All right.

Welcome everybody to the council meeting.

We will start with a pledge of allegiance, and Counselor Lambert Melton, can you lead us?

One nation under God.

All right.

Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved.

Second.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, and that passes, which then um takes us to public comment.

And we have five folks signed up today.

And three minutes each.

First is Miss Octavia Rainey.

Oh, yes, we just uh we did receive a number of comments today on voicemail, and then consistent with the council's rules regarding public comment and public hearings.

Only comments made during the public hearing for the item will be uh formally considered.

I would like to thank the city of Raleigh for putting college park up on the signs, okay?

Okay.

And I received fifteen phone calls, and they will be making comments.

I'm also going to call a meeting about the comments that's being made on Boyd Street and Wild Drop Street.

I will be sending to each and every one of you a letter that was written in twenty fifteen talking about the in our essay and what we wanted to see in College Park.

Right now, we haven't seen a theme that we wanted to see.

And I hate to keep saying this and and I hate to keep stressing this meeting to black people, that is very important when you're changing a neighborhood over.

And that the city of Raleigh hear our comments and what you have done.

You have changed it over, but you forgot about us.

It's about time that you meet us halfway, so it'll be a neighborhood for all, not exclusively for the rich.

And right now, we are left out.

The second thing I want to bring up is one of my college park signs that went around a neighborhood, it was vandalized.

It was not vandalized by any kids.

They left the post, but they tooled the sign completely off the post and threw it over the fence.

Now I don't know what this represents or what this means, but I am very concerned.

So what's gonna happen to my other signs that we have up in the neighborhood?

I'm also concerned now that we have had this problem.

What is going to happen at the Mini Park and the John Stokes Garden?

I asked Stephen, do we have cameras in those parts now?

But I think it's very important that we go to cameras now, because the Mini Park is very vulnerable now, and we have all that artwork up, and I would hate to see somebody vandalize that.

Now I'm not too sure if we can get our sign back.

I don't know.

But I am working with Sheeta to try to figure this out.

But if this continues with our sign disappearing, you got a problem here.

What do this really mean?

It means something, something is going on here.

And I would like for us to get ahead of this situation.

But that vandalism did not occur by no child.

That was an adult who did that.

Because they had to put it, take it off of the post, then they to it and threw it over the fence.

Thank you.

Mamakai Sanders.

She here?

Yes.

Good afternoon.

It's another amazing day in paradise.

Thank you all for your service.

There are so many things I could talk about, but I really want to speak on decisions that are being considered now that are detrimental to the future of our city and the future adults who will be responsible for them.

I am reading the book, When Helping Hurts, which is essentially a manual specifically written to North American Christians on how to do good without causing more harm.

I'm grateful for it because it helped me formulate my thoughts and provided essential data to validate what I'm being led to share.

One of the things the book points out in the first of three main sections is the difference between how most people view those that are poor and how the poor view themselves.

They cite an expansive survey that was turned into a three-volume series of books called Voices of the Poor, where poor people from all over the world define what it means to them to be poor.

Quoting from the book, while poor people mention having a lack of material things, they tend to describe their condition in far more psychological and social terms.

Poor people typically in talks typically talk in terms of shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness, end quote.

In contrast, our side society overwhelmingly sees the poor as needing material things, and that's what they try to supply, which is a mismatch of services.

And subconsciously, the providers also believe the poor only deserve things that poor people can assess in their current situation.

Public housing vouchers, affordable housing, Medicaid, SNAP benefits, et cetera.

That's exactly what most homeless service providers do: provide more poverty.

They either put people in poverty, sustain what poverty they have, or move them from one level of poverty to another.

There is no infrastructure for actually moving people from poverty to prosperity internally and externally, because for those who don't know, poverty starts internally.

So the great challenge that homeless service providers don't get, that I imagine most city staff don't get, that well-meaning religious folk and community members don't get is when you continue to feel like affordable housing is the answer for all the things, you are subconsciously fueling the belief that poor people aren't good enough to be anything but poor.

Let me repeat that.

When affordable housing is thought to be the primary answer, you are subconsciously fueling the belief that poor people aren't good enough for anything but to be poor.

And I promise you, things will go from bad to worse here in Raleigh when you keep concentrating poverty and undermining the infinite and intrinsic value of people.

What we need now more than ever is opportunities for upward mobility partnered with compassion and neuroscience.

We need more people rising to become the God the people God envisioned them to be versus where man's limited vision will leave them at.

Because the reality is if you look at the numbers, technically, there's enough housing to eliminate homelessness right now, just not the infrastructure to do it.

I'm working on it though.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Athena Wallen.

Thank you, Mama Kai.

My name is Athena Wallen.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

A sewer line walks into a stormwater creek and says, Oh, shouldn't I be somewhere else?

To the city staff that responded quickly to the 1.1 million uh gallons of untreated sewage spillage.

Thank you for all the work that you did to control this situation.

I'm happily going to talk about stormwater creeks next time, but it's bike month, so I want to discuss the vulnerability of non-drivers.

Non-driver infrastructure is essential infrastructure.

We must continue to adapt to diversify and support in between options to provide safer routes for all users of the roadway.

Things like temporary painted multi-use spaces on the roadways separated by planters, bollards.

These things help neighborhoods that need infrastructure when they cannot obtain it right away.

We can theoretically have sidewalks where sidewalks are not.

Let's be diverse.

Let's be creative.

Drivers have all the protection from the moment they get into a three-ton piece of metal.

They are the most protected roadway user of all of all, and it's all the way through the legal process where law and justice systems are accustomed to stand for vehicles and not humans.

Non-drivers are subjected to lifelong trauma, loss of physical health, or loss of life.

More often than not, we simply don't know how to be hurt humans.

We don't know how to recover.

Two years ago, I spoke of the collision I endured from an inattentive driver while I was on my bicycle from over a decade ago.

It took two seconds of driver inattentiveness, of me being visually blocked by parked cars, of me being invisible, for one person's mistake to permanently reduce my quality of life.

But I was one of the lucky ones.

If not for my bicycle crunching beneath the wheels of the SUV, the driver may have not even have noticed they struck me down, and I could have been run over.

They moved on with their life pretty quickly.

But what I don't remember is hitting the pavement.

And that's all it took for insurance to deny that I ever had injuries due to the collision, that I ever had a concussion.

They denied any financial help for me to get adequate recovery.

And so I endure the rest of my life with limited health.

One person's two-second mistake.

Every collision isn't the responsibility of the city, but leadership should be doing what you can when you can to help protect non-drivers.

And it starts acknowledging with the finite space of shared roadways and the lack of adequate infrastructure, as well as cars only getting larger and drivers only getting more distracted.

I'm going to stop there, but I really appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Happy bike month.

Be safe, everybody.

Thank you.

Chris Crew.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for your service to the people of the city of Raleigh.

Our current water restrictions are a good thing.

Do not let up on those.

There are dry days coming.

Water is precious, and I uh would like to ask you to take a look at the Raleigh section of the Wake County Hazard Mitigation Plan to see what Raleigh has planned to do about that.

Good stuff in there.

Here to talk again about preservation and the process.

Our city planning staff advocates frequently on behalf of individual development interests.

When was the last time the planning staff acknowledged a negative impact on a review of zoning change request?

Where's the advocacy for the people and for the plan we devised and adopted with stakeholder input?

Four percent of the properties in the city of Raleigh are protected by an NCOD.

One percent are protected by a historic overlay district, roughly 25%, 30,000 or more parcels, is in some sort of NX designation that will allow four story construction to go on.

The exact number is subject to change because ten times a month you're reviewing uh zoning change requests that change the map, and that must certainly be impacting the expensive effort to update the common plan because you're constantly changing the planning area by doing this.

Is there not enough space to experiment with housing and density without negative environmental and social impacts?

Look outside of the 5% of the land that's deemed precious and identify areas where we can participate in growth, increase housing, improve transportation, and relieve the development pressure on our historic resources.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Afternoon.

It's a hot one out there, is it not?

If we were having this meeting outside, I'd just let the sun do all the talking for me today.

But uh here to talk about trees.

You all don't need to hear me tell you about the benefits of trees, but I'm gonna do it anyway, right?

Um for those of you who don't know me.

I'm I'm Dave Klemp.

I I run Trees for the Triangle.

We're uh Raleigh-based and born nonprofit that plants trees.

We plant native trees in not only Raleigh but across the triangle, thus the name Trees for the Triangle.

Uh we do plant all native trees to North Carolina, and uh our mission is to improve the both ecological and social resilience of the triangle through the planting of native trees, knowing that by planting trees, we can improve both of those things.

Uh our motto is trees for all.

Pretty simple motto.

Um, something we're trying to live up to.

And uh I think it's something that Raleigh really is trying to live up to as well.

So, just wanted to talk about some of the things that we're doing uh and tie that into the this idea about the 24,000 tree campaign.

Kind of keep bringing that up.

I know you guys are all thinking about it.

If you all haven't heard about that idea, come talk to me after.

Um, wanted to thank you all for the support and partnership individually and collectively.

You've all offered um already and and hope to continue that.

Uh it's always been my intention for Trees for the Triangle to work side by side with the city that I was born in and live in now.

So Trees for the Triangle.

We're the world's only, as far as I know, pay what you can tree planting program, um, born out of inspiration from Raleigh's neighborhoods program, which I used to work for, uh, as well as another great nonprofit in Raleigh, a place of the table.

Big inspiration for me when founding Trees for the Triangle.

Um, we plant trees at homes, neighborhoods, businesses, schools, churches, um, the executive mansion.

That was a cool one.

Um, cemeteries, you name it.

We're trying to plant trees there, uh, as long as we have permission to do so.

Um we know that with growth in a city, and and growth, I think for the most part is good.

There's bumps and scrapes and bruises along the way, but with growth comes an urgency to maintain a quality of life for all the people and creatures other than people uh in a city, right?

Um, and I know that you all are basically investors in the future of the city.

I can we'll we'll use that analogy.

And any good investor is is using a Devers portfolio of of things to invest in, and they're seeking oh my goodness.

Thank you.

Okay.

We will now move on to the report and recommendation of the planning commission, and we have Matthew uh Kent Clem and Dwight Otwell.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, Matthew Clint, Planning and Development, here to present the report of your planning commission.

So just a quick review of upcoming holidays for your consideration.

We have public hearings scheduled for June 2nd and 16th, shown on this slide.

There are two recommendations from the planning commission that we'll go over.

Both are recommended for public hearings on June 16th.

The first is rezoning Z 326.

This is a collection of properties on uh Glenwood Avenue and Jones Street.

Uh the properties are currently split zoned uh with office mixed use three-story building height uh with a detached frontage and a neighborhood conservation overlay district and downtown mixed-use 20 stories with a shop front frontage and zoning conditions.

Uh the request is to bring all of those properties into a DX downtown mixed use 20-story district with a shop front frontage.

The request is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

It's inconsistent with the future land use map based on the requested height for the properties.

Uh portion of the property shown in blue on the screen.

Uh Planning Commission recommends approval 8 to 2, um, suggested public hearing date of June 16th.

Uh the second request is Z526.

This is a city council uh initiated rezoning along Newburn Avenue uh associated with the BRT station area planning project.

Uh these properties were uh rezoned uh by previous council action, and then uh the rezoning was rescinded by state action, and you all directed staff to reach out to those property owners who were zoned and unzoned uh and and get petitions in accordance with state law there.

Um so of the properties that were rezoned, we received um 18 petitions back.

Uh two of them have withdrawn.

Uh the planning commission recommended approval uh of the request across three separate motions.

Uh there are split votes uh and different justifications across those motions, but they have recommended approval for each grouping of them.

Uh the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan, the future land use map.

Uh the RHDC Raleigh Historic Development Commission uh review the request and recommend denial eight to one.

So this map shows the uh properties in question.

Uh the properties in orange are those property owners who were zoned uh and then unzoned by state action and um submitted their petitions to staff by the deadline.

There are three properties shown in blue that were included in your authorization for rezoning.

Those property owners did not meet the staff created deadline to be included in the petition.

Um we received their request through the online engagement portal to be included.

Um there are two properties shown in purple that were uh not included in the properties you asked us to rezone.

We received their request through the permit portal, and the two properties in gray on the map are those who uh submitted their petitions and subsequently uh rescinded them for consideration.

So uh again, three motions by the planning commission.

Uh the first one is these for these collection of properties, recommended approval 9 to 1.

The second two motions uh properties are listed here.

You can see the vote for each of them.

Uh the Raleigh Historic Development Commission reviewed and made a recommendation of denial, um, and they discussed the uh increased entitlements um of rezoning the property, could incentivize demolition of historic and eligible structures, uh specific conversation around the Richard B.

Harrison Library at 1313 Newburn Avenue, and then just a discussion of the commissioners recognizing the economic generator that local historic districts can have for the city.

Um that's our report.

And uh myself and Chair Otwell are here to answer questions.

Okay, I think we will have some questions.

Um I will I'll start down here with Mayor Purtem Harrison.

Yeah, I'm curious about um the reasons for denial on both of those cases, just any planning commissioner concerns.

So can we start with Glenwood and talk about that?

Uh sure thing.

That thanks for having me, um, that case came subsequent to the new burn case when we saw it on our agenda, and it was uh the commissioners O'Haver and Walters, while in general support of the idea, thought that uh it hadn't received full discussion and that a motion was made a bit prematurely.

Okay, that is helpful.

And then could you also talk about uh the new burn cases and just what are those different reasons for planning commission denial?

Certainly uh some of the commission had previously been through extensive discussion around these properties and were very comfortable moving on.

New commissioners wanted more information and take more time to talk about it.

So we split it out.

We took Commissioner, I mean, excuse me, Counselor Patton's uh example by splitting them into digestible pieces that we could consider as one whole.

The first round was generally accepted by all commissioners.

The no vote was Commissioner O'Haver objected to splitting them up.

He saw it as procedural and wanted to do it all at once, and then the library was a special consideration, so we removed it from what was remaining and voted on the uh the second motion, which included uh properties on Bart Street and Battery Drive, and Commissioners Sanchez and Omakaye were opposed uh due to the impact on the historical districts and the nature of the community, and that was the case for both of those subsequent rezonings of the library had the same vote as well.

Commissioner Sanchez and Omakay in opposition.

Thank you.

Okay, Council Jones.

Uh thank you so much.

I just have a question for staff on uh the this same case.

Uh that we're talking about for RHDC, they didn't talk about the entirety of this pro of this case.

They only talked about the five with the HOD.

Am I correct or am I incorrect in remembering that?

I believe that's correct, but I can double check with uh preservation staff.

I believe they're in the room.

Thanks.

Good afternoon.

Uh collect canane planning and development.

Yes, that is correct.

They did focus on properties in the historic district and also a few properties that are in national register districts and that are eligible for national register designation.

And can you remind me which projects were eligible for national register?

Um I believe 1313, um, new burn, and there is I think it's 203 Tarborough.

Are the two properties that are eligible?

Thank you so much.

Welcome.

Counselor Patton.

Yeah, um, thank you.

Um I think this will be for Chair Otwell.

Um this was agonizing when we did it the first time.

Um, but you kind of spoke to it, but maybe you can elaborate the the chunks that you all broke into.

You're saying the first chunk, the the just like the the character or the category of that one is just sort of like universally agreed upon, and then the that's correct.

It was less categorical by identifying and then separating based on the qualities of the properties.

It was based on the commissioners' comfortableness with moving those particular properties forward.

So the first batch, everybody was okay with, and we just wanted to get them out of the way and then discuss things that there was uh reservations and questions about.

Okay, and then the second badge it is all the library and the no, sorry, the second batch was the one that included Bart Street and Battery Drive, which were of particular concern.

We removed the library from that discussion because it was kind of a unique property and felt that it should be uh voted on independently.

I believe that the commissioner that moved to move the library out of the discussion thought that it would probably be voted down independently.

So it was separated out so that it could get an up or down vote by itself.

Got it.

So that's a third motion.

Just the library.

Just the library.

Got it.

Okay.

Helpful.

Um, and then um for planning staff.

Just to confirm.

So we, as you said, had we had rezoned all of these, then they got unzoned.

This that's reflected here is is like exactly what we approved last time.

Like these are one for one height and base zoning and everything.

Correct.

So the process we took was uh creating zoning petitions for individual property owners and mailing them to them.

And the existing and requested zoning districts that were pre-filled on the petitions were the same zoning districts that were previously approved by council.

Okay.

Got it.

Alright, I think I'm good for now.

Okay.

Any other council?

No, I would just say I would recommend that all council members, you get a chance, go back and watch the hearing.

Um I watched it live.

Um it was very intense um conversation that was being had.

So I think that'll help give some idea of clarification of you know what commissioners were thinking as they went about and discussed everything.

Could that link be sent to us?

Yeah, it should be on YouTube, but staff.

I don't know how to look at staff can see the staff can send out appreciate that.

With that, I will move that we set the public hearing for both of these cases as recommended.

Any other discussion?

Yep, Councilor Jones.

Um, okay.

All right.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

And we will hear those on the 16th.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

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

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

I have two items today in my report, two critical pieces of work that I'm sure that everyone is looking forward to.

First of which is the Wake BRT, Northern Corridor Major Investment Study.

We have hit Patil from Transportation here to present this item.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Uh Hepatel, City of Raleigh Transitation Transit.

Uh, you did hear this item at the April 14th work session, so I have a pretty brief presentation here today.

Um the focus is the Northern Corridor and the final report from the major investment study and what our next steps are for getting this project moving in design and engineering.

So just want to highlight again that the Northern Corridor through the Wake Transit Plan has been split into two separate corridors, a corridor going from downtown Raleigh to Midtown Raleigh, and a corridor from downtown Raleigh to Triangle Town Center.

We began this study in the summer of 22, and we are here with the final report with the spring of 2026.

The recommendations coming out of the final report are for the Midtown Corridor Alignment 6, which goes Capitol Boulevard to Atlantic to Six Forks, up Wake Forest to St.

Albans, connecting it to Midtown, and then for the Triangle Town Center Corridor alignment three, which stays on Capitol Boulevard all the way up through to Triangle Town Center.

So at the April 14th work session, there were uh a few comments that I wanted to highlight uh as our next steps through design and engineering.

The first is making sure that we're setting the expectations for the midtown corridor in terms of what type of bus rapid transit infrastructure investment is actually feasible.

Uh and that's the renderings you see there on the right are the uh Newburn Avenue corridor renderings.

We have different types of treatments that we can do for bus rapid transit, depending on the right-of-way available, depending on uh the traffic conditions and some of the challenges.

Uh we can either have the buses running in their own dedicated bus lanes or they run in the mixed traffic environment, uh, but have some signal priority and still the same larger stations and other amenities to make it still match the bus rapid transit standards.

And the other comment was about setting expectations from an implementation perspective with the local wake Transit Plan funding for the project as well as anticipated potential federal funding uh through the competitive grant investment programs that the Federal Transit Administration has.

Uh basically, the local funding right now in the Wake Transit plan is programmed in the out years from 2033 to 2035.

