed was instead of deferring those taxes, that they simply be relieved, written off, they go away.

So that would cap property taxes at either four or five percent of someone's income, which in some cases is still quite high, but it's it's going in the right direction.

So my last question is of the work that you are doing, um, how things that it is for public record.

How can the community be updated and be made aware?

Because they call us.

Sure.

And we're trying to say, hey, the county is responsible for the property tax programs and everything.

So how do we share the information and the work that you are doing?

I think that I think that uh after this meeting on, I guess it's tomorrow at the House Select Committee, a lot of the things that are going on at the General Assembly will come to light.

In terms of anyone who has questions about the existing relief or anything like that, I always ask them to call us or direct them to our website, and we're always glad to help them.

We just had a we just had a tax relief workshop at the top green center last week and talked to 40 or 50 people.

So we're uh also just while I'm talking to you, um, we have uh 2027 revaluation fast approaching, and I've committed to having some community sessions in the Southeast Raleigh area probably in August or September to invite people to come in and talk to us before we finalize the values so that in case there's some deferred maintenance items inside their home, things they haven't addressed in 40 or 50 years, so we can take that into account when we actually assess them and try to reduce the burden from theming them having to appeal uh to get the value right.

So thank you.

Counselor Pott.

Yeah.

Hi.

I need to bring you along every time I have to deliver bad news because you've done so in a very calm and patient way.

Um but this certainly is alarming news, right?

We make a budget based on how much we think we'll bring in, and to hear that we'll have a challenge bringing in that.

This means there will be an impact to our services.

So a couple questions that I have.

So on the brown fields, there's been an increase based on what I've understood.

It doesn't sound like there's some loophole or exploitation of that.

It's just the city's older, more things have happened to properties, so there are more there's more chances for an individual site to be contaminated, and as lands get scarcer, people are having to use all the land that's remaining.

Is that is that a fair understanding?

It's a fair point.

Uh it's just there's a lot of it that's occurring now, a lot of redevelopment.

You look around downtown, you're seeing new towers and things going up all the time.

And uh it's it's a fair it's a fair argument to say I should be able to see that coming, but sometimes you don't quite know when it's going to be 100 percent complete, then you can't necessarily anticipate they're going to apply.

So that's a challenging equation to figure out.

Got it.

Helpful.

Um then flashing forward to the affordable housing component.

You may need to phone a friend, and that's um I think you've got some folks behind you can.

But this decision was made in 2013, it's now 2026.

So this loophole wasn't being um utilized quite so fully in the years past, and then recently it has been.

I mean, it feels like someone just sent around a listserv and was like, hey guys, did you did you know you could do this?

Do we have a sense of what spurred the higher utilization of this?

So it's existed for a while.

We we were seeing we were seeing units uh one, two, three a year, nothing significant or that would really get your attention.

But if you recall, as we came out of COVID uh inflation hit, and not only did that drive up the price of goods, it drove up incomes.

So incomes increased significantly here in Wake County.

Now I think Wake County has the highest median incomes in the state.

Also, at the same time, around 2022-2023, there was a huge tranche of new luxury apartments that hit hit the market here in Wake County a lot.

And that drove up vacancy rates.

When vacancy rates go up, rental rates go down.

So we had incomes going up, we had rental rates going down, and several local attorney's firms sort of came up with the playbook for how to create the ownership structure to satisfy the Blue Ridge model.

And they partnered with brokers who were actually when they listed apartments for sale, they were saying right on the on the on the listing.

Naturally occurring affordable housing, potential for tax exemption, right on the sales listings.

So all that started happening quickly, starting in 2024, and then it just really snowballed in 25.

Got it.

Okay.

And my last one is just if you could if you feel able to say the select committee.

I am interested.

Do you have a sense of which areas of touching property taxes they they seem most inclined to?

I mean, certainly closing this loophole.

Rises to the top of it as interest to us, I believe.

But there are some good news that they could do.

Philip Isley, I'm an attorney in town, and I represent uh Y'all and Wake County, Holly Springs, and Kerry.

Um I've been following the property tax commission work for uh all year.

And I I just pulled up some of the information from the last meeting.

Uh as of today, I still don't have the agenda or the materials for tomorrow.

I believe they're going to be working on concepts for a bill that will be filed in April.

Those concepts can vary, but I think you're going to see homestead exemptions potentially increased.

Obviously, the Blue Ridge loophole being closed is that's what everybody is telling me right now is sort of tip of the spear.

Are there other things out there that are of interest to me and y'all?

Um of the slides they had from the last meeting that um and I have been advocating this for a Wake County representatives that if the State just paid their fair share of property tax of Wake County, we would be okay.

Right?

So that got that's it gets a big chuckle with all the folks in the General Assembly.

Um the other thing that's uh of interest is how many nonprofit hospitals are out there that pay no property tax to.

You have heard a lot of conversation.

I say you.

If you've gone to these meetings, you've heard a lot of conversation about those entities not paying any of the property taxes and how certain hospital groups that are nonprofits are differently treated than the for-profits, and so that's something that I know several members have questions and concerns about.

My expectation tomorrow is it will be probably a two to three-hour meeting with a lot of questions from the members and some others.

I know the County Commissioner Association as well as the league, they've been at every single meeting.

Um there will be some discussion, but I don't think we're gonna know exactly what's coming down the pike in April because the House and the Senate are going to have to probably chat about this at some time too.

And right now, there's not been great agreement between the two chambers as to what may pass.

So I think tomorrow is sort of a primer, an appetizer, so to speak, of what may happen with the main course being at least put on the table in April or May.

Is that do you agree, Mark?

I do.

Yes.

Um, Counselor Silver also had a question.

Uh do you want to go first and then start, Jones?

Thank you for the presentation, as you know, it's a lot to digest, uh, but it's important information we and the public should know.

Uh I want to go back to the affordable housing, that statute, and I just want to understand you had mentioned that they don't define low or moderate income.

But if the building is partially market rate and partially affordable, uh but the ownership, I don't know how the ownership would affect it, but would that still be eligible for this exemption, even though it may be 3 percent ownership to manage and run the affordable housing component, but then as another portion that's strictly market rate.

How does a mixed product like that affect uh this statute and is that part of the Blue Ridge loophole?

It is.

Actually, the example that I provided to you, the view at Lake Lynn apartments, we granted a 70 percent exemption on that, 30 percent of the units were market rate.

Okay.

One thing, one thing maybe I neglected to say, we we interpret low to moderate to be maximum 80 percent AMI moderate.

And of all of these properties that qualified based on the Blue Ridge model, there were none that went deeper than 80 percent.

So they're just doing the bare minimum.

And and truly, based on the income levels in Wake County and what 80 percent area median income is rent-wise, it's higher than market rent.

So these these property owners are purchasing these apartment complexes, doing some work on the ownership to to get the exemption.

They're not lowering rents to achieve the exemption, and they're not further lowering the rents when they receive the tax abatement.

So obviously you know where the money is going.

So mayor for time Harrison?

I think you already answered it or just answered it.

But do you guys keep track of uh kind of what you were saying?

Those that are eligible and do have the affordability, what those breakdowns are.

But I think what you just said answered that that everything was no lower than 80 percent AMI.

Is that correct?

Correct.

None that I've none that I've seen.

Awesome.

None lower than 80 percent.

That feels great.

Thank you.

And none and none protected long-term.

Like I said, they record a restrictive covenant, which if you read it, it's dissolvable at any time for any reason.

So there's no long-term deed restrictions involved.

Yeah, just a question, I think, for the city manager.

Then when will we see how to handle this in our own budget decisions?

So it looks like we're gonna have a lot of uncertainty.

