Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

From the meeting, and I believe town manager Tony gonna introduce the item.

Good evening, mayor and council members. Tonight is a work session. This is an update on the unified development ordinance code rewrite. Our consultant, Chad Meadows, will lead us in a discussion around some updates on the diagnosis stage. Our planning interim director, Tina, will give us an overview, and then we'll enter into the discussion phase.

Thank you for that. Good evening, everyone. I'll, pull up the short PowerPoint that mister Meadows has prepared. I just wanted to set the stage a little bit before you dive in. So we've got a great overview on where we are with the project that mister Meadows will provide.

And this is your first opportunity to take a look at the code diagnosis, which is a step in the project that we are all very interested to dive in and and read through. There's a lot of material there, and you haven't had a huge amount of time to look at it, and we recognize that. So we have provided some materials at your place, which is to help you kind of use your time well. What you'll find is, a sampling of about five of the different, themes that are identified in the summary table with some sample questions, and those are provided to you to help facilitate your discussion. You are welcome to use them or not.

Those are there for you, you know, to use as you see fit. One of the other items in the agenda packet is a sample new table of contents which comes from the town of Clayton, which is another project that CodeRite has worked on. We have, at the mayor's end of the table, some other samples of table of contents of other ordinances. I know that some of you are quite familiar with ordinances, some not so much. So this gives you an opportunity to look at your leisure about how this proposal kind of fits in the grand scheme.

And we are happy to provide other copies after the meeting if you would like. And so with that, I will switch over to the short PowerPoint and turn it over to mister Meadows. And you have your clicker right there at your table.

Thank you, Tina. Good evening, madam mayor, council members. It's nice to see you. Especially in this setting, I really, really appreciate the opportunity to sit at the table with you. When when we have meetings and discussions, it's it's always so much more helpful to be able to look eye to eye and see people's expressions rather than the the more formal dais podium situation.

So thank you for that. Today's discussion, I have a a handful of slides. I'll be moving through them in about fifteen minutes. The idea behind tonight was to introduce you guys to some of the concepts that we've prepared based on our work to date to answer some questions and to let you know that our work in earnest is is getting started. So thanks for the chance to be here.

Thanks for the chance to be here in this setting. And we do see this as starting point for more discussion with staff, council, the community. We're in task two, the code diagnosis stage. We've been busy with public input, document review, internal discussion, preparation of some initial draft recommendations that we're gonna go over with you guys tonight. Okay?

The code diagnosis. This is a road map for the new UDO. It is essentially some ideas, a framework for discussion about how we might make some changes to your LUO to turn it into the new UDO. It does explore some of the gaps between policy guidance, whether that's in Carbara Connects or the equity plan or the climate work that's been done. And it also makes some recommendations.

And, you know, there's there's probably three or four guiding ideas that I'm I'm just gonna mention quickly and we'll probably come back to as we as we go through the discussion tonight. Touchstones, if you will, as as we've thought about how how best to go about this this effort. One more thing I'll mention is it took forty five years to build this ordinance. You know, we're not going to unwind it and rewrite it in forty five minutes. I know you guys understand that.

But one sort of touchstone for us is, you know, codified standards can reduce the need for discretionary decision making. There's a very heavy reliance in your current LUO on the special use permit process, a discretionary decision making process. And, you know, often we see a reliance on discretionary decision making in codes that lack a lot of codified standards. And so one of the things that we suggest is and and leaning into codified standards and being sure that the the regulations set down what we're looking for. It's more efficient and it's more predictable.

Having codified standards is not gonna make discretionary decision making go away. There still needs to be it, and there is an appropriate forum for discretionary decision making, whether that's a special use permit or a conditional rezoning or things that the Board of Adjustment handle, but seeking efficiency in those discretionary review processes. The planned unit development process in play here in Carrboro is is complicated even by our standards. The notion that you have to mix and match different zoning districts and different amalgams is is unique and must be difficult for the elected officials, for the applicants, for residents. Certainly, we would suggest a different approach, and we'll talk more about that in a moment.

We understand and appreciate the need for public participation here, you know, in Carver. You guys have brought it to a high art form, and we understand that it is very much part and parcel of of how business gets done here. What we would suggest is we consider reframing how public participation works. That we consider taking advantage of public participation at the front end of the development process rather than the back end. And what I mean by that is this.

Right now, the back end is consideration of development applications. Okay? When an application comes before you or another body, that's the back end of the process. We've already applied the standards, or we've created them. What we would suggest is leaning into public participation in the formation of standards, in the pursuit of identification of standards that we can all agree.

This is what we'd like to have here in Carrboro. And the hope is that if we do that work well, then we are able to have more nondiscretionary decision making, more efficient administrative stuff that's based on codified standards. Now, there's always gonna be applicants who wanna deviate from those standards, and that is absolutely the time for the public to be involved and to share their views. That's the time to test that development application against the the position of the public. So this idea of reframing public participation is is an important one.

Moving that to the front where possible, rather than the back. Finally, the last sort of touchstone I'll mention is is finding what what what we call the path of least resistance. Let's spend time with the community deciding upfront, you know, what kind of development we want. And then let's make that easy. And if an applicant brings us that, then they should be approved. Right? Let's use public input to help us figure out what are those things that that we want. Recognizing that, you know, there's always gonna be an applicant who wants to do something that's different. Okay. That's that's cool.

No problem. That's a good time for more public participation to consider that one off or that deviation request. So this path of least resistance sets down and telegraphs to an applicant, you can follow this path and do what's in the codified standards and move through quickly and easily. But you don't have to. You can propose an alternative.

And that is a process where we're going to apply discretion, and we're going to lean heavily on on public participation, and and you'll need to, you know, help us navigate that process. And so those are the four kinds of concepts that are embedded in the the language and ideas that that we're gonna talk about with you guys tonight. And I while these are touchstones, we're here tonight to get you know, to answer y'all's questions and to help build on on what we've put together thus far. I'm I'm not going to read everything on this slide. There are eight key themes for improvement.

I'm gonna overview them for you very, very quickly. As Tina mentioned, there's some worksheets with in front of you that have some additional questions, which we can go through, or we can cover your questions, or we can do anything in between. So here we go. Number one was simplify the UDO. And one more thing I'll mention.

These eight key themes. There's about eight to 10 sub recommendations inside each one of And the code diagnosis document proper will go through each one of those in detail. And so we'll talk more about that in a moment. I've highlighted a handful of some of the key recommendations inside each of the eight key themes, and that's what's on these slides. We are talking about restructuring your UDO with a new page layout and more tables, more illustrations, removal of legalese or tortured language where we can.

Those kinds of changes that make the document more enjoyable to read, easier to understand. Safeguarding equity is another one of our key themes. Reducing review times or uncertainty in the development review process for folks who are trying to do development or enter the, you know, the the the economy as entrepreneurs. You know, the the complexities of of of complicated review processes have a disproportionate impact on folks who don't have very deep pockets and lots of experience. So how do we simplify things to make sure that they can participate?

We're suggesting a handful of or at least two different AMI targets, one for ownership and one for rental. Right now, the the town has a very robust affordable housing target system, well refined, well thought through, operational. 80% AMI is the target for primarily rental kinds of properties. And it may be, if if if you guys agree, it may be necessary for us to also think about targets for ownership options. And should those AMI percentages be slightly lower based on some of the additional costs associated with home ownership.

Enhancement of the short term rental regulations, making sure that those aren't negatively impacting our sensitive communities. Review of the overlay protections. You know, I'm talking about the Rogers Road. I'm talking about the neighborhood preservation. I'm talking about these these neighborhoods where we're focusing on protection of existing character, existing community structure, adding a citizen ambassador.

I've talked a little bit about front ended public participation, codifying standards and moving away from so many discretionary reviews. Maybe it's possible that we could add some resources in the planning department, for people who have questions about a development application or the process or the potential outcome from a decision of this body or some other group. It may be possible for the town to give some more personalized service, and answer personalized questions. Exploring community benefit agreements. I don't know if you guys I'm sure you're familiar with them.

I don't know if you use them that much here. They are very helpful tools to result in things that don't relate necessarily to the development code. Things like hiring locally, local businesses, job training, support for day care, other aspects that are important to have a functioning economy, but that don't necessarily relate directly to unified development ordinance standards. Having a community benefit agreement process incorporated into the UDO, not necessarily what should be in that agreement, but rather recognizing that it exists, that there is that is an option, and potentially even requirement, depending upon the kind of application that's proposed. Okay.

Adapting to climate change. Obviously a very, very important subject. We are considering suggestions about leaning into conservation subdivisions rather than cluster or AIS, the architecturally integrated subdivision. What's the difference? Conservation subdivisions are configured to protect the same amount of open space, maybe a little bit more.

But the difference is they're engineered to not be visible from adjacent neighborhoods or from streets. So they don't necessarily have as much impact on the kind of feel and look of the community. There's hopefully less resistance to smaller lots, smaller setbacks, etcetera. More native species and species diversity requirements in your landscaping standards. Mandatory, perhaps, or in some cases, maybe conditional or condition of approval related mandatory green storm water infrastructure standards.

So think of that as your low impact development parking lot, your pervious pavers, your bio swales and bio retention. The sort of next level storm water stuff. There's opportunity for us to ask for more of that. Prioritizing passive open space over active open space area. It's an interesting question or thought that I hope that we can talk more about as we go forward.

That suggested based on the the kind of environmental aspects of what we call passive open space, undisturbed vegetation areas. More limitations on development in the special flood hazard area above and beyond, not just the floodway, but maybe the flood fringe, maybe the entire flood plain. Something to consider. Another question that we've put on the slide is whether or not we should prioritize greenways and multipurpose trails over sidewalks. Maybe we should, maybe we shouldn't.

There are some impervious surface aspects associated with sidewalks. We have some challenges with respect to our current existing right of way. We have some benefits that accrue to to greenways and multipurpose trails that that don't necessarily accrue to sidewalks. At the same time, sidewalks are really, really important. They're part of the community fabric.

They give us good access. So, you know, where how do we think about greenways and and sidewalks together here in Carrboro? And and should we be favoring one over the other or treating them the same? Addressing housing choice, very, very important. We would suggest refining your current special use permit requirements if developments meet, you know, the housing targets, whatever those housing targets might be.

If it's 15%, if it's 20%, if it's 25%. I look forward to some more questions about affordable housing when we get through this presentation. But if, again, if somebody gives Carrboro what it wants in terms of affordable housing, or middle housing or payment into the town's fund for affordable housing, should we be, you know, freeing them from the the the the issues and concerns associated with the special use permit process. Something to think about. Perhaps exempting affordable housing altogether from density limitations.