We do have funding to begin the preliminary design and engineering.

As we advance this corridors, we would have an opportunity to try to adjust that timeline for the local funding if and when the City of Raleigh is ready to continue advancing the project.

So I do want to highlight that.

Again, that does impact how we deliver the project, but as we advance design and engineering, we'll have more clarity on how we can expedite that timeline, if at all.

At the April 9th, 2026, uh Raleigh Transit Authority meeting, we did get a unanimous endorsement on the midtown corridor alignment six and the Triangle Town Center Corridor Alignment 3 as the locally preferred alternative for each corridor.

Uh and the next steps of the process would be a formal adoption of the locally preferred alternatives into the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization's metropolitan transportation plan.

That step is required for us to pursue federal funding.

And then simultaneously, we can begin working on a request for qualifications to advertise that work to begin preliminary engineering design and the environmental documentation that would be needed to continue advancing the projects.

So again, I'm here today.

But we are looking for an endorsement for the midtown corridor alignment six as the preferred alternative for Midtown and a endorsement for Triangle Town Center Corridor Alignment Three as the preferred alternative for the Triangle Town Center connection.

All right.

Thank you for all the work on this.

Do we have questions or just a quick question around the federal funding piece?

Would these routes be submitted as one plan or two separate?

Yeah, so we're going to continue to advance uh investigate what the federal competitiveness is of each corridor.

So they would be submitted separately if they were, if we deem them to be federally competitive, we would submit them separately.

Okay, thank you.

Counselor Silver and then Patton.

Ed again, thank you for the presentation.

I think we had a very good conversation, particularly about alternative six.

I know it's kind of understood, but as a next step, not related to our action.

We certainly want to make sure we just had a conversation about New Bern, how that BRT investment is transforming land use.

Want to make sure it's the next step, whether we say the plan commission will now include it as part of their conversation.

We have one way present, Councilor Councilmember Branch and I were in New York, and I talked about the transport of opportunity along Capitol Boulevard, and this BRT will set the stage for that to happen.

I just want to make sure we're very clear to the public, it's not just about the transportation, but about the transform transformational opportunity for the land use that surrounds it.

We're looking for housing across the city, and Capitol Boulevard is the prime opportunity to make that happen.

I just want to make sure it's together.

We're not siloing transportation from housing.

I didn't understand that, but I just want us to be more explicit as we share this because this is now something as we're looking at reflecting Raleigh 2050, should certainly be a conversation.

So now we can find other ways of implementing and take leveraging this amazing opportunity, providing more mobility to our residents.

Councilor Panel.

Hi.

Just making sure I've got my mind right.

This is the same information.

There's no changes since you were in front of us recently that you're just asking for a vote to confirm the same stuff that was previously.

I had a question, just um it's my understanding that the surface transportation reauthorization draft came out at the federal level.

And now they are requesting annual approval of funds for projects like BRT.

I don't know what it was in the past.

Could you just comment on that?

Yes, there's always an annual process to submit a project for federal eligibility.

Uh, and when you submit the project for federal eligibility, a project would receive a rating uh that again determines if the project is eligible for federal funding.

A lot of times in that federal investment grants, uh capital investment grant program, projects submitted for federal rating.

They got the rating that they needed, and then they would have to wait for Congress to make appropriations.

Uh that was generally happening annually through the president's budget.

Um, but more recent changes to that overall program have been a bucket of money has been set aside, and as project become projects become ready to advance into uh full funding grant agreements for construction, that is when Congress is taking that action to appropriate those funds, at least for some recent projects.

So do you see this as status quo, favorable, unfavorable?

Until uh one of our projects goes through that same process right now, I would say it's status quo.

Uh the Southern Corridor is next in the step to do that, and we will have a better understanding of how we progress through the risk and readiness workshop with the Federal Trade Administration later this year, early 2027 for the Southern Corridor.

And again, that will uh give us guidance on exactly what that process looks like.

Okay, thank you.

All right, uh, do we have a motion?

Move to endorse the recommendations.

Second.

All right.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

And that passes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, mayor and council, our viewing audience, and those in attendance, um, Sadia Sitar, budget director, and I will present to you the FY27 operating budget and our FY27 2031 capital improvement plan, formerly known as our CIP.

As you see the documents before you are as they will be soon arriving before you, the budget totals and balances at 1,765,166,204.

This amount represents the planned cost of operating the City of Raleigh from the period of July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027.

With Raleigh's population growth growing to more than 500,000 residents according to the most recent census, our community now stands firmly among the nation's largest cities.

In order for us to continue garnering national accolades and maintaining a high quality of life for both new residents and those who have lived here for generations, we must continue our tradition of strong fiscal stewardship while investing in the people, services, and infrastructure required to support our community now and into the future.

The proposed FY 2027 budget includes the resources necessary to maintain our core services while also committing to long-term investments in key priority areas such as public safety, transportation, and affordable housing.

In the FY 2026 budget, you will recall that the city made a generational investment in our workforce.

We were able to realign our pay structures and provide significant compensation increases to employees without having to adjust the city's property tax rate.

However, the budget also included the message that as the city grows, the cost of providing services continues to outpace the growth in our revenue sources, and that additional investment would need to be made to support our core services.

So in the past year, the city commissioned and received the results of the Fire Master Plan and the targeted staffing study.

These two documents will serve as a guide for staffing our public safety services over the next 10 years.

We have assumed full responsibility for the buildings and grounds at Dicks Park, cementing our commitment to this unique community asset.

And finally, we are nearing completion of our community's new city hall in 2027, which will allow for more centralized, modern, and responsive city services.

So the theme of this year's budget is resiliency in the face of uncertainty.

This budget was developed as we faced unique challenges to the city's primary and historically most stable revenue source, our property taxes.

By April of this year, the city faced the $13.1 million funding gap in the FY 2027 budget to provide the same level of services offered in the FY26 budget.

This gap did not account for any new new or critically needed investments.

To close this gap, we looked first for opportunities within the organization to reduce expenses.

These efforts included remaining and realigning budgets to reduce costs and a recommendation for targeted reductions to vacant positions across the organization while maintaining our city's core services.

The proposed budget protects our existing employees and services while adjusting to the realities of the fiscal pressures we currently face.

Overall, the proposed FY27 budget recommends a property tax rate of 37.2 cents, which is a reflection of a 1.7 cent property tax increase from FY26.

This increase will allow us to be able to provide the services that our residents both demand and expect.

Property tax is the city's largest revenue source, totaling $352.9 million in the general fund, $427.35 million overall.

It serves as the primary revenue source for key services such as police, fire, transportation, and affordable housing.

In recent years, the city has realized an annual growth in this tax of about 2 to 3 percent.

That growth has generated roughly $9 to 12 million dollars in new revenues annually, which has helped us to offset inflationary costs associated with providing our core services.

For the first time since at least the Great Recession of 15 years ago, the city is unlikely to experience any property tax growth in FY27.

You may recall that in March, the Wake County Tax Administrator informed the council of the unprecedented challenges that Wake County communities will face in the upcoming fiscal year.

Appeals of property valuations were one of those challenges, with the county experiencing a 40 percent increase in formal appeals and a hundred and fifteen percent increase in property tax commission cases as compared to the previous reval in 2020.

Another unique contributing factor to the year-to-year decline in property tax revenue is the significant increase in the number of affordable housing developments receiving property tax exemptions.

More property owners have taken advantage of a loophole that allows for the exemption of taxes if a nonprofit entity owns as little as 0.1 percent ownership stake in the property.

Two years ago, this exemption accounted for $388 million in exempted value.

However, in 2025, it accounted for $2.2 billion in exemptant value, which is a $468% increase in only two years.

Although we remain hopeful that the loophole will be closed in the future, the city is projected to lose nearly $6 million in revenue from these exemptions alone in FY 2027.

Luckily, some of our other revenue sources, such as sales tax and franchise taxes have performed well and may help to mitigate that impact, but the reduction in the city's primary revenue source has created a very challenging financial outlook for the city.

The cost of providing services continues to grow faster than the city's revenue sources.

The cost of existing contracts, employee benefits, and materials and supplies continue to increase with inflation year over year.

And before considering a property tax increase, I challenged myself and staff to consider ways in which we could reduce costs within the organization.

Many of those costs are associated with personnel activity, and Ms.

Sitar again will speak more about that in her presentation.

Over the past year, we also participated in a targeted staffing study with Matrix Consulting Group.

That study helped us to look at and evaluate our current workloads across all of our operational departments.

It used geographic growth models to project service and staffing needs 10 years into the future.

So it is not just for today, it is for our shared future.

The FY 2027 budget includes investments in the staffing study for the Raleigh Police Department, the Emergency Communications Center, the fire marshal's office, and building safety.

Ms.

Sitar will show you further in the presentation the amounts of these enhancements.

The city also worked with the consultant in 2025 to produce a fire master plan.

The final plan provided recommendations on investments in fire infrastructure and staffing over the next 20 years.

As it relates to the infrastructure, the two highest priority items for the Raleigh Fire Department is Phase 1 of the Fire Training Center and the combined Fire Station 23 and the Northwest Public Safety Campus.

Those are included in the advanced planning program and will require additional CIP investment in future years.

So as you can see, we've worked really hard to put together a document that reflects your values, the organization values, the communities' suggestions for services and goods.

And we've done that through a commitment from our operational departments, but let's look further into our enterprise funds.

We have continued support for the city's four enterprise funds, that is Raleigh Water, Stormwater, Solid Waste Services, and the Raleigh Convention and Performing Arts Complex.

In this budget, these funds are supported by fees for services as opposed to the general fund, which are primarily supported by property tax.

Based on each of their unique challenges and opportunities, the proposed FY27 budget supports long-term goals and continued growth in each of these four enterprise funds.

The housing and community development department advances Raleigh's core housing goals by leveraging a mix of funding sources to increase the supply of affordable units, expand overall housing affordability, and prevent and end homelessness.

So far in 2026, five new affordable housing developments either broke ground or opened their doors, collectively providing for 531 new homes for seniors and families.

As this is the City Council's number one policy priority, we will continue to do those things that will stand up the work to ensure that we continue to increase the number of housing units that make up the City of Raleigh.

In April, the City Council began to process authorizing 101.5 million dollars in an affordable housing bond.

That referendum will be placed on the November 2026 ballot.

If it is approved, this bond will provide for 25.375 million dollars of affordable housing resources for each of the fiscal years from FY 2027 to FY 2030.

This bond funding will represent a 58% increase in annual bond resources when compared to the previous affordable housing bond that was passed in 2020.

That bond provided $16 million in annual resources over a five-year spending plan.

The one point the 101.5 million dollars in affordable housing bond resources support housing development and preservation efforts, $57.6 million, home buyer assistance and preservation goals, 10.4 million.

Additionally, 21.5 million will be set aside for major project development, and 12 million will be utilized for homelessness response.

In FY 2027, the budget includes 11.6 million dollars in our penny for housing.

These additional funds will allow for additional programming across our housing department.

These annual funds will equate to one cent of the city's property tax.

And back in FY 25, we trued up that penny to include an additional $3.5 million, bringing it to $11.6.

The funds are sometime paired with bond funds for housing development and are also used for ongoing programs to help make connections with neighborhoods to the city.

To conclude, I'm getting there, guys.

As Raleigh continues to grow, evolve, navigate in increasing complex economic landscapes, I am profoundly grateful for the dedication and resilience of the city's workforce.

Their professionalism and compassion remain the foundation of our collective success.

Their service alongside the voices of our residents and the leadership of the mayor and the city council drives the work that you will see reflected throughout the budget and that you will hear in the budget presentation today.

The proposed budget honors our commitment to the city's core values by reinforcing our investment in people, strengthening public safety, modernizing our technology, and preparing for the future with thoughtful strategic planning.

It reflects difficult decisions grounded in fiscal stewardship that position Raleigh to sustain the high standards of service excellence that our community deserves.

And even in the face of economic uncertainty and constrained revenues, this budget advances the priorities that matter most to our residents.

A safe city, a reliable infrastructure system, vibrant public spaces, and responsive services that we deliver every day with purpose and integrity.

Personal thanks to budget director Sadia Sitar and the amazing men and women that make up Team Raleigh for your ingenuity, your flexibility, and your professionalism.

Mayor Cowell and the Raleigh City Council, thank you for your partnership.

We had lots of meetings, we had lots of discussions, there were lots of questions.

Thank you for your time and the thought that you have invested in this year's budget development process.

As you review the proposed investment, I trust that you will see your policy direction reflected clearly in the initiatives, the priorities, and the choices that we have embedded throughout this project for this year's budget.

And while the months ahead will undoubtedly bring new challenges, I am confident that Raleigh will continue to thrive, anchored by a strong financial foundation, a resilient and talented workforce, and a community united by a shared vision for its future.

The proposed FY 2027 budget sets the stage for that future, ensuring that Raleigh remains a place where residents, businesses, and visitors alike can live, work, play, and learn.

And now I will give it to my tag team partner, Sadia Satar.

All right.

Well, good afternoon.

Um, mayor, city council members, and city manager, Sadia Titar, with director of the Director of Budget and Management Services, here to talk to all of you about the fiscal year 2027 proposed operating and capital budget.

And as the manager mentioned, our theme for this year's budget is resilience in the face of uncertainty.

I think there remains little doubt that our city continues to be recognized nationally for its strong economy, its quality of life, and its resilience.

This year, Raleigh was named the number one U.S.

city for job opportunities.

It was named the second best state capital, the fourth best city in the nation for women's economic status, health and safety, and the fourth most economically resilient metro.

These rankings reflect what we all know to be true, that the city that we live in remains a fantastic place to live, work, and play.

As the manager mentioned earlier, when we all met you in April, we faced a $13.1 million budget gap.

And that was because we could no longer rely on our most stable source of revenue, and that being our property taxes.

City Council has heard from us multiple times throughout this budget cycle on the value losses of property taxes which have impacted the city not only this fiscal year but will continue to impact us the next fiscal year as well.

And as you can see in the slide, it's due to the affordable housing exemptions, most notably the Blue Ridge Loophole, increased Brownfields exemptions, and increased approvals of commercial valuation appeals.

So as we continue to build on the pressures that we are facing in this budget from revenues due to the Blue Ridge loophole, we are also facing pressures as far as our expenses are concerned.

Inflation continues to impact citywide operations.

Raleigh's continued population growth is increasing demand for our services across our departments.

This budget was developed in this context: a resilient city, but one facing real fiscal constraints and growing service expectations.

So in the end, what did we do?

We dug deep, we solved our own problems instead of asking our residents for more.

We eliminated vacant positions.

We asked our departments to realign their budgets.

We also looked at our benefits, in particular, our post-retirement benefits.

Also known as other post-employment benefits or OPEB to all of you, these changes to these post-retirement benefits will be impacted to our employees starting in our city July 1 onwards.

Previously, employees were eligible for this benefit after 25 years of service.

Now they will be eligible for this benefit after 15 years of service.

Oh, previously, the city, employees in the city were eligible for this benefit at 15 years.

Now they will be eligible for 25 years.

Thank you for correcting that.

The city will continue to pay 50% of our premiums.

And this change in and of itself will save the city 62.2 million dollars citywide over the course of 15 years.

And through these internal cost savings and unexpected windfall of some revenues, like the manager mentioned, our sales taxes and other revenues, we were able to close that budget gap of 13 million dollars.

Again, we did this ourselves without asking our residents for more.

Over the course of the last two fiscal years, the city has taken significant steps to ensure that we meet the needs of our public safety departments.

This budget responds to the fire master plan as well as the staffing study to maintain and enhance our public safety operations, as they are the foundation for the strong quality of life that Raleigh demands.

To that end, the staffing study recommends the addition of 69 police officers over three years.

The fiscal year 27 budget recommends the implementation of the first year of the staffing study through the addition of 23 police officers.

Equipment supporting officer safety and transparency, technology enhancements for frontline public safety operations, are also included in this budget, and leases for the downtown district as well as special operations, along with major building system maintenance for the department's youth and family services center are also budgeted in the fiscal year 2027 budget for the Raleigh Police Department.

The budget includes funding for 12 firefighter positions for the Raleigh Fire Department, along with ongoing funding for a second fire academy.

This funding will enable Raleigh Fire to address staffing needs and improve baseline personnel coverage, prevent excessive use of overtime, improve response times, and provide continued safety and effectiveness on scene.

I want to mention that this is the first time that we are adding firefighters to our Raleigh fire departments since fiscal year of 2015.

And these are being added as part of the first year of the implementation of the Fire Master Plan.

Finally, the staffing study recommended adding three fire marshals to keep pace with city development and inspections.

The addition of these positions is expected to yield faster turnaround time for planned reviews, permits, and inspections, and will be partially offset by revenues.

To round out our public safety departments, the staffing study also recommends the addition of 23 call takers over three years.

This budget adds six call taker positions.

These additional positions are critical in staff's ability to handle 911 and other telephone calls, not just in Raleigh but throughout Wake County.

Much of what you saw in our targeted staffing study relates to public safety, but we also have two other departments that are benefiting from the study, and that includes our planning and development department as well as Solid Waste Services.

The fiscal year 2027 proposed budget recommends the addition of six building safety staff in planning and development to address increasing inspection complexity, workload, and volume.

These positions will be dedicated to residential permitting and will lead to more consistent and reliable outcomes.

Finally, starting in 2026, September of 2026, residents can anticipate the city collecting their leaves and their yard waste on a weekly basis.

That's an additional 26 collections every year.

We had previously reported that this effort would take 15 positions.

However, due to the targeted staffing study, we are adding six additional positions for this effort.

This pilot has been in place since 2024 and has proven very successful for businesses downtown, especially along Wilmington Street, where the majority of garages are located.

City Council's direction has been to support this program.

So we have included a $2 million parking subsidy to help two-hour parking and help infuse vibrancy and activity into our downtown and also help our local businesses downtown grow.

Finally, last fall you all heard a presentation from our Transportation Department and their pavement marking program.

The city acquired Dix Park 11 years ago, and since then its inhabitants, including the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services have left the campus.

So to that end, this budget continues investments in the demolition and stabilization of buildings to ensure that the park continues to provide transformative community spaces for all its visitors.

The city budget recommends the addition of $2 million and 8.7 FTE in operating funds, and this builds on the almost 185 million dollar capital investment that the city has made in the park over the past 11 years, plus ongoing operational needs.

And while I just spoke to the large investments in our budget, especially for our public safety departments and other departments that benefited from the targeted staffing study, there are other operational investments that this budget funds.

This budget funds a parks refuse team, which will allow our parks downtown to be cleaner.

It also adds technology and maintenance needs for our building next door, our new city hall, and to complement our customer experience program, also known as Ask Raleigh, this position adds a position this budget adds a position.

Finally, we know that cybersecurity is a huge concern for local governments nationwide.

This budget responds to that by adding additional funds for cybersecurity so that we may be safe from bad actors.

This budget is also funding the Electrify the Triangle program, which assists Raleigh households with their electric utility bills, and finally, this budget is also expanding the engagement network, which will allow our citizen advisory councils to continue to bring the community together.