Um how do we have some meetings being put on your calendars right now for sessions coming up between now and May before we do the actual public unveiling of the balance budget?

Thank you.

My question is also really to the city manager.

You this the second headline below the jaw dropping and Mama Kyle like your face, jaw-dropping that is uh the whole front row dropping their jaws.

Um but the second headline is really our downtown property values and how that impacts then DRA.

I don't quite understand how their funding model works.

But I mean, would it be fair to say we could have highly reduced funding for DRA?

We might have to shift levels of support, or we'd have reduced support downtown because of the drop in commercial property values.

Just how do we think through that and prepare for as those come through?

And Mr.

King is ordered shifting in his seat while that question came up.

Okay, yes.

We've been shifting for quite a while up here at the table and in the conference rooms in this building.

I think as we continue to evaluate current um real-time data right now and the actuals of where we are in FY26 and where we think we are going to be through the projections and the current state of play for FY27, those are conversations that are being had.

And as we bring forward that proposed budget to you, that will have all of those considerations and any of the negotiations and trade-offs.

And we spoke a little bit about it.

And the next thing I'm going to speak about is one of those trade-offs that we talked about a little bit last week at the enterprise budget work session.

Those are those conversations we are having right now, trying to figure out how do we continue to provide the level of service that our customers demand and expect along with doing everything that we have to do when the cost of business is elevate it for the city as well, as well as providing all of the quality of life amenities that people come to this to the city and this county for.

So we will continue to work with our partners that are impacted by this, and we're having conversations all day, and I don't know how Jennifer is going to close out this presentation.

She may speak to it.

Um but if not, you'll definitely hear a little bit about it next week.

And as I mentioned, we have got several meetings being scheduled on your calendars right now before we bring that budget back to you in May.

The reason why I know this is a lot to process because as we look at rezoning cases, we don't often go this deep.

We talk about return on investment, ROI, and the maps we've all seen, but this changes the equation for those locations that we do expect higher density to produce those taxes, those projects is now it depends.

Uh if it's on brownfield, now it depends, and it changes the tax revenue.

Uh we all embrace and want more affordable housing, but you know, hopefully the loophole will be closed.

But if not, that factors in the equation, which puts more pressure on areas we identify for increased density to actually approve it because our we have a limited footprint with land and boundaries, and we have to think very differently about how land use affects development, but ultimately affects the taxes we collect.

So that's why I'm trying to process this.

It is shocking, but it is something we need to know.

Uh so that as we go forward with the comprehensive plan, this is just a factor.

Me as a planning director in the past have not taken into account, but these are some serious, serious financial implications, because our goal is to make sure we have uh the funds to provide services and safety for our citizens and businesses.

And so for me, this is just a huge wake-up call that we have to think about how we do business differently in the future, hoping this loophole will be closed.

So last question.

Yep.

So is it be true to say the only way to say a property is really making an impact on affordable housing that isn't just trying to get a tax loophole credit is through our LITEC programs or any type of governmental funding for that project?

Governmental supported and protected by long-term deed restrictions.

And new construction generally not converting existing.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

I just saw saying that finance is going to keep working with the county and look at our FY26 numbers, which we know roll into the FY27 base.

So we do have, you know, property tax losses that we have estimated, which are higher than what we shared at the retreat.

But we're continuing to monitor all that data and we'll be working with budget and the manager's office as we put forth recommendations for 27.

Is there any other questions?

Yeah.

Yep, Councillor Jones.

Can you remind me what was the dollar amount that the City of Raleigh will have lost out on in 2026 due to these?

So we're estimating close to $4 million right now.

But as those appeals continue to get approved, and as well, we know those exemptions have already been approved for this tax year, what Marcus alluded to our next tax year.

So we're at about $4 million right now, but we're it's a moving target.

Thank you so much.

Sure.

Thank you.

Thanks.

So that conversation is kind of a segue into just a point of clarification I wanted to make.

You will recall last Monday we did the enterprise budget work session, and as part of that conversation, there was a robust presentation around parking and the incredible pressure that our parking fund is experienced in trying to balance the customer experience, safety, the overall cleanliness of our decks and parking facilities, as well as the cost of affordability, small business impact.

And as we had that conversation, staff presented kind of the best case scenario and the worst case scenario of how what knobs we need to turn to kind of get us to the point to where we cover that $8 million deficit.

And quite frankly, right now, how we close that gap is the general fund, which is the property tax side fund, which we already know that is going to be less for the upcoming year, is taking money and putting it into the parking fund so that it can stay solid to be able to manage how we kind of work parking throughout the city.

So I just wanted to clarify there was lots of stuff in the news about automatically pulling a trigger, and we're doing X, Y, and Z, and that's really not the case.

We really wanted to get some guidance and some direction to kind of test the waters to see what council was comfortable with in the way of what trade-offs are we willing to make, are we willing to address Own Street versus decks?

What are we looking at in the way of management of our maintenance and operations?

Because again, at the end of the day, we need to make sure that the decks are safe, they are clean, and they are savory for folks who choose to come downtown, as well as make sure that we're being a good partner to our small businesses that that thrive downtown.

So more to follow on that conversation.

We will talk about it next week in our small group sessions before we bring it back in daylight at a council meeting in April.

But I just wanted to kind of clarify behind the scenes the conversations that we are having as staff in the budget office and in finance and in the manager's office to bring you forward a budget in May that is balanced with some type of increase, not just with fees, but in property taxes, those are the things that we're having to consider before we get there.

And in years past, it's been easier because we have not had everything dump on us all at once.

So when you look at property tax, you look at parking, you look at how development has not continued to cover the cost of what the actual cost of development is.

Our growth, people automatically assume because we're growing in numbers that that covers the costs of the services that we provide, and it does not.

The growth has gone up here, but the growth in revenue doesn't match the cost of doing business.

So we are truly working on an RFP for a parking study that should hopefully help guide us in which facilities we need to keep, which facilities we need to get rid of, which facilities we need to put in the private market, which ultimately will also have an impact on our businesses downtown, as well as the residents and customers who come downtown to to do business and for enterprise and commerce.

But quite frankly, those are those tough decisions that we are really, really having to make in the FY27 budget deliberation.

And I just wanted to make sure that not just council, but the view and audience kind of understood that too, that there's no decision being made.

There's no one recommendation of what we're going to do in the way of parking, but we will have some further conversations next Thursday.

And from that, we'll bring back a recommendation in April so that we can solidify because we'll need that number before to bake that in before we bring you back a budget in May.

So just kind of wanted to walk you through those steps.

And I think it was a good conversation because we heard from everybody.

You all heard from everybody about it.

But this is a tough year, and we kind of primed it last year and said that we had a great year last year, but looking at the economy and looking at just how things have changed drastically on a federal front and on a national front and on our state level that there was no way we were going to be able to bring forward a responsive budget without some increases.

So just wanted to kind of level set um that so that council understood that we still have some work to do, and we're gonna bring you back a couple to three options next Thursday that we can opine on before we bring it back publicly in April.

Thank you.

And everybody looks great and green today for St.

Patty's Day.

But over the next several days through this weekend, my sorority will turn this city pink and green, not just green.

So happy for the convention center.

It is back up and and run it.

And then the week after, my brothers from Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity will turn it black and gold.

But we're talking about pink and green this week.

Um great that I think Carrie's in here.

Is she in here?

She left.

Oh, okay.

She meant to meet with them.

But we're so excited because this is her first super large event since our little incident that we had at the convention center in December.

We we kind of tried it out last weekend and it went kind of well, but we're gonna light the city pink and green.