Middle housing. Think about that as the duplex, triplex, quadplex, the mansion apartment, the live work, the upper story residential, that stuff by right in in most areas. If somebody does want to do a traditional single family detached residential subdivision, maybe in some areas, maybe there are minimum densities or maximum sizes or both for that kind of development. And then finally, simplifying the accessory dwelling unit standard, something we've heard a lot from the public about. The desire to have more of those and simplify some of the regulations in place.

Integrating policy guidance. These are additional policies from your adopted policy guidance, carbroken x, etcetera, that aren't already covered by housing, equity, or or climate. Should we abolish parking space requirements altogether? This notion of utilizing a fee and lose system for pedestrian features, we can talk more about that. New development generally pays for pedestrian infrastructure like sidewalks.

That's great in areas where we get new development. In areas where we're not going to get new development that don't have sidewalks, we need a revenue stream to retrofit those areas. How will we get that revenue stream? Can we ask new development to contribute to our efforts through some sort of fee and lieu system, something to talk about. Leaning into mixed use.

I mentioned having middle housing by right in most districts. Maybe we take the next step and think about converting our nonresidential districts to mixed use districts. And then, obviously, increasing the public participation, that front end sort of aspect, having folks more involved in the text amendment process and asking people to become more involved when applicants seek deviations from standards. Very important slide, one that we aside from equity, to us, this feels like one of the most important and beneficial things that can be done in this effort. Also, frankly, it's some of the lowest hanging fruit.

I've talked about the heavy reliance on the special use permit. Any subdivision that happens in Carrboro, for the most part, has to have a special use permit. Most uses require a special use permit. You have different bodies that review special use permits. We would suggest a a fairly dramatic simplification to that. That. All of the development review procedures that you guys use should have very clear review criteria, and they should be measurable wherever we can make them so. We need more definitions. Today's modern codes have a 100 pages of definitions. Rules of measurement, how we determine height, setbacks, impervious surface, signs, landscaping, parking spaces, all of that stuff.

Some possible things to consider with respect to how our review process works in general. The joint advisory boards, you guys have made great progress on. And we hope that you'll continue to streamline that, to make sure that those advisory boards are inserted in the process where they can have the most impact, hopefully earlier on in the process wherever possible. Maintaining consistent review requirements for submitted applications. There are provisions in your ordinance that allow your staff to change the submittal requirements after an application has been submitted.

We're troubled by that. Simplifying the dimensional rules. One of the things that comes to mind for me in thinking through your development regulations is, in some cases, they're almost oddly overly specific. Your downtown districts have three three different sets of dimensional standards based on which road or which part of town or which use. Finally, simplifying your OpenSpace configuration rules.

You have a summary table of OpenSpace features that goes to the thousands in the decimal points, which I was I find very interesting. I'm sure there was a good reason. Maybe you guys know what it is. I

don't know.

Ensuring legal sufficiency, this just comes as a as a given. We do have some important things to talk about here, not tonight, but in the future. We have some important things to talk about with respect to how we're going to navigate the down zoning limits. Hopefully, it won't be too much of a problem for you guys. We we can cert there there are certainly lots of things that we can do without any sort of concern over consent or or running afoul from the standards.

There are a handful of other things that we need to do in addition to dealing with down zoning. One that's perhaps really, really important are the content based sign regulations, especially your temporary sign provisions are absolutely, positively, utterly content based and should be changed to be content neutral. More discussion about vested rights. Section fifteen one forty eight allows the town to withhold vested rights. Wanna talk a little bit more about that.

Removing the HPC and the COA. As I understand it, and and we understand that we may need to talk about this some more. There are some places that while they don't have formal SHPO designated local historic overlay status, there are some places that are historic, we want to recognize that and and and honor it. Historic preservation commissions and condition and certificates of appropriateness are tools of local historic overlay standards. If you do not have local historic overlays in your zoning ordinance, you should not have historic preservation commissions or COA application provisions.

Finally, incorporating incentives. And we've sort of touched on a lot of these. Perhaps exempting affordable housing from from density, some by right review for middle housing in more places, some sustainable development incentives that is sort of a give get kind of a thing. If you provide some sustainable development features, we would give you additional density, additional height, larger signs, relief from some standards. What kinds of things would I give?

Well, lead certification, additional tree protection, reflective roof, pervious paving, and on and on and on. So we have some approaches to that kind of thing that we could explore with you guys. Tree retention, accelerated credit for tree retention. Tree retention is something that we think you guys are interested in. You have some standards now.

Tree retention standards are have been in my career the most divisive standard that ever seems to come along in a development code. Oddly enough, they we have more trouble dealing with those kinds of standards. We have a lot of practice with it and are happy to talk about some of the pros and cons with you guys. What comes next? So we have some continued discussion with this code diagnosis.

You guys received this document. This is the summary table of your current regulation. What will be coming to you very soon following staff review is the are the the the meat behind these 80 ought recommendations that I've that I've flown through in this in this PowerPoint presentation. One by one, we will go over in detail. Don't worry.

It's only 30 pages or so. We'll we'll go over with you what we mean when we talk about how to integrate other policy guidance or increase predictability or or or what have you. So, this is coming. While that's happening, and and during and shortly thereafter, our task three is a community check-in. We want to, touch base with community and talk about some of these recommendations.

Perhaps there's a webinar that we make on the co diagnosis so that people can consume this information on their terms, you know, the comfort of their office or their sofa or whatever. I've listed an optional follow-up work session with you guys. I hope that you will avail yourself of that. And it may be that if we need to do more than one, we're that's certainly fun with us. It's important project for us and where I've I've learned a tremendous amount from your code and from your staff, and I look forward to to continuing to do that.

All this culminates in the annotated outline. If the code diagnosis is the road map, think of the annotated outline as the dress rehearsal for your UDO. It will be the look, the feel, every single main section, with a description, for the new UDO, is is kind of our next destination. And from there, we will, again ask for your blessing and the community's blessing, and then we'll set about the drafting. That's everything that I have.

How would you guys like to go forward? We have the supplemental worksheets that we can go through, which we can go through methodically, sequentially. We can do questions, whether they're on the work sessions, you know, sheets or the questions that I posed during my presentation, or we can do y'all's questions and or or any combination thereof.

Thank you so much, Chad. Council members, it was your pleasure. Questions? We also have, our work session worksheets. What was the third option?

I I posed a series of two or three questions in my presentation, but you guys may also have some questions of your own Oh, I see. Based on based on what you've heard thus far.

Are there any questions to start with? Or what are we thinking about the, work session worksheets?

Madam mayor, if I may make a suggestion, I thought that if we if we dig into, to some of Chad's questions

That's fine.

Because I think he's identified a lot of areas where there's either a a gap within the ordinance about what policy should be or a gap between what the ordinance says and what Carbara Connect says. Correct. We are hopefully, can figure out which of those are points of agreement on the council and where do we have need to to chew it over first before we can give them an answer.

I appreciate that council member Frey, council members. How do you feel about that? That sounds good to me.

I do think that sounds good. Mhmm. And I think I mean, I guess, like, I'm not positive that we need to strictly follow these worksheets.

Mhmm. You do not You do not need to follow them in sequence. You do not need to follow them

You can just kinda pop around.

Absolutely. But I I guess I I I I say that as the first clause to the sentence which concludes. But I see some value in

them.

Mhmm.

I mean, I don't know if I guess I I I would I would like to swing back to make sure that we have them more or less filled out if the if if, like, clear guidance on the questions laid out here if this approach doesn't cover that, which I suspect it may. However, I just I think that this has been

You wanna make sure

that There's there's just so much overlap between the sessions and and the worksheet.

I'm not

trying but I think that these are really helpful. I think that they'll it will be helpful, particularly as we talk about this in community with this is just, a really clear way, I think, of thinking about some of the trade offs and things like that that I would be interested in hearing pretty much what everybody thinks about almost everything on the worksheets, which I think we will cover largely with Chad's questions. But I know just to, like, sort of not overlook the worksheets. I like them.

Anybody else? Comments, council members? Good with the direction so far? Chad, did you have something you're gonna

I I well, what I wanted to say, first and foremost was, you know, I wanted to thank, town staff for, one, the idea of going and and and putting these together, and two, the work that they've done. We work together on this. However, you know, these questions, these notions, had their had their had their their start with your staff. And they suggested that we use this as a way to organize our discussion. And and I thought that was a a fantastic idea, and I'm very glad that that, you know, that this was done.

And I will give them credit for the vast, vast majority of the work on putting these together. So with that, the first one on our list, is is safeguarding equity. And what I want to you know, the the the question that's laid out before you is this. And it's a question of balance. You know, do we we've we've talked a lot about the need for a faster review process.

Mhmm. Right?

And and I know that you guys this is something that that you very much want, and it's important to you. It is typical and common in in other development code projects. When when we hear, well, we want to expedite the review process, there's certain that that that means certain things to us, like codify the development standards, designate the staff as the administrative review body, remove or reduce the the range of of meetings and and touches as you move through the process. And and I think that Carbara is probably likely to to to is it Zumba night again?

It is.

Is. It's Oscar.

It'll keep our energy up.

So let's just say that I think, generally speaking, let's put your application baskets into three baskets. Okay? There are some things today that require special use permits that we would suggest no longer require special use permits. Okay? And in those instances, the public participation would shift from from participation in a public hearing to looking at a development tracking form update or map that's put together by the staff.

Perhaps talking with the citizen ambassador position that we suggested. Perhaps the town pursues a technical review committee meeting structure that's available for members of the public to attend.

Can you talk a little bit about that citizen ambassador again? Just for clarity for the public or anyone

that's Absolutely. Absolutely. So the notion initially, I had suggested calling this an ombudsman, and, your staff is like, what a terrible word. We're not using that word, and I agree. Citizen ambassador is a much better word.

I used ombudsman because, there are many, many cities across the country who have these positions in place. Phoenix, Portland, Detroit, a handful of communities in in California have an office of an ombudsman, and their job is twofold. One, they help applicants navigate the development process. And two, they help citizens understand what are the requirements, what is the process, where is this particular application in the process, and what is the outcome. And that's their responsibility.

Now you guys are an awesome community. You're not Detroit. You're not Portland. You've got a a smaller staff. It may well be that one of your planning, your planning staff members takes on the role of citizen ambassador and is available to help applicants understand the the the process, outside of a TRC meeting. They're they are available, to be to be a resource to applicants. They are available to residents who have questions. I saw a sign in my neighborhood.

What does that mean? All that?