Along with all the investments that we are doing in our departments, we will also in this budget take care of our people, our employees.

I'm happy to share that this budget includes a 3% salary increase for public safety, a 2% salary increase for our exempt and non-exempt employees, and a 1.5% salary increase for our permanent part-time and temporary employees.

Our public safety departments or our public safety personnel who received a salary increase last year will continue to see their starting salaries increase as part of this budget.

As our HR director mentioned when she was here in front of all of you in February, there are no increases to employee premiums.

And while there are no increases to those premium, our benefit structure will continue to be further enhanced effective the upcoming calendar year.

The city continues to bear the cost of health care for our employees, but we expect to re-evaluate that for the 2028 calendar year.

With that said, and with the culmination of everything that I've mentioned to all of you thus far, the fiscal year 2027 proposed general fund budget is $652.7 million.

Yes, this budget does include a property tax increase, but it also includes critical investments in our public safety personnel.

It includes key investments to specific programs, and it includes salary increases and benefit enhancements for our employees.

It's slightly lower than what it was last year, and that is because the housing bond that our residents are so used to is ending in the current fiscal year.

Keeping all the investments that I've shared with you in mind, the proposed tax rate increase for the city of Raleigh for the upcoming fiscal year is 1.7 cents.

We could not have done this without eliminating vacant positions by keeping positions open by going back to our departments and asking them to reevaluate and look at their budgets.

By holding by doing all those efforts, we started this budget process with a proposed tax rate increase that was a lot higher, but we were able to bring it down to 1.7 cents and continue to meet the needs identified by our city council for our community.

Here is a breakdown of the property tax increase.

As you can see, of the 1.7 cent increase, 1.1 cents or 62% goes towards public safety, further enforcing that an investment in our public safety operations is an investment in our city.

Our general fund revenues dedicated.

Our general fund revenues are primarily comprised of property taxes, as you can see, followed by sales taxes.

And then finally, here's a breakdown of our expenditures.

I would like to mention that previously public safety used to be 40%, but it is now 43% of all the expenditures in the city.

Here's another way to look at how a resident can see a dollar of their general fund property taxes being spent in the city of Raleigh.

As you can see, the largest piece of the pie or the dollar here is that 43 cents go to public safety, with the smallest going to our grants, also known as our agency appropriations.

So along with the property tax increase, Raleigh homeowners will also see increases to their water, stormwater, and solid waste services fees.

The owner of a median assessed value home in the city of Raleigh can see an annual increase of $122.

That includes $67 increase in property tax, a $21 increase in water, a $3 increase in stormwater, and a $31 increase for solid waste services.

The increase for solid waste services includes the enhanced yard waste program.

And despite the increases to our property taxes and fees, the city of Raleigh remains highly competitive.

Our property tax is the second lowest in the triangle when compared to the recently proposed fiscal year 27 property tax rate of our neighbors.

City Council members met our enterprise departments in March and April of this year.

I won't go into a lot of detail, but I did want to share that residents in the city of Raleigh can see their water bills increase about $1.75 monthly.

And this really allows the Raleigh Water Department to operate a permanent sewer line rapid assessment tool crew, which will actually improve the efficiency of preventative sewer cleaning and infrastructure maintenance.

But starting in July 1, with the upcoming budget, we are transitioning stormwater to Raleigh Water to align with similar experience and expertise in both those departments.

So that wraps up the operating budget.

Let's talk about the CIP or our Capital Improvement Program.

Our annual capital budget for the upcoming fiscal year is 503.3 million dollars.

City Council has already received a lending presentation on our capital budget, but I would like to reiterate that over the course of the next five years of our capital improvement program, the city will continue to invest in affordable housing, parks maintenance, street resurfacing, as well as general improvement projects to include bridge maintenance, sidewalk improvements, public safety maintenance, and several studies as well as strategic initiatives.

Affordable housing remains the top priority for our city as well as our residents.

The budget includes 11.6 million dollars in paygo funding for affordable housing, which will include funds for affordable rental programs, housing rehab, loans, and rental development.

We are also able to implement increases to our transportation and infrastructure to enhance multimobility, multimodal mobility, and of course the safety of our residents.

The largest transportation investment in our capital budget includes 12 million dollars for street resurfacing.

So I do want to mention that the $18 million that you see is a combined funding related to general public improvements for transportation as well as the transportation penny for street resurfacing.

So as you can see, we are committing funds towards sidewalk improvements, the Vision Zero Safety Program, as well as bridge inspections and repairs and three street resurfacing, and that pavement marketing crew that we are funding in this program is really going to make sure that street resurfacing happens in a more timely and reliable manner.

Finally, I wanted to remind City Council that our capital budget also includes targeted investments in our public safety, many of which you have already heard of earlier today or in prior budget work sessions.

We have been having a lot of conversations around the next housing and transportation bonds for the city.

Council will recall that there are a total of four votes required to place a bond on the ballot.

City Council has already voted twice to place housing and transportation bonds on the ballot in November.

And today is vote number three.

There is also a public hearing scheduled today for the bonds.

I want to say that we are very proud of the fact that these bonds will not include a property tax rate increase for the residents of our great city.

The reason why there is not a property tax increase related to these bonds is due to the implementation of the steady state model that the city conducted or initiated in fiscal year of 2026 when we diverted a portion of our property tax revenues and all of our Article 40 sales tax revenues directly to the debt service fund.

So by doing so, the city created the capacity to fund bonds without a property tax increase.

Simply put, we have been setting money aside so that when we do have to spend money for these projects, we will not need to go back to our residents to ask for a property tax increase.

They will, however, need to approve the bond on the ballot.

Through the implementation of the steady state model, the city has debt affordability totaling 203 million dollars.

This amount can occur every four years and is reassessed annually.

Our voters must approve this new debt, however, because once again, because of our fiscal responsibility, voters will not see a property tax increase as they vote to approve these bonds in November this year.

The proposed use of these funds is for a housing bond as well as a transportation bond, each for $105 million.

Our housing and community development department has already shared the purpose of the upcoming housing bonds.

As you can see, that these are the buckets of investment.

I know that city council has seen these before.

And our transportation department has shared the purpose of the upcoming transportation bond.

It's with City Council and as well.

The majority of this investment includes investments in bus rapid transit and deferred projects, followed by the big jump and other programs.

So as we wrap up, I would like to remind City Council that budget work sessions will begin on Monday, June 1st at 4 p.m.

and will continue to take place each Monday in June till the budget is adopted.

A public budget hearing is also scheduled for June the 2nd at 7 p.m.

Staff has received three budget notes from City Council, which will be presented at our first work session.

For more information on the 2026 and 2027 proposed budget, residents can visit budget.nc.gov.

Residents will find the proposed budget book, the budget and brief that we handed city council at the beginning of this session, as well as the manager's letter and other materials on our website.

So to end, I would like to say that this proposed budget responds to an incredibly challenging financial environment while continuing to invest in public safety, infrastructure, our employees, technology, housing, and core services.

It reflects difficult choices, but also a continued commitment to keep Raleigh strong, responsive, resilient, and prepared for growth.

And with that, I want to thank the city manager's office, finance, human resources, communications, and our operating departments, and of course, my lovely budget and management services team for all of their hard work on this proposed budget.

So thank you, and I am now happy to answer your questions.

Thank you for all that work and a great presentation.

Questions for Ms.

Sitar.

Okay, so that's right.

Well, I have a comment out of questions.

All right, we'll start with Counselor Jones.

Thank you.

Thank you to staff.

I really appreciate all the hard work we've been here since the uh council retreat having this conversation.

I really appreciate the transparency.

Um I know over the last few budget cycles, I've been like I want more information and more information, and you guys really stood stood up for it.

So I appreciate your work.

Thank you so much.

Um there is one thing uh that I wanted to highlight that we just went over.

Can you bring up the transportation bond breakdown?

I I received an email, uh, a group email last night that I just want to clarify because in the email it says that we plan to use $99 million for sidewalks and to fix streets in three neighborhoods, and I want us to look at this and if we can get clarity and compromise.

That's not what we're doing.

We're spending 51 and a half million for BRT, deferred projects.

We have 40 million adopted plan.

I mean, can we break down the the uh this is the breakdown of that, but can I have transportation staff come speak to that so we can make sure that misinformation does not continue?

If uh Director Callum or uh assistant director Richie are here, I'm sure that they'll be happy to respond to you, Councilmember.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for being here.

I just wanted to I want to make sure that that narrative that we we clarify for everyone that that is not what we're doing.

We're not spending $99 million on sidewalks in three neighborhoods.

Yes, ma'am.

I'm Michael Moore, I'm the assistant city manager, and I work with transportation.

Mr.

Callum couldn't be here today.

Uh that is not correct.

So uh the 51 million, 51 and a half million dollars will cover some of the deferred projects that we've got in several neighborhoods and our BRT general purpose lanes.

The adopted plans, the big jump for sidewalks and bike lanes will be across many, many neighborhoods in the city.

So I think virtually every neighborhood will see something, or every I know for a fact every district will see something, and you'll uh be able to see the direct results of that.

In addition to transportation management as a program that affects a number of neighborhoods, um that has been a very successful program, and hopefully you'll see a lot of benefit come from that and the safety and programs that we'll put in place.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Okay.

Councillor Patton, and then we'll do Counselor Silver.

Okay.

Um I can do bond my bond questions too um while we're at it.

Um, so just for sort of some of these will be a repeat for staff, but for folks who might be turned tuning in for the first time.

Uh, one lesson we really wanted to learn from the transportation bond was that it is best for us to have projects that are close to shovel ready so that the day they're approved, we can begin work so that we don't lose time and we don't see cost escalations that then eventually render projects unfeasible.

So um you or transportation staff, can you confirm the the projects that are proposed in this transportation bond are very nearly shovel ready so that they don't run the risk of going to be able to do that?

Good afternoon, Kennedy Richard of Transportation.

So that is correct.

The intent with the way that we've programmed this bond and that we're looking to use this as kind of that foundation moving forward is that we will have projects that we can commit to being able to deliver within the four-year time frame.

So it may be some real estate and construction, but that's really the focus of what we're using the bond for, and then using some of these other efforts, including, I know advanced planning was brought up today to position projects for that same stage when we look at future bonds.

We really want to make sure that we can create a cadence of funding and delivery uh with this steady state.

Thank you.

Um, and on the housing bond, um, has been asked before, but we're always worth saying again.

Um, you know, our last housing bond was 80 million over eight years, about thirteen point three million dollars per year.

This is a hundred million over four years, so twenty-five and a quarter million dollars-ish.

Um, we we know there's community interest in it being even larger, but we also face constraints sort of in the funnel.

So um Emma, can you answer like with double the money, mean double the housing at all?

Sure.

Uh Emily Sutton, housing and community development.

Thank you for the question.

Um, unfortunately, doubling the amount of the bond will not double the amount of units for a number of different reasons.

I will just refer back to my colleagues' response and say that that also applies for housing.

So we need to spend this amount of dollars within the time frame that we have.

The study state allows us and sets us up really well to be able to do that.

As the city manager also noted, this is an increase.

We adjusted for inflation in the amount that we projected that we would need.

And also just overall, due to things like land scarcity, increased costs and construction and labor, we're gonna see unit prices per unit subsidies increase.

So we will get less units with more dollars.

And then speaking to sort of the demand side of it, you know, we also have to take into consideration things like developer readiness, in addition to, you know, developers need to be able to spend these dollars in addition to uh availability of federal funds and federal resources, such as the low income housing tax credit, um, and then further, you know, taking into consideration um land scarcity issues can also draw things out.

So, yeah, I think um let me know if you have any.

Yep.

I have one one more on bonds and then I can pass the mic if that's okay.

Um this one might be for you, Sadia, or for Allison.

Um I think steady state is a term of art that we've had the luxury of of hearing about numerous times, but we've got a full house here, and it might sound a little bit jargony.

And so one metaphor I've been using, but hopefully someone with an actual um factual credentials in this can confirm that it's a reasonable metaphor, is that what steady state is is sort of like when we talk about like debt capacity, it's sort of like in my home budget.

If I have a car payment and I know it's gonna roll off at a certain time and it's a certain amount, then I can start to plan for the future and say, okay, well, in November when my car payment rolls off, I can begin to replace my roof because I know I have one less payment that I can replace with a different payment and keep my overall budget about the same.

Is that good, bad in-between?

Yeah, Alison Brads for Finance.

Um, that is spot on.

Uh that's a great way to describe that.

I think that's my okay.

Um, and then Mayor McConnells.

Uh first um Saudi and City Manager, I I shared the concern we got the presentation about the 13.1 million budget gap.

So I want to thank you uh for your entire team of bringing us to a point.

We will still have an ongoing conversation, but just want to thank you for the work that you've done.

Thank you.

It was an outstanding presentation.

It was a masterclass, I think, on how to give a budget presentation.

It was clear.

The images were understandable, uh, it flowed.

So again, I commend both the city manager's team and your team for an outstanding presentation.

I just have one question, and this may be for Emily.

This one on affordable housing.

It is 101 million, but I don't know if you can give a dollar amount, but this is leveraging other dollars.

Can you talk about it's not just 101 million for affordable housing?

And I'm not sure you can put a number on it, but how is this leveraged?

Because it is now helping other projects and other partners bringing money to the table.

So can you talk to that?

Yeah, that's a great point, council member.

So every project that we invest in has what we sort of refer to as a lasagna layering of financial different uh investments and tools to include private investment as well as federal dollars and county dollars.

So most all of what we do leverages private, public, from city, state, um, to local, all into one pot.

Sometimes there's philanthropic funds in there, sometimes you know, yeah.

So it the point being exactly what you're saying, and I I don't have an exact number, and we can of course get that and sort of estimate around that, but it really is an incredible leveraging tool where our amount of dollars are one of those many layers of the of the financial stack.

Okay, uh, yeah, and just continuing on this bond conversation.

I know we're gonna have a public hearing, but since we're here and I know there's a lot of folks in the audience that are interested in this topic, um, you know, going back to the transportation piece, I wanted to mention you know why the need for the bus rapid transit lanes.

This is particularly for the southern route so this is down South Saunders, Wilmington connecting downtown to Garner basically and this is an area of my district that has the most new affordable housing projects that I've seen so it's really going to be accessible to people of all backgrounds all income levels and you know something that we are challenged by oftentimes in deciding to fund affordable housing or rezonings for affordable housing is whether folks have access to transportation can they get to the bus?

Is there a sidewalk is it safe to get to where you need to go and so I think pairing transportation with affordable housing is critical and I'm excited that we may be moving forward in that way.

I guess I was gonna I um again kudos I agree with the presentation and and um the work um from the city manager and and everyone involved we've I just want to assure the public we understand that affordability is a huge issue this year and we tried to balance and I think you tried to balance right um all the increased costs we're seeing the growing city how do we be responsible and not pass all of that on to the citizens but you know balancing that and I think 1.7 cents is a reasonable balance uh yesterday you shared a slide just showing where does that put us vis-a-vis other cities some of our neighboring communities yes do we have that information because I just think that's really relevant to show where Raleigh falls it was in the presentation yeah if we could go back to that absolutely lots of clicks happening but I I'll get there as soon as I can and I guess while we're clicking what what are you seeing from some of these other towns cities in terms of the increases they're proposing for this year.

Just so that we all so I I can say that when I am in in the zone I am pretty myopically focused on Raleigh but I will say and and the city manager can perhaps help me here that we know that the city of Durham proposed their budget today yesterday last evening at seven and they used they did not increase their property taxes but they did use reserves our name we have Wake County right across Nash Square from us they have a two cent property tax increase and they were able to they use reserves as well it might have been a little higher who knows I'm not in their budget office but I think that if anything um we understand and I understand affordability is a huge concern for our neighbors but as the city continues to grow um we have to make sure that we stay competitive and a big part of being competitive and is investing in all those operations which really make us stand out which make our folks feel safe.

And that's why the heavy focus on this budget and this property tax increase is on our public safety departments and operations.

Yep thank you for for coming back to that uh slide and then the second question is I the other biggest increase is is really in the um the solid waste right we are adding weekly yard waste absolutely and if we could talk about when that starts and then also to be transparent we are ending leaf collection and can we just talk about the balance of that and and what we're doing with those resources and and just so would you like me to take that Marshall sure and I'll please so we have a crew a pavement marking crew in our transportation department that dropped everything during leaf collection and went and collected leaves and they did that 26 times what like however many times throughout the year right we heard what did that do that meant that they weren't doing pavement marking they were collecting leaves.

So we decided that in order to respond to what we have been hearing from the community, we enhance that program.

So now instead of every other week, folks can see our crews come and pick up their leaves and pick up their yard waste on a weekly basis.

That's 26 more touch points that you'll be able to see our lovely crews coming up and picking up stuff from your curb.

Now, the folks that were doing that stuff in transportation, they will actually be able to go back and continue to do pavement marking and help deliver those projects in a more reliable, more efficient and timely manner.

So I think this is like a win-win for both the departments, and of course a huge win for the city.

Marshall, did I say that right?

Yes, and the only thing I would add is one of the things we used to get complaints about all the time was well, my zone isn't real heavy when it's time for you to pick up my zone.

And as soon as we get to your zone, the leaves fall the next day and it takes a long time before we circle back because we just didn't have the staff to be able to provide that service.

So what you will get now is um Saadia mentioned you get this weekly service up to 15 bags in addition to your rollout cart to be able to address your yard waste as well as leaves, limbs, and all the things.

So ultimately, change is really hard.

So it will be, you know, some learning curve in the initial beginning of the program in September, but I feel certain that our residents will be satisfied with the service as we get through our first full year cycle of it.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

All right, other questions, yes.

Um, do you know off the top of your head?

You mentioned the last time we expanded the firefighter force was in 2015.

Do you know the last time we expanded to have new police officers?

I do not know that off the top of my head, but I'd be happy to get back to you.

I think it was roughly 2016-2017, maybe 17 when we did the last staffing study for um RPD.

Okay.

Great.

The chief is not in an agreement, so I guess that's correct.

I didn't see him back there.

That should be right.

Yeah.

There we go.

2017-ish, I think it was.

We did the study and got the results back right before we did the last comp study, so in that time frame.

Okay, helpful.

Um, and then obviously we will all read the budget in full from here on out.

But one initial reaction I I just wanted to offer is a lot of appreciation for how you handled the OPEB um quandary that we were facing.

I remember back at the retreat when the there was this bad-shaped graph that was like it's just gonna get more expensive.

Um, and yet, like to reward a career in public service is really important to me, and I wanted that opportunity to be open to our our new career professionals.

Um, and so I think you found a really elegant way to to land that plane, and so I just wanted to express a lot of gratitude about that.

Um, and if I think you mentioned that tree information will be coming in a future presentation, but if not, if I could just put a flag in that to come in one of the future budget.

Yes, so so the first part of uh the kudos doesn't go to us, it goes to that lady over there, Alison Bradshaw, our CFO of the city, who actually her and her team are the ones who worked incredibly hard to make sure that we changed our OPEB um you know program, the one that suits you know our financial uh fiscally, what makes sense to us, as well as listening to all of you, and then yes, we will be bringing back three budget notes, and as you mentioned, the tree note will be there as well.