So welcome to all of the members of Alpha Kappa Athless Aroody Incorporated this week.

And that concludes my report.

Right.

Well, we're gonna take it back to full green for the next item, which is leaf out.

And I appreciate all of you who showed up in green for trees, and we have Charles Craig presenting.

All right, good afternoon, everyone, to our mayor, members of council.

I am so delighted to share good news today that we're we're gonna be talking about trees and leaf out on behalf of the parts, recreation, cultural resources department.

I don't stand alone.

Uh Zach Manor is here, will join me in the presentation, along with one of our members of the Parts Greenway Advisory Board, Kate Dixon will share very soon.

With that being said, what's the purpose of Leaf Out and this this presentation?

The purpose of this presentation is to share current progress in planning and implementing the Leaf Out Initiative, and to illustrate this is my goal is to illustrate the future state we are working towards and where we aspire to be here in the future.

In order to do that, here's our agenda.

I want to present to some, introduce to others what exactly is leaf out.

So why are we talking about leaf out?

How we're gonna do leaf out, who will participate in leaf out.

We'll share number two, a detailed schedule, and then number three, the most important part, our seven key initiative uh excuse me, seven key focus areas, and then number four, what to look forward to and what to expect as we continue to advance leaf out.

With that being said, what is leaf out?

Leaf out, ladies and gentlemen, is a non-regulatory uh initiative focusing on three focus areas.

Number one, this is the protection of existing trees.

Number two, one that we're all excited about is planting more trees in Raleigh.

And number three, we want to invite the residents to help grow and care for our Raleigh uh urban forests.

We want to get everybody excited about it, get everyone pumped up about it because trees are very important.

We understand that trees are essential to Raleigh, not just Raleigh, but Raleigh's environment and community health.

Trees clean our air and water, they're pretty amazing.

Trees beautify and strengthen our neighborhoods.

Trees support community well-being, health, and property value, which we just talked about.

With that being said, how are we going to do this?

I believe any time you start a project, definitely a project that you want to last a long time.

You must have a firm foundation, a solid plan.

With that, we're going to use this analogy of a tree, and we're going to start with the roots.

The roots will represent our core.

That's what we're focusing on.

The protection of trees and habitat.

We want to safeguard mature trees.

And we also want to be friendly to our critters out there and to the habitat and the wildlife.

As we look at the trunk, the trunk, ladies and gentlemen, is the center pillar.

This is the one that once again we're excited about engaging our public and getting everyone excited on planting trees.

This is increasing our tree canopy and our habitat growth.

We want to focus on areas that need it the most as we think about uh cooling neighborhoods that really need it.

As we look at improving air quality and strengthening uh climate resiliency, we are a fantastic city.

Uh, the city of Oaks and trees play a major role in that.

And then finally, if you look at the very top, our leaves.

Leaves represent the stewardship and the education.

We want to get the word out.

We want to tell everybody.

Uh we want to engage residents.

We want to continue to build partnerships and help people learn about the environment through programming, volunteer service events, restoration projects.

We want this to happen and not in a silo, but we want everyone to contribute.

So, who will make this happen?

Who's Leaf Out?

I'm proud to say that this has been an interdepartmental collaboration.

This has not been done in a silo.

Um we have some amazing departments here in the city of Raleigh.

Just to shout out a few, looking at uh our engineering services partners through Stormwater, Sustainability Office, uh working very closely with Raleigh Water and Transportation, all have been amazing partners throughout this whole process.

This process has also been rooted in community.

Uh we are very fortunate to have a fantastic community that shows up every month, uh, grounded in public input through surveys and focus groups to share concerns through the sustainability wildlife and urban trees committee.

Uh we are very excited to share.

A part of our engagement process as we implemented Leaf Out.

We focus on three areas.

Uh Intercept Surveying, actually, where we went out to spaces and talked to individuals and uh we talked about trees and how others may feel about trees and the direction of Raleigh through trees.

We hosted pop-up events for volunteer services, and we tried to participate in volunteer services events and talked about trees.

And then number three, we shared as much as possible through our digital digital outlets, uh working through our parts newsletter, our subscriber uh email, uh looking at social media, uh just sharing information about leaf out and trees throughout our beautiful city.

I'm proud to say that a part of our outreach and a part of our engagement, uh we had through our survey, we had 1,48 seven views where people around the our community opened it up and started to think about trees.

A part of that, 574 participated and not just participated, but what they had a lot to say because they shared over 3,000 responses with us, uh, and I'm very proud of that.

And 837 of the comments is something that we didn't even ask for.

They were so excited about, they wanted to share.

Um, and we read every single one of them.

Um last thing to touch on with this beautiful image.

I think it shows a beautiful picture.

Uh, it touches leaf out, it's touching all across the city.

As we look at the blue dots, the blue dots represents areas uh where survey uh participants was able to uh share their feedback.

As you look at the the yellow or the golden color, that represents the more dense area where we had a lot of people in those uh respective areas to provide feedback.

Here's our detailed schedule.

This is what we've been working on.

We started Leaf Out in the research phase in falls of 2024.

Uh through fall of 2024 to early 2025, it was all about our existing report.

Uh didn't want to start something new without knowing what we already have in place.

Uh so that was very important that we focused in on uh bringing in our partners and hearing concerns and starting to engage the public.

That advanced us to the scope and goal setting uh platform where we were working in spring and summer of 2025.

I'm very happy to say that we were able to partner with Reflecting Raleigh through our partners and the planning and development department and working very closely with our partners and community engagement department uh to help get the word out about Leaf Out and align it very closely to all the wonderful initiatives that we're already working towards.

That helped us advance to the next step, which is the fall and winter of 2025, where we identify the seven key focus areas that you were here about today.

And now we're here in early spring uh 2026.

We're excited about it to kind of report out.

Uh we shared first with the Sustainability Wildlife and Urban Trees Committee, and then we went to the Parts Recreation Greenway Advisory Board, got everybody excited, and now we're here at City Council, and we're believing that everybody's gonna be excited again.

With that being said, I'm going to yield my time to uh uh Zach Manor to take us through the seven key focus areas.

Thank you.

All right, good afternoon, Mayor, members of council, Zach Manor, Urban Forester, Raleigh Parks.

And thanks, Charles, for the great introduction.

Uh, I'm gonna focus on the seven key focus areas, take you through those individually.

So, objective one is a policy limiting invasive species.

So, this is uh uh an internal city policy directed towards city projects where we're gonna promote native plants and prohibit invasive plants as part of those projects and work.

We're gonna the goal is a 50% minimum, or excuse me, the the minimum will be 50% with a goal of 70% of the plants used on city projects to be native.

Now they're gonna have some carve-outs, uh, a lot of our grasses, some turf scenarios aren't necessarily native, so we have to have the ability to use some non-native plants in certain situations, but sort of looking for that 50% minimum and goal of 70%.

Um this is a coordinated effort that we've worked internally with different departments, including Raleigh Water, Engineering Services, and Transportation.

Um, this isn't a UDO requirement or unified development ordinance requirement.

This is a uh voluntary internal policy that we're trying to establish.

Uh we based a lot of the language on Greensboro's resolution and then uh North Carolina uh governor executive order 305, which encouraged the use of native plants on state property as part of state projects.

We are currently fitting the policy into the uh City of Raleigh's internal uh policy template.

So we've been providing uh updates to our parks board and the committee sustainability, wildlife, and urban trees throughout the process.

Objective two is a development plant list.

Um, as you are aware, and maybe some of our audience is aware, um, we had a recent text change that prohibited the use of invasive species to meet uh development requirements on private property.

So, in partnership with our our partners in the planning and development department, we came up with a list of native trees and shrubs that could be used to meet those private property development requirements.