Right. Exactly. What what what's what's happening? Mhmm. Today, in in many cases, are public meetings, public hearings that take place. Some things we would suggest not require special use permits anymore. And so there's a there's the potential for a gap, an information gap. Whereas today, they might have been able to come to a public hearing under a different approach that that might not be available. We wanna be sure that there's still information and that they can get their questions answered.

Yeah. I love that. I love the citizen ambassador role. I think it's really important. Can we

I I agree. I love

Mhmm.

Pretty much everything about it. Yep. Can we talk about citizen versus resident versus staff? What possible considerations for this rule? I mean, that's I hesitate to overburden our staff. Absolutely. I see advantages to some, like, resident ambassador role. Seems like a lot to ask of a non staff member. I don't know. How are you thinking about these things?

It should definitely be somebody who is representative of the town. They should be able to talk about the process, and the the actions that the town has taken in its official capacity. That is a very important aspect. It is possible to spread the responsibilities of a citizen ambassador. I'm sure your staff is throwing daggers at me right now, but you you could conceivably split up that responsibility.

Different staff members speak to different applicants, or it's organized by, you know, what your last name is or where you live, you know, that that there's different ambassadors for different parts of town, or different ambassadors for different aspects of the development process. You know, Bob, you handle developers. Jane, you handle citizens, you know, and and and that's how it's divided. That can that still needs to be thought through, but the notion is we're trying to make sure there's not an information gap that's opened up in in our pursuit of of rendering more efficient development review. Review.

Thank you very much. Lots to think about there.

Chad, does I wanna be clear that a citizen ambassador which, you know, Chapel Hill had ombudsman. Mhmm. So, you know, the community is familiar with that kind of role, but does that replace public hearings? No. Okay. Explain how the public hearing fits into that scenario.

Okay. Good. Good question. So in order to do that, I'd I'd like to explain some of the things that currently go to a special use permit process that might not under the new regulation. So one that that jumps right out is this idea of new residential development, a major residential subdivision.

Currently has a special use permit requirement, pretty much all of them. If the town decided that it wanted to encourage, incentivize applicants to provide affordable housing, or middle housing, or make a payment to the town's fund, then you might honor that act that action by lifting the special use permit requirement from that major residential subdivision. So that would be one possible approach. Another might be that there are a wide litany of uses in your permissible uses table that currently require a special use permit that, depending upon adjustments that we make to the standards, inclusion of new requirements, more clarity about requirements themselves, or frankly, direction from you that we no longer need to have a special use permit for that particular use. Those uses might become permitted subject to these limited use standards.

And so establishment of that use in a particular zoning district might no longer require a special use permit where at where it does today.

And so the schematic here, what developments that are not special use permits does this apply to right now?

This is something to think about with respect to the rezoning process. Okay? And that really isn't going to change. A word or two about the rezoning process. Because of senate bill three eighty two in the down zoning legislation, going forward, if you up zone property, increase its development potential through a a conventional zoning process.

Right? There's no concept plan. There's no conditions of approval. You just grant this new development authority to this land that gets this zoning designation. Because three eighty two bars you from reducing allowable uses or or bars you from lowering densities or bars you from creating nonconformities without consent, you are in effect saddling the town with something that can never be changed, at least not until the law is changed.

Conditional zoning, on the other hand, allows you a couple of things. It allows you to attach conditions to the rezoning case that contemplate the potential for future necessary reductions in the range of allowable uses, that contemplate the possibility of reversion from a conditional zoning district designation if the application isn't completed in a timely fashion. And so the conditional zoning process is one that will probably become more prevalent for the town as you go forward. Now what we would suggest in terms of the conditional rezoning process is that they all follow one of two flavors. There's a limited flavor and an unlimited flavor.

The limited flavor of conditional rezoning is I want to rezone my property. I want to request this conditional zoning district designation, and I will agree to comply with all of the rules in the current UDO. And I will I will further limit myself in terms of the range of allowable uses that I seek, the densities that I'm going to have, the I might have bigger landscaping, you know, I might have better design or provide more open space or whatever. I am voluntarily conceding to give the town more than I have to. Okay?

I'm this is a limited conditional zoning. What's limited is my ability to deviate from the standards. I'm following all the rules plus plus plus plus. Okay? That's a process that should go forward without need of a concept plan.

Right? That, you know, still has all of the steps, but doesn't have the more complicated negotiated aspects with an unlimited conditional rezoning case. What's an unlimited conditional rezoning case? That's where I'm coming in, and I'm either requesting out and out deviations or reductions from standards or a blend of I'm giving you some here, but I'm taking some there. That unlimited conditional rezoning is very typical, very common, and I'm sure you guys deal with them all the time today.

That's how most larger developments proceed in North Carolina these days. The unlimited conditional rezoning process does require a concept plan, does require a lot of upfront review and discussion from the TRC, from the staff, from the from the citizens who live in the area. Why? Because I'm seeking to deviate. I wanna I wanna move away from some of the minimum requirements in your code.

Now we always include in our conditional rezoning procedures a requirement that the applicant demonstrate to your satisfaction. That the development that would result from this approval is of a higher quality than would otherwise result from a strict application of the standards. And we set down rules or or parameters for how that is measured, the things that people would include. It's not an exhaustive list. It's a suggestion.

Hopefully, the applicant would take that and build on it and do more, do different. The point is that conditional rezoning process should involve all of these steps and should not be we shouldn't be waiving any part of the public participation process. Okay? So as far as conditional rezoning goes, this process is appropriate and should be followed, perhaps even enhanced, at least if it's an unlimited conditional rezoning. Let's talk about special use permits for a second.

Why? This process says this is how you use special use permits, okay, or how you go through special use permits. In North Carolina, the decision maker on a special use permit application must limit their decision to the information that is presented to them during the hearing where the decision is made. Consideration by an advisory board, consideration by neighbors, not relevant.

Shut up.

Should not be involved. Mhmm. In fact, if it's found that you relied on that information that was collected and assembled outside of the hearing inappropriately, then you violated the law. So we would suggest that special use permits not include these kinds of advisory board and community member listen and learn sessions, not necessarily include neighborhood meetings. One of the reasons why we make that suggestion is because having a neighborhood meeting for a special use permit gives those neighbors the impression that they can impact the outcome when they can't.

Because the body that's convened to make a decision on that application has to stick to the standards.

You anticipated exactly what I'm thinking about, and I really appreciate you through this. And I didn't understand the distinction that you drew between the zoning and the and the SOPs. I really thank you. Is it too much to say that for SUPs, which we're trying to eliminate in volume regardless, none of this should happen.

Yes. Pretty much. Yes. Yes.

There should be one hearing for town council.

That's correct.

I love that. I mean, it seems also like the law to me, but but I yes. Thank you. Okay.

The the statutes do allow for additional consideration by advisory boards. However, very, very few local governments follow that.

I mean, it's honestly this is the thing I hear the most in advisory boards is what the hell are we doing here on Tuesday night? Right. Council's gonna say that they can't listen to this.

Right. You're right. So, you know, to to to sew it up, we would suggest reducing the reliance on special use permits, generally speaking, recognizing that some developments have preferred development features that allow you to waive the special use permit if you haven't already gotten rid of it altogether, That you delegate counsel to be the body that reviews special use permits, not multiple different bodies. And that when you do have a special use permit application before you, it not be subject to multiple reviews by different advisory bodies.

I have a couple follow-up questions. Think folks who are listening who are familiar with the advisory board process will say that, well, what if you're having an SUP, the supposed benefit of having the advisory board's comment is that it gives the applicant some food for thought that they may use to improve their application. In sort of what in what you're imagining in the future, where do they get that from? If they're going to something that requires an SUP, do they have a pre application meeting with the staff and then they go straight to counsel for their hearing, done, that's it? Or is there anywhere for them if they're you know, or is that the where the ombudsman comes in to give them some information that may help them improve the app the the application?

I would say it was it would be a blend. I think that you should allow an applicant if they so chose to have a neighborhood meeting to do that. That's their business. Mandating it is a different matter. Certainly, the ombudsman, or the the ambassador could be helpful in helping them frame their application for success. Obviously, at the end of the day, the application turns on, do you meet the standards or don't you? And, you know, I mean, I to be fair, there's art in that. But, you know, it it should be boiled down to the the most basic, you know, wherever we can do that.

So in that case, your three baskets, you have zoning, which has none of these steps. Right? The zoning permit.

Yeah. That's just a by right.

That should be much more common for anything that meets the codified standards. Zips on through.

Yes.

Does not come to any board. Has no public hearing.

Yes. Done. Correct.

SUPs go straight to a limited public hearing before the council with restricted testimony.

Yes.

Not a full not a full what

people think of as a full public comment hearing. Conditional rezonings on the other hand go through the whole kit and caboodle.

And and maybe

even little more amendments and things like that.

Yes. Okay. Text amendments should have that's the opportunity for the public to really get involved and help you guys figure out what you what you want. What kinds of development and what configurations should we allow to go forward with the by right application?

I think there's one other key difference here, which is today when we see a conditional rezoning, we always see an SUP after it, and it often confuses us as well as the advisory boards that get pulled in on on either side of that. They're saying, well, if I'm reviewing this now, why is there an SUP later? And then they get to the SUP phase and they have comments about things that are in the conditional zoning. Oh, no. No. No. That's off limits. That's already done. So the idea is if an applicant needed to do a conditional rezoning, they would go through that process. We'd establish what the conditions are, and then presumably, they would rezone to a district that enabled them to then get a zoning permit

That's correct.

On the other side for

whatever they Okay. Hallelujah.

So building further, and I and I take this to be your preferred outcome. We use a fair amount of conditional rezonings in town, but dramatically reduce SUVs and in the final state, almost like the number of conditional rezonings is much higher than the number of SUVs.

That's a good question, which I'm not able to answer and here's why. I don't know the I don't know the scope and detail of the by right standard that we are contemplating.

And so what we put in our districts.

Yeah. So we if if we did want that to be the outcome, which I think we do, that would be doable. Yes. To use the conditional rezoning to as like, to still preserve some discretionary transaction with developers. Yes. But to almost eliminate SUPs by the buy right standards within the districts that we rezone to conditionally.

Yes. Yes. That is correct.

All of that.

The the the special use permit process has value to you. And here's how. Because you currently use special use permits to consider residential subdivisions, You may continue to do that going forward without fear of running afoul of three eighty two. So in that regard, you're ahead of the game. And you're able to use the special use permit process as a disincentive for applicants who would choose not to provide or participate in reaching the town's target with respect to affordable housing.