Excellent.

Yes, yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, I just wanted to note a couple things.

You know, there's always a question out there about does growth pay for itself, and so I think we are at that juncture with Raleigh where we do have to continue to evaluate as the city grows, you know, what does that look like for residents to pay for our services?

We are gonna continue to have this issue, especially if state and federal partnerships don't improve.

Um I don't want to see us go into our reserves, but I would be curious, Sadia.

Can you tell us what is that percentage that we do hold back?

17%.

Thank you.

So it's basically like our rainy day fund if things really go.

Yes.

And we see other communities in our area using that, using theirs.

Yes.

Um, so you know, right now we're we're not going that route.

I hope we don't have to go that route, and that our economy improves, the inflationary pressures are real.

The cost of gas is high, the cost of buying a fire truck is is a lot.

Real high.

Yeah, very high.

So that is some of what we're dealing with, but I know it's still, you know, it's gonna be a burden on our residents to have to pay for these things.

Um I did want to mention or just uh ask the chief um for RPD, Chief Boyce, about police vacancies.

I know our vacancies have gone down in the last few years.

Can you just talk to us about these new positions, how you'll be able to use them, and your confidence and our ability to recruit and retain those positions?

Yes, good afternoon, Rico Boyce, RPD chief.

Oh, great question.

Uh the positions that are proposed will increasingly will help the department cover the growth that we're seeing here in the city.

Uh we've been putting the infrastructure in place to add positions.

That is something that we've been in discussions with the city manager for quite a while now, uh, to 23 positions, mainly in our field operations, the 911 calls for service, so we can decrease that wait time for when our residents are calling and waiting for an officer to respond.

So those positions will be the priority to make sure that we can have folks all answering those 911 calls.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Okay.

That concludes the questions.

Okay.

I did forget one thing.

Can my budget team please stand up?

I just want to share again.

I want to thank City Manager Marshall.

It was an incredibly tough budget.

This was a budget filled with a ton of trade-offs, and like I said, special kudos to all the departments that work hard with us because there was no way that we could have done this without their assistance.

And as to affordability, we started with a tax rate increase of a lot higher than two cents, and to bring it back down to the lowest that we're seeing around the uh triangle is a big deal.

So kudos to Raleigh, and thank you all so much, and I'll see you next year.

Thank you.

Yes.

Next year.

So that concludes my report to today, and um thank again all of the folks who work so really hard.

But I will say, sitting at this table for quite some time now.

This is probably the best year of council interaction, and I will say it was kind of prompted by Councilmember Jones.

She pushed us last year to kind of expand the process, supportive of staff, supportive of the effort, supportive of the document, but wanting to understand more so that you all would be able to then articulate what we know, and it comes natural for us, understanding that that's not what you all do every day.

So again, this was a really good process, and I think we're gonna continue to elevate it and take it up to a next step for next year.

Okay, we now are moving on to the report and recommendation of the Raleigh Arts Commission, Sarah Powers and Tony Katz.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members, city manager, and all the friends here today.

I'm Sarah Powers with Raleigh Arts, Parks Recreation and Cultural Resources, and my job is to introduce you to our chair, Tony Gadston, who is here.

Aurelia Bellfield, our vice chair is also in the audience, and Kelly McChesney, public art director, in case we need to phone a friend.

One sec.

Yeah.

Sorry.

I can't believe they I thought they were gonna stay for our show.

So I'm we have great images and a very good speaker.

Sorry, you got a Sarah.

We're good.

I'll take it.

It seems like every most people are staying.

And they're probably going to watch it on TV.

You ready?

Okay.

Tony Gadson, everyone.

Good afternoon, all of the remaining beautiful faces.

I am Tony Gadsden, honored to be chair of the Raleigh Arts Commission.

In collaboration with the public art and design board, the Arts Commission serves as an advisory body dedicated to supporting, celebrating, and expanding the arts.

On behalf of the commission, thank you, Mayor Cowell, Councilmember Harrison as our liaison, and council members for all your support and investment in arts and culture.

Thanks to City Council's support, Raleigh Arts, the Arts Commission, and the PADB, Public Art and Design, provide creative opportunities for artists, students, and residents across the city.

Some highlights include adding 18 artworks to the municipal art collection, bringing the collection total to 721 works of public fine art.

We issued 15 calls for artists and opened 14 exhibitions at the Block Gallery in Saratona, Saratoma, and Pullin Arts Center galleries.

1,170 kill firings, producing more than 102,000 ceramic objects using nearly 80 pounds of clay, overseeing nearly 3 million in annual arts grant awards and multi-year lease agreements to 39 arts and cultural organizations.

These investments support a creative sector that generates an estimated 516 million in annual economic activity in Raleigh, according to the most recent arts and economic prosperity study.

The Arts Commission works to expand opportunities for residents to experience and create in their communities.

This year, the commission launched a new Raleigh Poet Laureate program.

The selection panel is working on choosing the inaugural Poet Now.

Reviewed five community-initiated public art projects, opened nominations for the 2026 Raleigh Medal of Arts.

Together with PADB, the Commission also supports seven artist residencies and creative fellowships, including two new programs, the Performing Arts Creative Education Fellowship.

Renee Wimberley is focused on expanding access to performing arts education in city facilities and community spaces.

The RODT sign shop artist and residents, Katie Stewart is creating downtown wayfinding projects to create more welcoming and family-friendly public spaces.

Katie installed flowers made out of street signs this week in market and exchange plazas.

The commission also continues to support Raleigh's nonprofit arts organizations through grants, technical assistance, and partnerships.

Arts and cultural organizations are essential to Raleigh's cultural identity, economic vitality, and community connections.

At the same time, many are navigating challenges such as rising facility costs, staff burnout, and improving universal access to the arts.

We also continue to showcase local artists through community-based public art initiatives in partnership with city departments, including the 70 shared micromobility coral murals currently being painted across downtown by eight local artists, a new partnership with Raleigh Arts and Transportation.

The Arts Commission work plan.

In leadership, we will continue advocating for the arts by supporting strategic investments, implementing Raleigh Arts and public arts plans, and ensuring arts and creative perspectives are represented in city initiatives and planning efforts.

This includes supporting America 250 events and celebrations through the year.

Belonging, we are committed to expanding access to the art through partnerships, training, and community efforts that help ensure Raleigh's Arts programs are welcoming and accessible to all residents.

Art ecosystem sustainability, we will support the long-term sustainability of Raleigh Arts and Cultural Sector by strengthening nonprofit arts organizations, supporting arts and creative businesses, and helping build a resilient creative economy.

Expand and enhance.

We will increase access to arts experiences by leveraging community arts programs, parks, community centers, and nature preserves, while continuing to expand opportunities for public art and creative placemaking throughout Raleigh's public spaces, including new public art along Fayetteville Street.

Connect, we will continue cultivating strong community connections through the arts by building partnerships, encouraging collaboration, and creating opportunities for residents to engage with one another through creative experiences.

PADB Parts Public Art and Design Board continues to oversee a growing portfolio of public art projects throughout Raleigh.

Currently, the board is managing 29 active public art projects in various stages of design, fabrication, or installation.

This spring, five projects have been completed, including Fire Station 3, pictured on this slide.

We are anticipating another three installations in the next few weeks, adding a total of 8% for art projects completed in 2006.

These projects range from major percent for art capital projects to neighborhood-based murals, art residencies, and temporary installations that help activate public spaces across the city.

We work.

This year, the board will continue advancing a full portfolio of public art projects and community-based initiatives.

Key priorities include implementing the art public art strategic plan, expanding community engagement opportunities, supporting local artists, managing our portfolio of public art projects, special projects, safety murals, steers the seek Raleigh projects.

The board looks forward to continuing its partnership with the Arts Commission, City Staff, and City Council to ensure public art remains accessible, engaging, and reflective of Raleigh communities.

We are happy to answer any questions.

Staff are also available to provide additional information as needed.

Following the discussion, we respectfully request approval of the annual work plans included in your packet.

Thank you for chairing this hard work and board.

And I love that all of your pictures are there.

I have a handful of questions.

Yeah.

Okay.

This might be a little to the side of the work plan directly.

So if you need to phone a friend, feel free.

But a few that we get in community that I hope you can elaborate on to sharpen all of our thinking.

One thing we hear from community sometimes is like, why invest in public art?

You should invest in public safety instead, or like versions of that.

And so can you speak to how public art works in tandem with public safety or contributes to public safety?

Or to take that one.

It's a great question.

I think we can talk about it in a couple of different ways.

First is sometimes we're really working with the partner like transportation, someone who's doing active work to keep our residents safe, pedestrian safety, for example.

We can put artwork in to enhance those, raise awareness of, get a little more attention about those projects, just sort of have people thinking about it, but also maybe noticing more and sort of being more mindful of their surroundings.

The other thing we work on is related to the feeling of safety in the community, one of the strategic plan, you know, like the engagement around that talked about, you know, the more engaged they are the community, the more connected they are with their neighbors, you know, the more they enjoy being in their space, the safer they feel.

So we look at how can we partner with our community?

How can we use placemaking?

How can we use, you know, muralists at Dick's Park when we boarded up all the buildings?

How can we bring in artists to sort of improve the space?

But also when we're doing community engagement for the public art projects, especially percent for art.

There's a few years of engagement and talking with the neighbors.

So if we can embed their you know, stories, their personalities, there's create a connection and helping that those spaces come alive.

We we think that can also kind of build that kind of uh feeling of safety.

Art can't maybe solve all the safety problems, but we're it's and especially with our boards and commissions very willing partner in trying to kind of get to get to the point of it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And then another question I had is that we've had some um community attention on the new poet laureate.

And so can you speak to I it's my understanding that's always been in the work plan, and this is just a new announcement of it, and this is actually baked into y'all's budget and not a new financial allocation, which I think is of interest to the community.

So can you speak to that a little bit more?

Sure.

Yeah, we have been working on it for a few years.

The city has been in partnership with our neighboring arts commissions and arts councils for uh a Piedmont laureate program, which included poetry, but we took a pause in 2025 and with support of the poets.

A lot of work on the arts commission side just to figure out how do we have a poetry was a really popular part of the that you know, sort of rotating literature um program.

So bringing in a real poet laureate for the city and working on engagement with you know all the different communities, different ages, and figuring out the priorities for that.

But also, how do you um you know talking to that poetry community?

What do they see the real opportunity?

So Tony is working on that now.

They are they got great applications we should hear.

But it is funded through um the per capita for the arts budget, does include some funding for things like artist residency and community projects like that.

So no new funds.

We're very we are a few meetings away from bringing this to fruition, so almost there.

Great.

Any other?

Oh, yes, Mayor.

Yeah, just a comment and then I'd like to make a motion.

Uh Tony, thank you so much for your leadership.

I'm hoping we can connect uh soon, just to chat, and also if there's any needs you all have on the commission in terms of your volunteers that do this great work.

Um, we'd love to make sure we can appoint folks that you know serve the needs that you have.

And with that, I will move to authorize the annual work plan for the arts commission and public art and design board.

Second.

Any other discussion?

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye, all opposed, nay.

Thank you both.

Okay, next we've got uh matters scheduled for public hearing, the November 2026 bond referendum on uh affordable housing and transportation.

Alison Bradsher.

All right.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

I hope you are well today.

Alison Bradcher with the finance department.

Obviously, there's been a lot of discussion on the bond, so I'm gonna fly through these really quickly.

Um, today uh we're here for the public hearing and your final vote prior to November, both for the affordable housing and transportation bonds.

I'll briefly go through the timeline, the bond categories, and the recommended actions and next steps.

Uh so here we are where the star is right in the center there.

This is the third council vote and your last one prior to November 3rd.

Uh, there will be one vote to uh declare the results in December.

Uh, today, again, we're holding the public hearing.

You're adopting the purpose, the amount, and you're calling for the referendum on November 3rd.

Uh, you've seen this chart before, and the next one.

This is the geo transportation bond for 101.5.

I think you all have talked quite a bit about those categories.

Here also is the bond categories for the affordable housing bond, also at 101.5, those four different bond categories that again you've seen and discussed before.

Uh, also just for everyone.

Again, it was talked about at during the budget session, but these are coming with no property tax increase due to the way we've allocated our financial resources.

So I feel that that's an important thing to lift up again.

So the recommendations and next steps uh following the public hearing, staff recommend that you adopt the bond orders and call for the referendum.

In that you will also authorize staff to move forward with all the related uh items associated with the two geo bonds, affordable housing 101.5 and the transportation also at 101.5.

The next steps would then be for uh the local government commission to vote uh at its meeting on June 9th, and then uh the public on November 3rd uh on election day, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have prior to opening uh the public hearing.

Any other questions?

Yes, go ahead.

Thank you so much.

I know we've had a lot of conversation about this, um so it's not specific to that, but uh, if this passes and it goes on to the ballot, I know that we partner with organizations to help um uh get the message out to the community, especially since there's gonna be multiple bonds on the ballot, some of which will necessitate a tax increase.

So, how do, if there is an organization that would like to partner and help get the message out, how do they contact you?

Is there a contact name that they should have?

So bond advocacy work typically happens through a contract with the um chamber of commerce.

The polling started for our bonds yesterday, so we hope to get the results back um May 26th, and then we'll get a summary of those results on June 5th.

So we'll know a little bit more about kind of where we stand at that point.

If someone wants to provide some additional assistance in that way, I would say kind of funnel that information to Alice and Bradcher, and we will get it to the contact, the contractor at the Chamber of Commerce, because legally we cannot advocate for the bonds, but we can educate, so what we'll do is then transfer that information through a clean process so that we'll be above board.

Okay.

So I will any anybody who'd like to help us explain the bond, I can send them to you.

Absolutely, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay, I will open the public hearing and we have two folks signed up to speak on the housing bond, Octavia Rainey and followed by Mamakai Sanders.

We have eight minutes on the clock for the two of you.

I take four and I give up four.

Okay.

Good evening again.

I do have some concerns about the bond, and I'm gonna be honest about my concern.

First of all, I want to talk about in-field development.

With in-field development, it states that if you live in a block like I live, and if you have four or five houses on that block, and all of them going to heaven, and your house is right down here, it changed the character of your neighborhood.

That need to change in in field development, because you know what?

It don't change the character of our taxes, and that's wrong.

I think that whole in-field development need to be looked at because when Kate Crowder headed up that committee, I went to every meeting, and I always told them the pitch of the roof, the pitch of the roof.

If my roof is down here and you're building new houses that go to heaven, of course, it's gonna change the character of the neighborhood.

Why do you have that policy on the book?

It's ridiculous to me, because my taxes don't change at all.

My taxes go up.

The second thing I want to talk about, rental rehab.

To my understanding, in College Park, I don't see them doing rental rehab at all.

So you're bringing on this hundred million dollar bond, but you don't do rental rehab.

Could you please explain to me, starting with college punk, rental rehab?

What has been rehabbed in College Park?

Rental rehab, besides the units on the corner of cover and pinder, which we beg Larry Javis not to tear down.

We begged him not to tear down the house in the 300 block of coffee, which was the rental, but he took it down.

So I need to understand the rental rehab program, period.

And is it functioning?

I don't understand, but you put that $100 million up there, and I don't understand it.

I also don't understand it, and I'm gonna go beyond your scope of business right now, with the voucher program.

With the voucher program, it is hard, very difficult to find rental housing.

Will your bond help do that?

It's tough.

It's tough out here because I've worked with families who have the voucher, and you only have 60 days, but you have to meet the timeline to get in there to apply for the 30 days.

They give you 90.

Under the housing authority rules, they can extend it beyond 90, but they don't.

That's what you need to be asking them, but they do not.

So I got some concerns with the transportation bond.

I'm gonna go father.

Black people gonna be pushed off their bus.

Now, I wanna tell you why.

I ride the bus, and I'm very familiar with the buses where they go, where they don't go.

I am concerned with coming down Newbert Avenue on the corner of Swain and Newban Avenue, that whole big lot is going to be redeveloped.

And the developers told me they're not doing no affordable housing.

So I got concerned about your hundred million.

I really, really do, and I'm in between on that because I need to have a better understanding, Janet, and you need to talk to me about that, and I need to see how that bond will serve way out Leesville Road, where there is no affordable housing at all.

I am more familiar with past the belt line, more familiar because I work with the 10 churches out there, and there's no affordable housing around them, period question mark.

So I think that I want to have more conversation, and I want to understand it, and I'm also holding community meetings as well.

It's still another amazing day, y'all.

Long day.

So thank you guys for your willingness to continue to engage.

And thank you, Miss Octavia.

I appreciate your message and your passion.

Um, I just want to talk numbers.

Um, first of all, we currently have enough housing to eliminate homelessness.

According to the housing and community development department, we've overproduced housing for those making 75K and over.

And there's a slide if you need to see it.

Just let me know.

Um, we literally could house every unhoused individual and family today if money wasn't an issue.

Another number, which I've mentioned before, you can house 100 families for 2.4 million dollars for 12 months, paying $2,000 a month for rent, which is pretty high for Raleigh, depending on how large of a home you need.

And here's the last set of numbers.

When you think about earning three times the rent for an apartment that costs $1,500, the tenants have to be earning $400,000, $4,500 per month.

$4,500 per month divided by two adults is $2250.

$2250 divided by four weeks of work is $562.50, $562.50.

I mean, divide that by a 40-hour work week, it's a little more than $14 per hour, which means that two individuals making less than $15 an hour could rent a $1,500 home, $1,500 per month home.

That could be two moms, it could be a single individual, it could be a single individual who loves children and lives with a single mom.

But when people aren't ever taught that they are worthy of better than affordable, they're not even looking at numbers like that.

And so to sit there and put all this money into an affordable housing bond that is not gonna go to one individual entity for them to be able to take that money and develop.

You guys provide gap financing, you don't provide full financing on anything.

That's what thankful I'm thankful for Emma making that comment because people don't realize it's a pool of funds, right?

That goes into developing, it's not one single thing.

Gotta check the tom.

Y'all aren't providing anything.

You provide pieces of something, and I think people don't realize that.

The other thing I think is important is to say that we're not raising taxes.

The fact is that every money, every dollar y'all spend comes from people, it comes from the citizens.

Even the federal money you get comes from citizens, you know.

And so to say, just because taxes aren't being raised now, uh listening to this and hearing the things that are going up, that's for homeowners, right?

It's not for the renter.

The renters the renters' rent could go up a hundred dollars a month to care for their owners' tax liability, right?

Goods and services are gonna go up to provide for those commercial property owners, you know, like the residents are the ones who are gonna get hit the most all the time, everyday people, working people, you and I, we're the ones that hit the brunt of that.

And for people who are already struggling, it just makes more sense to provide opportunities for upward mobility, opportunities, opportunities for healing, because that is really what's central to helping people to navigate life outside of poverty.

But we and if we could instead focus on building the infrastructure, which I know y'all don't have the capacity to do, that's why I'm working on it.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

And that concludes the housing bond.