Again, this is a voluntary list, it's optional, but we wanted to provide options.

So if you can look at the picture a little bit, you can see there's lots of plants.

Every circle on there is a plant.

A lot of those are required for different things on private property, so zoning requirements, thinking about parking lot trees or screening plants.

We want to provide the ability for those developers to have a handy list that they could plug a native into those slots when possible.

Uh third is an overall native plant list.

And you may say, hey, that's quite a few plant lists, but we're we're working on a way to provide as much information to the public as possible.

So this would be a Raleigh-specific list.

Some of you may be familiar with Carrie's list, other communities around sort of have a native plant or plant list that they use.

Um so this is community focused.

We've been working with our internal partners as part of the parks board, a lot of our nonprofits, plant growers, um, local partners to find something that builds something through existing lists and resources.

We don't want to create everything from the ground up.

So our partners, like I said, a lot of our nonprofits, so it's like the North Carolina Pollinator Toolkit, North Carolina Native Plant Society, North Carolina Cooperative Extension, and conversations with a lot of our growers who are the folks that have these plants that our community can find them.

So working with the North Carolina Nursery and Landscape Association, the North Carolina Invasive Plant Council, and the North Carolina Botanical Garden.

And so this will include where the development list is tree and shrubs specific to meeting a requirement.

This list will have trees, shrubs, including vines, perennials, grasses, and sedges.

All right.

Objective four is our pretty city property best practices policy.

Um so this will apply to city projects as well, and we're uh gonna put together a group to outline best practices for that ecosystem benefit and project completion.

So those two things working together that'll be tree focused.

Uh, this is something that we'll be creating the team moving forward as I get to sort of the status and schedule.

You'll find out some more information on what we're looking at there.

But we'll be providing regular updates to our sustainability wildlife and urban trees committee as we work through the process.

Right.

Objective five is a way to sort of share all this information.

As you can see on your screen, we have a leaf out landing page.

It's going to be the source where we're providing updates on all this information and work that we're doing.

Uh we'll also be providing some links to some of the work our partner departments are working on.

So finding a great place for all things leaf out uh in one spot.

All right.

Objective six is to continue to build and strengthen our community partnerships.

Charles outlined at the beginning, it's sort of not just the city, it's our partners throughout.

So nonprofits and I'll list a few folks that we've worked with recently, sort of in that first column with that are we already working on those relationships, and our goal is to sort of extend and grow them.

Um so nonprofits working with uh planting groups like We Plant It Forward or Trees from the Triangle.

Uh we work with community folk groups, our uh friends, the Oak folks, who some of you may be familiar, and we may have some folks in the audience as part of that group.

Um working with neighborhoods on planting projects.

We've recently completed some plantings in with the Boylan Heights neighborhood as well as the Oakwood neighborhood.

Working with our internal partners, departments in the city itself, and then looking for continuing to grow those opportunities with our civic groups or local businesses.

We're currently as part of a campaign with the Raleigh Rotary Club to plant 250 oak trees for the 250th anniversary of America, and working with local tree companies, uh Leaf and Limb, Davy, Bartlett provide great resources and great information and help us sort of work through these.

So the goal really is to expand opportunities.

That could be through grant opportunities with the city, tree giveaways, events, planting projects, and uh contracts to provide services as part of um what we're doing.

And then, of course, the best for last, we've heard it mentioned a little earlier before is the 24,000 trees by 2032.

So this is uh an idea that was developed by our sustainability wildlife and urban trees committee, part of the parks board in coordination with a the community to come up with a campaign, I think a big audacious goal or something along those lines, where's the with the lingo behind it?

Um and the goal is to set a planning goal in Raleigh to coincide with Raleigh's 240th anniversary, which is 2032.

So that's part number seven.

So sort of to give you a refresher on the focus areas.

Number one is the internal invasive species policy.

We'll be looking to roll that out spring 2026.

So these are things we didn't just Charles showed you a little earlier, sort of our path.

We're just not starting from scratch now.

We've been working on a lot of these as we go.

So spring 2026 is gonna have a lot rolling out, so that'll be the establishment of that internal invasive species policy, uh, the development native tree and shrub list, and the community native plant list.

We're looking at a summer 2026 rollout.

Um as the development of internal city project uh policy sort of follows the same path that the invasive did.

We're waiting for that one to work its way through the system, and we'll use some examples on that.

We're expected to sort of have that completed fall of 2026, but again, providing updates as we go throughout the year.

Um the leaf out landing page, it's currently there now, and we're updating it as we go as we move through the process.

Um, like I described the community partnerships also ongoing, looking to build and strengthen.

And of course, the 24,000 trees initiative, that's an ongoing thing that we're thinking about there.

And so we're super excited.

So looking ahead, what to expect?

Um, we'll continue to develop and implement the Leaf Out Initiative.

Um we're gonna work to strengthen partnerships and stakeholder engagement.

We're gonna provide regular updates on progress, impact, and lessons learned, primarily through the Sustainability Wildlife and Urban Trees Committee.

And then, of course, the continued focus on achieving the long-term vision for Leaf Out.

So that was quite a bit of information.

So we're here to answer some questions if you've got them, and uh happy to happy to respond.

All right.

Thank you for that.

Uh Mayor Pratim Harrison.

Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you, thank you to Charles and Zach for your leadership on this.

Um, it's been really exciting to see it growing and to hear of all the good work that's to come.

I just want to uh also say thank you to the Oak Folk Collaborative that really brought this initial request.

And then we developed some of the ideas at City Council's uh Growth and Natural Resources Committee, now known as our housing and environment committee.

Um, and then SWAT really took this on the Sustainability Wildlife and Urban Trees Committee with the Parks, Recreation and Greenways Advisory Board.

Thank you to anyone who's been part of that, and just the continued support to get 24,000 trees.

I know we're gonna need some money.

Um so just curious.

Um will we see that in the budget this year?

Zach gave it to me.

Um we are 100% working through the process.

We'll work very closely with the city manager's um office and continue to uh communicate as updates are available.

Okay, looking forward to that as I always like to say when's the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago.

So let's make sure we're doing it this year too.

Appreciate y'all.

Counselor Silver and then Pat.

Charles and Zach, thank you for the presentation and thank you, Kate, for keeping me very focused and informed.

This is absolutely a great program.

Um there was another job I had one time where we had a tree planting campaign, extremely successful, and uh it was just a full-out community effort where the the city planted the street trees and the public planted trees, helped us in our parks throughout the city, and then of course the giveaways.

Uh we were lucky we partnered with Bet Midler, so unless we can get a celebrity to help us do the tree giveaway.

So she was a key partner, and we're able to get all those trees planted within eight years.

My my question is I know you talked about the the public realm and adjacent to private property.

Is there a desire through this campaign for the city to plant street trees in areas where there is an absence of street trees?

So I was looking and it seems like these were more smaller trees that you could plant in parks and other locations, but I was kind of focused on some of the street tree locations.

Uh is it reliant just on a private sector through new development, or will the city take the initiative to identify gaps uh in neighborhoods that are under treated or have a weak canopy uh to increase it?

Sure, I'd say all of the above.

So trees planted by the city, trees planted by volunteers, trees planted by property owners.

That midler wants to come, we can find some trees for her to plant as well.

I just may give her a call.

I'll see if she wants to come down and visit.

So, yes, in response to your question, we'll be looking for opportunities to plant larger specific street trees as well as just about any size of tree possible in any place that works.

Patton and then branch.

Okay.

Um I will say Evan Rachel Wood is from Raleigh, so maybe she can be our vet handler.

