The council meeting.

Uh, we will start as always with the Pledge of Allegiance, and I will allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

All opposed, nay.

So that passes.

If the Iran war will have an impact, present the numbers and that general statements.

Withhold additional ECC staff until proven AI technology is fully implemented.

Additional inspectors from the staffing study should be offset with service revenue.

Leaf pickup is transferred to solid waste but no reduction in transportation headcount.

Service changes from bi-weekly to weekly, both absurd in reevaluation.

To Megan's question, Ms.

Gupta needs to come back quarterly with delivery model updates, not in a year.

Essential pavement marking can be done by contractors.

With a $25 million general fund subsidy, go rally reviews are needed on underutilized bus routes, 15% back-to-back yearly increase is additional revenue from new routes and new fares.

The proposed 200 million GOB justified by city debt affordability limits is a weak argument, analogous to running out more credit card debt because the approved limit is high enough.

The current budget trajectory likely increases property taxes 3 to 5 percent.

Service fees 3 to 10 percent.

All of you and I can afford it, but not low-income and working families.

The FY26 budget emphasized city employees is the greatest assets, but mentions taxpayers who pay for everything just once.

A fundamental mentality problem.

Council is one month to collaborate and replace the softball questions with a thorough responsible review and challenge of the entire budget.

Every department headcount and dollar accomplishments and FY27 plans, presumably city manager, reviews it monthly, certainly quarterly.

If she wants approval for the entire budget, then direct her to review the entire budget.

All organizations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mama Kai Sanders.

Good afternoon.

It's another amazing day in paradise.

Thank you for being here.

I appreciate this opportunity to speak.

I'm going to continue with my remarks from last week where I suggested some aspect of our parks and rec should be opened, should be operated as an enterprise like water and solid waste.

By creating membership levels, including a free one, individuals and families can receive different benefits so the community centers can actually be used by the community as one way to address the tax deficit.

Our community centers should be our third spaces.

If you're not familiar with this term, a third place is a familiar public spot where you regularly connect with others known and unknown over a shared interest or activity.

Ray Oldenburg, who coined the term, argued it is necessary for public well-being.

What suburbia cries for are the means for people to gather easily and expensively, regularly and pleasurably.

Our community centers should be these places.

They currently are not.

Think of it like coworking membership.

If community centers were accessible like that, with makerspaces containing art supplies supplies, printers like 3D or laser, or sewing machines, or even a tool library, the city could potentially be generating revenue from the need for places like that.

By the way, Durham has all of that in various ways, mostly in their public library system.

And Raleigh does in some way with Ruma, Raleigh United Mutual Aid Aid Hub right here in downtown.

Need more ideas before and after school care.

Play groups should be offered in most community centers daily, especially where a library isn't as easily accessible.

Teen and youth meeting spaces from community leaders, partners, and even youth themselves.

Indoor play areas, especially when the weather is excessively hot or cold.

Um, special interest groups that build community, quiet co-working space, and true refreshments like Juiced, a black-owned juice bar with two locations here in Raleigh because not everyone drinks coffee or raw right up the street.

There's also a design from the Real Matter 2025 that was inspired by remarks made by our very own Councilmember Silver.

They are adjustable structures that could be put in city-owned parking lots that are the size of a parking space to add more gathering places for people to rent or use, perhaps at an additional cost.

Obviously, data would need to be collected on the availability of space in each community center.

I think you'll find most are mostly empty during the week during the day.

Just this week, wisdom walked into a community center twice in 10 minutes to ask for a basketball and found the office locked with no staff in sight, and not within calling distance either.

I went in the third time, and it took about 35 seconds to get a response, but I had to go further into the building and call with my outside voice more than once.

I know because I recorded it.

Now I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble.

I've I've known about the emptiness for a long time and have just been quiet about it.

But with the city in such a financial crisis with an incredible need for revenue, you need all options on the table.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ashley Heath Armstrong.

Okay.

Octavia Rainey.

Good evening.

First of all, I want to address the shooting that that occurred in Tryontown Mall.

Number one, I think the city can do a better job.

Gun violence is the issue.

Gun violence is the issue.

When kids can access guns, that's a problem.

So what are we doing to stop them from accessing guns?

And that is very important.

I would like to see more and hear more from the Chief about the gun violence.

Where are you getting these guns from?

It's clear that we have a trafficking problem in Raleigh.

So what are we going to do about it?

Second of all, we need to have a youth summit.

The last time we had the youth summit was in 2008.

And that was when Chief Harry Dolan was here, and I and the Chief and former James Wis led that charge.

We had over 800 kids, 800 kids.

But I had to charge specifically for Southeast Raleigh to bring in 175.

We brought in 300 kids.

That is amazing.

But that was in 2008.

That is how the Teen Center came about because we heard the crack.

We heard it, but we heard it from over 800 kids that the city needed a teen center.

And that's how St.

Monica's Teen Center was born.

The third thing I want to talk about, y'all need to do better and more with domestic violence.

What happened in Southeast Raleigh?

It was a domestic violence issue.

But, Corey, you know and I know that was biased reporting.

That was biased reporting.

And we're not standing for that in Southeast Raleigh.

If you can't treat us fair like any other district, we got a problem, Corey, and we want to be treated fair.

So me and you, we go into Channel 5, and we're going to deal with that issue because you give Southeast Raleigh their prompts and do give them their respect, but don't be doing no biased reporting over here.

The City of Raleigh shouldn't even be standing for biased reporting anyway.

Last but not least, you shouldn't treat Glenwood Avenue in a different than you treat Newman Avenue, but y'all do it.

Do you know that Glenwood Avenue has the biggest discrimination case with 30 complaints now?

No, I didn't think you did, but I do, because I keep up with that.

But that's what I'm talking about.

You come over here in Southeast Raleigh and you report everything, every little thing, but in other districts, it's kept quiet, undercover.

You even report domestic violence situations way different in Southeast Raleigh.

Corey, that ain't right.

You need to treat us fair.

That's all I'm asking.

Treat us in Southeast Raleigh fair, just like you would do any other district.

Thank you.

Lamprey, sorry.

Lans Perry.

TJ.

Apologies.

Hello.

Thank you.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment to making uh our neighborhoods safe for cars, pedestrians, and cyclists through initiatives like the 2025 active mobility plan, the neighborhood traffic management program, and safe routes to school.

I appreciate your focus on enhancing road safety for all users.

Rezoning proposal Z 4325 at 6309 Lichford Road does not reflect this commitment and assuredly would aggravate the existing safety limitations of the Lichford community and surrounding area.

I used to bike to work in downtown Boise, Idaho daily for over five years.

Since we moved here in 2015, I don't feel safe riding off my street.

Since we do not have a sidewalk, I drive my teenage son, who was three when we moved here, the very short distance to high school because I have witnessed the safety issues associated with our lack of sidewalks.

We look forward to a thriving, healthy and active neighborhood with safe choices for ourselves, visitors, and our children.

You are already aware of our concerns and have noted the planning commission voted 8 to 1 this development in our overtasked neighborhood.

Since our family moved to Lichford Forest, we and our neighbors have wanted sidewalks, crosswalks, and a bike lane to connect us safely to Lichford Road, Millbrook High School, other amenities and neighborhoods.

We all want safety, peace, and health.

We look forward to continued efforts to connect more neighborhoods like ours to Greenways and essential services via thoughtful and balanced development.

We fully support the city's active mobility vision, create a connected, equitable, and accessible network that makes walking, bicycling, and rolling safe, comfortable, and viable for all, fostering a healthy, healthier and more connected Raleigh.

I ask that you do not approve the proposed rezoning in Lichford Forest.

Protecting the current zoning is crucial for maintaining the integrity and safety of our existing residential area.

Our neighborhood needs the services addressed that impact the safety and well-being of our community members first before any additional burdens resulting from the rezoning request proposed are considered.

The Planning Commission overwhelmingly agreed.

Raleigh has demonstrated a commitment to SMART growth.

This rezoning request does not meet the standard of smart growth, nor does it commit to be a part of our existing neighborhood in a time of development or stasis.

Thank you for your service and consideration.

Thank you.

Next, Carrie Bennington.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council members.

I am here again today as one of nine homeowners in Anderson Forest whose backyards would be taken under the proposed Greenway Connector Streamside option 1B.

I want to focus my remarks today on fiscal responsibility, because at a time when the Council is facing a $13 million budget deficit, the numbers behind this project simply do not add up.

In September, City staff stated there were no cost estimates yet assured the public this project could be completed within the $4.48 million parks bond allocation.

But public records show that a month earlier there was already an estimate of $4.7 million for Segment 1B alone.

That's before including the $785,000 design contract and before accounting for the other required segments.

Since then, the numbers have only escalated.

We have seen a revised estimate of $5.76 million, including a $1.2 million contribution from stormwater.

Then more recently, a total project estimate exceeding $8.65 million, nearly double the original bond allocation.

And even that is still not the full picture.

These figures do not include land acquisition, legal cost, or imminent domain proceedings required to take private property and condemn a long-standing existing environmental conservation easement.

With those factored in, the true's cost could easily exceed $10 to $11 million for a project centered around a half mile of greenway.

At a time when residents are being told taxes and fees may increase, and even a board referendum, a bond referendum is being discussed.

It's important to be clear.

Bonds are not free money, they are debt that taxpayers will carry for years to come.

So I ask: how can the city justify moving forward with the most expensive, most legally complex, and most environmentally disruptive option when less harmful alternatives exist?

And this isn't just about cost overruns, it's about how these costs have been presented.

When the public is told one thing, but documents show another, it undermines trust.

And it's about priorities.

Many Raleigh families are already struggling to keep up with basic needs.

This is not the time to take on unnecessary financial risk for a project built on incomplete and evolving numbers.

We support greenways.

We support connectivity, but we do not support a plan that relies on misleading cost assumptions, increases financial burden on taxpayers, and places that burden on the backs of a small group of homeowners.

Additionally, the city's own budget and management service report from community listening sessions indicates that 80 percent of those surveyed feel the greenway system is already adequately funded and would prefer funds be directed elsewhere in the city's long list of priorities.

Raleigh has an opportunity here to choose transparency, to choose fiscal discipline, and to choose a better path forward.

Thank you.

Taylor Stewart.

Good afternoon.

Several times city staff informed the Greenway Committee and the Parks Recreation and Greenway Advisory Board that no cost estimates for the big branch greenway connector had been developed when, in fact, cost estimates had been prepared.

Staff also made assurances that the connector would be completed with a 4.48 million of bond funds, which has also proven to be false.

It appears that staff wanted a route chosen without cost being considered.

Whether buying a car, looking to rent or purchase somewhere to live, or buying groceries costs are a concern for almost everyone.

The public expects our elected officials to be good stewards of public money.

Greenway costs must therefore be considered when routes are chosen.

This is even more important now with the city's current budget deficit.

Bond funds were meant to fund these segments, three segments of Greenway, but now the cost of just the one segment through Anderson Forest exceeds the entire park's bond allocation.

The city's latest estimate exceed $8.65 million, nearly double the park's bond allocation, and that's before expected environmental and private property litigation cost.

The main cause of projected cost overruns is segment 1B through Anderson Forest Backyards.

The city incorrectly thought it had a construction easement, but found well into the route selection process that a greenway trail is prohibited by a scenic conservation easement.

Less than half of under one half mile segment 1B runs creekside and is hardly the natural greenway experience portrayed to the public.

A trail would threaten a Zone 1 reparian buffer, violate the scenic conservation easement, present public safety concerns, remove trees and vegetation, and require purchase of private backyards from unwilling sellers.

The route also requires high construction and ongoing maintenance cost.

There are other far less costly greenway routing options, routes without the need for land acquisition that would adequately serve the public.

I believe these options were ignored or presented in a biased manner by city staff to induce their rejection.

The city even failed to develop cost estimates for a street side route presented in their public survey, even though it was identified as a priority in the midtown St.

Albans Plan.

The city should look to save several million dollars by using street and sidewalk connectors similar to the Oxford Road, other places throughout the Raleigh Greenway system, or what is now being proposed by Quail Hollow Drive.

Thank you so much for your consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hannah D.

Ali.

Okay.

And Mallory is also not in attendance.

Mary Ivy Stewart.

Good afternoon.

We have demonstrated how city staff use bias and presentations and public surveys to improperly steer the public and counsel to choose a greenway route through Anderson Forest.

I will address bias designed to induce people not to choose the street side option.

Plantation and Hines Drive were described as only 25 feet wide, presenting them as too narrow.

No mention was made of the 60-foot-wide public street rights of way.

That leaves 35 feet of public right-of-way available on which a connector to Wake Town Drive could be placed.

A greenway needs about 14 feet, sidewalks even less width.

City staff stated significant property acquisition was required.

It is obvious that a connector can be placed on existing public land without any land acquisition.

Staff also failed to point out to you and the public that the rights of way for Hines Drive and Wake Town Connect, and that the public has long used this land for an informal trail.

Nor did city staff mention this area was identified as a priority bicycle and pedestrian connector in the city's midtown St.

Albans area planned.

Staff presented the negative that there is a steep hill upplantation road, but that slope is actually less than the rise from Anderson Forest Backyards to Wake Town Drive, which was never mentioned.

Staff also presented misleading safety concerns of regarding roadway driveway crossings.

The driveways have good sight lines, and most are located on dead end neighborhood streets with extremely low traffic.

The streamside route, by contrast, has to cross Plantation Road, a neighborhood access plus the entrance and exit for 44 office condos with condo traffic so heavy that a special lane exit was constructed.

Public safety concerns are therefore much lower for the street side option than the streamside route.

Staff presented that the street side option would require elimination on all street parking, but this is untrue.

Just look at the quail hollow drive connector.

Another reason given for rejecting Plantation Heinz option was that the costly retaining walls are needed, yet nothing was said about five far higher construction cost on the streamside route.

The public survey mentions the number of trees needed for removal as an environmental concern, but failed by contrast to also mention violation of repair and water quality rules and scenic conservation easement.

The city has failed to prepare cost estimates for this route.

The route 35% of survey respondents chose.

Why?

Based upon staff descriptions of the streetside route, no one would never know it was the safest and by far the cheapest and easiest to construct and maintain.

BIAS was used to present the Plantation Hines option in an indesirable manner, and by doing so induced choosing of the Anderson Forest route.

I urge council to please take an unbiased look at alternatives other than Anderson Forest.

Thank y'all so much.

Thank you.

I was happy to wait to the end.

I'll just stand.

Good to see y'all.

It's Ashley Armstrong, yes.

So I had a couple of detours on the way here.

I had to take another shower because I thought it was low mow spring, and there was heavy mowing in the John Winters Park rideway today in the park, which makes zero sense considering going into a drought.

Um leaders practice knowledge, but we continue to see bad policy and practice by the city, especially in the parks division.

So I did have some prepared marks remarks.

Yesterday I had really bad internet connectivity.

I had better connectivity this morning, but again had bad connectivity.

And there's a lot of things going on today.

I was able to stream the governor's conference on budget in tandem with this, and then we also have the General Assembly going on, and I did have some reports from the tax special committee last week that will be affecting us.

So one of the ongoing frustrations that we have is the lack of connectivity with budgets and plans and programs and practices.

There's a lot of good things that I heard this morning with regard to the Go Raleigh discussion.

And so I'm very pleased that we're starting to pick apart these things in pockets in terms of agreements that we've had with the city.

I'm so thankful to our fellow citizens that spend the time to come and be more prepared and more accurate, often than the staff themselves, and it's super frustrating when staff makes a recommendation and then we have two at-large members and often the city council themselves that allow this to happen within their own district.

So we realize there's a lot to catch up on collectively as a body and as a city in terms of fixing things, especially with regard to transportation.

I had to drive here this morning on the way here.