Um, should we vote on these separately?

Or do you want me to wait until please?

Okay.

So do we have uh a motion on that?

Uh language.

Uh vote for the passage of a resolution calling for a bond referendum.

So moved.

She said second.

Okay.

Um, and this is for the housing bond only.

All in favor of the motion.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, okay.

So that is unanimous.

And then um I do have the transportation bond.

Um public.

Did you have a separate Alison?

You've already gone over this, right?

So you don't have anything else to say on the okay.

And then uh I do have Miss Rainey signed up for this one as well.

Do you want to spend some more time?

I have eight minutes.

That's right.

Your cup, your cup overflow up here.

Oh my God.

I am excited to be here for eight minutes.

Oh my god.

Oh my God.

Oh, okay.

Let me give us it together.

Well, first thing I want to say thank you very much for allowing me to have my little eight minutes.

I would like, I would like to say this.

I ride the bus.

I'm serious about their part.

I do ride the bus.

And there's no part, I have not rode the bus.

I even ride number 70x all the way out to Bride's Creek.

So I'm very familiar with your bus service.

I ride the Ales in Southeast Raleigh, and then I ride the ale behind out in North Raleigh, all out there by weight tech.

So I'm very familiar with the AL's as well.

But what I am concerned about is the BRT.

I'm being very honest.

I'm very concerned about the BRT.

I'm very concerned about New Bern Avenue.

I supported the BRT coming down Newman Avenue.

I did.

Because I was the vice chair of the new the uh Newburn Avenue Corridor Alliance, and we work with the city on the BRT.

Now I was supportive of that.

Mitch was here.

I was supportive of that.

But what concerns me about that is when you started adding all the housing to that, and then you came back and you added 60% of the AMI to that, and then you said if you're gonna do affordable, then you can go up to flights, right?

Let's be clear about this.

That 60% is not going to afford the riderships to the poor blacks.

Your ridership is poor blacks.

Let's be honest about your federal reports, and which I'm very familiar with the federal reports as well.

Blacks are your number one ridership.

They live below the poverty level.

They are your ridership.

Anything that you do to increase it, the AMI, it takes them off the bus.

I'm very concerned about that because they will not be riding number 15 as you call it now, going down to Wake May.

And I'm being very honest.

When you look at what's coming on that corridor, you gotta be for real.

You gotta be for real.

On that corridor on the corner of Swain Street and Newman Avenue, you know how big that lot is because that school is moving over to Fourth Ward anyway.

And I don't know how long they're gonna be there, maybe two or three years, but they're moving to fourth ward.

When they move, they start the planning.

Do you know what that really means?

Now the owners at one point in time, and I don't know whether they still the new owners or not.

They did tell me they're not doing no affordable on that site.

That site right there.

Can you imagine that's gonna be a city inside of a city?

Good God, it's gonna be tremendous.

Then when you come up the street to Longview, there's a bottom and there's a top.

I am predicting that the top is going to go anyway.

You so you can imagine what's going there.

Who is going to be riding business 15 if in the middle you have 60% of the AMI?

That really, really concerns me.

And I don't want to hear no offense, nobody telling me about story about you will have a transfer portal.

I don't know what that means, but I do know what the it means blacks won't be riding number 15.

So you're gonna reroute them on another bus.

Janet, I got some concerns because I too look into the future.

I too look into the future.

And I looked at that corridor and I asked myself, what is going to be here in the future?

Are blacks going to be on that bus?

They are your ridership.

David Eatman used to talk all the time about diversity of the ridership.

And I used to ask him, what are you talking about?

I need to understand the word diversity, because I don't know what that.

Well, I told him I didn't know what it is.

But I knew what diversity meant.

So if you're looking at to diversify the ridership on number 15 coming down Newman Avenue, which right now is 98% black.

I ride number 15 too.

It's 98% black.

You know that standing room only on that bus and it comes every 15 minutes and every 15 minutes, you still got to stand.

And you know who's on that bus?

Black people.

Poor black people, working black people.

So I don't understand it, and I need some help and understanding what does that mean headed into the future?

What do the corner of Swain Street and Newman Avenue means going into the future?

Because that's gonna be a city inside the city, just like that project on Oberlin Road.

I go back past there every day, and I got off the bus and I just walked around and I said, Oh my God, it ain't no poor people living out here.

So I want to know where your bond dollars going and where will your new bond dollars go?

It's not going over there on Obland Road in that great big project with all kinds of housing.

So I am just concerned, and I want to make sure they're heading for the future.

Black people got some kind of transportation.

Coming out of the civil rights movement, it was very difficult for blacks.

It was very difficult for us.

So I want to make sure that as we move forward, we are really looking at who is your number one ridership.

Are we making it convenient for your number one ridership?

Because you are not making it convenient.

Baby mothers get on there with their strolls, and you know the strollers are getting fancier, they're getting bigger, and they try to load that stroller on the bus.

And the bus telling them, well, you can't bring the big strollers on the bus.

So when are you going to accommodate the future for mothers with babies, and they're getting on there with the strollers?

They're getting on there with their little carts to go shopping.

I don't see any kind of concession even being talked about, even being made for poor blacks.

So to this council, I'm just leaving you with my concerns.

And my concerns are serious.

I get tired of seeing babies, mothers with the big strollers.

Jane, you just had a baby.

Strollers getting big and bigger, big and bigger, big and bigger.

They can't fit on the bus.

They cannot.

So when are we going to make those kind of accommodations to accommodate before we move forward?

Before we really talk about it, because I have a feeling the poor blacks, and I keep reminding the city, that is your ridership.

That's your ridership that you should be paying attention to, making sure that everything is comfortable for them as possible.

Right, thank you.

We will close that public hearing.

Uh for this is for the transportation bond.

Do we have a motion?

So all in favor of that motion, aye.

All opposed, nay.

All right.

We are now.

Thank you, Ms.

Broucher.

Uh moving on to uh planning.

Uh Raleigh Knightdale Annexation Agreement, Matthew Clem.

Uh, yes, ma'am.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, Matthew Clem, Planning and Development.

Here to present the Raleigh Knightdale Annexation Agreement.

Uh Knightdale Development Services Director Jason Brown is here as well.

Uh, he has also signed up to speak and is here to answer any questions you may have.

Um, so what is the purpose of an annexation agreement?

Well, the general statutes say uh they are to enhance orderly planning and to designate one or more areas uh which are not subject to annexation by one or more municipality.

Um what does that mean?

So if we look at uh this map, we can see the six municipalities that we have annexation agreements with, uh starting with Durham and moving anti-clockwise around the map.

We have Kerry, Garner, Nightdale, Rollsville, and Wake Forest.

Um, essentially, what these agreements say is if you own property within the gray area on this map, uh, which is Raleigh's area, and you want to annex your property to develop that your only option to petition for annexation is to the city of Raleigh.

Uh, that goes the same for Kerry.

If you own property uh in Carrie's Blue area on the map, and you want to develop your property for annexation, uh, you can only apply to annexation for the town of Kerry.

Um, our current annexation agreement with the town of Nightdale was adopted in 1996 and it was updated in 2006.

Uh the general statutes also state that these agreements can only last for 20 years.

Uh so uh the existing agreement with Nightdale will expire in October of this year.

Uh the agreement describes the boundary.

It shows the colors on the map that I just shared.

I have another one I'll show you in just a second.

Um, it describes the provision of utility service between the two municipalities.

Uh that arrangement is also further defined in the terms set in our merger agreements with our merger communities, nightdate to our agreement is one, uh, and it provides some for some mutual exchange of information, uh, most specifically notification uh for an another 20 years.

It is set to expire in 2046.

And you know, there are legal descriptions updated to accommodate subdivisions recombinations.

So where that line existed on a piece of uh or along public right of way or on a property line adjacent to a public right-of-way as a subdivision or recombination occurs on that line, uh additional land is dedicated to the public right-of-way, so there are some minor adjustments, but functionally, there's no change to the boundary.

Um again, we will continue to notify our neighbors if there's an annexation petition within a thousand feet of our shared boundary, um, and we'll continue to describe our uh utility service arrangement.

So this map really says it all.

Uh on the map in gray on the right, you'll see uh the town of Nightdale's area, the darker gray color is their corporate limits, the lighter gray color is their extraterritorial jurisdiction, their planning jurisdiction.

On the left side of the map, you can see the city of Raleigh in blue.

The darker blue is our corporate limits, and the lighter blue is our ETJ or planning jurisdiction.

Um the green line shows the existing boundary, and the dashed white line within that green line shows the proposed boundary.

So you can see that those two lines are one and the same.

Um set to discuss.

Oh, looking for two lines.

Oh, sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh, the point is that there's one line, and it's not changing.

Um, so Nightdale's town council will take this item up uh next month with a public hearing uh likely on June 17th.

Um, and recommended action tonight is to conduct a public hearing.

Uh, and if approved, the agreement will become effective when the town of Nightdale uh signs the agreement as well.

I'm happy to answer questions again.

Jason Brown with uh Nightdale uh development services.

Uh he's the director, he's here to answer any questions as well.

Any other questions now that you got the line straight?

Okay, yeah, Councilor Jones.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Can you go back to the first where you had all of the municipalities right there?

Um so these are the ones that we have annexation agreements with.

What about Apex and uh all the other ones that touch us?

How do we do we wait for them?

What does that look like?

Because it feels like an incomplete puzzle.

Right.

There are intervening properties that are controlled by Wake County.

So we wouldn't have a shared boundary there.

What does that mean?

I'm sorry, I don't know.

So um all of Wake County uh in the um annexation agreements.

This is a piece of that.

We have um agreements with our neighbors that say where our ultimate growth boundaries are, and that's what is kind of shown on this map.

Um our ultimate growth boundary and apexes, for example, never touch because there's intervening land that is never intended to be turned over from the county to a neighboring municipality.

And that's why all of those that we've done as much as we can, and that's that's our boundary.

That's right.

And so take for example this area down here.

You can see those lines don't touch, um, but the area that I circled is roughly um still located within our uh like future annexation boundary.

So um when and if the city expands ETJ in that area, or we expand um only property owners in that area can apply for annexation to the city of Raleigh and not Garner or Nightdale.

Got it.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions?

All right, I will open the public hearing and we have Jason Brown.

Uh good evening, Mayor, Council.

Uh I'm Jason Brown.

I have the pleasure to serve as development services director for the town of Nightdale.

Um, I just want to uh reiterate how cooperative and uh dedicated your staff was to this process.

Both Matthew Clint and Matthew Burns did a great job through this, and I'll say, well, we kept kind of the status quo here.

We don't have to in the future as we negotiate on each uh planning document as we're proposing development on this line.

Let's remember there shouldn't be a line.

People should be able to walk from Nightdale to Raleigh, from Raleigh to Nightdale, and one day we certainly encourage uh maybe BRT from downtown Raleigh to downtown Nightdale.

So I just want to say I'm here to answer any questions, but as we look through our future, we continue to coordinate and collaborate on this boundary.

Thank you for being here and your work uh with staff.

Any other?

Okay, I will conclude the public hearing.

And do we have a motion?

Move for approval.

Second.

Okay.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

That is unanimous.

Thank you.

Uh next we have public nuisance abatement on property liens.

Bryce Abernathy.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Bryce Abernathie with housing and uh community development code enforcement.

Um slightly unorthodox today.

I wouldn't like to pull both of these back and resend notices to the property owners.

We know we notified a clerical issue yesterday afternoon, and they need to be re-notified of the council date.

So I'd like to pull those back, both then.

Okay.

Alright, I think we will see you another time.

Mayor, can I yep?

Just while you're here, if I can.

One topic that's come up in community, and I think in light of the drought, and then sort of separately an emergence of like enthusiasm around like NOMO or Lomo May.

Can you just speak to how folks who engage in like wildflower meadows or native pollinator gardens?

How does that map to and balance with code enforcement efforts?

So current currently, the health sanitation and public nuisance code does not have any regulation or guidelines or anything to the touch on pollinator gardens.

With that being said, when we do run across them, we try we we have to find a balance right there, right?

Um so we ask that uh property owners that have the pollinator gardens keep it from encroaching into the street and sidewalk, and if possible, out of neighbor from encroaching into neighboring properties.

Um we've had several conversations with our parks department on how best to get that messaging out.

And I think there's actually a website on the or a web page on the city's website that has some tips and some kind of just basic kind of things as far as uh pollinator gardens go.

But typically that we just have to work, we just kind of have to work our way through those.

Um yeah, yeah.

Did I answer your question?

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Uh next we have petition for annexation ax 2925, uh 7929 Ligganmill Road, Hannah Recau.

Good afternoon, Hannah Reckau, planning and development.

I have a presentation for annexation AX2925 and rezoning Z35 25, which are two requests for the same uh property 7929 Liggan Mill Road.

Uh it's nearly 60 acres in size.

It is located outside of our ETJ, but contiguous with uh Raleigh City limits to the north and to the west.

So this map shows kind of the broader context.

It is directly east of the Noose River, and you can see it's in located in the area between US 1 and 401.

Um it is also inside the previously approved priority annexation boundary area.

You can see the location with the star there.

Uh utility location, not currently directly served to the site.

Um, there is uh water in Liggan Mill Road and public sewer uh farther east.

Uh the utilities would need to be extended for the site to have access.

Future land use map designation is low-scale residential in this area.

Um, and being right next to the Noose River, there is floodway and floodplain on the site, and you can see some significant topographic changes across the site.

Uh and there are uh known fire service uh considerations for the site for the um arrival of a second company in the full uh response.

Uh rezoning Z3525 for the same property uh would rezone uh the site from Wake County zoning of R 30 to Raleigh, City of Raleigh zoning R6 conditional use.

Um again, looking at the existing land uses in the area, mainly residential, lower scale around this site, but increasing in density, closer to 401 and 1, and then of course commercial uses along both those corridors.

Some views of the site currently.

Most of it is undeveloped and forested.

And then there are a number of proposed zoning conditions that would apply to the R6 district that is requested.

These restrict cap the maximum number of units on the site to 180.

There are two conditions that would require 30% of the site to be open area, and then a net 20% of the sites to be undisturbed.

There's also a commitment to provide a financial contribution to the city for fire service prior to the first certificate of occupancy.

Also a commitment for two active recreation areas on the site.

A commitment to super silt fencing prior to construction or grading, additional stormwater management, adding the 25-year storm to the two and 10 year storm required in the UDO, and then requiring at least 75% of the landscaping to be native or adapted plants.

So looking at the existing versus proposed zoning, obviously we're going to Raleigh zoning, additional housing types, additional units would uh increasing the residential entitlement on the site.

That number 180 is a reminder is coming from the proposed zoning condition, which would cap the number of units.

The request is consistent with the comprehensive plan, consistent with the future land use map designation, which is low-scale residential, and then consistent with a number of policies that pertain to, in addition to the future land use map, preservation of open space, large site development, the zoning of annexed lands, they're offering additional buffering and greenway corridor-related conditions.

Inconsistent policies are pointing towards the fire service considerations in this area.

And then the planning commission recommended approval unanimously.

And with that, I'm happy to answer questions before you proceed with the two hearings.

Councillor Sol.

And if you don't have the answer, we'll certainly wait for the applicant.

It said recreational errors in the condition.

Just want to be clear.

I know it didn't go beyond that, and they're really not required to, but um, is it just open space?

I wasn't clear when I said recreation.

Is it passive?

Is it active or is just leftover land?

Will there be trails?

I was just unclear about that specific condition.

Yeah, the condition goes into some detail about what is required.

So the at least two active recreation areas.

One would be at least one acre in size, and the other at least 10,000 square feet, and then the condition lists the type types of active uses.

All right, thank you.

That could comply.

I had a question just about the whole the Noose River corridor, and I see the condition for greenway, you know, open space.

Is there a broader within our comprehensive plan, sort of consideration of the Noose River corridor, public access to the river, put-ins to the river, just any comment on that?

Um I believe the main um place in the comp plan that would show up and in this discussion would be in the future land use map.

So you can see there's the yellow, which is the low-scale residential, and then the river and Greenway corridors are generally designated as public parks and open space in acknowledgement of that future, please.

And then in addition to what the comprehensive plan forecasts for open space around the river, the parks master plan also charts access and um adjacency for recreational use.

Do you foresee the next comprehensive plan going further?

I just think about the importance of this river, and now that we're out there, and what that could mean to the city if we really treat that.

Um the stormwater regulations that we have now are the best we've ever had.

Um fully exercise our authority in terms of water quality control management.

We can certainly look at we we do have on the uh docket already a review of the most sensitive areas and really identifying priority for any kind of open space or environmental area preservation.

That's something that uh was I would say addressed by the green print facet of the 2009 plan, uh, and something that we of course would want to carry forward as we think about being a biophilic city and advancing the community climate action plan.

And I guess I'll just, you know, I'm from Memphis originally, and I think about the Mississippi and the bluff and the housing that overlooks.

I mean, it's a stunning, obviously, one of the largest rivers in the world, and so I just think about how do you take advantage of the amazing things that rivers are and in this case, certainly the preservation and the ecology, but you know, in terms of the leveraging that in terms of amenities and and different hubs around it, so that people can more greatly appreciate it than I mean.

It almost seems like it's an afterthought because it was so far east for so long.

I think historically Raleigh's approach has been to protect and preserve rather than leverage and capitalize.

Yeah.

Um that's certainly the attitude we have about Crabtree Creek now that we should leverage and capitalize, right?

That's what the midtown, the walkable midtown plan said.

Um we can certainly evaluate how to incorporate that kind of thinking into our position on the news.

Yep.

Thank you.

Did you have a comment?

Well, anyway, just gonna add it, making sure.

So that that property to the left of the highlighted one, that's owned by the city of Raleigh, that's Thornton Road property, and then just out of the frame to the south is Horseshoe Farms Nature Preserve, which is like a yep, a huge access point.

And we do have the Blue Way plan, which is like meant to celebrate the river and get people onto it so that in with the thought that when people are in the river, they appreciate it even more and protect and preserve and do the things that that keep the river healthy.

So I don't know if that is yeah.

Thank you.

Okay.

Did you anybody have a question?

Okay.

So we will open the hearing, um, and we have call your marsh signed up for both the annexation and the rezoning.

I'll do them separately, but we'll start with the annexation.

Good afternoon, Mayor Cowell, members of council.

I'm calling your marsh with Parker Poe at 301 Fayetteville Street here on behalf of the applicant.

Um, as my presentation's coming up.

Um, if we pull it up, I'll just kind of give an overview.

You've got a long agenda, and I hope that this doesn't add too much time to it.

Um, but and the annexation, the rezoning I can cover relatively quickly.

Um site's about 60 acres that we just saw, it's on um the falls of noose there.

Uh one of the things I think is uh relevant to the questions just asked the full flo um flood plan on the western side of our site will be dedicated uh as or um reserved as the greenway usement for the city.

So there is the opportunity to do more within that corridor if interested.

We worked with parks and rec staff to figure out how connections could be made.

Our site has a lot of slope, but we can tie into the pedestrian network to the north, and they do have a required connection, so there's an immediate connection into that corridor in the vicinity of the site.