But um yeah, I'll see.

Can you go to the one with the seven, the list of seven, right before this slide?

Yeah, this one.

Perfect.

So this is incredible work.

Um I would say the first five sort of have indirect costs, and the last two are the ones that have a real direct financial impact.

And um, you know, I had the opportunity to preview this a little bit at SWAT, and it seems sort of like the number six is a little bit inspired by the arts grant that we'd have like a tree grant or some kind of thing like that.

Um I love a big hairy audacious goal.

That's like one of my favorite phrases.

Um so I would say with the finite financial resources that we have.

I think I would just like to kind of express my budgetary policy priority on item seven.

So I think people will really want to get behind this.

I can imagine like lots of folks in my neighborhood planting one tree on their property so they can be part of this.

People are gonna want to put this on a shirt.

Uh, you know, I think about how we can sell this story on our website, you know, and like have a picture of a tree that's acting like a thermometer that's ticking up toward this goal.

Um so I would ask that budgetary priority be put on item seven, and as we make progress on the 24,000 trees, then we like you know, shift the proportionality toward the item six, which I do think isn't a good like long-term approach.

Um I would also ask that.

So I think there's a host of nonprofits and do gooders and helpers in our community who are like sort of stand ready to be the boots on the ground of implementing this.

Um, but I imagine there's some like bureaucracy between them and that doing it, and maybe we like need to be the keepers of the data that shows where these trees are being planted and counting them, but they need to be the organizers of the volunteer events and all of that.

And to the extent possible, uh like if an RFP or some kind of master services agreement is needing to be prepared, I would ask that we prepare it now so that when the budget is approved, we're basically like inserting the appropriate amount of funds and submitting that.

So because what I don't want to happen is that we would miss a planting season this winter because we haven't like kind of gotten our paperwork in order.

Um that's a a lot of comments.

That's um some more detailed thoughts overall, super pleased.

And if it would it be possible for Kate Dixon to say a few words since she's really spearheaded this on the citizen side.

Oh, absolutely.

Kate is gonna share next.

Oh, um, for sure.

Absolutely, and message received.

Thank you for sharing that feedback.

Councilor Branch.

Yeah, so as we branch this out across the city, I have two questions.

No one caught that on.

Did he say branch this out?

I caught it.

I caught it.

So I caught it.

So the first one is um as one thing to plant trees.

I received two trees some years ago.

Only one is alive.

So my question is, and what it was not my doing.

It was a street tree.

It was a street tree that that when it received the watering, it didn't work.

So how do we make sure that we're not just planting trees to replace a tree because it didn't survive that stage?

How do how do we is this plan being thought of about keeping these trees to get past those that critical year to two years once it's been planted?

That's my first question.

Uh thank you.

And yes, um, we're working very closely with the city manager's office for that very uh exact thing as we look at not just planting but maintenance as well.

Uh we want it to survive.

So yes.

So my second part is in parts of my district, we have some older street trees.

And you know, over time, you know, we have residences who are near 30, 40 years, these trees are starting to struggle.

Um so my question is, is there a plan to look at some of these trees and their current health?

And is it time to possibly replant another tree in place?

That doesn't, it's not a net ad, but it's also something that I think if we're looking for another 20 years, making sure something's there.

Sure, there's definitely a balance there, right?

So it's uh too soon versus too late versus just in time, right?

So I th I think we look at each tree individually.

So um if we got rid of everything that was a little older and kind of crusty, I may not have a job.

So we gotta be careful on some of that stuff.

But uh uh thinking about opportunities, yes.

So if if if there's one missing, one of the other pieces as part of your first question is also doing a good job of educating our citizens.

So our folks that don't always have a green thumb to be able to keep that tree alive in their yard as well, and the city sort of doing the same thing.

So I would say it would be a combination, right?

Um we haven't worked through the very specifics, but planting a tree is planting a tree, and if it meets that requirement, if it's because we had to remove one or because there was an open space, I think that all counts.

Okay, thank you.

Counselor Fort.

Yeah, I like the volunteer Mayor Pro Tim Harrison to go babysit council member branches trees and make sure they grow to their full potential.

My seven-year-old is doing well.

Treat us another conversation.

Um I would like to say thank y'all for the work on this program.

I know that we hear a lot from uh a lot of our residents and citizens about the importance of developing um and maintaining the tree canopy throughout the city of Raleigh.

So um I think this is something that a lot of our residents can be really excited about and um hopefully we'll have participation across all the districts uh throughout the city to make sure it's um widely spread and and that people uh know about the program and take full advantage of it.

But thank you for the work and thank you for the presentation.

And I I know Kate's gonna come up in a minute, but I will just say, of course, I had the opportunity to participate um in a tree planning last fall.

And I see my Mike Motzinger out there from Boylan Heights, and it was a amazing.

I thought it was gonna be a light hearted Saturday morning, and um when you handed me the pickaxe, I was like, oh my gosh.

And I think my our team did 16 trees, and I was so happy in the last two weeks to see them.

Uh you know, I wasn't sure council branch that I had kept mine alive, but it it bloomed out, and um I think it it looks like most of the ones in the neighborhood because you guys were so great at telling us what we were doing, what we were planning, and um I guess just uh building on Councilor Patton, I would love to see this broken down and to say how many trees per year, how many do we think, you know, donation, how much volunteer labor, what does that look like for your team?

Um again, I saw what went into it's a little intimidating, but ultimately there was you know, we had a lot of volunteers in our neighborhood.

So just appreciate the work, appreciate the advocacy, and uh we'll definitely want to support getting to the meeting the goal.

All right, at this time you will hear from Kate Dixon.

Good afternoon.

It's wonderful.

Thank you for all your comments.

I um I am so glad to be here to speak on behalf of um the Sustainability Wildlife and Urban Trees Committee, which I chair, but I'm actually also here because um Chris Perea, the chair of the Parks Board, um, because um SWAT has done so much work on this, he graciously asked me if I would present some resolutions on behalf of the Parks Board.

So um I wanted to start by saying that um I think over the last couple of years I've talked to all of you about trees one time or the other, and I just appreciate the leadership and the key the great interest that you all show on this, and thank you for that.

Um before I speak about the resolution, I just wanted to say something with sustainability wildlife and urban trees, we've been really involved, the committee, and we have a whole lot of people who come and attend our meetings, and there's just been a lot of interest in this.

And um with the three parts of the Leaf Out program that are really substantially together, the first three, I just wanted to say something about how um appreciative I am of the really great work that the staff has done.

Um I know that other um cities and counties have things like this, but I think that Raleigh's is really going to be a model that others will look to.

And there are a couple reasons or or there are two people I want to call out who really did a lot of this work.

Um one is Brian Smith, who's our head of natural resources for parks, and he really led the effort to do the invasive species policy.

And what I really admire that he did was he really worked with all of his counterparts in the other departments.

When they have a say an invasive plant that they depend on, it's been one of the things that they do.

Les Badiza is an example.

Um he really worked with them to try and find alternatives, just that that real care and paying attention.

And then Lauren Freudenberger, um, who's our chief horticulturalist, she um really has been really key in pulling together the native plant lists.

And it's not only that she's been putting together lists that you know it's wonderful to see native lists, but she's really tried to focus on plants that you can find.

If you are into native plants, you may have looked up a plant and you thought, oh, that wouldn't that be fun to plant it?

And then you can't find how to get it.

Um and not only has Lauren made sure that what's going on the list is something that you can find, but also she's reached out to the growers, which Zach mentioned, and the growers um now know that Raleigh cares about this, which I think is a really, really important thing that's being done.