There was a portion of Newborn that was going under construction, and it simply wasn't marked properly.

So I did take the time to take a picture of that and talk to the superintendent of the particular engineering group that was overseeing it so that he could better understand it and fix it going forward.

Because it's all about safety first and respect.

And we need to make sure that the policies and the budget and everything that we're doing as a city and as a council show respect for our city staff, the people out working in the field, the people that live here, the people that have committed to be here, the people that have spent the time to make the plans of the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and we have a commitment to those people in particular when we spent those tax monies in the past and in the future.

So we've got a $13 million budget deficit.

We're voting on a lot of expenditures today.

I'm wondering does this add to the budget with these already airmap airmarked?

What we what we're being presented are pockets of a budget that don't connect.

We can't see where these expenditures are and what the line items are.

I've been to several meetings in the past year asking these questions.

I've been told I'm going to get emailed the answer.

I haven't.

Thank you.

Okay.

Athena Wallum.

Thank you for waiting.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Athena Wallen.

I continue to advocate for Raleigh's unique, beautiful, and fascinating characteristics of our stormwater creeks.

These are systems that intake unpredictable volumes of runoff during times that we are fortunate with rainfall.

These are time, or these are systems that connect our neighborhoods, defying our human-made neighborhood boundaries.

These are systems that life relies on.

They have natural they have a natural marriage to robust tree canopy and happy root systems and diverse plant and wildlife.

They are natural third spaces, shade spaces, and areas that provide moments of calm.

These creek ecosystems or creekosystems are insights to each and every neighborhood of Raleigh.

They connect us.

We should be restoring them, we should be celebrating them.

They are degrading, they are eroding, they are struggling.

And it falls on the responsibility of many private homeowners to understand the complexities of this situation.

I implore city leadership to continue to seek out responsible ways to conserve the land around these fluctuating evolving creco systems, as I find it short-sighted to assume these creeks will continue to sustain the influx of runs runoff with the influx of density.

I find it fiscally responsible for the city to have ownership and planned maintenance around these creeks.

I find it fiscally responsible to reduce the removal of existing tree canopy and root systems instead of favoring maxed out development.

I also am in favor of greenways being around these creek systems because of those shade spaces, because of those calm spaces.

And I understand the scary aspect of change.

I don't have a greenway behind my home where my creek meets my property, but the city intended to have one.

But now we have development that has maxed out all the way to the sewer easement, and we have an eroding creek riparian buffer that is just disappearing.

So where is that greenway going to go?

It would have been amazing to have an alternative for pedestrians and cyclists on Brookside Drive.

It would have been amazing to have a shade space for everyone to enjoy.

I find moments where I have strangers actually in my backyard because there's a little sign saying that there's a wildlife habitat.

And they get curious and they walk towards that sign, wondering if it's okay, and it is okay for me.

It is okay because that curiosity is beautiful.

I find people remarkably fascinated to be surrounded by the trees, by the shade, by the bird song.

This is for everyone.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next we have Larissa Green.

Good afternoon, Madam Mayor and Council members.

I wanted to take a moment to simply say thank you.

I think it is important to recognize that when concerns are heard, staff responds, and when community voices actually make a difference, that we as a city of people share our appreciation.

I'm speaking today also in hopes that council will deny rezoning Z4325 at 6309 Lichford Road.

There are many members of staff that have heard me and my neighbors at great length.

I want to acknowledge their communication, their adjustments, time spent listening, and actions that matter.

Participation is not just symbolic, it is impactful.

Thank you to the Planning Commission for their eight to one vote of disapproval.

That kind of outcome reflects thoughtful deliberation, community input, and willingness to take concerns seriously.

I also want to address others in the community that who may be watching that your voice matters.

You just need to care enough to show up, share your perspective, ask questions, and stay engaged.

Every day, decisions made help shape our neighborhoods, our growth, our safety, our infrastructure, and our quality of life.

When more people participate, those decisions get better balanced.

So again, thank you to Raleigh Transportation for your attention on our traffic concerns.

Thank you to the Ask Raleigh Portal employees for fixing potholes and signs.

Thank you to the Raleigh Planning Commission for their votes to disapprove of this rezoning application 8 to 1.

Thank you for to Councilmember Silver for meeting with our neighbors to truly understand the impacts development has and will continue to make in our community.

I'm not naive to the fact that past rezonings have not felt validated.

So thank you to those who've stood here before and face disappointment.

Change in a city doesn't happen all at once.

It takes it happens because people keep showing up and refuse to let their community be overlooked.

I hope more residents will take the step to be part of the process.

Please support the opposition to Z 4325 at 6309 Litchford Road by emailing the council members, City Council members at Raleigh NC.gov.

And I'll close by saying this.

I trust this council to continue doing what we've seen in this process, carefully weighing the facts, listening to the community, and choosing the path that prioritizes safety and long-term community well-being over short-term profits.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Victoria Reich.

Hello, I'm Vicky Reich.

I have lived in Lichford Forest for 23 years off of Johnsdale, where the rezoning of 6309 Lichford is being considered.

I'm retired teacher from the Wake County Public School system.

And our backyard of our home borders the practice field of Millbrook High School.

So my husband and I have been in uh have worked with youth all our life through various nonprofit capacities.

And I naturally think of how the rezoning of that 6309 Lichford would affect the Millbrook High School students.

A small street, Johnsdale Place, across the street from the lot being considered, adjoins the East Parking lot of the Millbrook High School.

And student drivers exit there while other students and community members are walking on the road because there's no sidewalks.

And remember, these are teen drivers with teen emotions and impulses.

A few weeks ago I was forced to drive off the road to avoid being hit head on on John's Dale.

The student driver was swerving all over the road at a dangerous high speed.

I wanted to yell at him, but my thoughts went to maybe he didn't make the team, or maybe his girlfriend broke up with him, or something hard is happening at home.

So at this also at the stop sign where they exit the school, the students roll or race through without stopping, assuming others will yield.

Recently I saw a young boy on a bike forced into the ditch to avoid being struck as two cars were passing on the narrow road.

This is not a hypothetical concern.

Years ago, an eight-year-old girl was killed on Johnsdale.

I know the council takes very seriously the responsibility to the school and residential communities to provide safe infrastructure.

It takes your dedication and programs like the one I know is safe routes to schools.

To do so, you also have the enormous job of giving the same consideration for rezoning near high near Millbrook High School to all the other 33 high schools in Wake County.

So I know you have a huge job.

I so admire what you do.

Thank you for keeping your priorities clear so that our students' safety is of utmost importance and they can succeed academically.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nikki W.

Okay.

And then uh Leon Reich.

Yeah, I have to follow my wife, so I have to be careful here.

I'm also speaking in regards to the rezoning of Z 4325 of 6309 Lichford Road.

First of all, good afternoon.

Mayor and Council members.

My name is Leon Reich, and I am retired and have lived on Ravenhill Drive, the only Coltis Act off of Johnsdale Road since 2003.

I am privileged to speak on behalf of this community of families because during the last five years we have experienced a wonderful change to this area.

We have many young families that have come in with small children.

I must say it's a delight as a grandfather.

This is a place where families live, where students walk to Millbrook High School, where people head to the park or catch the bus.

It's a place where families gather together for picnics, egg hunts, Halloween parties, and holiday celebrations.

But the truth is they are doing it without the needed safe infrastructure necessary.

No sidewalks, as has been mentioned, limited safe crossings, and traffic that already moves too fast.

Any moment a family chooses to walk to another family's home or park, they do it with great risk because it's on the road with traffic going by all the time.

This matters greatly as a neighborhood can't just include buildings and density.

It has to do, I believe, with the quality of life and how safely families can live their daily lives.

Right now, we have a gap between how this area is used and how it was built.

Families are walking these roads every day, but their environment wasn't built to protect them.

Adding more intensity and more traffic without fixing this structure doesn't strengthen the community.

It puts the community and its people at higher risk.

Growth should come with responsibility, as you all agree.

It should bring the infrastructure that makes a place safer, not strains or adds to what is already lacking.

I am asking you to think about the real everyday experience of these streets, the students, the family, the neighborhood, and what kind of environment we are promoting and creating.

I remind you that for most of these humble families on these streets, it's not a financial option to move to a safer place.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

That concludes those signed up for public comment.

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

And we have Vynam Walter and Dwight.

Is Dwight Otwell here today?

Okay, there you go.

Yes, ma'am.

Good afternoon, Vinham Walter, Raleigh Planning and Development.

I'm joined by Dwight Otwell, Chair of the Planning Commission.

Some May holidays ahead for us.

And we have some public hearings also ahead.

So at the next meeting in the evening, we have two items scheduled for public hearing and nothing yet scheduled for the second meeting in May in the afternoon.

We have four items coming out of Planning Commission today, all recommended for the May 19 afternoon meeting for public hearing.

The first is a portion of 7800 Battle Bridge Road, 7800 Battle Bridge Road is a portion of Randley Farm.

This is a request for just 24 acres of that larger tract going from residential four to industrial mixed use, three-story height limit with conditions.

This is initiated by the county and city who jointly own the property.

This request is consistent with the comprehensive plan, although inconsistent with the future land use map.

Planning commission recommends approval.

The second item on the Commission's report today is 7929 Ligan Mill Road.

This is a request to rezone just over 59 acres from Wake County R 30 to residential 6 with conditions.

This request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and the future land use map.

Planning commission recommends approval.

And you have just scheduled the public hearing for the associated annexation for the May 19 suggested public hearing date for this item.

The third item on the report this afternoon is 319 Heck Street.

This is about a half acre, going from R 10 with the neighborhood conservation overlay district to residential mixed use four-story height limit with conditions.

This request would remove the neighborhood conservation district.

The request is consistent with the comprehensive plan, including the future land use map and the urban form map.

Planning commission recommends approval by a split vote here.

And then the final item is 5601 6 Forks Road.

This is just over seven acres, going from office mixed use with a three-story height limit and a parking limited frontage and some conditions.

And then another general use district that's the same, all to a single combined neighborhood mixed use five-story, urban limited frontage district with conditions.

This is consistent with a comprehensive plan on the future lanes map, as well as the urban form map and planning commission recommends approval.

What questions could I or Commissioner Otwell ask for you?

Answer for you before you take action.

Thank you.

Questions?

Councilor Patton?

Hi.

It is not.

Staff would rely on what is articulated in the condition.

Okay.

Got it.

And then the animal shelter.

There are a lot of conditions on this case.

It seems that the stated intent is for Wheat County to build an animal shelter here, but there's a lot of conditions around like number of residential units, number of office, et cetera.

Can you speak to why that's included if the stated intent is none of those things?

Yes.

At the rezoning step, the amount of entitlement that they are requesting without those conditions would be very significant and would require a traffic study.

So they are wanting to delay that in the development process when they can offer greater specificity about what they plan.

I don't see any other questions.

I move that we schedule the resulting cases for the May 19th public hearing.

Did you say evening or afternoon?

Oh, only afternoon.

Afternoon, May 19th.

I don't want to go on that one again.

It's still gun shy after uh our earlier incident.

Yeah.

Uh all in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay, and that passes.

Thank you very much.

We have special items.

Um, so we will invite Bynam Walter back to the podium.

Sorry about that.

Yeah.

And this is Z 3825 Trailwood Drive.

That's right.

This is the northernmost of those three Trailwood rezoning requests that have been in front of you recently.

So this is a request for just under 14 acres.

The um conditions have been revised since you last saw this at the table.

Uh and the applicant is ready now.

Having made revisions uh for you to schedule the public hearing, if you are ready, we are suggesting a May 5 date.

You'll remember we just have those two items uh scheduled for the evening May 5 hearing.

And given the community interest in this evening meeting would be more appropriate.

So there's a look at that site.

And so what's changed are uh some of the aspects of these conditions.

So the umst uh revised condition is limiting the um area of disturbance within the 100-year floodplain, uh, and also a requirement for a no-rise certification.

Um, then also uh minimum of 200 feet of frontage along the west side uh to be occupied by building facades within 20 feet of trailwood drive, and no parking located between the facades and trailwood drive.

Um then the final change here on this slide, uh some regulation, some uh specification about the type of silt fence.

This is specifically referencing the super silt fence uh that would be offered as part of the construction process.

And that's the changes to the request since you saw it last.

What questions could I I believe the applicant is also here if you had questions for either of us?

Uh questions?

No questions.

Okay.

Do we want to set the public hearing?

Yeah, I'll make a motion to set the public hearing for their first meeting in May at 7 p.m.

Second.

Right.

All in favor of that motion.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

Right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Next we have the uh fiscal year 2027 human service agency grant recommendations.

And we have Katie Conyers from Budget and Management Services, Will Hartye from Housing and Community Development, and Robert Quartz, the Commission Secretary.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

I'm Katie Conyers, Grants Administrator and Budget and Management Services.

So I'm here to introduce the FY2027 Human Service Agency Grant Recommendations.

Um the Arts Commission and Housing and Community Development Staff previously presented the FY2027 Arts and Community Enhancement Grant recommendations at the April 6th budget work session.

This will be our last agency grant presentation for the FY 2027 budget process.

Uh quick agenda.

Um the Human Relations Commission Secretary Robert Quartz will share a brief overview of the human service agency grant process, followed by recommendations for FY2027 grants.

And with that, I will invite Mr.

Quartz to the podium to share those recommendations.

Appreciate y'all saving the best for last.

Uh Mayor, City Council, Raleigh staff, and my fellow Raleighites.

My name is Robert Quartz, and I have the pleasure to serve as the Secretary for the Human Relations Commission this year.

I also had the honor to chair the Human Services Grant Committee.

The Human Relations Commission worked to promote human dignity, equal opportunity, and harmony among Raleigh's residents.

We have the task to promote activities and programs for residents without regard to race, color, creed, gender, age, sexual orientation, or national origin.

The Human Services Commission has the challenge to present grants to nonprofits that deliver needed services to low-income residents, including youth, older adults, housing insecure, persons with substance abuse disorders, and persons with disabilities.

The Human Services Grant Committee this year comprised of 18 reviewers.

We evaluated all 49 eligible applications this cycle, which is a 40 percent increase over last year's 35 submissions.

Applications were scored on program impact, fiscal responsibility, and organizational capacity consistent with the Commission's commitment to fair and transparent process.

Before we make recommendations, the Human Relations Commission has asked me to do two things.

One, read a statement on the legacy grants.

As part of our review of the City City's human services funding, the Human Relations Commission examined the structure and the role of legacy grants within the broader grant making process.

Legacy grants represent a significant portion of the total funding.

Approximately 40 percent of allocated dollars.

However, through both our review and the city's response to our inquiries, it is clear that there is no documented origin, formal criteria, or established rationale for how organizations are designed or excuse me, designated as legacy recipients.

Additionally, there is no clearly defined role for the Commission in reviewing these awards, and questions regarding potential conflicts of interest remain unaddressed.

While the organizations receiving legacy funding do provide valuable services to our community, the absence of a transparent and documented framework creates challenges in ensuring equity, consistency, and public trust, particularly when smaller community-based organizations compete for limited remaining resources.

In light of these findings, the Commission respectfully recommends that the Raleigh City Council establish clear written criteria for the legacy designation, conduct a formal review of all legacy-funded organizations using consistent evaluation standards.

Develop the appropriate role for the Commission in this process, ensure transparency and conflict of interest safeguards are clearly articulated and followed, and consider whether the allocation structure aligns with the city's goals for equitable distribution of public funds.

We offer these recommendations in the spirit of strengthening the city's grant-making process and ensuring it remains transparent, accountable, and aligned with the needs of all residents.

Thank you for your consideration.

The council also asked me to remind you that the grant committee alone requires no less than six meetings outside of the monthly HRC meeting.