Okay. Yahtzee. Okay. I'd I'd you it's very clear that you've heard us well on this series of issues, and I appreciate it very much. Yeah.

I've got one other follow-up here. So the board of adjustments role changes quite a bit here. They no longer hear SUPs at all.

That's

correct. They hear variances only. Appeals? Of and appeals. But they they are going back to their strict statutory role. Help me understand the distinction here between what becomes a variance. So I understand they hear appeals of zoning permit. So if someone is denied a zoning permit, they can appeal to the board of adjustment.

They

that's pretty clear.

They must. That should yes. It must be done that way. Yes.

Okay. Where does the variance side of that come in? Because I think for the the the current board of adjustment has a very mixed role and trying to figure out, okay, what does this mean for those reviews and how those know, so the SUP part comes to the council. Sure. The part that's still I thought the appeals make complete sense, but if you could speak a little bit to the variance

side Absolutely. Of So the variance tool is is available for development proposals that cannot physically comply or applicants who choose to request to not comply. The reason that we don't see variances used more frequently is because variances turn on the notion of hardship. You have to be able to prove I have a hardship in order to to be to be approved for your variance. As a result, people who wanna deviate from the standards end up using the conditional rezoning process because it's negotiated.

The role for the variance is still there. The role for the variance is I can't meet the setbacks. I I can't meet the landscaping requirements. I can't meet, you know, some other kind of standard that's in the ordinance because of physical conditions on the lot or or some other narrow band of situations that are handed to us in the statutes. We we don't have a lot of discretion about, you know, the variance criterions.

So there is still a role for a variance, But I'll I'll mention this. Lately, we are also seeing increased reliance on the ability of staff to grant what I'll call minor or de minimis kinds of reductions to numeric standards. So for example, let's say I am building a building on my lot. I have 15 foot setbacks on each side. I have an existing tree on the lot, and that tree is 10 feet from the lot line.

And if I build my building at the 15 foot setback line, I will impede that tree's roots. I'll impact it in a negative way, and I don't wanna do that. What I would like to do is reduce the setback, not on the tree side, on the other side. Right? So that my building can be farther from the tree.

Some people call that an administrative variant. Some people call it an administrative adjustment. I know you guys have some of those provisions now. We would suggest continuing with those, leaning into those. Maybe we have an out and out provision that allows staff to grant administrative adjustments to a certain percentage or a certain range of percentages depending upon where you are in town or what's being requested.

There are very clear criteria about what kinds of things can be subject to this reduction, how much staff can grant deviation to. The maximum amount of deviation that staff may grant doesn't solve your problem, then you'll have to go for a variance

Mhmm.

And pursue that that process. So and the reason I'm talking about that is you had said, well, board of adjustment's role will change, and that's true. They would not be considering special use permits. It is possible that they might be less so in the variance business as well because you've incorporated some flexibility into your procedures that allow staff to grant some very small deviations of, say, 10%. So on a 10 foot setback, that's a foot.

That said, there are some other flexibility provisions that are out there. We are drafting these days what we call an alternative plan. That's primarily applied to development standards, parking, landscaping, lighting, fences, walls, things like that, where I might ask for an alternative configuration on my site. Example. Let's say I have a site and I have a three story building, and on the northern side of my lot, I have a use that I need to buffer.

And the buffer requirements are such that I need to plant evergreen plants. I am not a horticulturalist, and I'm not even a very good gardener. But I will tell you that generally speaking, evergreen plants don't do well on northern sides of buildings because they're in the shade all the time. Right? So how might we consider that situation where some part of a lot is shaded for most of the year?

And how do we deal with our performance standards for our landscaping provisions? An alternative plan is one of the strategies that we use to deal with that. That thinking can go can be applied to parking. It could be applied to fences, to to to basically any standard, any development standard. You guys may choose to include that kind of provision in your regulation, and then you may not.

You you you don't you're not required to. Those communities that are built out, that are mature and don't have a lot of land left over and the land that's left is the difficult stuff that's not built on because it was hard, those are the places that use those alternative plans. Because a strict application of the standard is always problematic. And I'm always in this variant setting, and I can't pass the the hardship bar. So the lots sit vacant. So thus, ergo the the alternative plan. So that was a very long winded way of of answering your question. Yes. I could see the board of adjustment having more time on their

hands. Mhmm.

And to be honest, I don't know that that's a bad thing.

Not at all a bad thing. Might also clarify, the skill set that we should look for in board of adjustment. Right? Because right now they're doing some appeals work and some discretionary review and there's different skill sets you look for. I wanted to pick up on something out of your your lit your long list of recommendations.

If you would briefly let us know a little bit more what you have in mind for strengthen standards on short term rentals. I was thinking of of when we're when we're looking at safeguarding equity, I'm looking a lot at protection of naturally occurring affordable housing, displacement protection, and trying to figure out how to balance that with some of our other goals. So I'd love to hear what you have in mind there

on short term rentals. For sure. So let's talk about that one for a second. So right now today, you have in your code what's called a tourist house. And, you know, there's some there's a few places that you can do that, but there's no standards.

You don't have any limited use standards or use specific standards, whatever phrasing that you would like to call it. You don't have any. Those communities that that that suffer from, you know, an excess of short term rentals have these kinds of standards. They address things like, obviously, requiring a permit. You've got that now.

I think they're required they require a special use permit today where tourist homes go. So some sort of permit requirement, some sort of limitation on occupancy, whether that's by bedroom or bathroom, some sort of provision about, trash collection, some sort of provision about minimum number of parking spaces, some sort of provision about providing information to the tenants about what the rules are, in the, you know, in in in in the house, in Carrboro, etcetera. Requirements for the landowner or representative to be available if questions come up, not just to the tenants, but to their neighbors. Provisions that allow the town after a certain number of violations to withdraw the permit approval. So those are some of the flavors of of things that could go into a short term rental regulation.

And these are things that other places are using now. All that to say. You know, you should never ever adopt a regulation that you can't enforce. Right. And short term rental enforcement happens Friday at 7PM through Sunday at, you know, whatever, midnight or whatever.

And if if if that's when the infractions occur, you know, it's good to have your enforcement arm there. A lot of people do rely on their police force to assist with that. That said, there are some resort communities that actually have code enforcement that works that time. That's when they work, is over the weekends and on the evenings to deal with that problem. I'm not sure that that will work for you guys, but some places do that.

So, you know, that we we we move into that short term rental regulation stance aware that, you know, it's not a panacea, that there's some issues that we have to grapple with. The reason that it was there is because of the potential impact of the short term rental on the housing supply and the kind of neighborhood feel that that can kind of result in after you've got, like, a critical mass of these things. Yep. It becomes a different kind of a place to live. And so, you know, we can't do density regulations and we can't do spacing.

We've got some North Carolina Court of Appeals rulings about that stuff and we're not able to do those things. We can't do a registration. But we can have some of these standards. And it's in there because of that issue, that sort of protection of our naturally occurring affordable housing, protection and recognition of the context of the communities where we're seeing a lot of these now. I don't think this will solve the problem overnight, but it's a it's a step forward.

So can I can I hop into this just like a higher level? So I think we are generally not that favorably disposed of the board to short term rentals. But do I do I state the case correctly that it it seems like the tension we're managing here is I mean, basically, I don't I don't want them. But we but if we add the units, particularly ADUs that will serve all the rest of our goals Mhmm. It's going to be difficult to enforce regulations that will prevent the concurrent, you know, the Some percentage.

I mean, I the reg the regulations you're proposing all sound pretty pretty much desirable to me across the board. I share your reticence toward unenforceable regulation, and it's a a nasty habit that we've had on in some other areas of our town Mhmm. That that, you know, we're trying to break. I guess, my I I don't know if if you can answer this. What do you like, do you think so overall, the softening the standards toward ADUs and short term rentals.

Softening towards ADUs, strengthening towards short

term. Okay. Yeah.

Will the ADUs wind up being short term rentals?

Yes. Right.

Mhmm. We can write a standard that says you can't conduct a short term rental in an accessory dwelling unit. Mhmm. But

I'll I'm just gonna weigh in. There's also the potential for unintended consequences there too. I mean, I live in a small house on a half acre. Building an ADU that I rent out might be the only way I can afford to continue living here. So I don't I don't wanna you know, I I

think Oh, no. I want

the ADU. Right. But I but but also renting it Then you need to rent it out

in the term.

Well, but I I think there's a matter of scale here too. I mean, I think one person renting out their ADU is different than somebody who owns 20 Airbnbs. So I I think there's there's I don't know.

Or a developer coming in and building Building it. Building it.

I mean,

I opposed to an ADU that's being built by an owner. Right. I think that's the distinction we're aiming for.

I'm gonna be honest. I didn't know till tonight that it was that an SCP was required for a tourist home, and and I know for a fact that there are people in this town that own a bunch of them and have no SUPs.

Well, I think I think there's one registered tourist home.

Right. And there's and there's yeah. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, which you know, so, I mean, this still come this still kinda comes back to enforcement.

Well but but I think to your point too, though, we are not able to we're not able to actually prioritize the single owner renting the ADU. I mean, you know, like, it's what when when the ADU becomes permissible by right, then the developer's interest in a lot on which they can build an ADU is equally enhanced. Mhmm. It is you know, it's not as if owner run short term rentals are comparatively prized over developer run short term rentals. There's there's simply no way to do it.

And and but an ADU, in fact, is an accessory dwelling to an existing dwelling.

Right.

Okay.

So But they will be used as short term rentals left, right, and center if we make them buy right, which I am interested in doing. I wanna do it.

But all I'm saying is that there there's an elemental difference between someone building short term rentals or Airbnb's, let's say, as opposed to someone who's build building an accessory dwelling because there already has to be a preexisting dwelling to which the ADU is the accessory. I mean, is that

True enough that we're talking about different cases.

When you when you have a major subdivision though, one of the rules is can you build an ADU? And you don't have to build the house first and the ADU later. Like, you can have a new subdivision where you're putting in

Right.

Home you know, single family homes and ADUs are, you know you can you were all of these are getting built at the same time Mhmm. They've actually been

sold Maybe we need to tease that out

a little bit. I I think the reason I wanted to bring this up is because it sort of highlights one of these cases where we have uses that look it that look on the plat a lot like each other. If you look at the plan, you can't distinguish between a short term rental and

Right.

An affordable home. But these are two different things. How do we figure out a way to reasonably and forcibly with, you know, statutory appropriateness regulate those because they have very different impacts on the community?

If I knew that, I'd be in Nice.

Have no idea.

It's a very, very hard

It's a hard one.