So um the the reason um that Chris Perea, our um Parks Board chair asked me to present is that we actually passed two resolutions at the February meeting.

And so I have been given the um privilege of presenting those to you.

And the first one, no surprise, relates to the um campaign for 24,000 trees.

And um this as um uh Charles and Zach mentioned, this vision really grew out of the committee's work, and it's been really, really fun to see the excitement it has generated upon staff and the Parks Board, um, lots of nonprofits who've gotten interested, and then residents, which you've seen in terms of all the people well, there may be a few people who are here only because of in green, only because of St.

Patrick's Day, but there are a lot of green people here for trees.

Um because of all that enthusiasm, the Parks Board passed the following resolution in February.

Whereas Raleigh is rapidly losing trees that are critical to cooling the city, cleaning the air, reducing flooding, protecting pedestrians by slowing traffic, providing natural beauty and providing habitat for wildlife.

Whereas the Leaf Out program envisions planting more trees on state, county, and city land, and encouraging residents to plant trees on their own properties.

Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the Parks Board strongly encourages the city council to include first year funding for a campaign to plant 24,000 new trees across the city in celebration of Raleigh's 240th anniversary in 2032.

So then I also um have the privilege of presenting the other resolution that we passed.

And that relates to the Biltmore Hills Park, which you may remember is about to build a whole set of new beautiful tennis courts.

And for several months, we have heard from many thoughtful and passionate tennis advocates who are urging the city to rebuild as well the existing courts, which are not in very good shape, and also provide a facility for on-site staff, especially now that that whole other set of top-notch tennis courts is planned for the park.

And so after listening to them, we felt that it made a compelling case for the city should look at this closely.

And we passed the following resolution.

Resolved that the Parks Board requests that the City Council review the Biltmore Hills tennis project in light of public feedback and consider a revision to the project plan that includes a rebuild of the existing courts and incorporation of a park structure for on-site staff.

And so thank you again for the opportunity to serve on the Parks Board and the opportunity to speak today.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Does that conclude?

Councilor Python.

I will move to adopt the first resolution of the Parks Board regarding the tree campaign.

Second.

Okay.

All in favor of that motion?

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

All right.

So to that to the second motion, I think the Council needs an update before we act on that, because there's a lot of funding in the millions of dollars that needs to really be discussed.

That is a little different and a lot more expensive than the first resolution that we just agreed to.

Okay.

Anything else?

All right.

Thank you all for the work.

And I will note that Mayor Purtem Harrison has exited, so she is now excused.

Okay.

Next we have got the report of the Stormwater Management Advisory Commission with Wayne Miles and Graham Smith.

Yay trees.

Yay stormwater.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council members.

We will continue with the green theme of this meeting so far.

So, Wayne, if you could give folks a few minutes so we can hear you.

I think we are good.

We would like to continue with the green theme of this meeting from a stormwater perspective.

And I would also like to wish you a happy Creek Week, as Ms.

Ballin did earlier.

One of the programs we are here to talk about is very related to streams.

The stream stabilization policy is a direct program to help private citizens with stream erosion issues on their property.

My name is Wayne Miles on the Stormwater Program Manager.

With me here today is Graham Smith, the chair of the Stormwater Management Advisory Commission.

The two programs, this is actually two agenda items: the stream stabilization program, the drainage assistance program.

We are presenting those together because they are very closely aligned policies.

The drainage assistance program is more directed at flooding and aging infrastructure, whereas the stream stabilization program is more aimed at creek creek erosion.

But they are very similar policies.

And city owners or property owners must be willing to donate a permanent drainage easement to the city, by which time the city would then take over the maintenance of that infrastructure from that point forward.

Here's one example of a completed project.

This was a residential home downstream of city streets that had severe erosion from a creek that was at risk of impacting the structure, the house structure on the property through the program.

The city came in, stabilized that creek with a ledge wall and an easement was donated, and we will maintain that from this point forward.

Some of the policy changes that we are proposing with each of these policies.

Number one, better alignment with especially the stormwater design manual.

The current policies had some specific drainage design requirements in them, whereas we are removing those and referring to the stormwater design manual.

That will be more consistent.

And then from this point forward, any changes to the design manual would be automatically updated here.

We are limiting projects in the Noose River repairing buffer zone just to be consistent with the themes and goals of that repair and buffer protection.

And lastly, establish a clearer project withdrawal process.

Not something that happens very often, but it has come up.

We want to make sure that withdrawal process is clear so that if someone wants to withdraw, we can reallocate those funds to another worthy worthy project more clearly.

With that, I will turn it over to Mr.

Smith with the recommendations.

Thank you, Wayne.

Graham Smith, uh Chair of the Stormrunner Management Advisory Commission.

Thank you for being here.

We do review at uh SMAC, we review all the cases and the funding opportunities the staff brings forward for the drainage assistance projects and the stream stabilization project.

So we see those.

We also over the last few months have been reviewing these policy changes.

And there was a lot of conversation around the with uh the withdrawal language.

Um thanks to uh Chaz and the team and as well as the legal team to kind of working through some of our questions and appreciate that.

The two recommended actions that we put forth to you approving the updated stream stabilization policy as recommended by the Stormwater Management Advisory Commission with an effective date of March 24th, 2026.

The second one, as Wayne noted, these are very similar policies.

Uh approve the updated drainage assistance policy as recommended by the Stormwater Management Advisory Commission with an effective date of March 24th, 2026.

So certainly open to questions as well.

So either one of you can tackle this one.

Um as you are aware of our residents really come and speak highly about strain and stream protection.

I know some may have come to your meetings.

Can you speak to how some of that feedback may have been incorporated into these policies?

Yeah, I think um we have had uh one homeowner recently uh speak rather passionately and consistently at our meetings.

Um I know that the city, because these are tracked, there's basically a list of 100 drainage assistance, maybe 200 drainage assistants and 105 stream stabilization projects.

So there's a long list of each project because they have a prioritization list.

The qualifier in all of that is that it has to have runoff from a public street, public right-of-way, public property.

So um it's informed the conversation, the specific uh visitor we have had recently, um, but it hasn't uh hasn't changed it's more tied to some of the wording, basically, the way we have talked about withdrawing um from something, but also we're just being uh following up with steady staff, the idea that it is critical that it drains off of public lands.

So that's that's the kicker with these policies because we don't want to spend public dollars on private lands if it's not a public uh you know caused by the public.

Thank you.

That sounds good.

I guess my question would just be you know, this is great.

Um you have 10 projects to date.

How do you see that number accelerating, staying steady?

Um just well, the stream stabilization policy you may remember is relatively new.

That's only been around for about two and a half years now.

Whereas the drainage assistance project uh program is is a little older.

We did want to break out and emphasize projects to put more emphasis on the creek erosion because we were seeing a lot more emphasis from citizens on creek uh erosion.

So um those those programs have stayed fairly steady.

Um they are small projects, so um delivery can be a challenge.

One of the things we have changed here recently is we are working with a consultant to um end procurement for a new contract type of unit cost so that we can bundle more of these projects together and deliver them more effectively to get through that list much more quickly.

That's great.

Thank you.

Uh any other questions?

All right.

So we need a motion to approve the updated stream stabilization policy.

Move to approve.

Second.

All in favor of the motion?

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Great.

Thank you.

And I do uh for the second agenda item, we would um request a similar motion for the drainage assistance policy.

All right.

Amend it as a package.

Move to also update the drainage assistance policy updates.

Second.

All right.

All in favor of that.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Nay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

All right.

Next we have matters scheduled for public hearing, and we have Bryce Abernathy with housing and community development.

So Mayor Chris Boyd will be presenting those items.

Mr.

Abenathy had to step out for family emergency.