And new rules regarding in-person or versus virtual will cause a if not work out, will cause a significant burden upon the grant committee alone.

That being said, based on the review, the Human Relations Commission recommends funding 35 organizations, including nine first-time applicants for a total investment of 911,350.

We respectfully request the mayor and city council's approval of the FY 2026-27 Human Services Grant recommendations as presented.

Okay.

Okay, we got everybody on the SN has a question.

We'll start with Councillor Jones and work our way down.

Thank you so much for a very full presentation.

Can you speak a little bit more specifically for me to the uh you were talking about hybrid meetings or virtual tank?

Where were you meeting?

Um we were informed at our last meeting that uh all meetings would need to be in person, whether they are the HRC monthly meeting or any committee therein.

So if all meetings have to be in person, that is a significant burden on a citizen volunteer.

Understood.

Can we get staff uh feedback on that?

I wasn't aware of that.

I think la we spoke to this last week with a different commission.

So basically, if you all recall years ago when we made each commission pick whether they wanted to be virtual or um in person, whatever decision they made for their full body flowed down to their committees.

And so they all they have to be uniform.

But at our last meeting, I asked staff to evaluate offering more flexibility such that subcommittees could be virtual even if that was um different or just that subcommittees could be different than the full body.

And so I believe the manager is preparing a pro con list for us soon.

Great.

Oh okay.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

My question is of the applicants that did not receive funding, was there any communication or feedback provided to them?

Or will it be any feedback provided to them?

Let the city answer to that, but my understanding is yes, on these legacy grants, the city is very communicative with both uh timely whether what they received and when, as well as feedback to how they could do it there.

Okay.

So the committee does will provide this staff information.

I think this I would like to add that the staff commission relationship this year was better than ever, and it was a very smooth process.

Cool.

Yeah, I just want to thank you, Robert, for your leadership here and all of your group.

It is a lot of work to do this, and it's so important.

Um something I would like to receive is just a list of um I see the all the applicants, who was funded at what levels, but can I also get the scores?

Like I assume there's uh objective score for everybody because that would help me.

I know we've got some council contingency funds.

There might be an opportunity to fund a couple of these groups from our own monies, and I would love to do that if I can.

Uh be happy to provide that and what the criteria were that the commission came up and how they were judged and uh put into tiers.

Great.

Thank you.

Yeah, go ahead.

So I'll come down.

Thank you.

And I'm sorry, I forgot to ask this just about legacy grants.

I think I know that there's been a few of us who have had conversations uh with staff about it.

So I'm just wondering if there is a planned time for us to circle back to that conversation to see what um what is happening with legacy grants moving forward.

Yes, it was staff's um proposal that we bring forward back that as part of the discussion is our mid-year retreat to kind of see after we get through the granting cycle, because it was too late in the process to change for FY27, but bring it as an item on that city um mid-year retreat agenda so that you all can determine how you want to move forward.

And just know that that runway kind of creates an opportunity for communication because there has been a long-term relationship with some of these legacy committees.

And so, how do we go about doing that in a timely enough manner not to be detrimental to their book of business?

Definitely.

Thank you so much.

Okay, coming down this side, Councilor Patton.

Yeah, I was just building on that.

Wanted to make sure we had a next steps to address the request from the HRC.

I think there's probably a lot of ways to skin the cat and um certainly acknowledge the good work done by both our legacy recipients and the um competitive applicants.

I think, but I also resonate with the idea that if you if the HRC is not actually opining on them, then perhaps we should not call them HRC grants, so they should become council grants or everyone should be truly competitive or or some cadre of options.

So uh mostly just wanted to make sure that that had a next step too.

That's all.

Any other questions?

I will also just say I appreciate all the work.

I know this is as you said, six meetings and a lot of time and uh appreciate obviously that you're making decisions over about a million dollars and uh on important nonprofits.

So uh do we have a motion to accept or share a motion to accept?

All right.

All in favor, aye.

All opposed?

All right, and we appreciate it.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Uh I guess this is for the city manager or maybe our city attorney.

If there are organizations on this grant list that did not receive funding, would they be eligible for council contingency funds?

I think so if they meet the criteria that you all have established and approved for your council contingency dollars.

So yes.

So to the council, whoever has contingency money left, this may be a good place to look to see if there's a need.

I see some obviously this is a tough decision, but I see some that had money last year didn't get this year or got significantly less than they requested, so there may be a need here.

Correct.

Scratch the last party.

It would just be the ones that didn't receive any, I believe.

That would be eligible.

Okay.

Next we've got the 2026 housing and transportation bonds, Alison Bradsher.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

I hope you are well today.

Alison Bradshire with the with the Finance Department.

So here's our agenda today.

I'm going to cover the timeline to pay to place a general obligation bond on the ballot this November, discuss the city's debt affordability, provide the categories of proposed spending, bond language, and then I'll end with next steps.

So council will recall that there is a total of four votes required to place a bond on the ballot, and today is vote number one.

This vote essentially sets the purpose and the amount of the bonds.

The city has debt affordability totaling 203 million dollars.

This amount can occur every four years and is reassessed annually, and it comes without a tax increase.

And this is what we have been referring to as steady state.

The proposed use of these funds is a transportation bond and a housing bond on the ballot in November, each for 101.5 million dollars.

You have seen this chart before from my colleagues in the Transportation Department.

These are the bond spend categories proposed by the transportation team.

You will see BRT and deferred projects initiatives within adopted plans here at the city as well as programmatic spending.

Here is the bond or the ballot language.

This is language that the city has historically used and essentially covers all of those initiatives that I just showed on the previous slide.

For housing, again at 101.5 million.

These are the spending categories that have previously been shared by the housing and communicate community development team, and include housing development and preservation, home buyer assistance and preservation, homelessness response, and major project development.

Here is the housing bond language that would go on the ballot November 3rd.

Again, I'm not going to read this to everyone, but this is language that the city has consistently used on our prior housing bonds.

And again, covers all those initiatives that I just talked about on the prior slide.

The General Assembly passed requirements under what's referred to as the Bond Transparency Act that specific information be required on the ballot, and this applies for all ballots after January 1 of 2024.

So this is the first time this incremental language will be included for any riley bonds.

And essentially there's two components.

Now this rate is much higher than what a triple A rated city like ourselves.

However, based on the language, we are required to use the higher interest rate.

We are also required to include the cost to pay for these bonds, essentially on $100,000 of assessed property value.

Now with great news, I can say we've been working with the staff at the LGC, and because these are under our steady state, we are going to essentially list that there is a zero property tax required in order to pass these bonds.

Now the final approval will be by the LGC, and we are slated to be on the June agenda there.

So the recommendation is for an authorization to proceed essentially with a not to exceed of the 203 million with the 101.5 for the transportation and 101.5 for housing.

We will then file that application with the LGC, as I just mentioned, be on their June agenda.

And then the next steps would be vote two and three, which would occur on May 5th.

Uh that one would be on your consent agenda, and then May 19th would be a public hearing.

And with that, I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.

All right.

Questions from Ms.

Bradshire.

Hello.

Hi.

I'll kick it off.

Um I was reading the packet in preparation, the language, the ballot language looks very long.

By the time we include this, and then that uh the stuff required by statute.

It's very it's very long.

Um I want us to be thorough and transparent, and also I want voters to get all the way through their ballot.

Um is there I I don't know what my question is here exactly, but like is there a time when we'll be able to see how it would actually look on a formatted ballot with the columns and everything?

I would be happy to certainly look at that annually or when we have an item uh on the ballot.

We have to work with Wake County and Durham County on what that will look like.

Uh so that may be some time away uh to actually I believe they commonly post out what your ballot will look like, but I feel like that is much closer to election time.

Yeah.

It is.

Okay.

And is and this today would be our only time to adjust like today's vote is adoption of this language.

Um yes.

I mean, and essentially we work with bond council on this, so I'm very confident that this covers all those categories of spend.

And essentially, this language is pretty commonly used across North Carolina on the ballot.

So I would not be aware of anything else at this time that we would need to add to the language.

Oh, yeah, I just wanted to wasn't worried about adding anything.

Kind of subtracting, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, and I think they are intended to be broad, right?

To have those categories to make sure that we can really fulfill the mission of what the bond is meant to do.

Okay.

Cool.

And I do have a question for transportation, one for transportation and one for housing staff, too.

Okay.

Questions you both have, I'll put them both out there while you all make your way to the podium.

They I have asked them before, but just in case this is the first time anyone's tuning in, um, just to repeat.

On transportation, a lesson we have learned from past bonds is that we need projects to be shovel ready so that we don't lose time in design and property acquisition.

So asking transportation staff if you can just speak to shovel readiness of the projects presented through this bond.

So, yes, if you go back to that to that list, and I can pull that back up from transportation standpoint.

Uh as we discussed during that work session discussion, what we have got here with the BRT and divert projects, our projects that we would anticipate, we would consider shovel ready.

We're continuing to work on those and are positioning those to be ready for construction and bond expenditure within the window of the bond order.

Thank you.

And for housing, um, we have a lot of community interest in running a much larger housing bond.

And as you have shared with us in the past, but if hopefully you can share again, you know, if you had double the money, would we get double the affordable housing in the available time?

Or why this size?

What are additional constraints, et cetera?

Sure.

Um so this size was chosen and thought through.

Um so that we will be able to continue our current production with just maybe a little bit more.

So our current capacity to be able to expend these funds is reflected here as well as an inflation rate.

So a cost adjustment for what we expect the cost to rise.

So this is a four-year uh bond, um, we need to have uh you know uh an amount of time to be able to spend those funds down.

Um, and as we understand it, and Alison can speak better to this, um, making sure that we are spending down those funds in a timely manner is crucial in order to continue uh to receive bond funds.

So we also took that into consideration.

So it was really uh a capacity being able to continue the the work that we're doing at the at the same pace considering the cost increases and then the fact that this is going to be four years, and then we will see another bond in four years.

All right.

Um I had Silver and Um Jones and then Lambert Melton.

Mr.

Richard Transportation can come back up.

Uh I'm certainly going to support this bond and the importance of having both housing and transportation.

Can you back cut this slide with the big jump?

Yeah.

Since we had the work session, I think always been very vocal about increasing our sidewalk network.

And certainly that's part of this package.

It's believe it's 50 miles for bike lanes, five miles for sidewalks.

But look into the future, I'm certainly even now with our conversation about the frequent transit areas and having sidewalk infrastructure to get to those transit stops, safe routes to schools, as we heard today with the case around uh Lichford Forest, uh, just to continue to emphasize uh the importance of the sidewalks.

Can you share with me in that plan about the sidewalks, you know, how they are prioritized?

Again, we're very pleased with what you selected about filling gaps and connectivity.

But in terms of your overall approach, because we are hearing issues about frequent transit areas and safe routes to school.

So certainly as we uh put that plan together, looking at those connectivity to those destinations, schools being one of those, certainly that connectivity to transit really started to raise that prioritization as we look to the future of our system, making sure that we have got those connections can be absolutely critical, and that was the baseline of how we get how we establish that prioritization, both for the sidewalks and our bike facilities under that plan.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Allison, I have one question for you and then one for housing.

Um with everything that we have, the multiple bonds that are potentially going to be on this, um, I appreciate the blurb that we are talking about to make sure that residents know that it's not going to be a property tax increase.

But do we have are we the main messaging on that, or do we partner with other organizations who can help us deliver that message to voters so that they understand that there are differences in those bonds that are going to be presented on the ballot?

Yes.

I mean, we can certainly do on our website more of the facts, but uh typically in the past, the chamber has been uh a sponsor of getting more of that message out and support um for the bonds.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

And then just one question for housing.

Um in that vein of getting partners when I look at those buckets that we have and for the major um projects and things that some organizations may want to apply for, is there anything that they need to do right now, or we we need to wait until we partner with them until the bond passes, or is there maybe they can help us with the messaging and things like that?

How would that relationship, how would they get to partner with you in in that?

Sure.

So when the bond funds are available to us, that is when we will then program them.

Um we have a pretty extensive um list, sir.

But please, I mean, I would say anyone to feel free to reach out to us to make sure that you're on that list, sir, so that you receive communication so that you know when um funding is available.

I do want to go back to the prior question too, because I failed to mention that in addition to keeping our current production, we also wanted to add funds for homelessness response per council, and then also for that mixed income development.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

So uh Lambert Melton, and then we'll go to Mayor Pro Tem.

Just wanted to add a few comments.

Um this entire council met in two separate groups with a large number of faith-based community leaders and um who are advocating rightfully so for as large of an affordable housing bond as possible.

And we I think had a very productive dialogue.

And one of the takeaways that I took from that conversation, I wanted to just highlight for anyone who is listening now, is that you know, for most folks, housing and transportation are the two highest um costs of living.

And if we were to increase the housing portion of this affordable of this bond package, we would be taking from the transportation portion.

And the transportation portion here is going to connect a lot of these housing developments to jobs and critical um resources.

And if you look at the bond considerations for transportation, it's bus rapid transit to major projects, which is also, if done correctly, as it should be, going to facilitate a lot of privately funded affordable housing with our transit overlay uh zoning tools.

The big jump for sidewalks and bike facilities, as Councilmember Silver pointed out, we approved uh several hundred uh unit affordable housing private development last meeting that is not connected to any transit stop by sidewalks.

And so I think we do have to look holistically here.

And so, you know, I can't see a way for us to trim this transportation bond to put more towards housing because they're working together in partnership, and these transportation needs are critical.

The second point I wanted to highlight is we leverage our housing bond money in a way that the impact of 101.5 million dollars is much greater than actually 101.5 million dollars.

On the transportation side, we're getting 100 million dollars.

We'll be spending 100 million dollars to actually build transportation projects and infrastructure.

On the housing side, we take our money and leverage it.

And so if you look at those bond categories, the major project development, the housing development, a lot of that is public-private partnerships.

And so we put a portion of the funds in so the project can be uh delivered, but the other funding mechanisms are contributing more.

And so our affordable housing money actually goes much, much further than what it looks like on its face.

And so I think that's important for the public to know also.

And I will end with saying that I do think the steady state 200 million dollars every four years is a much better way to be programming bond revenue.

Um it's predictable for the public.

It does not trigger any tax rate increase, which is very important right now when folks are struggling for costs of living.

And um, you know, the last housing bond we had was $80 million, and that was in 2020, so that went six years for $80 million.

This will be $101 million for four years with the potential to do at least that again in another four years.

And so for that reason, I'm very supportive of this package.

Um, but I do understand the sort of the community concerns and calls for more.

I think this is where we need to start.

Yeah, I just want to kind of continue on that.

Um we have had some really um you know important conversations about what these numbers ought to be, and affordable housing is such a priority here.

I remember sitting down with Marchell um when I first got in council saying, why don't we just double our penny for affordable housing, you know, just let's do it.

And uh what I learned and have come to understand is that we do have to work at the pace of our partners because it's us, it's the county, it's the state, it's private capital dollars, it's nonprofit affordable housing developers, it's churches, it's every property owner that wants to get in there, and so we have to kind of go again at the pace that makes sense, and I think this will help us keep that steady pace going.

Um then on the transportation piece, you know, sidewalks, also to Councilmember Silver's point, are so important.

I believe about half of our city streets do not have them.

And so if we don't put the funding in, then the affordable housing projects that we are approving, you know, folks cannot get to the bus.

This wonderful go Raleigh bus system that we have.

And so we have to make those improvements.

I'm excited about bus rapid transit down South Saunders.

That's what those um uh lanes will be for.

And that's where I would say the majority of the affordable housing projects in my district have been approved in the past years.

So this is really, I think, all working together.

Council Branch?

I just want to say dado and I move to approve the authorization to proceed.

Second.

All right.

Any other conversation?

If not, all in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

And that is unanimous.

Thank you.