It it it is. And I have many, many clients, along the coast who are are grappling with this issue. Mhmm. How do we how do we manage, the accessory dwelling unit issue in light of short term rentals? And the answer to the question is you don't. It's hoped that if a short term rental is happening in an ADU that the owner is there, at least some of the time, and maybe some of the negative externalities that flow from the short term rental, you know, aggregations that that that that's limited because the owner is on-site and is there. Can we require the owner to be on-site? No. No. We can't.

We can't regulate you're gonna rent and you're gonna own. We we can't those are things that we can't regulate. Will accessory dwelling units be used for short term rentals?

Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. They will.

They

are. And that's, you know, I'll go back to the plant analogy. I used to live in The Keys, and I would talk to somebody about plants, I'd say, know, what do we do about the bugs? And they say, well, you know, we just let the bugs eat whatever they want. The sun is so bright, you know, that we'll have as much fruit as we get. And there's enough for us and the bugs. And I think that that philosophy might need to be your guidance in terms of how you think about short term rentals and ADUs.

Yeah. I mean, I'd I'd find all this persuasive. I don't I don't think it's like I I I'd rather on personally, on the side that I think you're guiding.

So but can we can we at the same time have some level of something on the books that empowers neighbors? If if someone is abusive, if someone is found to be, like maybe they own 20 across town, and it's fine because they're in pockets of ones and twos. And they actually do have a good management company. And when there are problems, they're responsive. But if we have an enterprising entrepreneur who comes in and manages a bunch of these and it's a repeated set of complaints in the same neighborhood, the same vulnerable neighborhood.

We need a tool to be able to act on that. And so I I do wanna see some tools, and and I think we should talk about, like, what what can we enforce?

Agreed. But, what are

the tools? Like, it just seems Well, so while we don't have the ability to have a a registry, we we do have the ability to require a permit. And if we have the ability to require a permit, we have the ability to rescind a permit. Mhmm. We just have to specify these are the conditions under which your permit would be rescinded.

Okay. Do we have the ability then to issue a fine for failure to get a permit?

Yes. You do. So whatever we can do, I would be interested in.

Yeah. Don't know about

everything. Question.

Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, I think there you know, certainly, if it's enforceable, you know, and things that are complaint based are enforceable. I mean, you know, if we get repeated complaints, we can show up. I mean, I guess, what happens if somebody's operating one and turns out they never had a permit in the first place? I mean, you know, I I

Right. I that that stuff is real. Yeah.

Mhmm. So so let me ask the question this way. You take a neighborhood like Bartowell. Right? And they have significant property on they have small houses.

Many of them are ranches, but there's a lot of space. And so what we're saying is folks could just start building ADUs, right, and renting them out. You know, how do we help the neighbors to ensure that their neighborhood doesn't end up like like like North Side in Chapel Hill that's all students. And that's I mean, I'm basing this on the fact that in the seventies, Chapel Hill, started to have many residential neighborhoods that built on ADUs. Mhmm.

And, you know, if the neighborhood, you know, was just, you know, just had a list server, you know, they they were not part of an HOA, they did not have any control.

Right.

And that that presented huge problems in Chapel Hill.

Mhmm.

I I just don't want to see that happen in Carrboro where you have neighborhoods like Bardowell that are very, neighborly and very much, in a community mindset and have that dismantled.

Right. So your current approach to the accessory dwelling unit question, how how you how you manage that issue is the lot size requirement that you've got on the books now, which says, okay, you gotta have a one and a half times or a 150% of the size of the required minimum lot for the district in order to to be eligible for having an accessory dwelling unit. And I think that's a proxy tool to to kinda manage where they can go. I I don't know that much about Bard Owl Neighborhood. I'm sorry.

I don't. But, you know, if those lots are large in size, you know, then that standard wouldn't necessarily protect them. If the lots are small in size, then then it would. So, you know, there's no really good answer to how do we manage accessory dwelling units except through zoning district standards. We allow them in some districts and don't allow them in others.

That's one approach. You currently use the special use permit process. I just, for a variety of reasons, don't think that's a great idea. You know, we haven't talked at all about the notion of presumptive validity. If If a use is permitted as a special use permit, then you have to allow it if it meets the standards.

There are procedural distinctions that can be made. I'm not sure that's the way to go. The district question is available. However, sometimes different areas have the same zoning. And what might work well in one place won't work at all somewhere else. And so sometimes you have to swallow hard and say, well, you know, do we want these accessory dwelling units? And if so, we're willing to, you know, take a shot, that, you know, there'll be some places where this is problematic. We can include, you know, some additional screening requirements. We can include some additional exterior lighting provisions. You do have a noise ordinance.

Those are things that you can use and rely on. We can, you know, rescind the permit. We do have the authority to do that. And if you're found to be operating without your permit, then, you know, that's a different matter. One other thing that's out there for consideration we haven't talked much about is this idea of detached versus integrated accessory dwelling

Mhmm.

It is possible to accommodate an integrated accessory dwelling unit in an existing structure and allow that to be rented as a short term rental.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

But not to permit a detached accessory dwelling unit to be operated as a short term rental. Again,

more

enforcement, but that is a strategy.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead. No. No. I was just gonna follow-up and say, so just this topic in this way, you know, really causes me to think about how much more public engagement on this on the UDO needs to take place. Mhmm. Because neighborhoods need to know that, you know, if they are in a position where the rewrite is going to impact could potentially impact, how their neighbor is developing in the future.

Right. Understood. I will say that the input that we've gotten up to this point with respect to the ADU question has been resoundingly pro. Let's make it easier to to have these.

I I think a lot of people feel the way that Jason is articulate.

Well and what I was gonna say is, you know, we should keep an eye on the issues we're trying to solve without losing sight of possible unintended consequences, and and that is we don't have an overabundance of Airbnbs that we're trying to solve for. We have a shortage of housing we're trying to solve for. So That's right. You know, kind of keeping, you know, some tools at hand should an unintended consequence be suddenly we're overrun with Airbnbs, but that doesn't seem you know, that's not the issue we're facing.

No. I think this is gonna be helpful when we come back around to the topic of, neighborhood, some of the nape special neighborhood districts that we're talking about.

Mhmm. Yeah.

Do you think we can hop on to the climate change one?

Yeah. We should.

Let's move.

Chad, you've laid out a ton of goals that I think you may be like, yes. All of these are good goals. But I'm guessing that there's some kind of input you want from us in terms of how to prioritize.

Yeah. Thank yes. You're very you're you're absolutely right. Very perceptive. And and and this issue is one that this issue of balance is one that I I always seem to find myself kind of ruminating about when I'm working on on your stuff.

You know, you have many, many, many goals. They're all good. And in some cases, they they may operate across purposes to one another. For example, you know, we want more density. Okay. Good. But we also wanna be more environmentally, you know, protective. And we don't want to be overly expensive in terms of development. Right? In in many ways, the the equation of environmental protection and density and development cost is like that triangle that you see for any kind of consultant or whatever.

You can have it good, you can have it fast, or you can have it cheap. You get two of those, but you don't get three. And in some ways, this prospect of we wanna be very environmentally minded and we want to be very much on the on the be be especially kind of cognizant and and embrace climate change and environmental protection. We also want, you know, to increase density, and we wanna be sure that we're not overly expensive for development. That that triangle is very difficult, perhaps even nigh impossible.

And I'm not sure how to balance that. And I'm wanting some input, you know, from from the town, from from you guys, from residents about, okay. You know, if something's gotta give, what's that something? Are there different places where different somethings give? I don't know.

I I so I'm that's kind of the conversation that that I'd like to have. This question is simplistic in that it says, here's some priority here's some tools out here. Which ones you know, how do we prioritize among these when they're applied on a particular site? And that's great. The larger question is, you know, are we going to say no to an affordable housing development because it's proposed in a location that is contrary to our environmental goals? I don't know. Is that something that you guys have thought about?

Thought about yes. Figure it out? No. No. Yeah.

I I feel you. Yeah. Do you have a sense of of how you guys would go about that prioritization process?

May I? The first thing that that pops to mind to me is is this conundrum of, like, there are multiple things where people swear up and down that it will be awful. And then as soon as they experience it, they find out it's actually great. And this is, for example, bike lanes in front of businesses. The business owners across the country over and over and over again swear up and down it's gonna hurt their business, and then they spend two months with a bike lane in front of their business, and their business goes up.

And so I I'm I'm wondering how many of this is just do we have the stomach to get to the other side of something that is gonna have a multiplier effect that people swear up and down that something taller than 50 feet is gonna be ugly and ruin the character of their neighborhood until they can walk there and get groceries.

Right. Right. Good. Good. I'm

Chad, you you characterized, you know, environmental preservation and protection and potential opposition to affordable housing. And I wanna take issue with that because because many times, you know, I mean, that's I think that's far too simple. I think there's there's science behind environmental decisions that has to take precedent. We recently had this very question with Pathway Drive that is on essentially a ravine and had daylit springs and there was flooding below to the the neighbors already. So, you know, the topography of the land and and the information we have about the ecology of the land is those are the facts that frame the discussion.

Mhmm. It's it's not pitting affordable housing or accessible housing against, you know, environmental protection. Ultimately, if we do not protect the environment in one part of Carrboro, it's going to have effects downstream, and we know that. So, you know, as we look for spaces to have the best possible affordable and accessible housing, we need to factor in to that exploration, you know, what what's the best how how does that land work best with what could be built? Mhmm.

Instead of, you know, I mean, we classically, you you know, put affordable housing in some of the worst places. Yeah. And we cannot do that any longer from a myriad of reasons. So I would just say categorizing those two things as being in opposition, I think they have they work together and they're based on, you know, the the actual facts of what makes for the most responsible, the most sound building anywhere.

Can I can I take a run at the, like, the high level trade offs that you're articulating? Sure. So, you know, kind of the framework that I have been operating under personally is that, you know, we are making development considerably cheaper through the process we were just talking about on the on the previous page, you know, the broad reduction in discretionary review and special use permits and things like this. I hear, that that is often, you know, 3 to 106 3 to $600,000 right out of the gate for but is there are we preserving, in your judgment, some so we have that bucket of expense to pass on. I have been hoping that if we were predictably expensive on climate measures Mhmm.

That the predictability and the efficiency therein would still amount to a net gain in overall efficiency in development in car? Like, you know, I'm not I I don't hear from I think that's probably enough. Right.

You mentioned the word net gain and maybe you meant cost savings.

I'm not sure. Yeah. Net gain, I guess, in in terms of efficient yes. Yes. Cost savings. Hey.