Good afternoon, Mayor.

And Council.

First one we have is 1,000 Bunch Drive.

This one was a complaint.

Lots of trash, large pile of limbs that we had to clean up.

The second one is 105 Cook Street.

This one was also a complaint.

The third one is 700 Cooper Road.

I think you're familiar with this one.

We've been out several times on this property for abatements.

And I think last month they confirmed we got to give an ordinance to have it boarded.

But it's an ongoing issue with this particular property.

Trash household household items, broken trapping.

This is the third abatement, and I think that the running total is $2,441 for this property.

And the last one that we have today is 614 Tower Street.

Again, it's a complaint.

Lots of trash, bottles, large Liams.

And that's all we have for today.

Okay.

Correct.

As far as you know.

Okay.

So we will open the hearing on these four properties and close the hearing.

Move for approval.

Second.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

And that passes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next we have petition annexation AX3425.

Yes.

Good afternoon.

Hannah Recout Planning and Development.

This item is an annexation that has a corresponding rezoning.

That's also one of the hearings today.

I believe it's the last hearing.

So if it works for the council, I can give the information for both of those items together.

So first is annexation AX3425.

The site is 2936 Hodge Road.

And this is contiguous on all four sides to Raleigh City limits, but it is outside the ETJ and has uh Wake County zoning R 30.

The site is less than half an acre in size.

Um neither water or sewer directly available to the site.

Um this is surrounded by uh the bank's 20 development.

Uh it was a PD, the an annexation about approved about three years ago, and there's a number of development plans associated with that development.

Um and then the site is outside of the standard fire response um.

So some more context.

You can see um the site frontage on Hodge Road.

Um detached house on the site.

Currently um farther zoom out, you can see the relationship to um the rest of the banks 20 development, the news river farther to the west.

Um the site is within the priority annexation boundary that you approved last fall.

You can see uh this is located in the southeast part of the jurisdiction.

Umtilities are located up along Pool Road, and then the current zoning uh here you can see it's Wake County R 30, surrounded by that PD that I mentioned previously, uh future land use map of uh rural residential in the area, um image of topography, no floodplain in this area, and then some context with the the whole PD.

Um see the site right in the middle there.

And I'll note also you see the other R10 conditional use to the north.

This is another similar um uh rezoning and annexation that you saw recently in a similar position to this one.

Some views uh from Hodge Road of the site, looking north and south.

Um and that's the annexation request.

Um the rezoning uh is to rezone from the Wake County R 30 district to R10 conditional use.

Um is consistent with the comprehensive plan and the future land use map, planning commission recommended approval.

Um additional context there.

I'll the there's one uh proposed zoning condition which would prohibit townhouse and apartment building types.

R10 normally allows those, so this would leave um attached and detached building types allowed.

Shift from Wake County zoning to Raleigh zoning, really small amount of difference and entitlement there.

That's really coming from the small site.

Not a lot could be built on a.47-acre site.

It is consistent with the comprehensive plan overall, consistent with the future land use map designation, and there's no urban form guidance around this area.

I can see a number of consistent policies here that touch on the uh location of growth, zoning for housing, um, the future land use map designation, and then the inconsistent policies are really pointing to the fire response time standard um note.

And then the again the planning commission uh recommended approval unanimously.

So happy to answer any questions you have about either of those.

Okay.

Thank you.

Questions on this.

All right.

I will go ahead and open the petition annexation hearing.

Have no one signed up for or against, so close that and then open the rezoning for 2936 Hodge Road and close that.

Um since they're both closed, um, this again is a part of the overall PD, the same company.

They didn't have this property originally.

So I'll move for approval of the annexation.

Second.

All right.

All in favor of the motion.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

All right.

Houses.

For the rezoning case, um, I move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated March 17th, 2026 containing the agenda materials to approve the zoning amendment with the adoption effective dates described in the agenda on in the agenda on item under recommended actions.

Second.

Second.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay, and that passes.

Okay.

Uh next we have petition annexation AX 4125.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, excuse me.

Uh Matthew Clem, Planning and Development.

Here to talk about an annexation request at 8415 Honeycutt Road.

So it's a 14.15 acre site uh with an approved subdivision plan for 26 detached homes.

Um the site is uh located uh within the uh priority annexation area.

These previous maps you can see in dark gray are existing corporate limits.

So this is surrounded on all sides by our corporate limits, meaning those properties next door are receiving city services and paying city taxes.

Um you can see there the water and sewer utilities uh and the adjacent streets.

Um current zoning is uh residential with the um falls watershed protection overlay district.

So the requirements of that zoning would be in place um in our uh reflected in the approved site plan that I'll show you in just a minute.

Uh consistent with the future land use map here, topography on the side, there is no floodplain.

Um this is the approved site plan.

Um also note uh this is would be considered a greenfield um development.

Uh there's nothing existing on the site.

There were some homes, uh older homes on the site and structures that have been removed um for several years now.

Um you may remember from the recent uh rezoning request that was approved uh in June of last year.

Um there's some zoning conditions that prohibit the uh connection of a street stub in this area, but there you can see there from that zoning condition that there is uh the pedestrian connection um connecting to the internal sidewalk, which was part of the deliberations that you had on the case.

Uh so again, uh the greenfield site here, uh you can see the context on Honeycutt Road, uh some street side views.

This is where the pedestrian connection will be.

Um meets the standards for the NFPA uh fire service.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay.

Any questions from Mr.

Klem?

All right.

I have uh open the hearing on AX 4125, and I have no one in support or opposition, and I close it.

I move that we approve the annexation with effective date of March 17th, 2026.

Second.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

Passes.

All right, next we have uh Hannah Reckow with AX 4625.

Yes.

So this is an annexation contiguous with uh city limits inside ETJ for 6305 Garrett Road.

It is um intended uh for use as a single family home.

Um and there is um uh fire response time standard uh note on this one for an initial full full alarm assignment and the arrival of a second company.

So some uh context about uh where the site lies with regards to city limits.

This is in the uh southwestern part of our jurisdiction and kind of a donut hole of unincorporated ETJ.

You can see the darker gray to the south and west where this the site lies um with regards to I-40.

Um currently undeveloped sites, forested uh larger our zoom out.

Uh you can see where this um the site is with relation to Hillsborough Street up to the north, the belt line as I mentioned the site is also within the priority annexation boundary.

You can see the location, relative location on uh western part of the jurisdiction.

Utilities are in Canary Falls Lane uh to the south uh fairly close to the site, both water and sewer.

Uh the site is currently zoned R4.

Um this area generally on the future land use map is office and res uh residential mixed use, however.

Uh you can see the topography of the site, no floodplain in this area.

And a uh street view of the site.

Um I'll note your next item is just the adjacent property.

Um same applicant uh applied separately.

So happy to answer any questions you have.

Questions.

All right.

Um I will open this hearing, and we do have a number of people signed up to speak in support.

Um does anybody want to speak?

Okay.

Nope.

All right, and no one in opposition.

So close the hearing.

Any motion for AX 4625?

Um I'll vote that we adopt the annexation uh with an effective date of March 17, 2026.

Second.

Right.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay, and that passes.

And then similarly, um 47.

Uh Did you already go through these details?

Uh the details are identical, except for the uh site address.

Yes.

Okay.

So AX 4725, open the hearing, close the hearing.

I move that we approve the annexation with an effective date of March 17, 2026.

Thank you.

All in favor of the motion aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay, and that passes.

Okay.

Finally, we've got uh annexation AX 126 on Old Millburny Road.

Hello again.

Um this is a request to annex um about 36 acres.