Okay, next we have Sue Ellen Cologne uh with boards and commissions bylaws.

Good afternoon, members of the council.

Ellen Cologne with community engagement department.

Okay, and I am here for a third time to introduce the third batch of bylaws.

Environmental advisory board.

Um The Raleigh Historic Development Commission that was on January 20th, and the second batch was the planning commission rules of procedure, design review commission, and the board of adjustment rules of procedures.

And today we bring to you the bylaws for the parks, recreation, and greenway advisory board and the historic resource and museum advisory board.

Are there any questions?

Yeah.

Appreciate your work on this.

Um all in favor of the motion.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next we have the report and recommendation of the city manager.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

We have two items in my report today.

But before we get to that first one, many of us participated in a ribbon cutting today.

And oftentimes when you do this work, particularly now when we're trying to be responsive and bringing forward a uh balanced budget that kind of meets the needs of our community and take into regards into consideration everybody's struggling in this moment in time, your why, right?

And so while we were able to cut the ribbon this morning over at Licton Plaza and to then honor the construction of the Omni Hotel, it was an excitement in the cool brisk air this morning.

There were school buses and charter buses pulling up along Wilmington Street, dropping off kids.

And in fact, we found out that there are 1,600 kids coming today to the symphony.

Being a past member of the State Arts Council, that was one of the things that we did.

We funded opportunities for kids in rural communities who wouldn't otherwise get the opportunity to participate or actually go to a symphony or ballet.

And so as those 1600 kids were getting off the bus very well behave, I might say, they were lined up and we had an RPD police officer out there giving every single one of them a high five.

That moment reminded me of my why, right?

It's never easy.

It's complicated, it's messy, it's emotional, it's hard.

But to see the kids interact with the police officer in that way in a positive light, reminded me of why we do this work in the vein of public service.

And again, we don't get the accolades and we don't do it for that.

We do it because we want to make our communities better for the future.

So for the 1600 kids who will undoubtedly probably end up over at Dick's Park today and have lunch after the symphony.

Thank you for choosing us and thank you all for the opportunity for us to provide and do that service for our community.

So with that, the first item today in my report is the Safe Streets for All Comprehensive Safety Plan.

And we have Sean Driscoll from our transportation department here to present this item.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, City Council, Sean Driscoll Transportation Department.

So this is a follow-up from the March 17th work session where I highlighted the findings and recommendations from the completed comprehensive safety action plan.

So for this presentation, I'll do a quick overview of the action plan, a time timeline of where we've been the last month, the staff recommendations and the next steps as an implementation grant I'll touch on.

So again, the action plan is the roadmap that we're going to utilize for at least the next decade or so to reduce serious injuries and fatalities within our transportation network.

So the focus areas of the plan, again, the high injury network and high risk network is our proactive approach.

We have our safety countermeasure toolkit, which is the recommended improvements we're comfortable using to address crash patterns.

Lots of priority projects within our high injury networks around schools, engage with Wake EMS, RPD, fire for emergency response and enforcement strategies, and then the policy recommendations to update the UDO and our street design manual in the future to include safety recommendations.

So we presented to to y'all in uh a March, and then since then we've circulated the plan to the stakeholders and the task force for review and comment.

We then finalize that plan and then put it on our the completed plan on our vision zero webpage for public viewing as well.

So why I'm here today is to request adoption of the resolution endorsing the comprehensive safety action plan.

Um the big thing for that is that is a requirement for us to pursue safe streets and roads for all implementation grant funding.

And what the implementation grant is the kind of the phase two.

So phase one was the development of the plan, phase two is the design and construction funding we can pursue.

But our grant application will have a more comprehensive approach to be more than just design and construction, it's also going to include enforcement improvements, emergency response, buying equipment, materials for those some of those frontline workers, and then lots of uh like public engagement and outreach to address some of those dangerous driving behaviors that I touched on, like no seat belt and speeding.

So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay.

Uh starting with Council Branch.

Yeah, definitely thank you for the report and all the work that you all have been doing.

My question is what plan or system is put in place so in three years or four years or five years from now, the plan is still current.

Is there an amendment process or is there a time where we'll come back and say, hey, you know, let's review the plan and make updates to it?

Yeah, that's a that's a good question because the plan is a snapshot.

The high injury network is a snapshot.

That's our reactive approach that's based on crash data from 2013 to 2023.

And you're right, like as we make improvements, some of those high injury intersections and networks hopefully will be removed from the list and new locations will come up.

So, yeah, we there's a a cadence or a precedence that we're gonna need to put in place to re-evaluate the high injury network probably every five years or so.

We put together crash diagrams, we look at 10 years of peg crashes and five years of vehicular crashes to identify us a crash pattern to make a safety recommendation, you know, to address that crash pattern.

So yeah, every five years, the high injury network should be evaluated.

But the high risk network is that proactive approach.

So as we're addressing the known issues, we're also trying to make improvements within areas that are on the high risk network to get ahead of a crash pattern from developing.

So yeah, we will be re-evaluating the high injury network probably every five years or so just to see as new locations pop up.

Okay.

And my last question: as new development occurs, are we asking, or is there a way for some of these design standards and things to be included within that development so we don't have to go back and retrofit?

Yeah.

So when we update the street design manual and the UDO, that will be easier.

Um but I'll say the development review staff, the transportation staff do a good job reaching out to us to say there's a new development coming within this location.

Are there any known safety issues that we have?

Are there any known crash patterns?

We provide that recommendation to them in a possible safety countermeasure that they can either, you know, try to kindly ask the developers to try to implement so we don't have to come in after the fact.

So it's a little bit more of a proactive approach now, but as we update our policies, it will be more of a requirement.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for this.

I just have two questions.

Um do you know or have any idea of what the full cost to implement this plan will be?

I know that these you have the projects, but that doesn't include construction, uh, utilities, rights of way.

So is there an idea of what that full cost would be?

Yeah, so we put cost estimates together for the top nine priority projects and the top 14 tier one projects.

The total of those is around $56 million.

There's a lot of variable associated with that because they're conceptual designs in nature.

The implementation grant, uh the average award is around 10 to 12 million dollars.

That's the kind of recommendation FHWA is requesting applicants to shoot for.

That's what we're gonna shoot for.

That's gonna address um projects at three of the top nine corridors and then as well as five of the top 14 safe routes to school corridors, as well as like back plates at 90 intersections across the city.

So we're gonna spread it out.

So I mean, that being said, this is kind of our guide for the next 10 years to address these locations.

So I don't think like we're trying to do it all at once, but it will kind of help us create that priority of where we need to focus.

Thank you.

And just one quick reminder with the um action you took on the bond order, we do have roughly 20 million dollars in there to help support an implementation of the conference of safety action plan that was programmed in that that adopted plans bucket.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

And then my my last question in in a portion of this is a very long document, but there's a portion of this that talks about mobility device users, and we reference that 78% of mobility device users feel unsafe right now in in crossing our streets.

And so curb ramps, APS signals, and access landing pads, they're still listed as supplementary recommendations rather than a standalone priority category.

And I was just wondering if we can clarify that and how we can how are we making sure that these this is a large number, 78% of people using things like wheelchairs don't feel safe right now.

How are we making sure to message and say that that's part of our plan as a priority?

Yeah, we could modify that so it reads better to be more priority because it truly is.

We work with street maintenance.

They replace thousands of ramps across the city.

We get a couple hundred thousand dollars uh as part of the budget every year to implement accessible pedestrian signals um at many intersections around the city, those leading pedestrian intervals you reference, the increase in the payment marking budget we just got for uh high visibility crosswalks and stuff like that.

So given the resources we have that we spread that out as much as we possibly can and focus within the areas that are gonna have the highest safety need, which will have the greatest impact to improve prep public safety.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Anyone down here.

All right.

Uh well, we need to adopt a resolution of this great work.

All right.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

And the second item is rental development application for funding recommendations.

And we have Annie Bauman Mitchell from Housing and Community Development here to present this item.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Excited to be here this afternoon to discuss our rental development funding recommendations.

Today I'll start with a brief overview of the program, followed by the summary of the proposals we received and end with our funding recommendations.

Our rental development program established by the city provides low-cost financing to support affordable housing developments.

A key here is our financing impacts the development costs, which as you can see from this slide, impacts the overall expenses to operate a property, which then lowers the rent.

If there is a reduction in hard costs, which have fixed payments and higher interest rates, we're able to lower the financing for a project, which means the expenses to operate the project are lower, and then the rents are lower.

Our program is primarily designed to operate with the low-income housing tax credit program, which is operated through the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency.

The Housing Finance Agency receives a limited number of tax credits that they can award to projects each year, and the city's GAAP financing provides a crucial role to those projects.

As demonstrated through these kind of designs, you'll see that in a traditional market rate project, the hard debt is a much higher portion of the overall capital stack.

Whereas in a tax credit project, the combination of our soft debt and the tax credit equity lowers the hard debt, which then lowers the amount of rents that the project needs to sustain themselves.

The next two slides we're going to provide a brief overview of the financing terms for our City of Raleigh loans.

As you'll see in the memo that was attached to this item, there are typical varying terms for the projects that the city will award.

However, staff expect these terms to be supported by the financial model.

For most of the city of Raleigh loans with a low-income housing tax credit projects, the rent, the interest rates are typically around 1%, with the terms fluctuating anywhere from 20 to 40 years.

Staff will accept variable payments, but that needs to be supported by the financial needs of the development, and most of the loans will include some type of balloon payment at loan maturity.

Staff anticipate that city funding and if present county funding will be subordinate to any type of private construction or permanent financing.

City and staff, city and county staff often collaborate with one another to determine whose lien position will be higher, given which entity has a larger amount of financing in that particular project.

Staff do anticipate that the city's loan would be entitled to all protections provided by the North Carolina law for subordinate lenders.

For example, if a foreclosure were to occur and there was insufficient equity to pay off the first mortgage or construction loan, then the city would not receive any proceeds.

However, if sufficient equity was generated through the foreclosure sale, then it's the city's intent and expectation that the city's loan would be repaid through those available proceeds.

During the first round of financing applications in 2026, the city received eight applications requesting over $22.5 million.

I did also just want to highlight that the 2026 NOFA was the second year in which we required a 5% set aside of units for referrals from city sponsored programs.

For the new construction of these projects, we don't have those new construction units online yet, but we're trying to set up a pipeline of units to be available for future referrals.

The eight applications that were received were evaluated using the scoring criteria included in our notice of funding availability.

Of the eight applications received, we're recommending funding for five of those projects.

One application would withdrew after their submission.

A second application received a lower score primarily due to site and financial readiness, and a third application scored high enough to be recommended for funding, but due to last minute shifts in other funding availability, the project wasn't feasible to move forward at this time.

All three projects are welcome to reapply for future funding rounds.

On this map, you'll see a rough estimate of the five recommended projects overlaid with our affordable housing location policy.

You'll note that three projects are outside of the opportunity areas.

These three projects are senior developments, which are exempt from the location policy.

The first project we're recommending is Brookhaven, which is a new construction project serving seniors up to 60% of the area median income, which as of 2025, which is the most recent data available, is approximately $55,000 for a household of one and $63,000 for a household of two.

Eagle Trace is a new construction senior development serving households up to 50% of the area median income, which is currently set at approximately 46,000 or 46,000 and $53,000 for a family of two.

Every unit in this development will be receiving project-based vouchers from the Raleigh Housing Authority.

So all 90 units.

Those units are not required as part of the NOFA.

They're optional for the project to receive additional bonus points.

City staff discussed with Brinchore, the development partner along with Raleigh Housing Authority, and based on Raleigh Housing Authority data.

Their experience is that individuals receiving project-based vouchers typically earn around 15% 15% of the area median income.

So that was their discussion point there.

And this project will be receiving 28 project-based vouchers.

The last project we're recommending is the Willow.

This is a new construction family project serving households earning up to 70% of the area median income, which is approximately $92,000 for a family of four.

This project will receive 39 project-based vouchers from the housing authority.

This slide represents a bit of our available funding.

As you can see, we have about $12.8 million available for this NOFA.

The total proposed projects would require just a little bit less than $10 million.

And if council approves these funding recommendations, we would have about $2.9 million, which may be enough for a second round of funding in 2026, depending on the viability of the applications that we receive.

And with that, we would like to request council to authorize the conditional commitments of $9.9 million for $491 units in five projects.

Thank you and happy take questions.

Thank you.

Questions?

Councilor Ford?

Just one quick one.

With Heritage Park 1A, is this the second phase?

Correct.

So we um it's we went in a bit of a reverse order, but phase 1B was last year.

That's the senior development.

This is phase 1A.

So combined those two developments will complete that northwest corner of the overall site.

Okay, thank you.

Counselor Potton.

Hi.

I noticed that several of these projects are senior developments, and not to say I understand these are a moment in time, but it got me thinking about our broader overall split between senior affordable, family affordable, and sort of like not just for everyone.

And so I was curious like how you think through those splits, and then as like generational or population change occurs over the 40-year life of these deed restrictions, like how do we kind of recalibrate to make sure we're always like in balance for our populations that we need to serve?

Certainly.

So a lot of um a lot of each cycle is dependent on the applications that we receive.

So for example, in 2025 of the projects that we recommended for financing, I believe five out of the six were family units.

So a lot of that is cyclical.

Other components take into account what's supported with the North Carolina QAP, the qualified allocation plan that guides the tax credit developments.

And so for us, we also look at market studies for each development to make sure that there's sufficient need within the market and ensuring that these projects have the demand to lease up and remain sustainable throughout the process.

So those are kind of the factors that we're looking at.

As far as potentially changing populations down the road, the city does record deed restrictions associated with our projects, and those do list the income along with the intended population.

If we were to there were to be a request to change that population in the future, that would have to come back to the city, most likely to city council for approval to change those deed restrictions.

But I think a bigger component would be the deed restrictions that are associated with the tax credits are extremely difficult to amend.

Not to say that it's impossible.

But the any changes to the they often call it the Laura could potentially put the tax credit allocation at risk.

So any changes would have to be approved not only by the city, but also the other lenders, including the housing finance agency, and they're beholden to a lot of IRS regulations.

Yep.

We'll go down to Mayor Potem and then branch.

Yeah, and not a question.

I just wanted to reiterate, you know, some of the costs that are here and who is uh paying for these developments, you know, in all of these projects.

You know, the city is you know really a small player, so we're contributing anywhere from three to ten percent of the total cost of these projects, and it's more on the three percent, six percent side.

Um I know we have a lot of uh new partners that are interested in building affordable housing in the city, and I can't wait to get them you know doing this work.

Um the smallest project here is almost 18 million dollars, and the cost is almost 300,000 per unit.

Um so just kind of putting that out there.

So if folks are looking to fundraise and leverage monies, uh that's kind of the you know, with a starting price.

And um there's just a lot of different players here.

The county, you know, bank loans, these certainly the tax credits from the state.

And so it takes everybody working together, and I'm excited to support these projects.

So I noticed two of these applicants are 9% tax credits, which means they have to compete statewide um to to receive funding um in order to happen.

Do we know if there are any other 9% tax credit projects that are coming out of Wake County from other municipalities that they may have to compete against as well?

Yes, I'll we can follow up in writing to confirm, but I believe their um maybe one other project, but we work very closely with the county on their scoring um to make sure we're aligned and that we're all supporting the same 9% projects to increase their um gap financing perspective or gap financing proportion.

So I can follow up with more details and to confirm.

And the other thing for council for us to remember too is the two that are nine percent, if they don't receive funding, they can come back next year, but that money comes back for staff to try to reallocate, which may help if we do another round, or it may roll over into the next year or so.

Something just keep in mind the four percents, what likely will happen, but the nine percents are state competitive, and I know we've had issues with projects getting the state funding previously.