What if we said, we did what Chapel Hill did and said, you are gonna cover the hundred year flood, period. We know that's gonna be more expensive. We're gonna pull enough other expenses out Yeah. Of buyer of our of our UDO that that's gonna be a win. Mhmm. I it's I think I think what you're saying is, actually, this is one of the areas where we're willing to have folks spend. If we're doing large developments, things like storm water, stream restoration, clean energy are areas where we are willing to spend. It's it's one of the it's there are a lot of trade offs in

here. This

is a

big one. I

I mean, what flashed across my mind, hearing hearing the conversation is that you you are choosing to prioritize the environmental protection. That that is, in fact, the the thing that, know, we want to see first. We and if I'm misinterpreting, please tell me. And and I, you know, that's what I'm hearing. Am I hearing that right?

I don't think so. I would tweak that. I think it's affordable first, environment close second, other competing priorities accordingly downshifted. Mhmm. So I'll give but I'll give an example. I think I think that Randy is right that how you play that out matters. I could say, you know, pie in the sky. This would be a lot easier if we had single stair. Yeah. Right? You can build tower in a park makes it a lot easier to do open space. Okay. So we have some we have some choices to make. We might it's not that we have to choose between affordability and climate smart development, but we might have to choose between affordability and then doing every single bit of climate smart work at the same time on the same lot.

Right. Right.

So as an example, canopy coverage makes a lot of sense. We know that it's gonna be climate smart to have shade. It's gonna be really important to have mature tree canopy. But if we have a tree protection ordinance which prioritizes a seventy a bunch of seventy year Willow Oaks over affordability, we're making the wrong choice. Mhmm.

The Willow Oaks should go, and we should ask that they be be replanted, and that should make our site plan flexible enough that we can make that affordable and say, hey. And wherever that extra space ends up, would you please plant something back that's gonna be a mature shade shade tree? Mhmm. If you say, we have to keep the willow you know, that one tree cut in Carrboro is a problem. Well, yeah, but a quarter acre cut in Chatham County is a way bigger problem.

Mhmm. So trying to define those, like, I I would say, hey. Flood protection two hundred year might make sense. Right now, we only do 25. Flood flood protection beyond hundred year, you start to get you start to get, you know, reduced additional benefit from the additional because the the gap between the flood sections the the flood frequencies gets to be a smaller and smaller amount of rain.

Right. That's true.

Trying to trying to find a sweet spot in environmental protection that is compatible with affordability

Mhmm.

And then go whole hog on that.

Yeah. That's I I I understand exactly what you're saying. And it's helpful to to have in in the broad stroke the, you know, we really do think affordable housing is, you know, the the the that that's the goal that, you know, we really need to be sure, you know, that we're not going to, you know, to to to trade on that. Because the point that you make is absolutely correct. We see affordable housing happening on marginal lots because those are the less expensive ones.

So much so that now, you know, even the feds aren't lending money, if you're gonna be doing stuff inside the flood plain. Right? We were seeing that now. So they've even they're kind of have gotten it figured out. So, yes, Understand affordable housing and then and then close second is the environment. The the other sort of issue that you raised is, you know, Chad, the the the prioritization that you're setting out is overly simplistic because flood protection in one place is gonna be, you know, at at this level is gonna be different than flood protection at that level in a different place.

That's exactly right. Yeah. That's exactly right. It's also that if you make a certain decision in a certain place and it's what happens downstream of it. Mhmm.

I mean, you just look at the difference between Carrboro and Chapel Hill and Camelot Village. Okay? Camelot Village is at the base, you know. And when we knew we knew when, you know, subdivisions north of where we are today in Carrboro and, you know, that that there would be more infrequent storms and more volume of water running through Boland and Carrboro where where she can percolate more water than Chapel Hill because it it's hardscaped.

Right.

By the time it's getting to Chapel Hill so you see the zone, it's not just a a zone within itself and what that that floodplain can absorb, but it has to be with the view to what could be coming from other areas. So for example, we have Jayden Creek that's going in off, old 86, and they have elevated that land considerably. And I don't think anybody was really thinking about how much that land was gonna elevate when we talked about, you know, how storm water was going to impact. And we're already seeing neighbors who who live on, what is it, Shadow Ridge Road are having flooding because that land was so elevated.

Right.

So you see it's not as simple as as choosing, you know, and protecting a a very specific zone today. It's also looking at that zone over time and what's gonna impact it Right. Coming down.

Understood. And I'm sorry. Please go ahead.

Oh, no. I you can reply.

I just

been waiting to jump in.

Go ahead. You know, I I the the one thing that I was gonna say is that another goal for us is predictability. Mhmm. And, you know, if the answer to the question is, well, it depends, then, you know, that that is often a hard answer to hear. And and so I first, I recognize that, you know, that first thing I said, flood protection in one area has a different value than a flood protection in a different area.

You know, that's kind of a it depends answer. And we I wanna advocate for predictability where we can get it. At the same time, recognizing that it's not just, hey, which of these nine things on the page should we pick first and then what comes after that? It it it isn't really that that simple, but, you know, I definitely want to keep it as as predictable as we can. We have some other things that we have to deal with from the general assembly, like we can't really have certain environmental standards that are more restrictive

That's right.

Than what the state allows. That doesn't mean we can't ask for more or treat more as a condition of approval or use an incentive. We absolutely can. And I don't know that we need to spend a lot of time, you know, thinking hard about which of these we should incentivize because I'm not sure that we're in the driver's seat when it comes to incentives. You know, it's, hey, we really want you to do you know, we'd we'd love it if you did all these things.

Right. You know, can we expect that you'll do them all? Probably not. But, you know and and then you applicant, you know, in your pro form a, you're gonna or your or your personal value set, whatever it is that you bring to your application, you know, you'll you'll follow, you know, the the one that sings to you or the one that makes this site, you know, most profitable for you in in whatever way that that's measured. So I don't know. I I would say these continue to be incentives. I do wanna talk about tree protection, but you've waited patiently, please.

Oh, I was just gonna say just when looking at the various kind of environmental things, there's an important distinction in my mind between mitigation and resilience. And I think as there's only so much we can do as a small town to mitigate global climate change, but there's a lot we can do to be more resilient. So I think if we're going to as we kinda continue to try to, like, rank these things or try to prioritize them or give them weight, I think we should give weight to resilience. You know? So things like flooding downstream, storm water, I mean, those are we're gonna see bigger and bigger storms.

We're gonna need to manage that more effectively. So I think that's something we can do for the people that live here. You know, energy efficient buildings are nice. They help keep the bills down, but we're not gonna stop the planet from warming. Sorry. Not to be the Sammy in the room, but

you know?

It is what it is.

Yeah. So I mean, and when we're looking at our priorities as a community, that's kinda where that's where my head is at.

But

There's something I I wanted to circle back around on the the flood protection issues. I think and I'm sorry, Randy. I I don't actually agree with the specific examples of projects that you've brought up here, Jade Creek or Pathway or so on. But I do wanna talk about the importance of storm water because it's one of those little bits of distributed infrastructure that when developers build it has a big impact. Mhmm. And I'm thinking about the SUP that we did for some time back for South Green. The develop you know, our standard in ordinance is twenty five year. And this particular lot is at the bottom of a hill. It's basically a soup bowl. Mhmm.

Floods all the time. Whenever it floods, runs across the road, floods the mobile home park on the other side. And so we traded quite a bit. You know, we had an in this SUP model, we did a lot of trading, and the developer knew that storm water was a concern there and was willing to put in an enormous storm water conveyance far in excess of what was required for the standard for his own lot. Mhmm. It's right over on the edge. And what it's really doing is it's catching all the storm water coming down out of all the older residential neighborhoods that were not required to have any storm water controls at all. Mhmm. It's catching it. That got built.

Tropical storm storm Chantal comes through. We heard from our our fire chief that he headed straight for that intersection because he knew you know, we've had high water rescues there in the past, And what he found was it did not flood. So this is a interestingly, is a development that made the storm water situation around it and downstream of it better than it would have been had that lot remained undeveloped.

Mhmm.

And so thinking about like that that that point about requirement and incentive around storm water in particular. Thinking like figuring out how do we how do we think about like what our our little micro watersheds are.

Right.

And thinking about what we making that something that we incentivize heavily Sure. I think makes a lot of sense.

Can we can we boost from 25 to not even 100, but 500 to 1,000 year flood regulations? Is that allowable now?

I have some clients who are borrowing development in the special flood hazard area altogether. So, you know, can you do that? Yes. Should you do that is a different question. And, you know, that's something that that we I would suggest we continue to talk about.

If that's really, really important for you guys, then let us go talk to the the knowledgeable people and and try to give you some sense of the of the trade offs. The point that was made earlier about the diminishing returns is true. And, you know, I think at some point, you might cross the line in terms of of value add for, you know, a a a very, very hefty flood control provision that might render negative outcomes to some of your other goals. Do you know what I mean? So I'd say, you know, give us a little bit more time to think about that.

I mean, particularly the conflict between, let's say, a bioretention cell and a tree canopy goal.

Yeah.

Tree protection. So I'll confess to you all that I'm a tree hugger and have been for for many, many years and and love trees and have been an author of many tree ordinances across the state. And over the arc of my career, I have come to realize that reforestation as an option makes a lot of sense. We work very hard in some communities to protect the oldest, weakest trees, because we think that they have the highest ecological value when in fact maybe they don't. They are meaningful to us emotionally.

They are meaningful to us from a from a community standpoint. They are perhaps not as environmentally or ecologically robust as a different kind of a land cover, say, you know, a 100 trees or a 150 trees. So I understand that communities want to have tree protection and canopy coverage requirements. Those are, they're helpful. They are also difficult.

They are also divisive. And I'm curious, you know, where where are you guys on this tree canopy question? Do if if we were to think about a continuum, okay, of we don't have any standards at all, which I don't think you guys wanna be there to we're gonna control we're gonna mandate that every single development site in Carrboro maintain some percentage of the canopy that's there after construction. And and we mean everybody, including single family detached residential development. That's kind of the other end of the spectrum.

Okay? Where are you guys in the middle? Do we wanna incentivize tree protection? Do we want to mandate tree protection? Do we want to allow tree protection to happen but defer to reforestation instead of retention. Do you have any thoughts or feelings about this issue?

I I just wanna toss out that a a very new to me thing that I got in the context since joining this, I've gone to other presentations, and we actually had a grad student come and talk to us about wet bulb temperature. It had never occurred to me that the sort of standard, standards for trees in developments leads to developments putting in a bunch of 15 foot trees and that for a period of five, maybe even ten years, those actually increase the ambient temperature in that area and produce a heat island effect because they act as a windbreak. Like, that had that had never occurred to me as an unintended consequence of tree oriented rules in development. And so I do I I do wanna say we should have a broad picture climate goal of resilience. Yes.