Um don't have the presentation up, but I can just go through it anyway.

The site is fully consistent with the comprehensive plan.

Here annexation has been a question within this district in the past.

However, we are actually in a donut hole that needs to be filled in over time.

We have a larger density development immediately to the north.

We have City of Raleigh jurisdiction on the east and the west.

And so we're actually bringing in that jurisdiction, filling that hole in an area that's already served by the city with fire and police.

We're also revenue positive for the full 10 years of the fiscal analysis.

So with Parks and Rec, we worked on that floodplain dedication area for the Greenway Corridor, and then we worked on the active space.

And so those are true active amenities to ensure that there's adequate open space for residents of this development while future parks come online.

Fire service was addressed through a contribution.

We've looked at what's been done in the area, and we've learned that we're really starting to amass a lot of contributions through similar projects in the surrounding area that will make an impact over time.

And then we work directly with the neighbors to the south on custom buffers, and we have high quality environmental standards.

So with that, uh happy to answer any questions.

I do have Rod Rudliff with Poulty Homes here as well.

Uh, if there's anything we can answer for you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Questions?

Okay, I will close the annexation hearing.

Uh, do we have a motion?

Do we have a separate presentation for the rezoning?

It was one presentation.

Yeah, I think I covered that.

I'll reopen I'll open a separate one though.

Okay.

Um, okay.

So then I'll move to adopt the annexation.

Okay, all in favor of that motion.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

All right.

And then I will open the hearing for the rezoning Z3525.

You've already presented.

So I will close the hearing.

Faster than I was expecting.

Let me get my tab open.

Um, yeah, I'll just say, you know, this is far out, but it is filling in that area, and as we as we fill in, and we've heard in the past, you know, that adds operational efficiencies, and um there are some things planned from the fire master plan.

I appreciate the way you have made some contributions to our future fire coverage in the area, so that we can continue to provide good service as we grow.

And particularly knowing that it's a mostly forested site right now, the ways in which you've um made sever several conditions that are gonna condense where the building is and preserve more of what and leave areas untouched.

Um, I'm just I'm really appreciative of the way um you've navigated the constraints of the site.

Um, so with all of that, I move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated May 19th, 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.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye, all opposed, nay.

And that passes unanimously, thank you.

Uh next we have petition annexation AX 0426 3800 Jones Sausage Road.

Yes, ma'am, Matthew Clem planning and development.

Uh this is a request uh re excuse me, uh, annex uh piece of property.

Um, it will be annexed uh if annexed into District C.

Here is the site.

You can see it's adjacent to uh corporate limits and the darker gray uh to the south.

It's at the intersection of Jones Sausage Road and undeveloped uh street that will be delivered with the subdivision.

Uh if you zoom out, we can see um some neighboring jurisdiction in red.

Uh this is within our priority annexation boundary, and uh you can see adjacent utility connection.

Uh, this particular piece of property is part of a uh overall development scheme.

Um so this corner piece will be uh we have there's an approved site plan for a corner store, uh, and then there's two other developments on these sites as well.

Um, those those two properties are already within city limits.

The property is zoned industrial mixed use with a five-story building height.

Um the future land use map does show residential, however, the existing zoning uh already exceeds that.

Uh, no floodplain on the site.

And you can see the site here uh is uh vacant and undeveloped, and you can see portion of the street to the north there that will be uh built out uh as part of the subdivision uh and some views of the site along Joan Sausage Road.

Um we have uh NFP A standards that are not met on the fire service report.

Uh and with that I can take any questions.

Okay, questions for Mr.

Clem.

All right.

Uh we can open the hearing.

We have Bronwyn read us.

In support, no one in opposition.

Hey there, good afternoon.

I'm Braunman Redis with Mick Adams.

I'm a planner working on this project.

Um, and Matt did an excellent job giving the overview, and I'm just here to answer any questions if there are any.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Any questions?

Okay, then I will close the hearing.

Move for approval of annexation immediately.

Okay.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

And that is unanimous.

Thank you.

Uh next we have petition annexation AX 5 26 511 Struther Road.

Uh yes, ma'am.

Uh Matthew Clint Planning and Development.

So this is a request to annex uh four and a quarter acres.

There's an existing single family structure on the site currently, the property zoned R4, and the intended and proposed use is 12 detached homes.

Uh you can see here it is in a unincorporated county pocket.

Again, the gray on the map shows our corporate limits.

Um, a view of the aerial of the site.

It's bound by Strother and Meyer Road and a larger block created by Garrett Road and Glossen Road.

Uh zooming out you can see Carrie to the west and green, uh just north of uh Western Boulevard.

It is within side of our priority annexation boundary.

I know.

And you can see the adjacent utilities.

Uh utility extensions will be made at the expense of the property owner and developer.

Uh look at the current zoning map.

But yeah, there's no reason you'd go down.

Uh future land use map identifies the site for office and residential mixed use.

Of course, the zoning uh is a lower intensity R4 district.

Um they're choosing to develop under the existing zoning, and a view of the topography on the site.

A look from the street.

And this is the approved uh 12 lot uh subdivision.

So you can see uh cul-de-sac coming in from the east and a couple of street-facing lots uh on the north side of the site.

Uh and again, your fire service report shows uh two N FPA standards not met, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay, questions for Mr.

Clem.

If not, I will open the hearing for 511 Struther Road, and I have Sam Nye, Stuart Poulson, and Gordon Poulson signed up.

Eight minutes.

Good afternoon, council mayor.

Um, Stuart Polson with 511 FMLLC.

I'm here with our engineer Sam Nye from the site group.

We're happy to answer any questions you guys have about the site.

Okay, questions.

Alright, we'll close the hearing.

Do we have a motion?

Yes, motion to approve the examic annexation with effective date May 19th, 2026.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

That is unanimous.

Thank you.

Next, we're going to rezoning Z 1525, 7800 Battle Bridge Road.

Good afternoon, Mayor Cowell.

City Council members, Matthew Burns with Planning and development.

This is a request to rezone a 24-acre portion of 7800 Battle Bridge Road.

From residential four to industrial mixed use three stories with conditions.

This is a rezoning request that is initiated by Wake County and the city of Raleigh as the property is jointly owned.

The request is consistent with the 2030 comprehensive plan, inconsistent with the future lane use map, consistent with the urban and consistent with the urban form map.

And the planning commission recommends unanimous approval.

I'll start with a little bit of site history.

So the Ranley Farm was acquired in 2005 by the City of Raleigh in Wake County and is subject to an interlocal agreement that governs the uses and future planning of the site.

It was subdivided into two parcels in 2007, and most recently the ILA was amended in 2024.

So the Ranley Farm consists of two properties now.

The northern tract has exclusive use by the city of Raleigh and maybe used for a regional fire training facility, whereas the southern tract, a portion of which is subject to this rezoning, has exclusive use by Wake County, and uses proposed include a school and/or an animal shelter.

And the animal shelter is the reason for this rezoning today.

And finally, they are also proposing an exemption from the UDO's block perimeter standards.

The request uh represents an increase in residential entitlement as well as office and industrial entitlement, but no retail would be permitted upon the site, uh, if rezoned.

So the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan, inconsistent with the feature land use map, and consistent with the urban form map.

And consistent policies are related to the development of large sites, managing the impacts of commercial development as well as commercial nodes, the location and siting of industrial uh areas, reservations for community community facilities, as well as uh interjurisdictional collaboration between the county and the city, and several policies specific to the Southeast Special Study.

Staff identified four inconsistent policies with this request, which are related to future land use map and zoning, as well as fire service concerns and one southeast special study specific policy.

If the request is approved, the future land use map would be amended to public facilities on the site.

And the planning commission recommends unanimous approval uh saying that the request would encourage development of an animal shelter to serve county residents across species.

I'll note that if this rezoning is approved, it would allow Wake County to pursue a special use permit, which would be required for the animal shelter use.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Questions from Mr.

Burns?

Yes, I actually have two.

So you said it is a 24-acre port part that's been the um requested for rezoning, correct?

And so one portion would be for animal shelter, but there's a possibility that a school will be placed there as well.

So the remainder of the site could be developed for a school per the interlocal agreement.

Okay.

And do you know if they're planning on closing the current shelter or is it like is this gonna be a like a animal shelter part two or I would defer to Wake County uh or the applicant to answer that question?

Is there somebody here from Wake County?

Yes.

Okay.

Other questions?

Okay, I will open the hearing for 7800 Battle Bridge Road, and we have Zach Pierce and Patrick McHugh signed up in favor.

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of council.

Is that the presentation that I emailed?

Is that loaded, preloaded?

Yeah.

He's spinning around looking for help.

There was a uh presentation that I sent in last week.

Can somebody pull up the presentation?

Yeah, thanks.

Do you recall what day you sent it on?

He said today.

There it is.

Great.

Perfect.

That helps.

I'm Zach Pierce, landscape architect with CLH design representing the project team and this project for this rezoning.

So happy to be here today.

So going over some introductions, some of the existing zoning of what you just heard, to the need for that new animal center, some examples of a modern animal center, and some of that conceptual renderings and open it up for you to uh preside that.

So we with me have some of the owner representatives from Wake County.

Myself, we're representing the design team.

As Matthew just said, kind of uh portion of that 110 acre site at the corner of Battle Bridge Road and Auburn Nightdale Road.

Again, that red area is just highlighting our corner of the site.

Views up and down Auburn Knightdale Road and Battle Bridge Road currently is a two-lane road, but with our development as we move forward into SPR is would be to uh improve those as it relates to the UDO.

We are focusing as proposed rezoning on the actual area on the corner for the animal center, and the remaining will the remaining site will still be R4.

Uh Matthew went over those three conditions.

I won't rehash those.

Handle thousands of animals every year.

So the limited space impacts the intake, the medical care, the quarantine and adoption areas.

So that overcrowding really creates a stress for animals and staff.

The modern shelter will improve animal welfare and the public health.

Updating this facility, having a new facility will have better disease control, isolation areas and veterinary care.

That also modern design reduces that stress on the animals, which would improve the adoption outcomes.

It also strengthens the county's ability to respond to emergencies, cruelty investigations, and disaster situations.

Expanded capacity supports the life saving programs.

So the new facility will allow more adoption space, more foster coordination, and more community programs.

Those programs help keep the pets with families whenever possible and reduce reduce euthanasia rates.

It strengthens partnerships with rescues, etenarians, and volunteers within the region.

So it's animal centers are an essential public service, just like the libraries, the parks, the public safety facilities.

This new shelter would support the responsible pet ownership, education, and humane care.

This rezoning really enables the county to meet the critical need and responsibility that we have to the citizens of Wake County and including the city of Raleigh.

So we look forward to uh accommodate accommodating the growth that the spring, but also being responsible with animal care and look forward to this facility serving the community for many years to come.

I'm gonna go and look through some of those photos of a modern this is not exactly what this is.

This is uh images of modern animal centers.

Sometimes it gets a bad name of looking at dark and gloomy and and uh and had, but these are really bright.

These are open.

This is focus on the health and well-being of the animals and the staff.

We have outdoor areas that we will that out staff are with the dogs outside.

They're not left overnight, outside.

They are accompanied and modern.

This really has proven itself to benefit the dogs that are staying at the facility.

And it's warm and welcoming reception area for those for the foster for the of visitors and for the folks who are adopting.

Again, the outdoor areas have some shade components, have that or recreational area for the for the animals to have that fresh air capability and to help reduce their stress inside.

We have uh cleaning and food prep areas, and also in the right the corridor that is separate for the viewing areas to help reduce the stress of the dogs and really to have that better experience for the folks who are coming in for the potential adoptions.

The veterinary service areas, these again are modern, clean, efficient, allows them to serve the needs of the community and the animals.

Uh there is uh small animal areas as well as we're growing, and some cat condos and some cat areas as well.

Does he get familiar as you're looking to potentially adopt uh conceptual renderings of the building?

Again, we're still early in the design for that, but really kind of uh having it be part of the community, have it not be a place where you do not want to go.

We want to make it inviting, want to make it warm, have the wood tones, have those uh really bright windows, have the have the ability to to kind of have welcoming areas, and there is going to be areas that are are dedicated to each portion of the animal center for the adoption, fostering, and then the other intake.

Overall from the Albert Nightdale Road looking south, uh showing uh this building.

It is a 54, roughly 54,000 square foot building of a preliminary site plan.

We are at the corner of Albert Knightdale and Battle Bridge Road.

We have uh dedicated uh parking for the public, and then we have secure parking for staff uh in the back.

And we do have a walking path for the volunteers and staff to walk the dogs, which they do now, but not in a secured area now or their current facility.

This will be fenced in and will be have that area is really proven to be a success for the animals.

With that, I will close and uh yield any other time for any questions.

Thank you.

Questions?

Yeah, council Jones.

Thank you so much.

Uh I was just wondering when you move out of the facility and into this facility.

What are the plans for the current facility?

That has not been decided yet by the county.

I think that will be uh be uh evaluated.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Branch, did you?

I'm waiting, I'm last.

Okay.

Councilmember Jones asked the question I'd already asked.

Um, but I guess the other question is um, what are you gonna do?

Or somebody from Wake County maybe we need to answer this.

Are you planning on putting a school on the remainder?

Remaining portion of it.

Good afternoon.

I'm Patrick McHugh.

I'm the uh senior project manager at Wake County Facilities Design and Construction, actually managing the animal center project.

Um I really can't answer the question completely.

I can only say that in the local agreement does show or did mention the fact that there could be schools there, but we have not come to an agreement on that just yet.

So I can give you any anything definitive.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Not a question, but to counselor for you can go ahead and close it.

Okay.

Um, councils for I've talked to some of the county commissioners.

They've been focused on Wendell and Zagulin for schools right now, uh, as well as the superintendent.

So they're not focused on any school property over here, but they do own land at the corner of Barwell and Pool as well.

That's supposed to be designated for a school, which is a little closer in.

So that's the information I have, so I'm just sharing it for information.

Yeah, so okay.

Uh, we have closed.

Does is there a motion?

Yeah, um, first of all, I think um I think the county really does need a new place.

Um, unfortunately, my parents' dog got out one time, and one of your trucks picked it up, and I'm glad they did, but I went to your current facility and um it's challenged, um, as I will say.

So, with um all that's been said, I moved to adopt the proposed consistency state mandated May 19th, 2026, containing in the agenda materials, and to approve the zoning amendment with the adoption and the federal dates described in the agenda items under recommended action.

This approval is also deemed an amendment of the future land use map to the extents described in the adopted consistency statement.

Second, all in favor of that motion, aye.

All opposed, nay.

All right, that is unanimous.

Thank you so much.

Uh moving on to rezoning Z3725.

This is uh along Avent Ferry Road, Broadwell Drive, Shore and Steadfast Court, and Chapel Drive.

Yes, uh rezoning Z3725, a collection of properties along all those streets together, just under nine acres in size, currently zoned a mix of R 10, RX3, and conservation management with the special residential parking overlay district, and uh they're requested to be rezoned to residential mixed use five stories conditional use.

So, some context on the site and location.

Uh, this is off of Avon Ferry Road, which has a mix of um uh residential and non-residential, generally at the medium scale level, um, some pockets of office and other institutional uses as well.

Here's some views from the site currently.

And then the proposed conditions cover a few prohibited uses, uh, normally allowed in RX, a condition uh um requiring uh pertaining to location of surface parking on the site, um pedestrian facing entrance entrances and active uses around parking structures.

Uh these are speaking to uh urban frontage requirements in the in the unified development ordinance, which the request does not include one, um but does it does include these conditions, and then uh their conditions um requiring additional uh days notice to current uh residential tenants before complete demolition of the buildings on the property, and then a one-time relocation assistance payment if that should occur.

Um and then the conditions also limit the building height and feet.

So under the requested district of RX 5, that would normally correspond to five stories and 80 feet in height.

They are restricting that to 68 feet, which is the um height uh associated with the four-story district in the UDO.

And then uh the last condition restricts the number of residential dwelling units on the site.

So we'll look at uh current and proposed zoning, have uh increase in the number of dwelling units with increased building heights, still uh greater portion of the property uh could have that small amount of non-residential that's allowed in RX.

It is consistent with the comprehensive plan, including future land use map designation of office and residential mixed use, consistent with urban form map designations and uh with a number of policies that you can see here, and then inconsistent policies are the two that uh point to um fire response time standards.

Planning commission recommended approval unanimously.

Happy to answer any questions you have.

Questions, okay.

I will open the hearing, and we have two folks signed up, Ashley Tarazas and Nathaniel Bacon.

Um good afternoon, Mayor Cowell and and council members.

I'm Ashley Honeycutt Trasis with Parker Poe working with the development team on a rezoning that will allow relatively modest increase to the permitted student housing on a split zoned uh site next to NC State centennial campus.

Um I'm joined by Craig Smith with Kennedy Wilson developer and Nate Boquen with McAdams, he's a transportation engineer, to answer questions if we have any.

Um, so this is approximately nine acres as Hannah went over, 17 parcel assemblage at the intersection of Avant Ferry and Chapel Drive.

Again, again adjacent to NC State uh centennial Campus, uh multifamily redevelopment is already permitted under the current R10 RX 3 uh CM zoning.

However, the proposed uniform RX 5CU zoning with the same height and density caps under the previous RX4 request that we started off with, will allow a bit more density than what's permitted there today and additional 83 units according to the staff report and will allow a smoother and more predictable site plan review process, which can sometimes be challenging for split zoned sites.

A view of the urban form map and the future land use map.

This is office and residential mixed use on the future land use map, which are areas with frontage on major streets where low density residential uses are no longer appropriate, and where a mix of residential and office uses are encouraged.

Five store stories is consistent with the height guidance for ORM on major high frequency transit corridors like Avant Ferry and Frequent Transit Area on the Flume.

It is an urban uh thoroughfare and transit transit emphasis corridor.

Because of this policy guidance, we added conditions to mimic an urban limited frontage and worked closely with the planning commission on that and with staff.

So again, this is the conditions that Hannah just went over.

We developed this with staff and neighbors with uh input with plant from planning commission and with uh council on uh conditions related to uh assistance for existing tenants.

So um as Hannah just went over, we have a condition to notify existing tenants 120 days prior to demolition of the existing buildings on the property and a payment of 2,500 in relocation assistance.

Um there's 97 units on the site today, so that is a significant financial contribution to assisting tenants, and you've seen similar conditions on other cases, redevelopment cases uh recently.

Um also added uh two conditions as Hannah went over again when we reschedule this to the five story request instead of four due to site grades.

The buildings needed to have some basement level units, which count as a story under the UDO.

So we changed to a five-story request and then again added that condition, limiting it to the four-story height and the number of units allowed under the four-story request.

So we're not trying to increase density or height, just build down, not up.

Um, just a bit more quick background on some of the other conditions.

Um we can talk more about urban form and urban frontage uh if you would like, but uh we did explore this with the with the staff and the planning commission on um, we do know that an urban frontage is recommended, so we were careful about crafting that condition about the urban form of the buildings.