Correct.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have a motion?

Move for approval.

Second All in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

And appreciate all the work on this.

Thank you.

That concludes my report, Mayor and Council.

All right.

Next, we've got the report and recommendation of the Parks, Recreation, and Greenway Advisory Board.

Hey everyone.

Uh this month's month, the Parks Board voted unanimously to recommend the adoption of the Forestville Road Park Master Plan to council.

Any questions.

Are you guys through it?

Uh well, I'll let Lauren uh run through the details, but uh this is the master plan for Forestville Road Park.

Uh as you guys may remember, this is a park that has some historic elements to it, as you can see in the slide.

Uh and so it's a nice mixture of kind of a natural park as well as a park that kind of harkens back to Raleigh's history uh based on the history of that plot of land as well as uh some of the uh elements that are actually going to be incorporated into the master plan.

And we've actually had uh an extremely active uh CAG with this park.

So they've uh given some really great feedback to us as a board uh in terms of some of the elements that we have in this park.

So great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chris.

Uh good afternoon, Mayor Council.

My name is Lauren Kaybrick.

I am a park planner with Raleigh's Parks, Recreation, and uh cultural resources department.

Very excited to be here with you all today to share about this really exciting master plan.

So we'll keep things brief, uh but we'll just briefly go over an introduction to the project, provide a little bit of context about this site and the community engagement that was done.

We'll share the master plan, including the concept plan for the park itself, and then talk a little bit about next steps and what's coming next for this park.

So to start with a little bit of that context, Forestville Road Park is an approximately 25-acre site.

It's located in far northeast Raleigh, the location of the star on this map here.

It's within Council District B.

For point of reference, it's very close to the intersection of Forestville Road and Buffalo Road.

Now, as you all are likely quite familiar, this area of the city is growing very rapidly.

All of the highlighted parcels here in this map are parcels that are either currently going through the permitting process or currently under development.

So we are going to see a huge increase in the number of residential units in this area that will be served by this park in the near future.

So for the project itself, we have been working on this master plan over the last year.

In particular, the planning portion of the project took about nine months.

It was all done in-house with park staff and licensed landscape architects, which was really wonderful and let us be fairly expeditious with this planning process.

As far as community engagement, as with all Raleigh Park's projects, we follow a very robust community engagement process through a lot of different methodologies.

For this project in particular, as Chris mentioned, we did have a dedicated community advisory group or CAG consisting of 16 members who were either neighbors to the parks or some form of subject matter experts who were really instrumental in collaborating with Raleigh Park staff to create this master plan.

In all, we had over 450 direct touch points with members of the community through this process.

So we're very proud of that.

So for the master plan itself, in collaboration with that community advisory group, we developed uh design goals to really guide that vision and intention of this park itself.

Those included honoring history, fostering community, conserving nature, and inspiring play.

In particular for this site, honoring history was very important because this piece of land is a portion of what was once a 600-acre plantation.

So making sure that we gave appropriate acknowledgement and interpretation to the layered history that uh this parcel has had over the years was of tantamount importance to us and to the community as well.

So, as far as the concept plan itself, we pulled out some highlights on this graphic here.

We really tried to strike a balance between low impact development and making sure that we provided all of the recreational amenities that this area of the city sorely needs.

So we've got a stream that kind of bisects the site running south to north here.

On the east side of the stream, that's very much our low impact development side of the property.

Uh it's primarily trails, a mixture of both paved trails and natural surface trails to give variety and opportunities there.

On the west side of the stream is where we've concentrated some more of those higher impact uses, including a very large adventure playground, so very dynamic play.

We have a restroom and a picnic shelter, a multi-sport court, a pollinator meadow, and in the far northwest corner here is where we've got kind of the anchor for the historic interpretation and historic gathering for this site.

We are preserving a legacy stand of peacan trees and have a dedicated historic gathering area that will be anchored by public art as well as interpretive signage to really kind of be a launching point for folks to explore this park property.

So to illustrate some of those amenities that I mentioned, again, a mixture of paved and natural surface trails.

All of our trails on this site are in loop configuration, so people are able to do those laps through the site.

Our adventure playground is intended to be very natural in tone, so using natural materials, kind of having a treehouse-esque feel to really blend with the beautiful nature that this site possesses.

We've got our arrival plaza, which again will have a restroom, picnic shelter building and be terraced to provide views across the site, and a multi-sport court as well to provide flexibility of use.

As far as those natural resources and cultural resources on the site, incorporating a lot of different elements from the historic perspective, like I mentioned, we've got that preserved peacan grove that we'll be using as a picnic grove.

We'll have educational signage interspersed throughout the site, again, interpreting that layered history that this piece of land has.

We'll also be having interpretive art that's repurposing uh materials from a cabin that currently exists on the site.

And then of course, with the park project, sustainability is always front of mind.

Um so we will have green stormwater infrastructure integrated throughout the park as well as pollinator plantings.

So as far as what comes next for Forestville Road Park, um we are fortunate to have a development agreement in the sum of $600,000 available through uh partnership with an adjacent developer.

We intend to use these funds first for site stabilization, um, so ensuring security to the site, stabilizing the cabin that is currently on the site, and doing interim uh stormwater mitigation measures, uh thinking about erosion control, bank stabilization of the stream, all of that good stuff.

And then for the remainder of this development agreement fund, we will be advancing schematic design, moving as far as we can into the design process.

So I know I've thrown a lot of information at y'all in a short amount of time.

The recommended action before you today is as recommended by the parks recreation and greenway advisory board, adopt the master plan for Forestville Road Park.

And I'm happy to take any questions you all might have.

All right, thank you.

Uh questions from Ms.

K.

Burton.

All right.

Do we have a motion to adopt?

No, I have questions.

Oh, you might say first because this is my park so um okay.

Well, if no one else has any questions, I'll just do mine.

Um thank you for all of this.

Um really exciting.

Um to start first with funding source.

Um you acknowledge the development agreement and that will do some things.

So honing it on this list, the cabin stabilization and um like erosion control.

When do you think those things will be in place?

Yes.

Yeah, it is our intention uh pending approval today uh to begin work on that this calendar year with the stabilization complete by the end of this calendar year.

End of this calendar year.

Great.

Um and then you'll do as much schematic design as the money will carry.

And then and I saw in the plan of very loose early estimate is like 11 and a half million.

So is that a likely future bond project, or where are we looking for funds to actually build out the park?

Yes, you're exactly correct.

Uh we anticipate that this would be part of a future parks bond.

Okay, perfect.

Um then one of the CAG members is a descendant of the UP churches whose plantation this um was and has been parceled off.

And um, so some questions uh that I'll convey that came from him in addition to those stabilization ones.

There was there's a question around like future tree survey.

So when you actually go begin the construction, is there another like tree survey situation that happens?

Yeah, more detailed site investigation is part of the process as we get into the more detailed design.

Master planning is intentionally kind of that thousand-foot view where we're thinking very much at a conceptual level.

Um, so there'll be additional geotechnical work, tree surveys in the case of this development, um, potentially some archaeological studies, additional archaeological studies as well.

So that'll all be part of this advanced design.

Okay, perfect.

Um, and then related to the historical interpretive art.

Um there's a cabin that was likely the home of enslaved folks, and the vision is that it gets moved toward the front, so it can actually be appreciated.

Um, some of the uh photos in the master plan that were sort of offered as you know, possibilities were like on the broad spectrum between literal and interpretive, they were farther on the interpretation side.

And so I guess I would just throw out some feedback that uh when we go to actually do the public art like awarding process that we maybe I think it might be appropriate that we stay a little closer to the littoral side, and maybe something that's still like cabin shaped with the in with the art.

So that's um just a bit of feedback.

Yeah.

Indefinitely heard certainly this will go through the standard public art process.

Um so we will have an artist review panel, which we intend to have several members of our community advisory group involved with.

So it'll be very robust, involve a lot of community engagement and making sure that we really strike that balance with the site of yeah, maintaining an honoring history and also creating something new.

But yes, point well taken.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And then I do have one probably for stormwater staff.

Okay.

Um, one that was one piece of feedback that was communicated to me was concerns related to the apartment complex that's nearby and how that may be contributing to erosion mitigation that's needed on the site.

And uh these are just questions conveyed to me about whether it was built to standard, whether it would be whether it was built to an older standard that would and newer standards are more rigorous, et cetera.

So I don't know if you can speak to them or I'll phone a friend if needed.

But uh uh at a high level, yes, the Solus uh multifamily development that is located south of the site here um does partially outlet onto the park property.

It was permitted and is fully in compliance um under the previous stormwater rules prior to the uh adoption of the current stormwater design manual.

Um that's something that we are aware of and you know, mitigation to the stream, both in regards to the sediment transport that we're seeing and some of the undercutting of the banks are both part of that interim stabilization that we intend to do and long-term plans as far as any stream restoration needs or things of that nature.

But if you have more technical stormwater questions, I believe we have an expert here.

Would if um do you think Ben, if it were to be built today, like a similar complex would be built today, would it would it be appreciably different than built differently than it is now?

So it wasn't built that long ago, but it was built before our current stormwater design manual.

So it's uh fully compliant with our rate control that we have currently today, which is two and ten-year rate control.

Uh there probably probably would be uh more or at least uh more of a water quality device, because it was using an off-site buy down to um develop in 2023, which now if you're over 24 percent impervious, you you uh can't do a buy down until you do some sort of on-site water quality treatment.

Now the device they're using for raid control gives them some water quality treatment, but they didn't even take credit for it.

They just used uh nutrient buy down to comply with the water quality with the solace.

Got it.

Okay.

Helpful.

Um if there's no other questions.

Um I'm super excited to see this before us.

Um this I think is gonna be a wonderful neighborhood amenity in an area that doesn't have easy access to parks and it is changing really rapidly and under a lot of pressures, and so I think the whole community will be excited to have an area that is mostly natural and mostly like a quiet respite.

Um I'm grateful for the development agreement covering some of the funds.

And as we wait for a future park spond, I would uh definitely encourage you to go knock on the doors of all the all those other areas in red that did not have a development agreement to just see because certainly their new residents will also benefit from this park.

Um with all that said, I move to adopt the recommendation here on this slide.

Second.

Just agreeing this seems like a um perfect place in the city that really needs parks, and well done by you and all the citizens uh that were on the advisory.

So uh with that, all in favor of the motion of adopting the master plan, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

Got it.

Thank you all.

Okay, next we've got Matters Public uh schedule for public hearing.

Bryce Abernathy with housing and community development.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Bryce Averanthi with housing and community development.

Um bringing to today four public nuisances to ask for resolution confirming the charges for the abatement of public nuisance as a lien on the properties.

Um please note that the property at 2418 Kirk has been paid.

First one we have here is 401 Alston Street.

And actually the one directly beside at 405 Alston Street were just overgrown vacant lots.

The developer did not respond to our notices or anything.

Um 604 Donner Ross was another kind of developer lot.

The grass was growing into the street and it was really overgrown, a lot of limbs and stuff sitting on the lot.

And 27 to 11 Leyden Street, the last one here was a lot of uh limbs and debris and some pretty extreme overgrowth into the side and backyards.

Um if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer.

Any questions?

Is that 2711 Leyden Street?

Is it occupied?

I don't believe it is.

Okay.

Um I do not have anyone signed up for any of these, but we need to take them individually, correct?

We can okay.

We can okay so I will open the hearings for 401 Alston Street, 405 Alston Street, 604 Donald Ross, and 2711 Leyden Street, and I will close them.

Do we have a motion?

Move for approval.

Thank you.

And I will also note that Mayor Pertem has departed and is has uh excused absence.

Um all in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

Great.

Thank you.

Um just if uh the Lane Street is is a vacant property.

It is vacant.

Okay.

All right.

Next we have petition annexation AX 3125, uh, which is Page Road, Matthew Clem.

Uh yes, ma'am.

Uh good afternoon, Mayor and Council, Matthew Clem, planning and development.

Have a joint presentation for AX3125 and Z 3625.

Uh if it pleases the council, I'll provide the uh presentation together.

Um you will have to take two separate public hearings and actions to approve.

Um, and the appropriate sequence would be annexing the property into our corporate limits first and then applying zoning to it.

So I'll start with the annexation uh portion of the presentation.

So the property is currently zoned Durham Roll Residential, so it's located in Durham County, but it is on our side of the joint uh annexation agreement line.

Um that was most recently updated in 2019, so we're expected to take uh service of this um site and annex it at the council's um direction.

The application for the annexation petition indicated uh an a thousand square foot uh retail use.

However, there's no uh submitted or approved site plan or subdivision um to deliver that specific type of use on the property.

Um the application itself is not binding to exactly what goes there.

Anything that is approved or allowed in the zoning district applied to it may be developed under the standards of the unified development ordinance.

So the surrounding uses include warehouses, industrial uses, and then on the west side of Page Road is residential uses uh located in Durham County.

Uh and again, there's an associated rezoning position Z3625.

Uh this is with inside your adoptive priority annexation boundary as shown by the star on the map.

Uh water and sewer utilities uh are nearby.

Uh extension and connection would be the responsibility of the property owner uh at the time of site uh plan uh development and delivery.

Uh look at topography and floodplain, no flip plane on the site.

Uh fire service report here um shows that the in uh two NFPA standards are not met.

Uh and I will move to the rezoning uh portion of the presentation.

So uh 1.06 acres currently zoned rural residential uh and a request to rezone to industrial mixed use with a three-story building height limit.

Your planning commission recommends approval 10 to zero.

Uh an aerial view of the site uh is the site comprises two properties each developed uh with a single residential unit.

You can see uh to the east uh the institutional office and industrial uses in the area, and to the west uh a mix of uh residential uses.

Uh a look at the site from Page Road.

There are no proposed zoning conditions, so it's a general use rezoning request.

Um that means any use identified in the uh allowed uses table are permitted in IX, and there are no additional standards beyond the base zoning standards in the unified development ordinance for development.

Uh so um a look at change in entitlement, uh maximum units could be up to 29.

So we know that in the industrial mixed use zone, ground level residential units are not permitted.

They're requesting a three-story building height, so you could have ground level uses of various retail office uh light industrial uses with two stories of residential above.

And you can compare the change in set packs here as well.

And the zoning entitlements for the requested industrial mixed use uh go up to 100,000 square feet of industrial space as the maximum entitlement here.

Uh consistent with our future land use map, it's identified as office and research development in the comprehensive plan and some policies uh for future land use zoning consistency compact development.

Um preserving industrial land where it's planned for in our comprehensive plan uh and noting inconsistency with zoning and infrastructure impacts and response time standards are related to those NFPA uh standards not uh being met in the fire report.

Uh and this is the planning commission's uh recommendation.

Uh I know the applicant is here to answer any specific questions you have.

They did not sign up um for prepared comments, but they are here um and can respond to any questions you have.

Okay.

Thank you.

So sorry, I'm really loud.

Um thank you so much.

Can I just wanted to review the fire concerns because I did submit these questions before and I got a great answer, but I'd like to daylight those.

So if I can speak to fire really quickly.

Hey.

I just wanted to review here um the question that I submitted was will when will station 24 receive the ladder truck recommended in the master plan?

And then you sent a great response in the um that station 23 is in the middle of shifting and that they will receive it.

But uh if you can go into detail a little bit on uh the expectation of when they would be able to receive that ladder truck to service the area.

Yes.

Um the fire master plan has station 23 being relocated.

Once relocation happens in the northwest corner, it'll be closer to station 24.

Therefore, station uh 23's ladder truck will be located to station 24 at that time.

That particular station is set to be a public safety campus with a uh Raleigh police department and fire department uh buildings on that campus.

Right.

And the other note that I had is that the need nearest hydrant is 700 feet away on World Trade Boulevard, but with all of those changes, do you feel confident that that this will be serviced by either station 24 or station 23 when it moves?