Uh the property is zoned for residential use with an approved um subdivision for 205 unit townhome development.

Um you can see some other residential uses uh around in the area.

Um this is outside of the uh N FPA response time standards for a full uh fire response.

Um you can see uh the site located here with some neighboring jurisdiction uh to the south and nightdale's ETJ and their city limits.

Uh zoomed out view of those jurisdictional boundaries.

Again, the view of the site.

Um there is some sparse uh kind of like agricultural uh structures and buildings on the site, but um could be largely considered uh greenfield development.

Um zooming out a bit, you can see uh Headingham uh to the northwest.

This is Wakestone and the uh just to the east in Knightdale's jurisdiction.

The jurisdictional boundary uh is there near I-540.

Um there's the site.

Again, this is within our priority annexation area uh based on the resolution you adopted uh in the fall last year.

Uh you can see existing water and sewer services in the area uh that will be connected to serve the 205-unit townhome development.

Uh conditional use zoning uh was approved on the site in 2021, October.

Um low scale residential on the future land use map.

Uh you can see the floodplain associated, uh flood plan away associated with Noose River uh to the west, and just a bit on the tip down there.

Um but of course uh zoning regulations to control uh for impacts there in place and just a look at the uh approved subdivision.

Uh look at the site on Old Mill Burney Road.

Uh and there's your fire uh service review um noting um the NFPA standards um which ones are not met.

Okay.

Questions.

All right, I will open the hearing for AX at 126 and close the hearing.

Do we have a motion?

Move to adopt the annexation effective immediately.

Second.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

All opposed, nay.

All right.

And that ends our public hearings.

Um in terms of committee reports.

We do not have any.

Okay.

So I will start with councillor councillor branch for the report of mayor and city council.

No report.

Just a few updates.

Our next district E community meeting will be held April 8th from 6 to 8 p.m.

at La Cusina Tine Restaurant.

Our decoding democracy book club will meet on April 11th from 9.30 to 11:30 at New World Cafe off Dirley Road.

We will finish chapter one and review everything that we've read this far.

And then lastly, I just wanted to say a big congratulations to the convention center team.

I was able to attend the animate convention this Saturday with my family, and it was a blast.

Tomorrow we have the state of the city at 5:30 at the City of Raleigh Museum.

So hope that many of you will be able to make that.

I also um wanted to um say that I would like to discuss the eligibility criteria organizations need to meet in order to receive council contingency funds.

Um I cannot.

So I just want to review what the rules are and um whatever forum we need to do that in, just so I can get clear on that.

And then finally, just on the parking and then on today's.

Um I definitely have heard a lot about parking, and I am glad that we are going to bring this back um in April and definitely you know, want patients.

I guess I also just think about this property tax report that we saw today and how important downtown property taxes are, and as we think about parking and the regulatory sort of environment to make sure that whatever we do does not destabilize downtown to the point where we could lose a lot more in property taxes that we could gain by you know upping parking rates if we um don't take into consideration all of those factors.

So welcome that coming back in April.

Right.

No report.

No report two quick things.

One, um, I may not be at the state of the city tomorrow because I am our alternate for Campo and there's a campo meeting, so I'm going in the mayor's place.

Scheduled until 5 30.

The last few I have gone to have run very long.

So I may see y'all tomorrow or not.

Second thing, go Wolf Pack, um NCAA tournament starts for them this evening.

Go pack.

Um no other report.

Yeah, I want to say um I had an opportunity last Thursday to go with um Congresswoman Ross, um, Chairman Don Mile and Commissioner Terror Waters to do a check presentation for Second Street shelter uh for renovations over there, which is gonna be really, really impactful for the city.

It's another opportunity to have um you know space for some of our unsheltered neighbors um and moving it out of district C and over to a different part of the city is also gonna be very important.

Uh Pastor Haywood has done a lot of um phenomenal work with that shelter, so I was uh happy to be able to represent the city at that check presentation.

Great.

Thank you all.

Uh next we have appointments.

Yes.

First is um Board of Adjustment County Alternate Appointment.

This is just for information only to let you know that the county did reappoint their existing alternate member.

Um action needed by the council, just letting you know.

Next is bicycle and pedestrian advisory commission, one regular vacancy.

Your nominee, Yu Gia Sway received seven votes, so would be appointed.

Um however, I'm sorry, however, Councilmember Fort did nominate Carol Miles, so it's up to you all how you'd like to proceed there.

When's the next opening?

I can tell you in seven seconds.

Um next opening is in May, and the person is not eligible for reappointment due to length of service.

Yeah, so that'll be showing up in about a month or so.

Okay.

Uh next is substance use advisory commission, one regular vacancy.

Jumping down to nominations, design review commission, one alternate vacancy.

Resignation has been received from alternate member Brian Williams.

So this will be appearing on your next ballot for nominations.

Okay.

Sure.

And then I believe this is yes, the last item, Riley Transit Authority, two regular vacancies, term of regular member Linda Davis is expiring since publishing of the agenda.

She did reach out to indicate she does not wish to be considered for reappointment.

And then also mentioned in the agenda packet, there's another regular vacancy due to the unfortunate passing of a member uh Byron League.

And uh on the RTA, as you likely know, there are two alternate m alternate members.

However, one of the alternate alternate members has not wished to be considered for elevation.

So the council may wish to consider elevating the other alternate, which was recently appointed, I believe in January, CC grant to fill one of those regular slots, which would leave you with one regular one alternate to consider going forward.

I move to elevate C C grant.

And then I have two nominations.

Second.

Okay.

So all in favor of CC Grant, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

Okay.

And then I nominate um Eddie Sackinger for one of the spots and Cameron Zamott for the other spot.

Um you can do um we just put on the ballot.

That's fine.

Um, um nominate Cameron for the regular spot and Eddie for the alternate, please.

So I have a question.

Um we have and this is really for council, when we have an individual that we have in a slot with the intent of them moving up.

And do we know why Mr.

Beamer decided not to want to be elevated?

I can also pull it up in seven seconds.

Um because that concerns me when we have someone and they say I don't want to be elevated.

Um to summarize, he indicated he had initially who's reached out regarding his attendance.

Uh he indicated he had an important number of family life events.

Um his capacity has been diminished.

He does want to continue to serve out his two-year commitment, which is slate at to end about a year from now, and then is gonna seek out other opportunities.

Just kind of paraphrasing here.

So with that information, I mean, uh, council, I mean, um we may probably want to follow up and I'm concerned about him just holding the alternate spot.

Because the alternate spot is supposed to be there and participate if a regular member can attend and possibly vote in that situation, but if he can't do that because of it seems there's some attendance issues as well.

Um, I thought I'd do a bylaw.

I'm sorry.

I was just gonna say, why don't um as a liaison to RTA?

Why don't we take it offline and I'll follow back up with us?

Perfect.

I just wanted to highlight it.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, so we'll bring back the two uh nominees for both of those slots for now.

Great.

Okay.

Uh report of the city attorney.

No report today.

Okay, thank you.

And city clerk.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Uh in your agenda materials included draft minutes from four recent meetings, the March 4th regular session, March 9th budget work session, and the March 10th work session and public comment sessions for consideration of approval.

Move for approval of the minutes.

Second.

All in favor of the minutes, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

All right, that passes.

Thank you.

Um we have a motion to go into closed session pursuant to General Statute 143, 318 11A2 to prevent disclosure of an honorary degree, scholarship prize, or similar award.

General statute 143-318-11A3 to consult with the city attorney in order to preserve attorney client privilege.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay, and that passes.

We are uh moving into closed session.

It is member LGBTQ.

Council met in closed session and has nothing to report out, so we stand adjourned.