But uh note that we can't we couldn't add a frontage because there's a an environmental feature right there at the corner of Avant Ferry.

So you can't we couldn't place a building on that corner.

Um, so we did we had to do sort of a hybrid condition instead.

And then the other um thing I wanted to comment on was the work that we did on pedestrian infrastructure on Avant Ferry Road.

We do know that the Avant Ferry Corridor plan calls for more walkability, um, pedestrian um enhancements along the Avant Ferry corridor.

That plan was adopted in in 2019.

Um we did the streetscape on Avant Ferry will be required to meet the special section that was approved on that 2019 Avant Ferry Streetscape plan and will be consistent with the streetscape on the rest of the corridor.

Um development of the site will also serve to enhance pedestrian facilities within the street, the street, three streets that it fronts are upgraded.

And then there's also several policies in the plan about mid-block pedestrian crossings across Avant Ferry.

So we did look into that with city staff and with NC DOT to explore whether this site might support a mid block crossing, but NC DOT told us that because of there, there's a new, a relatively new mid block crossing in front of the bus stop, just to the north of this site, which you can see on the on the screen here.

It's about 500 feet away.

Um and because of that proximity, they they wouldn't allow another one on this corner.

Um, but the pedestrians from the site can use that new nearby crossing in front of the bus station uh to cross safely.

So um the staff report lists 19 consistent policies.

Uh, this request is consistent with a comprehensive plan, and we'll facilitate the development of needed uh new student housing right next to Centennial Campus.

Um, and thank you so much.

We're here to answer questions and we respectfully request approval this afternoon.

Questions.

Okay.

Close up, for a motion.

Yeah, just want to thank you all for um listening and paying attention to some of the concerns I had.

I really appreciate the tenant relocation assistance condition.

And I know we need student housing in this area, so I think this will be a worthwhile project to go forward on.

I do move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated May 19th, 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.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

All opposed, nay, and that is unanimous.

Thanks.

Okay, next we've got uh 319 Hex Street, uh rezoning Z 3925.

Mayor, before you start this case, um I want to disclose that I live about a block from here.

I received the mailed notice.

Um I was in the radius for the mailed notice.

I have not participated in any of the uh neighborhood meetings or anything.

I checked with the city attorney, she stated I do not have a conflict because I have no financial interest in the property, but I did want to disclose that I live about a block away.

All right, this is rezoning Z3925 request to rezone 319 Hex Street, which is about a half an acre size parcel currently zoned R 10 and in the uh Newburn Edenton neighborhood conservation overlay district, and it is requested to be rezoned to residential mixed use four stories, conditional use, and to remove the overlay.

So site context, um, largely residential, uh just south of the Oakwood Cemetery, not too far away from St.

Augustine's University, and then um a map just to look at the um overlays in the area.

I can see the existing NCOD.

This is in the top um northeast corner of that overlay.

Uh three proposed uh zoning conditions.

One would prohibit uh cemetery and retail sales use.

Reminder there's limited uh non-residential uses that are permitted in RX.

This would cross off retail sales off that list.

Um second condition um pertains to the location of uh buildings on the site, so a certain proportion of um building um along the Oakwood Avenue uh frontage and the other two rights of way as well, locating that building within 20 feet of those streets.

And then a third condition uh would uh place a commemorative plaque along the property, uh noting the location in the historic Idlewild neighborhood uh and the historic significance there.

Um existing versus proposed zoning.

This is an increase from residential district to a mixed use district, so uh greater um number of units uh could be built.

In addition, that is coming from the increase in height and the removal of the NCOD.

So smaller building setbacks and uh removal of a height restriction as that's part of the NCOD.

Request is consistent with the comprehensive plan, uh future land use map designation of moderate scale residential, consistent with the urban form map designations on the site and can uh consistent with a number of policies, many of these pertaining to housing type and variety, and then again inconsistent policies.

This is um existing fire service considerations.

The planning commission um voted to for approval in a split vote.

Uh there are two commissioners opposed who uh noted their opposition to removing the NCUD and the potential impact on uh the built environment in the neighborhood.

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

Questions, yes, Council Branch.

Can you explain this in COD and what it does?

Sure, yeah.

It um this the Newburn Edenton NCOD regulates a number of components of built form.

There is a minimum lot size requirement, a minimum lot frontage, frontage requirement, uh front yard uh set uh minimum and maximum setbacks, uh side yard uh minimum setback and then uh a building separation uh requirement.

So that's across properties, the distance between buildings and then a uh maximum building height of 35 feet.

Okay, this helpful.

The questions be for the applicant.

Okay, yep.

Um the condition about the plaque is not very specific.

Is there anything else in the UDO that uh adds specificity such that it doesn't need to be provided here?

I guess there are their plaque regulations in the UDO.

Uh not beyond um sign regulations, the reviewers would be really relying on the words in this condition.

Okay.

Any other questions?

If not, I will open the hearing.

We have uh Molly Stewart um in support, and then we have two folks signed up in opposition, Katie Long and Chris Crewe.

Thank you, good afternoon, Mayor Cowell and members of Council, Molly Stewart, Morning Star Law Group, here on behalf of the applicant.

So during this process, we have not heard a lot of uh issues come up.

Of those that we've heard, some of those have been addressed through our zoning conditions.

Uh and uh as you see here, this is the site today.

The uh existing structure is a multifamily building, it is currently vacant, uh built in 1973, about 20 years before the NCOD was applied to this area.

Um because uh the the one issue we've not been able to address it does relate to the NCOD.

There is some support for keeping that.

I wanted to focus on that topic today.

Uh and some of the questions in particular that I wanted to address are why would we make that request in this location?

Um I wanted to show some examples of development with and without that minimum lot size, as well as discuss the impacts of that NCOD on retaining the neighborhood character.

So on this slide in particular, you can see uh that if you head east on Oakwood Avenue immediately, you find yourself in a mixed-use district that is subject to two different uh overlay type uh requirements that that allow for a height bonus here.

So five stories are possible along that southern um portion along Oakwood Avenue, and then across the street there in the blue at St.

Augustine's, that is zoned for seven stories as well.

You can see that when that TOD and mixed use uh were applied, they stopped at the boundary of the NCOD, which is older.

This slide is a little difficult to see, but what it's showing you is uh that and that NCOD overlay and the the parcel, the actual subject site is all the way on the right-hand side of your screen.

Uh but what this shows you is that there are 19 parcels that are within the overlay district, um, and and also have frontage along Oakwood Avenue.

Uh, ten of those parcels do not meet the requirements of the NCOD.

That NCOD came along after many of these parcels already existed and has never truly captured the character of the Oakwood Avenue edge of this NCOD.

And there are some, there are various reasons for that.

One here, this this is the street plan.

And what you see here is that Oakwood Avenue has a very different character from the other east-west streets in the neighborhood.

It is the one that is uh that that goes in two directions throughout its connection between Raleigh Boulevard and the Person Blunt corridor.

Uh Lane Street and Jones Street do not do not do that and have a different sort of a character.

And uh this has been reflected in some of the um the speed control measures that have been applied to Oakwood Avenue.

So it is truly a different sort of uh a character than the rest of this NCOD.

To turn to the question of the impacts of that NCOD, uh 302 Seawell Avenue, uh this is a lot that is uh almost exactly the size, the minimum size that's required in this NCOD.

So this is developed in 2012 under that NCOD, and you see that that produces a single family detached house.

That's about eighteen hundred square feet, just a little bit more.

But if you go to the north side of the cemetery, so that's boundary street there in the middle with the cemetery on the right, and just on the other side there, you see some townhomes more recently developed in 2018 that didn't that were not subject to that minimum lot size.

And there you produced more housing units.

So the unit that is highlighted is of a similar size.

It's about 80 square feet smaller than the single-family detached house that you saw.

And its lot size is about one-third of the size that would be required in the Newburn Edenton and COD.

So three whole lots of that unit could fit inside what's required in the Newburn Edenton NCOD and still have some space left over.

And you see the difference in the price points of these units.

Both are well located, both are in walkable areas, both are in desirable areas.

Almost a $200,000 difference in the price of those units.

But we've also heard that keeping that NCOD will protect the character of the neighborhood.

So to look at a similar example, the South Park NCOD similarly has a minimum lot size.

In this case, it's actually smaller.

It's about 3,000 square feet.

And I'm focused here on the intersection of South Blunt Street and East Lee Street so that you can see what has happened in recent years.

This is a picture taken in 2016.

And if you watch those utility polls, you can see what happens in this location between 2016 and 2022.

I don't spot any structures that remain from 2016.

So what has been preserved?

It is not the structures themselves, it's not their style.

It's not their price point.

We have preserved the single-family detached character and ensured that we are providing the most expensive housing type possible at this walkable downtown location.

So in that sense, it has preserved character, and that's obviously a policy choice that we need to make.

Just checking for time before diving in here.

And so I wanted to look to see what is available.

So this is a simple search for listings for townhomes on lots that are at least 4,000 square feet.

It produced three results in this search area, all of which were similar to the picture that you see there at the bottom left.

These are essentially duplexes end units.

No rows of townhomes available.

And if you look at that price, 460,000, it's very different from what you find when you drop out that minimum lot size.

So with the idea here, the goal is to provide the more feasible housing types in this area to provide true townhomes with lots that one can own, or to potentially to provide multifamily.

And that one is limited by that height requirement.

We've heard interest from the neighbors in allowing parking to be on site, and so that four stories would allow the parking to be beneath the building.

So those two requirements are uh are the restriction on building those types of housing versus the single family that you saw built under that NCOD.

The request is consistent with the future land use map.

The moderate scale residential designation does support RX4 zoning in areas served by high levels of transit, such as this location, well within the frequent transit area and in fact partly within the bus rapid transit area as well.

So with that, I look forward to our discussion and hope for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright, I'll invite Miss Long and Mr.

Crewe.

You want to split up your eight minutes.

See, I can get close to the mic and still see the timer here.

Um my name is Katie Long, and this is my first time coming before you as counsel, although there was a neighborhood traffic management uh project, traffic calming project about five years ago, same stretch of Oakwood Avenue that the long half of that 319 heck property faces.

So I recognize a couple familiar faces in councilman uh Lambert Melton and branch.

Um I live four doors down from the property in question.

I've been there for seven years.

I'm here representing my neighbors on that stretch.

Um, and also um I did at the two prior planning commission meetings where this was discussed.

Um but on my block, I you get a little bit of a sense from uh Ms.

Stewart, but what is our block look like there?

We are a mix of black and white.

We are a mix of new construction, renovated shotgun homes, habitat for humanity.

We have traditional families, we have single parent households, we have singles, we have renters, we have owners.

Behind us is affordable housing.

It's the cottages of Idlewild in front of us, the cemetery, which you saw.

We don't have an HOA, we are not the SPHO, maybe a band of misfits, but we love the proximity of downtown without being in downtown proper.

And most certainly we value community.

Because of where we're nestled, we benefit from the wisdom and experience of folks like Octavia Rainey.

I think she wasn't able to stay this entire time, but she was with us in the two prior planning commission meetings.

We also benefit from the wisdom of SPHO.

The good news is that current zoning, as you saw in the one of the slides previous, that parcel of land does allow for 10 housing units on that half acre property.

One reference point is at the cottages of Idle Wild, which is right behind us, is a little over one acre, and that accounts for, I forget the final number, it's either 17 or 18 units on over one acre as compared to current 10 on half an acre that's allowable.

And we're talking of, and while the developer might not intend to do 52 units, there is that possibility.

And there is nothing written that would prevent that, and that becomes a little bit concerning for those of us so close.

I don't exactly like being considered the opposition.

We have tried to work in collaboration, both with the developer and council throughout.

So I'd for all of you who are able to see my email from before uh council meeting today.

You know, I don't want this to be like an us versus them.

I want to think of this as a collaboration, making sure we've we've thought about everything in our limited experience.

Look to you for your guidance.

Um Councilwoman Patton, I appreciated you, your words, sharpen our thinking.

Yes, like that's the spirit that we want to come here uh up before you and make sure we get this right, whether that's now or at a time where we have accounted for everything we ought to account for in this uh unique part of our city.

Um so I did want to reference what we do agree on in the spirit of collaboration.

Um none of us want that property to be vacant.

Um there were tenants that were there when I moved in, I think the last of them moved out around three years ago.

It's now vacant.

Um, it has since experienced a fire.

Um, no one wants to see that vacant.

We all want to see that as housing.

That is not in dispute.

Um, but we want to get it right, and if we haven't rushed for three years, we want to use this time now to get that right.

Um, something else we agree on.

Um, the developer has done a great job of meeting with Octavia and really honoring the history, not only with that plaque, but I think it's important to note, and I'm not sure uh where and if this could be written in, but he had agreed to erect four um iron gate-like plaques that would note some of the boundaries of uh this was this uh the important history of what was once thriving idle wild, something we agree on there.

Um excluding retail written, we agree to that.

Um what we verbally agreed to but is not yet written in is um excluding office.

That was something that came up as a possibility.

I think maybe staff pointed out, developers in agreement to exclude that.

We want to see that written in, we want to see that as housing.

Um, just for frame of reference, it's not that we don't want retail and office in the neighborhoods, we just think it's better suited for the commercial district two blocks up on Tarborough, uh, which which is uh just a natural hub currently.

Chris, I want to make sure I leave you enough time here.

Um, so what's left?

Uh we would feel comfortable if we saw site plans.

Um we've talked heard a lot of what ifs, but there's no commitments.

That understandably makes us concerned for what we might not have thought about.

Um so it would appear that the fourth floor really is the driver uh that's uh causing the ask for the up zone.

Um I think personally I I like that it accommodates the perking.

Um we do have a tendency to want to take the wisdom of SPHO and and do pay attention to what does that mean at chipping away at that NCOD if that were to be allowed.

Um and principally I also worry that if it gets um upzoned and it gets sold.

What about all these uh plans and handshake and gentlemen agreements outside of what are the written conditions for the intent of this?

Um, again, we're not against change.

We have these 18, 17, 18 affordable housing units going in behind us where a tree-lined uh grass field once was, but we want to be thoughtful about what should go here, um, that the housing acknowledges the history, that it preserves the character of the neighborhood as we welcome more neighbors here.

So, you know, we just wonder if it's important to get this up zone, that if we put the burden on the applicant to provide more concrete plans, that would certainly give us a much higher level of comfort.

Um, certainly it's easiest for us to just oppose everything blanket, um, but instead we want to collaborate, so really we look to you to to help make sure that we've thought through everything and we get those written as as conditions so it doesn't impact our daily life negative, I think.

Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Uh this is to me another example of where the planning department has identified no adverse impacts.

It says that in the application.

It's another example of a zoning change that threatens protected resources without analysis and without solid demonstration of a public benefit.

Twenty-five percent of parcels in Raleigh allow for more stories and multiple uses.

Five percent of parcels in Raleigh have the limited protection of historic or character zoning overlays.

These are precious resources, and the impact of zoning changes can't be fully appreciated without detailed plans and drawings.

Public benefit outweighing this stakeholder endorsed protection.

The NCOD has not been identified in this case.

No one due impediment to beneficial use has been documented.

The parcel by parcel nibbling away weakens all protections and all zoning principles.

I'm in favor of development that benefits all of Raleigh without adverse impacts on our historic and cultural resources.

And we get that by following our planning documents to entice development outside of the 5% that has some protection.

We need to get gummed up in the equity question.

Protection of our neighborhoods was the founding premise of our ancestors first zoning efforts more than a century ago.

Please vote to encourage.

Thank you.

All right, I will close the hearing.

So I actually have some questions for the applicant.

Um is it sounds like from those the other two who spoke that there was some agreements, but they're not in writing.

Um where's that?

Is we can sound like you need time for that, or is that what I'm hearing?

Sure, thank you.

Uh so there are two main topics I'm aware of uh that are the subject of some agreement.

Um, one being uh to exclude office.

We are happy to do that.

Um that that had came up, I understand, perhaps yesterday.

Um, so that is is not a problem, and and we're happy to do it.

Um the discussion regarding the four boundary plaques, again, something the applicant is happy to do.

And I did have a meeting um with staff from various departments uh to discuss how to go about that.

It's very challenging.

And some of the um issues we ran into is that um one of the boundaries of the neighborhood is Edenton Street, which is NCOD, NC DOT controlled.

Uh, and so trying to figure out how to craft a condition that requires those signs, knowing that we're not sure they can be in the right of way, we're not sure they can be on private property that is not controlled by the applicant.

Um we weren't sure exactly how to uh accomplish that and uh sort of where we were in the timeline didn't allow us to resolve that.

We're not sure it can be a condition.

One thing we've discussed is is perhaps there's some sort of, you know, just funding for for signs to happen and and going down that road.

We don't know how to ensure that today since we don't control those areas.

Um with respect to the plaque on the site, um, absolutely happy to add any specificity.

Um we didn't hear anything from staff, um, so it hadn't uh sort of occurred to us that we needed um something else for enforceability, but if there's a concern about visibility or size, something like that, absolutely happy to add those as well.

Um, yeah, I think when it comes to signage, we're we're limited on speech and what we can regulate as a government entity.

But to pivot a little bit, um the cottages of Ottawa is a strong throw from this property, and it's still in the NCOD, um, and it's gonna have density, it's gonna have some townhomes and apartments.

How are you how's the applicant not able to kind of mimic that approach here?

The land cost was very low on that site.

Well, granted, but the stormwater costs were extremely high.

So um they kind of balanced out.

So, can we speak to kind of is so this really trying to get the theory?

Yeah, so I I can tell you a bit more history on this.

So we actually ended up having three neighborhood meetings on this, and the reason for that is because this was originally an RX3 request.

Um, and with the goal being to renovate the existing apartment building, the 1973 building, and to put some townhomes where that surface parking lot is today.

So that was the general goal.

Um the fire occurred, uh, it was assessed at some point and it was realized that it it wasn't going to be something that that was going to be make sense to save.

Uh so at that point, uh it was more wide open, and having at that point also heard the parking concerns um that perhaps there wouldn't be room on the site for parking that way, uh, that additional story was designed to capture that um and to allow that to happen.

Um I understand that you know these these sort of uh smaller projects of this size um you know aren't aren't really sort of breaking ground today.

Um so so this isn't a moment where all the pieces can be lined up uh to achieve that certainty, but but this is the world that uh you know this experienced developer believes will happen uh at some point.

So while we don't have an exact plan, um the idea is is very likely we are looking at something that is you know either townhomes or uh some sort of a multifamily uh structure.

I just have two more questions.

One, um, there's a conversation about unit cap.

Has that been considered?

So I I can't speak to that today.

Unfortunately, um the applicant had to travel today, so um, so I'm not able to confirm that with him.

I I do understand generally that the number that is there in the staff report is is probably not realistic, so there is probably room to limit that.

Okay.

I'll stop for now.

Okay.

Uh counselor Lambert Melton.

Yeah, I have a few, I guess, comments and questions as well.

First of all, you know, I think it was very compelling the information you gave us.

You know, I I would prefer this to not just be to make it pencil as expensive of housing as possible, quite frankly.