Do you feel confident with that?

Yeah, great question.

Being this mixed use, it's going to be actually four engines and two ladders response any time there's a structure fire.

So regardless, they have water content for that particular structure.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

I just wanted to daylight that because that's a safety you know concern for the areas we bring as we annex new areas in.

So thank you for for updating us on that.

Um the next thing that I just wanted to bring up, we did a great job of going through it.

It is a 1,000 square foot commercial commercial space, but this uh zoning does allow it to be uh larger.

Um this area seems to be fine with that.

I mean, there's a lot of industrial, as you noted in that area.

So I just wanted to highlight that uh just for council's uh review, but it seems like a very fit place for this to happen, and I just wanted to mention that.

So with that, I would like to hear, that's right, sorry.

I'm so sorry.

Go ahead, close close the hearing.

Uh I will open the hearing, actually.

Um I will open the hearing on um petition annexation AX 3125 and close the hearing, and then I will open the petition um the hearing on the rezoning Z 3625 and close that.

Okay, so for the first, I am going to move to approve the annexation by adopting an ordinance annexing the property to it says April 7th on here.

Do I need to say April 21st?

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

Um by adopt but no, it's starting over a motioning to approve the annexation by adopting an ordinance annexing the property on April 21st, 2026.

Second.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

And that passes.

And then I also move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated April 21, 2026, contained in the agenda materials, and to approve the zoning amendment with the adoption and effective dates described in the agenda item under recommended action.

Second.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

That is unanimous and appreciate all the work.

Okay.

Uh next we have rezoning on avant ferry road assemblage.

And this is also uh binum walter on this one.

Yes, ma'am.

Good afternoon again.

So uh the uh the applicant did not complete the necessary tenant notice for this public hearing.

No one has signed up to speak for the public hearing.

You don't need to open a public hearing.

And also the applicant would like to revise their request to be less restrictive.

And so uh if you want to entertain that request, you could defer to a future meeting to allow them to revise or offer additional other direction.

I believe that's what we want to do.

Does somebody want to make that?

Yeah, I was gonna um move to defer this matter to the um May 19th afternoon meeting.

Second.

Is that enough time?

I think the applicant would prefer May 5 if you're comfortable.

So defer it to May 5th so we can set the public hearing.

All right.

So I defer to May 5th then.

We'll bring this back as a special item to you at the at the next meeting.

All right.

Second, the revised motion.

And just one thing I want to highlight, we have quite a few zonings that we've added to the schedule on the 19th.

So I just asked the applicant to consider that.

Okay.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

All opposed, nay.

That's unanimous, and we will see you back in May.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

And then we have Z 4725 Crest Road.

Good night.

All right.

So this is C 4725 on Crest Drive.

This is the other side of Avant Ferry from the area we were just talking about.

This is south of Western Boulevard and NC State's campus.

This is just under three acres.

This is going from the residential mixed-use base district remains the same.

The height would increase from three to seven stories.

The special residential parking overlay district is being removed.

And then urban limited frontage and conditions being added.

The planning commission recommends approval, and this would amend the future land use map.

Because of the additional height that they are requesting here.

So here's a view of that site.

A couple of views from the street.

They have offered a number of conditions here.

So they have prohibited some uses that would otherwise be allowed.

They are regulating building height within 35 feet of Crest Road to more than no more than 80 feet, limiting the maximum number of dwelling units, providing a commitment to the city's affordable housing program, providing written notice, 90 days written notice to residential tenants, and also a provision for one-time relocation assistance, as well as an under new construction, providing storage space and charging stations for electric assist bicycles.

So the number of units is increasing significantly, but remember that is limited specifically by a condition that calls out the number of units.

The front and side setback could be lesser or greater than what is currently allowed, while the sum of side and rear uh setbacks remains the same.

This is consistent with the comprehensive plan overall, but inconsistent with the future land use map.

Number of uh policies here, largely relating to uh compact development, capitalizing on transit, uh density transitions, uh student-oriented housing, those types of things.

Uh a couple of inconsistencies here.

The future land use map uh really triggering two of these, uh and then the response time standards, uh which is uh related to fire response time.

Planning commission does recommend approval and approval on your part of the rezoning today would amend the future land use map to higher scale residential, which you could see is already adjacent to the site to the west.

What questions could I answer for you before you open the public hearing?

Councilor Potton.

Thank you.

Um at what point I was trying to put the conditions here, but I haven't found them.

At what point does the affordable housing contribution come in the process, like at the CO or I would be happy to answer that after you open the public hearing?

Okay.

I will also look it up.

I have I've got a question before you open the public hearing too.

This inconsistency with the future land use map because this is high density residential versus medium density seems really counterintuitive in an area that is right near NC State University.

Could you just speak to that?

Is your question why the why would you have a lot of things?

Yeah.

Um, Council Gilbert specifically to that.

I think I did it.

Um to go back, um we looked at the growth framework map uh where there were growth centers and corridors uh were expected higher density.

In other locations, we looked carefully at the existing context and whether an introduction to higher density around an area would force development in an area that we just did not anticipate.

The growth framework map, while we anticipated 65 percent percent of all new growth would be concentrated in those locations and multimodal quarters.

This is not one of them.

And so uh we allowed through these applications uh for an applicant to make their case to change that designation.

But as you can see, there's a solid medium scale residential.

I don't know if the higher scale was there initially when a future millennials map was created or it was changed over time, but that is the rationale, and that's why we have these hearings to debate have circumstances changed to warrant uh increase in density.

The existing higher scale residential very likely tracks with existing development that was there at the time of the adoption of the plan in 2009.

Yes, Councillor Jones.

I was just wondering how does staff collaborate with surrounding universities to understand the housing needs?

Is that incorporated in our in our plans?

How does that work?

Uh so the in this instance, we know that the university is not able to provide housing for all students on campus.

And so um future land use map, growth framework map, all indicate and the adopted policy and the comprehensive plan all support uh increased housing around campus.

Is that an ongoing conversation?

Um do we know for future needs of we have many universities around this area, so do we know comprehensively that we're gonna need a lot more student housing?

Um how do those conversations happen?

I would say that uh NC State is order of magnitude larger than every other uh university in town.

We do coordinate with them quarterly uh two or three times a year across lots of departments and lots of issues to keep that conversation going so that we know what is what they have planned and what we have planned.

They are planning uh some additional housing on campus over the next probably five to seven years.

But they're also planning for enrollment growth, and they will know by no means be able to keep up with that.

Understood.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any other questions?

I will open the hearing on Crest Road, and we have a number of folks signed up in support, none in opposition.

Um so I'll just invite Timberly Sutherland, Joseph Patrick, Shane Herman, Beth Trehost, Brian Johnson, and Sean Michael, if any of y'all want to speak.

Good morning or good afternoon now.

Perfect.

Thank you for doing that for me.

Timberly Sutherland, um, attorney with Foxroth Child in here today on behalf of the applicant.

Um everybody signed up to speak is is a part of the applicant's team, and so they will be here for questions, but I'll just give a short presentation and not not the labor hour point.

Um so I'm joined today by Joe Patrick.

He's here on behalf of the applicant and developer peerless acquisitions.

We've also got members of our architectural team and our engineering team who are here to answer any of your questions on those fronts as well.

So just to orient you a little bit, um, this site is located at 1523 Crest Road.

Um, this is an incredibly walkable, bikeable, transit-friendly site.

Um, and it is currently considered um RX3, and our request is to rezone to RX7 with the urban limited frontage conditional use.

That kind of follows the trend of these nearby sites that have recently rezoned to this urban um this RX 7 with the urban limited conditional use frontage.

Our um architecture team has put together some amazing site plans for this property.

Um as you can see here, this will be the view of the property from Crest Road.

Um from Crest Road as one of our conditions, it will be limited to five stories or 80 feet from above grade.

Here is the additional view from varsity drive.

As you can see, you'll see the full scale of the building.

Um this design is really based on the topography of the site.

Um and this just made the most sense for for the development.

Um but you'll be able to see all seven stories, two of the the bottom stories are really the underground parking, which wouldn't be uh visible from um Crest Road.

Um but the architectural team have done an amazing job to kind of soften the impact of the seven stories.

So you have this nice um active space with the leasing office on the um street front of varsity drive, and then you've also got this nice amenity space that kind of breaks up some of that building.

And then you've also got this nice amenity space that kind of breaks up some of that building.

As Ms.

Malters mentioned, we've received unanimous approval, recommendation for approval from the planning commission, and we really really appreciate them for that.

We've also had a number of community engagement opportunities.

We've hosted two of the neighborhood meetings that are required under the UDO.

We only had one member of the public who attended.

And he just had his son had nearby property, and he was interested in what was going to happen on this site.

We've also met with the West Raleigh CAC, an incredibly active group, and Councilmember Harrison was there at that time.

And we had some great conversations about our conditions on the site.

They wanted to understand they had that question of when do these conditions apply and when do these conditions go into effect and how do these operate.

And from those conversations, we updated our conditions to include 15 bike storage and e-charging stations because that was a uh important um topic since it's such a front transit-friendly area, and they wanted to see that students were given the opportunity, and there were safety concerns about e-bike storage and student apartments, and we wanted to have a designated place.

Um so there will be at least 15 charging and storage stations on the site.

In addition to that, we've um limited our units to 260 units.

Um we've also done a number of um other conditions which limits the overall uses that are allowed in the RX district that just wouldn't apply for this site.

Um we've also um cont made a contribution or will make a contribution of 115,000 to the Affordable Housing Fund.

So with that, um the planning commission has done an amazing job, and and they had a unanimous recommendation of approval.

We request that your support today for for the project, and we are open to any of questions.

Like I said, we've got the applicant, the engineering team, um, and the architectural team.

So thank you.

Uh I can should I close the hearing?

Anyone want to keep it open?

All right, we'll close it.

And questions from Ms.

Sutherland.

Do we have a motion?

Uh have it here.

Oh before Bayon was answering my question from before.

Okay.

Uh so the affordable housing condition that you asked about requires the property owner to contribute that 115,000, the uh paid in full prior to issuance of the first certificate of occupancy, and then uh must be evidenced with a promissory note before the issue of any building permit.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Um first of all, thank you all for for the housing the knees that are needed, um, not just here.

Um, but I moved to adopt the proposed consistency statement data April 21st, 2026 contain the agenda materials and to approve the zoning amendment with the adoption and the Fed states describe and the agenda items under under recommended action.

This approval is also deemed an amendment to the future land use map to the extent described and the adopted consistency statement.

All in favor of the motion aye.

All opposed, nay.

That is unanimous, thank you.

All right.

Uh we have the comprehensive plan amendment CP 0125 for Make and Pond Road, and we have Hannah Reckow.

Good afternoon, Hannah Recau, planning and development.

Uh, this is request CP 125, a comprehensive plan amendment that is privately initiated, uh, proposing to amend the street plan, so map T1 specifically to realign a portion of a proposed avenue two-lane undivided street uh between Macon Pond Road and the future like Boone Trail extension.

So this shows on the left the street plan as it is today, and then on the right the proposed amendment.

Uh, it would shift the um proposed street uh from about starting from about here to here um to the um east.

There we go.

So some some context.

This is in a West Raleigh hub of medical uses.

We have uh UNC Rex facilities to the north, other medical offices to the east and west, uh the large um property to the south and southwest is state-owned, and then there are two properties to the southeast of this, uh, the highlighted site, uh, which are owned by Duke Energy.

And then there are two properties to the southeast of this, uh, the highlighted site, uh, which are owned by Duke Energy.

So zooming in, um, the property bringing this forward is the one highlighted in red.

You can see the existing street plan proposed street hugs that shared property boundary.

Um so the request would uh shift it uh onto this um property to the east, uh which there is a currently a uh Duke Medical building there.

Um the uh 4111, which is the highlighted site has a uh structure dating uh around 1900 um and then the property to the east um is uh a Duke Health uh office, I believe dating around 2005.

Uh and then as you as you recall up, a big way the street plan is implemented is through as development happens, and there certainly is development happening in this area, um future um cancer center um uh development plans in some improved uh to the north and um make and pond office built um development off to the west and um various projects on the state property.

Um like anywhere in the city, this part of the street plan is part of a larger network.

There's also a number of proposed streets in this area, so to talk through some of that transportation context for you.

I'm gonna hand it off to transportation staff.

Good afternoon.

My name is Carter Robertson.

I'm a transportation planner.

Um when we're talking about the street plan and these dotted lines on the map.

I think it's important to zoom out a little bit and think about our overall connectivity goals and what that means for this area.

So I'll briefly touch on that and our regulatory uh requirements before getting into the the meat of this request, and I'll cover that real quickly.

Um just to start, um the comprehensive plan uh designates this area as a uh city growth center.

It also uh designates it as an area where we expect to see residential and office mixed use in the future.

So an area that we expect to become denser, and we might expect more people walking and biking around.

Um what's shown on the screen right here is a specific small area plan that the street falls in.

Um the arena blue ridge small area plan specifically, the health and wellness district highlighted in green.

And the main recommendation for this is to reconfigure that street network to make it more interconnected and more pedestrian friendly.

In addition to this guidance, we also have the Blue Ridge Road District study, which specifically calls out a recommended secondary road network.

Uh you could see those recommended roads highlighted in orange.

Um these are meant to support um Edwards Mill Road and Blue Ridge Road, providing the that local interconnectivity.

So the street plan is one way that we implement our future network, but another way we implement it is through the UDO and our block perimeter.

You've probably heard me mention this before or other transportation colleagues.

I just wanted to cover this briefly as well.

Um as our city continues to grow and gets dense in different areas, we won't we have these goals to discourage large blocks.

We know that large blocks make it harder for people to walk to places they want to go, harder for them to bike.

It also pushes congestion onto those main roads because there aren't any alternative outlets for people to go on.

It could also uh negatively impact emergency services because you have to take more circuitous routes to get somewhere.

So to prevent this, we have our maximum block standards that's shown on the table to the right.

And if you make your way down, you could see that as uh land use and zoning becomes more dense, the block maximum block perimeter is going to be smaller, going from our residential districts all the way down to mixed use, gaining smaller and smaller as we increase density.

Um these uh standards guide us when we're evaluating development, and this is how we can require new street connections.

However, when there isn't a street plan line, when we're just looking at block perimeter, there's many ways that developments can get out of these requirements.

They can exempt themselves via zoning condition.

They can also um cite one of the many exemptions listed in the UDO.

I think there's about 12 that could be the site being too small.

The land use isn't appropriate.

Um that would apply specifically to this situation.

Hannah mentioned the state-owned property to the south.

That property is zoned agricultural production.

If you look at this table, under special districts, there is not a maximum block perimeter for agricultural production.

So in this scenario, that would reply to the whole block.

And so without the street plan, we would be unable to require street connections in a lot of cases.

So now that I've set the stage, kind of going back to the request specifically.

Hannah's already done a good job of highlighting what's going on around the site, but just zooming in.

This is an avenue two-lane divided.

That's supposed to be kind of a local connector connecting those complementary uses we expect to see in the future.

And it currently straddles that property line right between the residential parcel that's highlighted and the Duke Cancer Center to the east of that.

And so this request would completely move that line onto the Duke Cancer Center property.

As Hannah mentioned, um planning commission recommended denial of this request, and they also recommended you to consider removing the street in its entirety from the street plan.

And real quickly, I wanted to show a kind of before and after of what uh impact your decision would make.

This is a zoomed-out view of the block.

It's very large currently.

Um if we build out the street plan, you could see that that block size is reducing as development occurs.

But without the street plan, it's a lot more fragmented.

Um as I mentioned before, we have less ability to require those uh street connections.

Um there is some pre-existing smaller blocks on the east.