We want trees. Yes. We want mature canopy. But how do to your point, reforestation may be a strategy that we would prefer. Like, we lose trees here, but we get them back over here in a way that is not gonna produce that heat island because it creates a windbreak. So I'm I'm I don't know where that puts me. I don't know if I just

in the middle. What does the ability

to compel and enforce reforestation look like?

So there's two or three components to it. Usually what happens is a portion of the site has to be set aside and never developed. So it becomes open space forever. There's a requirement that trees get put back, and how that's done is in a variety of ways. One way that it's done is a tree density requirement.

I need this many inches of trees, and and you figure out applicant how to get there. Another approach is upon maturity at some out year, let's say twenty five years, we would expect to see this percentage of this air this tree protection area under canopy. Right? And and so that's the standard that we're gonna hold you to. And twenty five years hence, you better have it.

And if you don't, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna you're gonna be in violation, and we're gonna have to come back and deal with it. Another alternative is simply a sapling count. We want you we you know, when when when somebody reforests when, you know, when Duke reforests or whatever, you know, there's a there's a a density account of of saplings that are put in per, you know, per unit of of measurement, per unit of area. And some live and some die, and that's another way to do it. I personally am enamored with the percentage canopy coverage at the out year standard.

That gives a little bit of flexibility based on what nursery stock is available.

Mhmm.

It does ask more of the community because you need to come back in the out year and say, yeah, you're at 27.3 or, nope, you're not. You know? I mean, you can imagine that calculation. But that's that's the simplest way that I've found up to this point to do it. You know, if if if somebody were to ask me what's my dream tree protection standard, it would be allow accelerated credit towards landscaping standards for retention of trees that exist in areas where landscaping is required.

Soften performance objectives in instances where existing trees are and back off a little bit on your opacity standards because you're giving credit, accelerated credit for the existing tree. Have a tree retention area provision, maybe for some kinds of development, maybe not all kinds, but for some kinds. And if necessary, based on the site, allow the applicant to to tear those trees down and replant to reforest if necessary because of site conditions. It is more expensive for them to do it that way in the long term. You do get one of the things that we see a lot, and and and I I'm sure that you guys have seen this, when we have these kind of tree retention standards that result in the strips of vegetation that are kept, and then the wind blows and all the trees fall over because they've lost their kind of communal support system to protect themselves against the wind.

So that that is a failed system in my mind. And I would rather see those trees be replaced with newer trees and a reforestation standard than I would keep those trees because we think they should be kept. Honestly, at the end of the day, specimen tree or the heritage tree or the whatever phrase that you want to use for these older trees, That that should be kind of left up to the applicant. That tree's the oldest tree around. That tree's gonna be the first tree that dies.

And it's it's it's it's old. And so you have to spend a lot of time and a lot of money to care for it, and it's still gonna die way sooner than a lot of the other trees. So at the end of the day, you're gonna lose the tree anyway. So does it make a lot of sense to forego, you know, affordable units or better design or better flood protection because I've diverted my money to protect this elderly tree? It's good.

You know, it's it's a valid question. Think that you should give credit for heritage trees, specimen trees, maybe not accelerated, but leave that retention in the hands of the applicant. If they wanna do it, great. If they don't, okay.

Have you seen any tree standards that worked really well for, helping downtowns in particular get some shade back? I say that if somebody like, I've been to Seattle and I'm like, man, they grew a maple in that much space, but then I know how much rain that tree got. And that's not the situation that we're in.

Right. That's a really good question. The the cities that have really strong urban forestry programs with really strong, you know, arborists have the most success. When they come in on those cityscapes and set up that the areas under sidewalk for with with, you know, structural soil and the the the positives that those trees need to live, they they have great success. And and and Raleigh's a good success story, so is Charlotte in terms of that. But that's all funded by the government. Yep. There's no development participation in that.

And that's so so part of that is their size. Right? That they're able to have that as a staff person because I'm like, I'm really enamored. I've I've gone to with QR codes, like, about this tree. Yeah. That's great. Mhmm. Get engage the public with your street trees. But then the question that immediately putting the policy hat on is how did that get paid for? Right. So

Trees in downtown are very difficult. There'll probably be street trees. New development should put in street trees, and then y'all need to pay for keeping them alive. Yeah. And that's that's about as as cut and dry as it can get.

You know, Chad, you said something before I think is really important. You said it depends. And although I agree with much of what you've said about trees, there's some really key points I completely disagree with. One being that reforestation takes time.

Yes.

We live in North Carolina, we have an unbelievable amount of heat. And the heat is starting to crawl back into April and May and go all the way through to, you know, October. And depending upon the kind of tree that it is and no two trees. You know, there's so many species of trees that you can't make a blanket statement about trees.

Mhmm. Some

trees could be a 150 years old and they are a lot healthier than younger ones. Okay? So you can't lump it all together. Mhmm. So I take issue with that. But the point is that tree reforestation takes time. Right. And I think in for this council, one of the things that's really important to be able to grapple with the this question is we need to look at, you know, at the satellite map of Carrboro, our six and a half 6.2 miles. The tree canopy in Carrboro is what makes Carrboro literally cooler than Chapel Hill. Mhmm.

Okay? That is something to protect. And I think we need to be able to look at that map and realize where are the heat islands that need trees, that need amplified protection and, development of of tree canopy? And where are the areas for potential development that could have a challenge in terms of trees being needed to be taken down. We don't have that many more areas for development.

There's areas for redevelopment, but not that many new areas for development. There's the infill. And with that in mind, I think we should work from the point of view of what do we need to know about the tree protection we have, where do we need tree protection to be built because we we have these heat islands. So for example, years ago, we were approached, by a group that wanted to do the work and they wanted to put trees in that the the strip along 54 that is there's a few trees in there, but they wanted to really build that up

Mhmm.

So between the four lanes. And for some reason, we you know, that wasn't allowed. But the point is that, you know, you have lots of spaces that can use re quote, unquote, reforestation that are available that we need to be looking at separate from whether we're looking at it through the lens of, well, somebody wants to develop, we need to, you know, consider what trees would need to be cut for that development. So our ordinance should reflect, you know our our tree ordinance should reflect, a very proactive stance separate and independent of development in addition to development, you know, knowing ahead of time, looking at the Carrboro map where we know that tree replanting should be taking place ahead of development request to to cut cut down.

Right.

So just a proactive approach because on top of the question of heat heat and heat islands and the time it takes to for trees to grow so that they're really giving back, trees sequester so much carbon. You know, we have to see trees as not something that has to be worked around in a development or in an ordinance, but it's something that is fortifying the health of our community, the lungs of our community. In addition to that, there needs to be a connection between the invasives because a lot of folks in the community have no idea that what they're planting should not be planted. Years ago, what was it? The Bradford pear.

There was a massive Bradford pear. The worst possible trees to. Right? And it and they're terrible because on top of everything else, they're gonna come down. Naturally, they're gonna come down. But that so that needs to be part of it as well Mhmm. Not only for developers, but for folks in the community.

Right.

We have a really robust green neighborhood initiative, and I would say that this is one of the places where bringing in the neighborhoods and helping to fortify the green neighborhood initiative with tree planting, their own reforestation, and, and knowing about, which species grow best where. Right. Just as you said, some are better in the shade, some are better with full sun, etcetera.

You this is something that I really wanna key on, and that is we know. And I think I think maybe we do, but maybe developers, even developers who wanna do the right thing don't, and we can help on the carrot side by providing an illustrative examples, like your example of too thin a break. Can we say, here are examples where you might think you would want to do x, but maybe you should consider doing y for this reason regarding trees. That doesn't have to be necessarily a stick, but is like, we know you want to do the right thing with regard to trees. And so here are some lessons learned. Can we put that in? Not as a yeah. It's just as guidance.

You guys have a tree list now, plant list, in your appendix. And I think that we would look at that, make some suggestions, certainly add limitations on invasives for sure. We might even go so far as to recommend that the new regulation require existing invasives to be removed. I think some of the things that you were suggesting, this notion of heat islands and and trees, you know, I think what flashed across my mind was sort of a a an approach to trees that basically is is managed or operated by the town. Mhmm.

And, you know, the the UDO is the tool that we use to manage development

Mhmm.

On sites, not necessarily how we manage the town wide tree cover. All that to say, you know, just like we talked about with a revenue stream in terms of of pedestrian facilities in neighborhoods that don't have sidewalks. You know, some communities create tree banks where money is collected.

Chapel Hill has that.

To to to use to help address kind of town wide, community wide canopy cover. And, you know, a a UDO has a role to play there in helping create the revenue stream. Right? But in order to do that, you've got to have the standard. Right? And you have to understand how to navigate your goals. I want trees on this development site. I want trees town wide. I'm you know, can ask for trees on this site or I can get money for trees town wide. And and how do I manage that?

So, you know, this notion of of of revenue stream collection, things like retrofitting sidewalks or retrofitting tree canopy is a thing. The UDO can contribute to that. It does raise the price for development across the board as you're collecting that revenue stream to use in other places. So that's the the the piece that comes along with that approach.

There's a trade off to be had between any of these various payment in lieu revenue streams and, you know, the actual tax revenue that we would receive from there being more development in

general over time,

which we could use for anything up to and including any of these things we might wanna dedicate a revenue stream for.

That's correct. And interestingly, your your your ad valorem revenue stream flows based on the value of the of the development, which is, in some ways, a perverse incentive to encourage the kinds of things that, you know, maybe you don't necessarily wanna encourage.

I'm gonna jump in real quick. So we're on adapt to, climate change. We have several more. I was wondering if council would like a brief recess or if we're going to just push through and just go ahead and finish this up. What is your pleasure?

I did

I did have some time oriented thoughts because I think we've covered so many of

these priorities.

Yep. I I kinda wonder if we might not be close to where we can feel heard tonight with deference to

Chad. Pretty robust.

What I what I wanna say is number six.

Increase predictability. You wanna skip over?

Yeah. I wanna when you said that you see this as probably the most important Or possibly the most among the most important. Certainly among. I really Perhaps

to me the most important, but

I think to us as well. Okay. I really wanna underscore that. I wanted to you know, what you have written here in six is all essentially music to my ears for your sub strategies. And I wonder if I'm reading correctly that that given the conversation that we had about discretionary review earlier and given the reforms that you have enumerated, this chart is not really the framework by which we would still be approaching this.