And so given the constraints on the land, if you built by right, I think that what you would be able to deliver would be much more expensive housing than something could that could be at a lower price point if you were given more flexibility.

So I understand that.

I also understand that this structure predates the NCOD, and quite frankly, it's really not anything worth saving, it's not contributing.

I think everyone would agree with that.

It's not to be rude, but I I go by here a lot.

It is a fairly large eyesore now, especially since the fire.

It's a three-story, kind of older, at this point, dilapidated apartment garden style apartment building, and then equal in size, as you can tell, just a giant surface parking lot.

And so there is a much better use of this land.

So I think the question is is: will it get developed under the current NCOD, or can we get some conditions in there that can make it comfortable outside?

Um I tend to agree with what I heard from the neighbor was uh Ms.

Lane, was that um you know, 52 units as maximum entitlement.

I if you're gonna do 52 units, I'm assuming it's going to be in a multifamily building.

And if that's what you're doing, then I have concerns with the prohibition on retail.

If we're talking about neighborhood character, you have a beloved retail establishment a few blocks away, smokestack.

Before that it was quality grocery, that place is crowded all the time on weekends.

People go for brunch and dinner, walk there from the neighborhood.

This area could benefit from some neighborhood-oriented retail.

And so if you were going to propose something that is a multi-filmy structure, I don't like the prohibition on retail.

Um, I think that this corner would support a coffee shop or a small restaurant or bar like smokestack.

Nothing crazy, but that people walk there all the time.

But if it's going to stay like a townhouse, I don't see how you fit 52 townhouses here.

So some density cap would be important because as was pointed out, if this changes hands, it's going to we don't know what the next person will do.

And so I think a little more specificity.

If it if it is gonna be like a multifamily, I would like to see the prohibition of retail removed.

Maybe you can limit the size of the retail storefront, so it could be something like a smokestack or a small coffee shop.

Um and if you're not going to look at multifamily, then if it's townhomes, then I think it needs to be limited in density.

The um the amount needs to be more prescriptive.

I I understand that that that is fine.

I think you're right that physically 52 townhomes will not fit here.

So that is not going to be a problem.

Uh, and I and I understand the applicant also does not believe 52 units would fit, um, you know, given that you know, even though parking's not required, it would be provided, that sort of thing.

And the slide, it's because when I said 52, you get kind of give me a weird look, but it is fifty-two.

If this if this were approved today, it said 52.

Yeah.

It does.

It says 52.

That's the result of this of the city's model.

Um, yeah, estimating what could be built.

We disagree with it.

I understand.

But when we are presented with this data, that's what we have to go on.

And to the point that was made, if if your client reset resells it, that will remain.

And so if you know, again, that you're gonna do townhomes.

I am I agree that allowing them to be four stories and on-site parking and then delivering a cheap more less expensive project could be beneficial, but we're gonna need to a condition on the density cap.

And if it is gonna be multifamily, then I think there needs to be conditions on density there as well.

And I would also like to see the retail prohibition come out.

Thank you.

Uh, question on the retail prohibition.

We heard universally from neighbors uh opposition to that, which is where it came from.

There was initial interest on the part of the applicant in retaining that that ability with the idea that exactly as you say, it would be nice to have some services, some coffee, whatever it is.

Um, but uh also we know that in the history of RX zoning, we we haven't seen that, or at least rarely, I'm not aware of it.

Uh they tend not to support those uses.

And so when we heard the opposition, um it was something easy to agree on.

Um, and so happy to do that.

I think procedurally um in at this point to loosen the zoning, uh, we would have to exactly.

Well, I won't I won't fall on that sort.

I will just say there's a difference between like a McDonald's or a standalone pharmacy and something like a if you were building a three-story condo building and the ground floor could have a coffee shop or something.

I mean, we're talking we heard neighborhood character like six times.

The character of this neighborhood is neighborhood retail.

There are there are two spots a couple of blocks up.

Um, and so conditioning it out, I think is frustrating, but I'm not gonna make you start over.

But then I guess that just brings you back to the more specificity on the density cap.

If you're doing a new townhomes, there's just no way you can get 52 here anyway, so you might as well condition it down.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

So, Mayor, I was that we actually reopen this.

I will reopen the hearing.

And hold this open in, and I know we have a holiday coming in, so I'll actually ask if we can hold this until probably June 23rd, our second meeting in June.

Um, I'm sorry, so it's I was looking a wrong month.

Sorry.

It's the 16th.

Um, to bring this back to give you time to look at, you know, the number of units, but also I will actually look at the height again.

Um, right now it says four stories, 68 feet.

You divide four stories or six eight feet, that's 17 feet of floor floor.

I don't think you're gonna have 17-foot spaces between no for your floors.

Um, so if we could look at that and possibly find a way to bring that closer in line, closer.

I think the height as far as the NCOD, I understand lot sizes if you're looking at town homes, but I think that would probably be the biggest thing I'll ask.

And sound like you have neighbors that want to work with you, continue to have those conversations, and this should probably give you time.

So, no, that would be my motion.

Bring it back on June 17.

Second.

All right, all in favor of that motion.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

It's unanimous.

Appreciate everybody being here for this.

Okay, rezoning Z5325, 5601 6 Forks Road.

Oh, okay.

Um, and Mayor Pratem Harrison um has had to leave, so she is excused for the remainder of the meeting.

Good afternoon, Mayor Cowell, City Council members, Matthew Burns with planning and development.

This is a request to rezone uh parcel just over seven acres from two office mixed use districts to neighborhood mixed use, five stories, urban limited frontage uh with conditions.

The request is consistent with the 2030 plan, the future land use map, and the urban form map, and the planning commission recommends unanimous approval.

So this site is in North Raleigh, approximately 500 feet north of the intersection of uh Millbrook and Six Forks Road.

Nearby uses are predominantly office and institutional, with some commercial at the intersection and residential further east and west.

The site is close to Sanderson High and Optimus Park.

The applicant is proposing two zoning conditions, the first of which would prohibit various uses that are otherwise permitted in the requested zoning district, and the second would prohibit grocery stores.

The request would increase the maximum allowed height from three stories or 50 feet to five stories or 80 feet, and would represent an increase in residential and retail entitlement, but office entitlement would remain the same upon rezoning, more or less.

Consistent policies include future land use map consistency, compact development, and commercial development impacts, as well as complementary land uses, the scale of new commercial and housing variety, as well as frontage and one policy specific to the midtown plan.

And staff did not identify any inconsistent policies with this request.

The planning commission recommends unanimous approval, finding that the request would allow for increased land use intensity in an area with above average access to employment and transportation options and would allow for greater residential and commercial entitlement while also adding to the housing supply.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Questions.

Okay.

Not I will open the hearing for Z53, and then we have Jamie Schredler, Walker Abbott.

Let's see.

Travis Flewitt and Bob Zumwalt.

Good afternoon, Mayor Cow and members of council.

I'm Jamie Schwader with Parker Poe here on behalf of the applicant, the Six Folk Forks office team.

I am joined by Bob and Travis and my colleague Walker Abbott, who are here in order to answer questions.

But this is a very straightforward case looking to take three aging office buildings from the 1980s and replace them with a multifamily use and potential uh moderate, mixed use development that's close to employees, schools, and amenities.

The planning commission uh recommended unanimous approval, and we have had robust discussion, but little opposition to the case throughout.

Uh the site is just north of uh the intersection that was mentioned about a mile and a half north of North Hills.

Um it's close to both Standerson High School and Optimus Park and surrounded by lower scale uh density to our west and our north.

Um the current zoning is OX3 with that frontage that was designated um by the uh 2013 remapping, and then a smaller portion with conditions.

The comprehensive plan aligns completely with what we want to do here.

The future land use map is neighborhood mixed use, which recommends that NX designation that we're seeking.

The urban form is a mixed-use center, recognizing the urban nature of this area along the transit emphasis corridor.

And so both of those uh policy guidance point to where you want housing, where you want to put place people in close proximity to get to jobs.

Um, it's also consistent with the midtown area plan.

Uh the two primary recommendations are a five-story height limitation and an urban limited frontage.

We did start out with a seven-story designation, but after hearing opposition uh from neighbors, drop that down to a five-story and have not had opposition since.

It's consistent with both that uh table LU2 and the small area plan, midtown area plan recommendations.

Um the request is straightforward NX five stories, the urban limited uh frontage that's recommended.

The prohibited conditions, uh the conditions include those prohibited uses that are not just what you see typically, but also gave some comfort to neighbors of what um mix of uses could be here while still leaving of availability for some appropriately scaled retail.

We did have the second condition prohibiting supermarkets because that is a larger format, higher generation amount of traffic, and that gave them some concern.

Um the streetscape and access has been a uh discussion throughout.

This shows uh what that uh full full build out of um six forks would likely look like.

And then at site plan, we'll be working with DOT and expect some sort of restriction on access um to a write-in-right out or um whatever DOT kind of advises here, but did want to just highlight that as that has been a discussion with neighbors who are concerned about access to the parcel.

Overwhelmingly consistent with your comprehensive plan, your small area plan, no inconsistent policies were identified, and we'd appreciate your support today.

Thank you.

Okay, questions for the applicants.

All right, I will close the hearing.

We're looking at you, Mr.

District A.

Okay.

I'll just see if we're any questions.

Uh thank you.

Um I move to adopt the proposed consistency statement dated May 19, 2026, contained in the agenda materials, and to approve the zoning amendment with the adoption and effective days described in the agenda under recommended action.

Second.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

Unanimous.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

That concludes our public hearings.

Uh next, we have just the committee reports, and I believe there are none.

There's one.

We have one item in transportation committee, the topic of traffic calming, and so we will meet on that next Thursday, 3 to 5, May 28th, and Council Chambers.

Okay.

All right, then we have report of mayor and city council.

I'll start with counselor branch.

No report.

I have a few things.

Our district E community meeting will be held at La Cusina Italian restaurant on June 10th from 6 to 8 p.m.

Our decoding democracy book club will then meet on Saturday, June 13th from 9:30 to 11:30 at New World Cafe on Durley.

We will finally be moving beyond chapter one and on to chapter two, and so we'd love to have you join us.

Lastly, Turkey Creek runs behind my neighborhood and bore the brunt of the sewage spill at RDU due to a contractor working on the runway expansion.

After the initial spill, they dumped the wastewater into the stormwater pipe instead of the sanitary pipe.

I promise you the smell is overwhelming, and I couldn't spend more than a few minutes in the area before my skin began reacting to the aerosols.

I heard from a resident just yesterday who lives on the other side of the creek, not in my neighborhood, and they told me they're on well water, so definitely trying to find out some information for them in regard to the spill.

I am waiting to uh to hear about testing and plans moving forward from the airport authority, but I do appreciate the communication that they have provided so far.

We are eight days out from this disaster, and my neighbors and I have watched all of the trucks go in and out of our streets removing the damage that was done.

Raleigh Water has stepped up to guide the cleanup efforts, and we are beyond grateful.

However, we still need answers.

Uh, this bill is about public health, and I will continue to ask for answers from our partners as the cleanup effort continues.

I am hosting a virtual meeting on Thursday from six to seven this week for my neighbors around the creek.

I appreciate their help in passing out details of the meeting to every door in our over 200 uh home neighborhood, and I hope to see many people in attendance so we can further the conversation.

Thank you.

All right.

We are excited that the Canes are in the Eastern Conference Finals.

And we've had folks asking well, what is the city doing to celebrate and back the home team?

And you uh just want everybody to know that banners did go up this week along Salisbury and Wilmington Streets.

They will also be on Glenwood South.

And then starting Thursday, when the next round games actually start, uh, we will have buildings lit in red throughout downtown.

So we uh go canes and uh beat the Canadians.

No report.

No report.

No report.

I had a couple things.

So first, I want to congratulate the Fair Housing Advisory Board on the phenomenal um conference they had last week.

I was able to attend the majority of it.

Uh, they had phenomenal speakers and presentations.

It was very well attended, so it was a job uh very well done by uh that board.

Um second, I want to congratulate uh our city staff who did an amazing job for City Vision.

Um we hosted the statewide conference here.

There were a lot of folks uh on staff who participated in a variety of ways, and I just want to give one example.

So we had planned to have an outdoor event, and the weather um descended upon us pretty quickly, and the remarkable job that the staff did to pivot on the dime to move that event from outdoors to indoors, was really, really incredible.

We got a lot of compliments from um other elected officials throughout the state.

They also said we had the best food that they'd ever had.

Um so it's going to Winston Salem next year, and they put a very high, we put a very high bar on the Winston-Salem folks to try to um compete with the city of Raleigh.

So I don't know what they're gonna come out with uh for next year's City Vision.

But to the point of the remarkable remarkable job of the staff, um, we normally give out proclamations, but we actually got one.

So the League of Municipalities issued a proclamation to the city of Raleigh.

Uh it was a resolution um for us being the 2026 conference host city.

Um there's a lot to read here.

If y'all got a couple minutes, I'll read it.

Um, but it says whereas the delegates attending City Vision 2026 have enjoyed the hospitality extended by the city of Raleigh, and whereas the city of Raleigh is uh its elected leadership and city staff have long been active in assisting the North Carolina League of Municipalities and its advocacy and service efforts, and whereas the president uh whereas President Hall, the board of directors, and the staff of North Carolina League of Municipalities are grateful for the fine cooperation and assistance of those who participated in the coordination and planning of this conference.

Now, therefore, be it resolved by the North Carolina League of Municipalities at the City Vision 2026 assemble the seventh day of May 2026 on behalf of its cities, towns, and villages, board of directors, staff, and delegates that they express sincere appreciation and gratitude the City of Raleigh, Mayor Janet Cowell, Council members myself, Jonathan Lambert Milton, Mitchell Silver, Megan Patton, Cory Branch, Jane Harrison, Christina Jones, Manager, Marcelle Adams David, City Attorney Karen McDonnell, and then it lists all the uh hosts city committee members, uh, host city coordinator, Evan Raleigh, Assistant City Manager, Host City Co-coordinator, Michelle Mullette, Chief of Staff, Host City Volunteer Coordinator, Giovanni Harris, executive manager, coordinator of transportation, uh, David Walker, uh, who's transportation manager, host city event coordinator, Symmetria Jones, intergovernmental and external affairs manager, host city Security coordinator, Coordinator Brian Johnson, Director of Public Safety and Security, Raleigh Fire Chief, Herbert Griffin, Raleigh Chief of Police, Rico Boyce, Raleigh Convention Center Staff, Carrie Painter, Executive Director, Zanek Height, Events Manager, Lauren Miller, Sales Manager, Raleigh Convention and Visitor Visitors Bureau, Tammy Jeffers, the Director of Destination Services and Austin J's destination service manager.

Acknowledgments of the Honor Guard, City of Raleigh, Fire Department and National Anthem, Deb, Ted Tethenbaum, and for many others who assisted these leaders for their hospitality assistance and cooperation for the numerous courtesies rendered in hosting this 20 uh 26th City Vision, which contributed immeasurably to its success adopted by the members of the North Carolina League of Municipalities in its annual business meeting assembled the seventh day of May 2026.

So congratulations to all of our staff for the phenomenal job that you did.

Okay, thank you all.

Appointments.

Yes, good afternoon.

Good bit to get through here.

Arts Commission, two regular vacancies, Narja Johnson received seven votes.

Austin Favort received six votes, so both of them would be appointed.

You have a full slate there.

I did note in the agenda that the existing member uh withdrew the request to be reappointed.

Bicycle and pedestrian advisory commission, one regular vacancy.

Elijah Geist received eight votes, it would be appointed.

Full slate there, environmental advisory board, one regular vacancy.

Okilue Akapoli received two votes.

Margot Shrift, five.

So Margot Shrift would be appointed.

Um resolved there.

Planning Commission, one regular vacancy, Stanford Baird received six votes.

Anna Willis two, so Stanford Baird is appointed.

We still do have that county vacancy.

I'll keep you guys informed once they make um an appointment.

Police advisory board, two alternate vacancies, council member Jones nominated Victoria Melbourne and Clinton Jones, so those will be coming back.

Stormwater Management Advisory Commission, one regular vacancy.

So would be appointed.

And then substance use advisory commission, one regular vacancy.

Gene Hammer received six votes, so would be appointed.

Jumping down to nominations, Board of Adjustment, one regular vacancy.

Resignation has been received from regular member Ryan Torrey effective July 1.

Council may wish to elevate the longest serving alternate to a regular position, which is Michael Alderman, and declare an alternate vacancy.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor of that motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

All right.

So that alternate will be coming back.

Raleigh Historic Development Commission, five regular vacancies.

Um terms of five are expiring, four of which would like to be considered for reappointment.

So we'll start with those.

Rob Allen, Bangley, Octavia Rainey, and Jordan Ryland, and then the statement of explanation regarding attendance provided by Mr.

Ryland was included in your agenda materials.

Move to reappoint the three that do not have the attendance issues.

Second.

All in favor of that motion.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

All right.

And then the last member who is expiring, whose term is expiring, Trishana Sanchez does not wish to be considered for reappointment.

Per City Code will continue to serve until replaced.

So those two remaining vacancies will be coming back for your consideration.

And Raleigh Transit Authority, one regular vacancy term of Narja-Johnson is expiring.

She would like to be considered for reappointment.

Move to reappoint.

Second.

All in favor of that motion.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

And that is unanimous.

And that's it.

Thank you.

Yep.

She's on two.

Report and recommendation of the city attorney.

Before we do that, I have a quick question.

Um the city attorney and my and I had some conversations about it.

Um, one of the challenges is with um Miss Sanchez, she's currently on the planning commission.

She's also on um the Raleigh Historic District.

Now her term is expiring, which works out okay, but I think there's been like a little push and pull because cases come before both bodies, but I'm not sure we've got a clear policy about how we deal with that.

So as a part of your report, since you're coming up next, can you piggyback on that part of it?

Like, do we need to implement something so that we don't have a person serving in a role where multiple things come before them on two different bodies?

Yes, thank you for that.

Uh, when we realized that was an issue and that had never been an issue before.

We do think that it's probably a good practice, and so I'll work with the clerk to maybe put something in place.

Certainly, uh, you do allow people to serve on two boards, and so perhaps it would be best to just clarify that those two boards are not uh planning type boards, that type of thing.

So I'll work with the clerk on that.

Any other report?

Oh, no other report.

Thank you.

Uh report of the city clerk.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

You received uh various minutes from your sessions on May fifth and May twelfth in your agenda materials.

Move for approval.

Second.

All in favor of the motion, aye.

Aye.

All opposed, nay.

Thank you.

All right.

Um, motion is an order to enter into closed session pursuant to general statute one forty three three eighteen eleven A three to consult with the city attorney in order to preserve attorney client privilege and to consider and give instructions regarding the handling and or settlement of a potential claim in the following matter, the City of Raleigh versus Barnett Brothers partnership.

So moved.

All in favor, I.

All opposed, nay.

And we are now going into closed session.

Well, we have to do it.

Well, we have a lot of the things.

Well, we're not going to be able to do that.