Most of those were developed back in the 90s or even before.

And since then, as developments have come in, um, they've been exempt in one way or another and not have not contributed to this network in any way.

So finally, I'll start wrapping up on this.

Um if this site were to come in today, what would be required?

So I've touched on how the presence of the street plan makes a difference here, but regardless of that, the roadway construction would only be required if it triggers a tier three site plan.

Right now, there's no active site plans for these assemblage of parcels south of Make and Pond Road.

There are active site plans to the north.

Um we expect those to build out the the that portion of the street plan north of Make and Pond.

Um and to touch on the alignment, I have the uh site plan overlaid on this picture here.

You may notice that it's a little bit off of what that dotted line is.

When we're implementing the street plan, a lot of things go into that consideration at site plan, um, things like topography, safety, all these detailed engineering things that we don't have at this time.

So with that, I just want to reiterate that um transportation staff believe that this connection is valuable for this uh area in the city, and that whether it's realigned to the east um or stays as it is uh isn't is impactful for us building out that network in the future.

And I'll um turn it back to Hannah to wrap up and I'll be available for questions.

So the request under CP 125 to relocate the proposed street um would still um function similarly as it does today, still have the same amount of connectivity, and with that is consistent with a number of transportation policies, including uh one area-specific policy pertaining to connectivity, and the request itself is not inconsistent or counter to any uh comp plan policies.

Um the planning commission in the deliberations did uh vote to recommend denial to the request to move the street at nine to one with an additional recommendation that you consider removal instead of that proposed street segment.

Um there was one commissioner who um uh was in opposition to that motion for denial, um, who expressed uh concern about the future implications of removing the segment to development and connectivity in the area.

Uh so with that um I'm here, uh Carter's here, happy to answer any questions you have.

Appreciate it.

Questions, yes, Council Brown?

A couple of questions.

The first one is with if this were approved and it shifted the road, it says to the east, is that towards the single family property side?

So it moves it closer towards Duke and it removes it from this the impact to the single family home.

Yes, that's right.

Okay.

My other question is the Planning Commission recommends denial, but they also said they recommend removing this segment.

What's the reasoning behind that part?

Yeah, as I recall their their discussion was um expressing discomfort with uh encumbering one property owner over another with the future development of the road.

Um so where they were uh more comfortable with just removing it altogether.

Okay.

That's just hard to fathom.

Right, I'm also struggling with it.

Why would you say that?

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah.

Um Planning Commission's removal, but staff recommends maintaining it in some form or fashion for important grid connectivity.

Got that.

I want to make sure I understand under what circumstances this road would actually be produced.

So you know, um.

So if I caught it correctly, this road is only going to be built if there's a tier three site plan.

So that would be pretty notable redevelopment.

So there's a single family home there now.

If they tore that down and rebuilt a new single family home, that would not trigger the construction of the road.

I believe that's right.

Is that right?

So any replacement or continuation of existing existing conditions will not produce a road, and only like significant redevelopment will produce the road.

Okay.

I think that's I've got all I got for now.

I guess I'm also maybe you can't really answer this, but uh, Duke Health, what have they stated on this?

I ums like the their their tenant to check that.

Um I don't know if um there's been a ton of conversation, and maybe the applicant has has had more conversation.

Um we don't know.

Yeah, what they think.

Okay.

All right.

Um I was just gonna say they spoke at Planning Commission and as I recall, in opposition to the request.

Okay.

All right.

Um should we go ahead and open the public hearing?

And we have Isabel Maddox signed up.

There is no one signed up in opposition.

Um, just Isabel in support.

Good afternoon, Isabel Maddox here on behalf of Megin Pond Investors, the owner of this property.

This is a very small parcel um with uh 115 feet or so of frontage on Macon Pond.

And they came to me to ask, you know, we we've had some people interested in buying our property, but then they look at this and they see the dotted lines and they say, What is this?

What are we gonna have to do?

And they got we went to the the planning department, went to transportation department and said, what's gonna be the impact of this these dashed lines on this property?

And they said, Well, we really can't tell you.

Uh you know, bring a site plan in.

Well, a site plan, I don't know, it's for a big development, and this would be a probably a medical type development.

Um, 100,000 bucks probably to do one.

And these these are uh investors, they're not developers, and they're like, well, we we can't do that.

And so we're saying, well, what can we do?

And they said, well, the only thing you can do is request a comp plan amendment to either move or relocate the road.

I initially requested an either-or.

The staff came back and said, Oh, you got to pick one, which in retrospect I wish I had never agreed to pick one because that was a mistake.

Um they said I had to.

So we chose the option to relocate.

And I think here today, I can hear from council they may prefer that option to relocate rather than remove.

The planning commission felt like uh that's prejudicing another property owner, you know, on that.

So anyway, uh they did planning commission did see that did think this was maybe a superfluoad.

Um just to give you some context, you've gotten some.

This Rex Cancer Center is just to our north.

And the important thing is there's this road that's going to clearly be the connecting road between Macon Pond and Hopeful Drive, which runs north of the Rex Cancer Center.

It will ultimately connect Edwards Mill and Blue Ridge.

Um but the road comes down like this, and it'll this thing's not that not work anymore.

We see it moving.

Okay.

It would come down, it would not connect where this dashed line is.

It would be to the east.

So the the request to move it to the east has some real practical reasons uh that are physical on the ground.

Um this gives you a context.

You've got two big major property owners, the state of North Carolina and Duke Energy to the south, which suggests to me this connection may never happen.

Those two those two entities are pretty monolithic and they can be harder to deal with than most property owners.

Um there's the just the where the dotted line, it just nicks the top corner of our property.

It's really not very much of the road, but it would be a significant, it's been a significant impediment to my my client's property in it trying to consider what what their next step is.

Um it's very small.

Um I've told you all this, it's uh it would be expensive to actually do a site plan.

And then staff also told us we're still not sure what the answer would be, even if you did a site plan, but that would be the best way to to get to that answer.

Um again, this gives you a little bit better view.

If you see where that road is, the Rex Cancer Center Road, it really comes right down into that the that's the drive aisle reaching the parking lot of the the it's a Duke uh medical practice that's there.

It's it it leases the property from a private property owner.

Um we don't want to um we don't want to impose something on the adjoining property owner just just because get it off our property, put it on yours.

But there's there's all there's uh already another north-south road on on this general area.

The the distance between north-south connections here is only a quarter of a mile.

Uh there are some large blocks, but the blocks tend to be related to those two large property owners to the south more than anything else.

And and this uh the where we're requesting the move would be only a slight amount of the road move slightly east that would tee into the Rex cancer, what I call the Rex Road, that's not really the name of it, but I don't know that it has a name, but it's it's not a public street now, clearly anticipated to be one as that Rex Cancer Center fully develops that site.

Um but I want you to look at um this I want to get to a slide that shows there are actually there are actually two dashed lines.

Um this one over here that going right through this building, but on it's in encumbering that same uh property to the east where the medical office building sits.

So they've got one there and they got one here.

Seems like if you shifted the one here a little bit to the right and got rid of the other one, which doesn't seem like it's going to um really be very meaningful.

Um it might be a good a good solution.

Let me go back to I wanted to I also wanted to call Bill Piver, our engineer to come up and tell you some things about the engineering of the road and what he's found in his investigation of the road.

Um Bill?

Can you come up and while he's coming up, maybe just um on the property, there's actually it looks like two structures on it, and it looks like the house is actually on the left-hand side, so you're actually subdividing this property, is really just half of what was and I I used to drive by this all the time.

There was a bunch of stumps and logs out front, and then there's a lot of cars.

Yeah, there it's it's a sh there's no real liberal.

But I mean, isn't it the full property is actually you're just showing us half of it, right?

I mean, because the house is over on the process.

No, that's the whole site.

The ri what's what's encircled in red is our whole site.

Understood but you're saying there is no residential house on this property.

This is just it's it's basically used for overflow parking.

It's it's it's basically vacant.

Yeah.

Um, there might be some falling down structural.

Yeah, it's not it's not habitable.

Okay.

Bill, get back to your I had your points up here somewhere.

Yeah, we'll find them.

There we go.

Uh Bill Pymer, uh consulting engineer, 2709 Scottsdale Road, Raleigh.

Um Isabel asked me to go out and look at this and give my opinion on what could be done and what would be involved if it was done to actually build the road as it was laid out.

Uh the current interchange or call it an intersection does line up directly with the uh building, the existing building right across the street on uh Macon Pond Road.

The uh intent appears to be when that was built that they knew that this was going to be the extension in the future, and so they put in various infrastructures just beyond where the connection is now, such that if those infrastructures need to be rearranged if they extend the line straight as per the map, uh it's gonna be an expensive proposition.

Now no anything can be done as long as there's enough money.

But uh Isabel asked me to to see what would be involved.

And number one, the parking lot uh across from the Rex parking lot is about eight to ten feet lower than our site in the center section.

So they're gonna have to fill into that parking lot to realign to based on the line.

Then they're gonna have to relocate.

There's at least a fire hider.

It looks like a big backflow preventer and several other cable structures that uh will need to be relocated in order to go straight.

And she mentioned the lot's only about 115 feet wide, and half of a considerable amount of that is going to be taken up with the new right-of-way with this road, even though it's not on the center line is not except for one corner on our property, it's going to be a big shift into our site, which really limits what can be done with the property.

Rex road coming in and making pot and then crossing over.

Yes.

Based on your opinion, do you think that makes more sense to come through the medical office building site or the our site?

I I'm an engineer, I'm for efficiency.

I would leave it like it was and and continue it down the driveway on the adjacent property.

So you but leaving not leaving like the the comprehensive plan shows the dashed lines.

No, no, no, no, no.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry if I confused anybody on that.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

I'm going to go ahead and close that.

We can continue to answer questions.

Yeah.

So I have a couple Isabel, you you indicated that you're you have a prospective buyer for the property, but you don't know what they intend to do with it.

I no, I I intended my clients are investors and have had some interest in selling the property, but when they start doing due diligence, they say, well, what do what is this uh dashed line mean?

How much is it gonna cost me?

You know, they can't find the answers to that question out.

And so we're trying to get this little small piece of the dash line shifted over slightly to the east.

Okay.

And have you had any conversations with the folks at Duke who've been in opposition?

I have Duke doesn't own the property, Duke is just a tenant.

But we have had a uh I've had a conversation with somebody in the ownership group.

Um this was a while ago.

Um he was uh I think in Florida.

Um he you know doesn't want any any more imposition on his property than he can he has now.

That's it we didn't have a lengthy discussion, but we did talk about it.

Um but you haven't talked to the folks at Duke who are there, right?

Uh I I haven't had any conversations with anybody at Duke.

Okay.

It's a dermatology practice, I think.

Is that right?

What about center on the projected road?

Yeah.

So they're going to be in an impact, regardless of what happens.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, they'll have they'll have the majority of impact from that road.

I mean, I mean like 90 percent.

Who's the d the the Duke medical office building owners?

And then I I guess I have a question for our transportation.

So the purple dotted line as you go north of above Macon Road.

That's where the is that where the street is supposed to go, and they're gonna redevelop that whole parking lot.

So should we be looking at Rex Road as the permanent sort of positioning, or as this is redeveloped, that purple dot will actually be to the west.

Yeah.

I had to overlay it in one of my previous slides, but so a couple, I think in 2019 they subdivided this land.

That's when Hopeful Drive and the extension of Lake Drive were built over to the west.

There it is.

So this is that subdivision plan, and it shows that road right where that drive aisle is right now.

Right now it's a drive aisle to the parking lots.

But eventually, and so this construction you see here is tied to the construction of a medical office building because they have a phased site plan.

They haven't triggered that yet.

So currently it's not.

Good afternoon, Kenneth Richie with transportation.

So I think one thing to reiterate when you look at these lines on the map, they're really high-level policy guidance, just trying to really help influence connectivity.

As we have sites come in and redevelop, we will look in in more specificity with what are those locations where we can gain that connectivity that's in keeping with the intent, but it may not be that exact location of the line.

So in reference to the parking lot here, uh yes, that line is kind of showing that north-south connectivity.

It is very likely that some of that infrastructure that has been built with the rec site will likely be that some of that ultimate connectivity.

And then certainly as we look at development south of that, we'll kind of tie that in.

When you look at the way these lines are kind of prescribed, a lot of times you'll see them straddling in line so that we don't encumber one property or the other with the full burden of taking on extension of our streets.

Can I think we got lots of questions, but I'll silver and then branch.

Well, the intent for the Blue Ridge Corridor plan was to uh break up its was supposed to be the next major quarter for the city and to grid it out so it wouldn't be suburban development but urban.

You just can't you just answer my question.

The purple line is not exact.

Uh it depends on the circumstances on the ground, the ownership pattern, other environmental conditions.

So it's an approximate, it's a policy guidance.

It's not a fixed surveyed line.

So it is somewhat flexible at the time.

A development comes in and a decision has to make about the particular alignment of the roadway.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Council Brandt.

So I think I'm going to say the same thing just in a different way for clarity.

We could move this line here today, but when we at when the engineering and the dirt starts turning, it could still impact their property.

There's a lot of questions that would still have to be answered about where the ultimate location of the actual road would end up that would happen during development of one site or the other.

Okay.

And obviously there's a lot of uncertainty that happens in these situations because this plan really forecasts future needs, not just today, but I mean out 30 plus years too.

So the real question really is to keep the line or not?

Correct.

Thank you.

Patton and uh Fort.

So Kenneth, maybe to just really draw out a fine point when we look at the property to the north where this overlay is, like there's those purple dotted lines, but then the site plan, can you like draw with the little highlighting tool?

Like they're meeting the demands of the purple dotted line in the different spots.

Can you like it?

So today you've got that infrastructure that Rex has constructed.

So that's the same thing.

That today is temporary private infrastructure with what they did originally.

Certainly, as you look at how that could progress south, there's a lot of factors that are going to play into that.

Certainly, as we look at these even through the development process, we really try to make sure that we're not overly encumbering one property or the other.

So it's very likely that a situation could come where it's more like that.

Just trying to try and share that burden.

And there's no way we can provide certainty to the property owners like exactly where that little piece would go?

Not at this point.

Okay.

No, you think that wet that's that's a pretty big requirement of that.

No, and I mean I think we've acknowledged that that that's likely to be part of the infrastructure in the area.

I think it is understanding that we will the likelihood of that becoming part of the public street system is is very likely, I think, as we progress south.

Certainly it's we don't want to encumber one property or the other when we look at this from a policy standpoint.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Fort was next.

Um I guess my question is when this was before the planning commission, did you or someone from the staff provide the same explanation to the planning commission about how how flexible this was going to be, and you don't necessarily know what's going to happen until development comes in.

I mean, was that explanation given to them?

Because I'm trying to figure out how they landed on a non, you know, whatever to deny.

So uh admittedly I was not there for the planning commission, but certainly I know that our development review staff was there to help kind of discuss what this looks like in terms of of how these things are factored in, uh, whether that exact whether this exact line was drawn on the map to kind of show planning commission what that would look like.

I can't say that, but I know our staff was there to kind of walk through the process.

So did do you know or who did you say was there?

I'll call Daniel King from our.

I just want to talk to the person who was there talking to them.

So, okay, Bonham, I know you were there.

Go ahead.

I wasn't there.

I can say that uh we have a commission member who is generally skeptical of street plan, just broadly.

Uh and one of the commissioners actually asked exactly the same question that Commissioner Branch asked about the impact, regardless of where the line is, and the they got the same answer.

Sure.

Good afternoon, Daniel King with transportation.

I was there.

Uh we did talk uh in depth about the flexibility of these lines, uh, that they are policy guidance and they're not exact locations.

It's one of the primary reasons that it's very difficult outside of a site plan to give an exact location for these because we don't know the engineering we don't know what the site plans look like.

We don't know if these properties are going to develop individually or as a uh assemblage of other properties as a larger development.

Uh and these two properties, I know the one that they're looking at today is just that smaller one, but the ownership for the two next to each other there is a common ownership.

It's the same ownership on that property.

I have a few questions.

Yeah, that one is one of the things that we have to do.

Okay.

So my question is to the city attorney.

Our options today are approve moving it or deny moving it.

But the question of removing the street plan is we can't vote on that today.

Is that right?

Like the case before us is to move it, not to remove it.

You could take no action and give that direction to staff.

To have them come back and or we could direct staff to just remove the street plan.

As not part of the direct if that's the interest of counsel that you direct staff to explore that.

Understood.

So our options today to vote on this case are to approve, deny, or to to take no action and well, I guess we'd have to deny it, right?

And then ask staff if we wanted to remove to to explore that.

And then I mean I guess the other point is is like I understand it's an investor and they're having trouble selling it because they're looking for some explanation.

It sounds like they're not going to get explanation unless unless it gets removed, there's going to be no certainty on this.

And so I just, you know, I don't really know the answer to this question.

I guess it's just a matter of whether we think a future street here is important or not.

I have closed it.

Yeah, go ahead, uh, Counselor Silver.

As I was contemplating this, trying to understand the impact to the property owner, there's either one of two things, that they're wholly responsible for improving the street, which is the for them the worst case scenario, or sharing the responsibility for improving the street between the two property owners.

Uh other than that, it's a policy line.

It's not a requirement, it's not a code, and I agree with transportation staff, we have to ultimately figure that alignment based on a lot of conditions.

Removing it takes that conversation and connectivity off the table entirely.

That's something I'm not comfortable with.

But to somehow convey, because I do want to communicate this somewhat unpredictable for the owner, but that alignment wherever it falls is trying to provide a grid in a suburban area that the city's policy intent was to urbanize over time with the various different districts going down Blue Ridge from Edwards Mill all the way down to Hillsborough Street.

So my feeling is that I would have to agree uh to deny the request to relocate our option the next time is not to remove, but to understand for the applicant and really speak to transportation and planning, that it is nothing on a survey, there's no easement, it's just a policy intent that somewhere along that MAKO that they would like to have a road going down.

There's no easement, it's just a policy intent that somewhere along that May Con Road that they would like to have a road going down.

And I think that is because I just my whole concern was not making the owner unable to do something with their property, but it seems that either it's holy or partially to put that improvement in, but that's undetermined at this time.

Pat.

Yeah, you will not have an answer until you right.

So it's policy guidance.

It's policy guidance.

It's a motion.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why don't we I'll go ahead and say I think that leaving the plan in place.

Like I understand the importance of adding grid connectivity here.

So I would not like just want to remove any endorsement of Planning Commission's recommendation for removal.

I do not share Land Commission's opinion on that.

Now the question is like, do we leave it here where it's at least like strategically designed to share burden across two private property owners, or do we shift it, which is ultimately really providing private benefit to a private property owner, and there is no significant difference in the public benefit in either outcome.

And so with that, yeah.

So I think people could talk themselves either way, but I'll second the motion to deny the request.

I think you made motion to the remote.

No, nobody's making the motion.

I'll make the motion to deny this comprehensive plan amendment.

I want to make one other point.

If the line is moved, we're in the same exact place.

We're in the same exact place when it comes in, transplantation staff is going to try to determine the best alignment if it shifts.

We're still going to be in the same place.

And so uh we're gonna wipe out their whole parking lot on that side.

Right.

Right?

So you're gonna wiped out by that dashed line.

Right.

I mean, yeah.

So we have a motion and a second to deny.

Any other conversation?

All in favor denial.

I.

No.

Okay.

So we got one person.

Any other conversation on future direction here.

I I was going to say I think it's a conversation about just these lines, because we've run into this on a previous zoning cases before.

So it may be Tom for just a conversation at some point.

I don't know what it looks like.

I don't even know how to describe the conversation.

But I just know we have a policy that has lines on a map that will let me ask you this question.

When was this policy implemented?

2012.

2012.

I'll be honest, I don't know the exact history on the overall street plan.

I think the last time it was amended would have been in 2013 with the UDO where the street classifications were changed.

And then certainly you see from time to time we have cases that come here to modify it, but I don't know the exact history.

The first uh version was in 2012 with the Blue Ridge Corridor Small Area Plan.

That then sent the basis for everything that was put into the UDO.

So the initial impetus uh was in 2012 and then it carried over when we updated the UDO.

I agree with you.

I think it may be time.

We are looking at the 2050 plan to re-examine uh the street plan throughout the city because this is not the only location where the city wanted to urbanize and have a more connected grid.

Uh and so that was the intent.

But I think you are right.

As we look at the 2050 plan, we may want to examine streets plans throughout the city.

So my so I will put out there that this is review, but also include public safety into that conversation, because some of these grids may make a public safety sense, some may not.

So when that comes back or how that comes back, I'm going I gotta let staff kind of figure it out now, because this one's a heavy, it's a heavy lift.

All right.

Well, that concludes our public hearings.

Uh next we have the various committees.

There were no items pending, so we now go to report of the mayor and city council.

I will start with you, Councilor Ford.

No report.

All right.

No report.

Yeah, I just have um one item to request.

And so in my district, as I and I'm sure I'm not alone uh hear a lot about the motor bike kids.

And so there's just a challenge with like kids on kids on e-bikes or things that masquerade as e-bikes um causing a ruckus in the neighborhoods and on the greenways nearby.

And I know there's a lot of um there's like a spectrum of what counts as an e-bike versus what counts as a motorcycle, and can risk that we're putting motorcycles in the hands of minors.

Anyway, it's kind of an emerging and complex issue.

We're sorry.

You good?

I'm trying to say something.

Yeah, he's trying to get his folks to be able to do that.

I had something I wanted to say during my comments.

If you're Larissa, if you please stay.

Larissa, can you please stay?

Quit interrupting Galsaffat.

Why is it salad personal?

Um motorbike kids sometimes make a ruckus in their neighborhoods and on their nearby greenways.

And there's um perhaps lagging legislation that's not quite up to date with the technology.

So I would just wonder if we could get a report and a manager's update around like kind of what is the legislation, like what regulates e-bikes versus motorcycles, who's allowed to have them, and then um I have also seen that some nearby like merger communities are doing like some PSAs and public awareness campaigns, and so if if we've assessed any of those and think they'd be effective if you could include that in the report as well.

Thank you.

I'm told I'm not good at charades.

Um part of my report is that I had a uh neighborhood meeting, and at that time, residents from Lichford Forest showed up expressing concerns about some traffic and pedestrian issues uh in their community.

I want to commend uh Larissa was the contact.

I want to commend her and the entire community.

We actually had a meeting on March 30th.

We pulled out a map and sketched every single problem that was in their community.

Uh it was uh a very enlightening meeting.

I want to personally thank transportation staff.

There was a long list of issues uh that the community wanted responses to, uh as well as RPD.

They requested uh one of the speed signs, and so I just want to commend you for your diligence.

We did not discuss the zoning case.

I know you'll be back to discuss that uh very soon.

But just want to thank you for just uh working with me and just being so knowledgeable and helpful at really addressing some of those pedestrian issues, safe routes to schools, all the things you discussed in your public comments.

So I just wanted to thank that, and I'm sure I'll see you all very soon.

Thank you for not running out.

I was trying to get your attention.

Um another matter, um, I think we all heard when a city manager announced that one of our chair uh cherished employees, Travis uh Crane passed away.

Uh it was it was a difficult moment.

Um I actually hired uh Travis when he moved from Colorado uh to Raleigh, and I was so impressed uh with this man's knowledge.

He was a quiet man, but a smart man, loved working behind the scenes.

Uh quickly allowed him and gave him the keys to the comprehensive plan and our unified development ordinance and watched Travis grow uh as I'm watching everything that happened here today.

My heart goes out to his family, uh his beautiful wife, his children, the planning family and development because he worked a lot uh with uh many, many departments.

Uh when I look at the conference of plan and the UDO and how it played itself out, I see Travis's legacy in every project uh throughout the city.

Um I'm glad we got to enjoy his presence uh for the time we did, but I just personally want to acknowledge uh just an impactful and powerful figure, a gentleman, a kind soul, and just wanted to say that we had a celebration for life yesterday, and it was a very joyous occasion where it was really celebrating his contributions.

That's the way he wanted it, and not a lot of attention.

And so I know some of you attended and just wanted to give Travis his recognition.

He'll be sorely missed.

But our city is a better place because of him.

So I visited the Salvation Army yesterday, and um they, of course, are our family shelter, and they have 80 uh residential families, but on top of that, they open their doors for an evening meal Monday through Friday, and then have also taken on the drop-in um overnight visitors.

Um those visitors are now sleeping in what was the computer room, the playroom.

Um they're setting up cots.

Um all of this, they've uh they've gotten cuts to their security personnel, and they also have pretty thin personnel.

So I just want to first off laud what they are doing with so little resource.

And um they had a a few uh questions and and requests.

First was just because they have uh you know they're they're trying to juggle children being mixed with right, grown men, teenage boys.

It's it's a very uh volatile, you know, and uh folks that are highly stressed already to keep everyone safe.

And they would just love to maybe spend some time with the police and just talk about how to build better relationships there.

Um so that's one request.

The other is they just said, you know, they know that there's a lot of money going into the men's shelter, you know, women's shelter, there's a lot of um effort being made in this community, but they said if you think that we got this and everything's fine here.

I mean, it really isn't.

We are very fragile, we are very stressed.

These buildings were not meant for the level of volume of people we have flowing through them.

And we are just desperately trying to prevent anything bad from happening.

And we really do need a longer term vision for some sort of facility that is better equipped where it's not having, you know, hundreds of people set up their cots in playrooms.

And so I just uh I know that is not, you know, uh an overnight, it's certainly we are not the primary responsibility for these shelters, but I I we do know what happens.

I mean, one thing I noticed is that their floors were all chipped, and they said, you know, you I'm sure you notice that, but they're like, we can't repair any of this because we'd have to tell children they have to go sleep on the street to repair it.

So they really are uh you know, just I know there's a lot of people in this community serving and doing it at very low pay and very stressful conditions, but I just wanted to highlight that we need to work with our county to figure out a longer term solution for our families because it is, as they said, uh we we kind of have this, but but just they are really stressed out.

So just a few things.

I have our decoding democracy book club that will meet on May 9th at New World Cafe on Dirley Road.

We will spend more um one more meeting on chapter one and do a quick overview of chapter two of the unified development ordinance to prepare for our conversation for June.

Uh District E community meeting will be held on May 13th at La Cusina Italian restaurant from 6 to 8 p.m.

off Glenwood Avenue.

Uh our conversation will probably focus on budget topics since we will receive the budget on May 19th.

But please join us with any questions you may have.

And then lastly, our hearts are with the fire department after the loss of a member of the fire family, Josh Lowell.

He died unexpectedly and will be missed and cherished by all of us in Raleigh.

So thank you.

So just two things.

They're both parks related.

Um today we approved the master plan for Forestville Parks, but I know we have other parks that have master plans that need to be funded.

So if we can just get inform receive information on how many parts currently have a master plan that's been approved, but have, but we've not funded yet.

Um because I think this the sooner we look at this it are better shape the some parks bond in the future um that may occur.

And secondly, um I've received emails and constant communications um about Bidmore Hills tennis courts.

And I know I've had conversations with our director as well as our Cistant City Manager.

If we can just work on some communication and getting communication out about the tennis courts, the phasing of phase one, phase two, and when there will be conversation, I think this information will be greatly appreciated.

Um I can stop telling folks we have the information, it's coming.

I can actually tell them when it is, and that would be extremely helpful.

All right.

Nominations.

No appointments, sorry.

Good afternoon.

First is Arts Commission, two regular vacancies.

Jay Campbell received two votes.

There was a nomination.

I'm not sure if you saw my email, but that okay.

Uh that person does not reside within city limits.

So um those vacancies will be carried over to the next ballot.

Next is Parks Recreation and Greenway Advisory Board, one regular vacancy.

Deborah Thomas received seven votes, so is appointed.

Raleigh Transit Authority, one alternate vacancy.

Uh Hart Evans received seven votes, so would be appointed.

Nominations, bicycle and pedestrian advisory commission, one regular vacancy term of Carrie Barnes is expiring.

Um she's not eligible for reappointment due to length of service, or she will continue to serve until replaced, and this will be appearing on your next ballot.

Environmental advisory board, one regular vacancy term of Jess.

Anastas is expiring.

Not eligible again for reappointment due to length of service.

We'll continue to serve until replaced.

And we'll that will be coming back on your next ballot.

Planning commission, a few vacancies happening here.

Terms of Dwight Otwell, Christopher O'Haver, and Roberta Fox are expiring.

Mr.

O'Haver and Ms.

Fox are not eligible for reappointment due to length of service.

Again, will continue to serve until replace.

That position needs to reside outside of city limits, but within the ETJ, the county has been notified that they need to make a replacement.

I will let you know once that happens.

So the only one that is seeking and eligible for reappointment here is Mr.

Otwell.

Move to reappoint Mr.

Otwell.

Second.

All in favor of that motion.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

I want to nominate Devon Murray for that vacancy.

Devon Murray.

Uh-huh.

D A V O N Murray.

And Cassidy, can you I think Thomas McAllister has previously been interested in resides in the ETJ?

Can you just communicate that name to the county so you are aware of it?

All right, so that'll be coming back.

And then lastly, Substance Use Advisory Commission.

Resignation has been received from Calvin Prose, so that will be coming back.

I just want to add one thing on.

I think it was Parks Board, maybe?

No, uh BAC.

We don't have anybody from District E on that commission, and only one person from District A, so we may want to consider some geographical diversity when we're making a nomination.

A lot of folks serving from C and D, which I guess makes sense because it's in our more walkable urban areas, but I think representation from District E would be important.

And that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Report and recommendation from the city attorney.

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of council.

As City Attorney, it is my honor and privilege to recognize Senior Deputy Attorney Dottie Kivler on her final council meeting after 31 years of service with the City of Raleigh.

For more of it.

I had some more I was going to say.

I had a little bit more I was going to say.

For more than three decades, Dottie has given her time, energy, and unwavering commitment to the city.

Throughout her tenure, she has consistently gone above and beyond, including stepping in, not once, but twice as interim city attorney.

In those moments, she's provided critical leadership, stability, and trusted expertise.

Daddy's impact extends far beyond council meetings.

Her institutional knowledge is steady presence have provided continuity and stability in the city attorney's office.

While this may be her last council meeting in her official capacity, the legacy of her service will continue to be felt for years to come.

On behalf of those who have had the privilege to serve alongside her and speaking personally as city attorney, I offer my sincere gratitude for her partnership, her wisdom, and her service.

Now will you please join me in thanking Dottie for her service and wishing her the best.

So my one word is thank you to the council for the things that you do.

To my colleagues, you should not be clapping for me.

You should be clapping for them because they're going to be the leaders for the future.

Thank you so much for the chance to serve.

Thank you.

Okay.

City clerk.

Mayor and Council, you receive four sets of minutes in the agenda materials for consideration of your approval.

Move for approval.

Second.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

Motion has it.

I have a motion in order to enter into closed session pursuant to general statute 143-318-11A3 to consult with the city attorney in order to preserve attorney client privilege.

General statute 143-318-11A4 to discuss matters relating to the location or expansion of industries or other businesses within the city, including consideration of economic development incentives that may be offered by the city in negotiations.

So moved.

All in favor of that motion, I all opposed nay, and we are in closed session.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, the council met in closed session and has nothing to report out, so we stand adjourned.