Correct? No. Okay. So, I mean, to me, I think the question I I offer all of this because I what I would like to propose we do is maybe stack hands on, yes, do this, and then talk a little bit about affordability. So I think if we talk a little bit about affordability and incentive in the particulars, we have touched on most of what we care about.

Okay. But if anybody doesn't feel like these strategies for predictability are really great, you know, I just kinda wanted to knock that out because that would kill a sheet. And then, so much of what we have left to discuss in affordability and incentive. There's some specifics, but Chad's heard a lot about our values there. So I to to that end, mayor, I I think we might be thirty minutes out. Oh, I don't

I think that's optimistic.

I was getting ready to say, I don't think we're thirty minutes out.

I'm all for charging ahead and seeing how much further we get. I'm also in favor of a a brief recess.

Yeah. We'll take we'll take a a few minutes.

And I did just wanna throw I just am always gently trying to get into the mix here on the tree thing. Trees are nice. I love trees. I love the forest. I love the shade. It's valuable. But I'd I'd at the risk of being that guy, think we should as we're kind of continuing that conversation, we still need to keep our eyes on what our goal is. And with trees and a nice cool place with lots of shade, shade for who? You know? The people that can afford to live here. So let's you know, I just wanna we can't they can't all be number one priorities. There has to be a number one priority, which for me is gonna be affordability con you know, again and again and again. So just just kinda wanna throw my 2¢ in on the tree conversation. Okay. How how we get there?

I I liked your idea. I mean, I like the you know, I like a lot of the ideas thrown around. We don't have to decide on tonight, but that was my 2¢.

Thank you, council member Romero. We're gonna go ahead and take a brief recess. We'll come back at 08:15. Recess.

The thirteenth?

I I I I'm all I'm all in. Let me go check my phone and make sure that I'm in town. I I did not bring my phone in, so I'm gonna run out to my car.

Good man. I think it might be helpful for you to be able to ask sort of the second order questions to get off of this.

That's Wednesday. Right?

I'll be right back.

I thought your Central Pines was later in the month, or did y'all shift it that month?

Yeah. Because

of probably because of when you call, but I thought you said the thirteenth.

I believe we were talking about the thirteenth, and then somebody said that Owasa has a meeting that day. But

it's not us. Is it?

Well, would you

mind, coming on the twelfth? Is that a problem for you? How's that working?

And

I can't on the thirteenth anyway because I'll be preparing for a medical thing on the thirteenth.

Co diagnosis itself.

Right.

And so there'll be the 30 pages that back all of these things.

Mhmm.

And this table and a handful of other things, some some of which you've already seen. In fact, I think most of it you've already seen, but it's all in one Oh. Code sandwich.

So we're back in session. I was about to miss that. Were we, moving to, predictability?

We were gonna talk about predictability.

Let's move to, increasing, the predictability. Mayor Pro Tem Nao, what's that? Great. You want to start there with,

some comments? Yeah. Well, I mean, to me, this does seem super important. I like, my personal pass at it, is that Chad's got a hold of it. Honestly, like, I would want I mean, a lot you know, a lot of this is a is a codification of the discussion that we sorta had about that chart in the earlier section. This makes sense. And so I guess, like, my motion, which weird which which I'm not making because we're taking no official actions

You said my motion.

Would be just to, like, check with y'all and get a quick sign off. That, like, other than, like, what Chad needs from us, like, to me, this looks like he's pointed in the right direction.

And right direction, mayor pro tem, meaning the, chart?

No. Meaning not the chart. In fact. In fact, the chart kind of becomes a little bit moot. Yes. That is correct.

Where are you? I have no idea. No.

Worksheet number six.

Worksheet number six. I'm I'm looking at it on my screen. I had lost the correct paper. But, you know, sort of the the impact of the use would not become the metric by which we are adjudicating things or or where where they go in the review process. Right.

Degree degree of conformance to codified standards.

We we we're there's two or three biggies

for us.

More codified standards, less reliance on special use permit. Mhmm. Where we do keep the special use permit, it's just one body deciding the special use permit. That's you. We're not incorporating advisory review body in the special use permit review. Where we've got legislative requirements, rezonings, text amendments, etcetera, we would continue with the process that you're using, the the the heavy part of the citizen participation, the joint advisory boards, all of that stuff would carry forward. And we might turbocharge citizen participation in text amendments and for conditional rezoning applications that's that are unlimited or that seek deviations.

Rock and roll.

So by comparison, for instance, high density residential in a zone that envisions that that's a good thing could actually go forward with a zoning permit.

That's correct.

Okay.

And then I guess, you know, they're prompted by staff in terms of predictability. I don't know the business type in the way that we're talking about it by the framework Chad just went through. I don't know the business type is necessarily a predictability question.

It it's not. It's it's one that I wanted to add in, and so a little bit of background to why that's there. As you recall, we've got a an economist working with us on the project. And one of the things that they're charged with doing is helping us understand the market condition at the out year and whether or not the market condition at the out year is what we want or if we need to move levers to change. Now there's a document that you guys haven't seen yet.

I haven't seen it yet. It will come to us, and it will say, this is the potential outcome of where you guys are under the status quo. Do you wanna move levers? And if so, you know, let's talk about which levers we move. One of the things that up to this point, we we've talked a lot about housing. We've talked a lot about density. We've talked a lot about housing. Staff made clear to us that there's more than just housing going on here. We also wanna have jobs. We wanna have a place where people can, you know, live here and work here.

And so, this economic analysis document that's gonna tell us what the situation is in the out year, and we're gonna talk about levers. One of the questions they're going to ask us is, do you want more job related nonresidential growth, Or do you want more retail related nonresidential growth? Do you want both? And then there's another question which is, you willing to forego some housing because you're looking for, you know, nonresidential growth and you've got a set amount of land to use and so forth. So that's why this question was here.

I am jumping ahead a little bit, but it it's it's kind of my fault. But I wanted to kind of understand where you guys were. Are we looking for heavy duty employment growth? Are we looking for residential, I'm sorry, resident nonresidential stuff, retail, office? Do we want both? When you guys look to the future, where where would you like to be in terms of nonresidential development? What what kinds of businesses?

I'd say both. I yeah. And I've heard other folks on this guy say in previous meetings that we want the stuff that you need for life, milk and eggs. I I would just toss out a soccer ball, acquirable to more folks, who are are living close to those things. Right?

So we want a mix of of retail, of restaurants. And I and I would also just toss out that I like, I know from development patterns of our neighbor that there are certain large health care and education institutions that are not neutral actors in this, that if you try for certain things, you may end up with something else. And so, like, how much power do we actually have is maybe something that we should

Mhmm.

Think about. Right.

Yeah.

Thinking particularly about office.

Office specifically. Yes.

For for

words no there's there's no office in Carrboro. I mean, it really it I mean, we've we've been looking at this for decades and it's just the interest isn't there. People you know, we've built some office kind of components and it never materialized. And it's not going to. I mean There

is one floor of class a office built in Carbara in something like the last forty years. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's you know, so I'd strike that from the list. But I think having space that is, capable of being, you know, some kind of flex space. I think one of the things that we were sorely missing is, you know, the conversation about and this is really what the downtown development area plan, you know, what are the businesses that might be interested in coming to Carrboro? And and I know on the economic, sustainability commission, we've talked a lot about forging into new frontiers, which, you know, has not really come to counsel to talk about.

But I think it's really important for for Carver Carver to be looking at where we could be going that we hadn't considered before. Mhmm. You know, so that we become a niche market for for things that we have not developed before.

Okay. Okay.

And I I asked John if you wanted to add anything to that since

Go ahead. Okay. Who said no?

But I mean, there's tremendous possibility between the arts and entertainment because we're already known for that and we haven't really mind that, you know, that aspect of us being a destination town. Mhmm. So I I would say that there's a little bit of homework we can be doing, you know, and and one of the things is to see I mean, the cat's cradle is moving. It's expanding. I mean, you know, the there's opportunities right downtown to to forge into, areas we that are not even necessarily on the list.

I mean, entertainment is not on this list. Right. And it needs to be. Mhmm.

In many ways, you're channeling some of the things that the, The Economist said. He went to, arts and entertainment mostly because that's what you guys are known for. Mhmm. And I think he understands that it's a lot easier to to to build on that than it is to, you know, to start over with with in in an area that you don't have a lot of kind of traction or or, existing, you know, kind of plant, if you know what I mean, any any kind of physical stuff. So that's helpful. Thank you. And Well,

I wanted to hop in there and say, I I I think I disagree on the office point, but I think there's a good point under what Randy was saying, which is I'm not sure that we are have historically been good at knowing which of these we should pursue, which of these are realistic to pursue.

Okay.

We could use some advice there. We've had for twenty years now a goal to increase our commercial tax base

Mhmm.

Without a really clear idea of of of how we can do that.

So no road map.

And I I and I think, Chad, to help understand, like, why that's so crucial in the hierarchy of priorities and the way that we have been seeing it in our discussions is that if the affordable housing is gonna be really high quality, then and if it's gonna be climate resilient, there needs to be an enhanced economic life here, and there need to be more jobs here.

Mhmm.

And so, I mean, to to that end, you know and I I Catherine makes a great point that I think we could be steered. And but with you know, we we like arts and entertainment. I'm strengthened on this list. Like, we have a real restaurant. I think that kind of fits in arts and entertainment. Yeah. That's that's a a legacy here. Sure.

But I

I think so too is manufacturing at a light scale. We have a lot of sort of like industrial craftsman Mhmm. Or or have had.

Sort of that artisanal small scale

Yeah. Glass, metal, printing.

Wood.

Yeah. Sort of think think about creative production facilities.

Right.

And that strikes me as highly desirable for economic diversity, for employability, for but I'm just throwing out stuff that you can correct me on.

Right. I'm not I'm not the economist in the room. What's what flashed across my mind, these artisanal manufacturers who are here and and operating, Are those products being are are they sold to end users who come here to purchase them or are they being packaged and shipped?

Not I as far as I understand, not significantly shipped. You've got a lot of regional building trade associated stuff. I learned the other year that it is actually possible to get almost every component of a house manufactured in this county. There are some exceptions, things like shingles that just like that are heavier industrial. But you can get cabinets, counters, floors, bathroom fixtures, and so on, either retail or production

Mhmm.

Actually within 20 miles of this where I'm sitting right now.

We are in many ways like the triangles, like, stop in and out for a lot of that industry, I I think.

Yeah. There's a lot of of, like, high end high end building trade production that happens here. And so to connect that, we don't have a ton of existing class a office. But the office that we do have, definitely not class a office, but we actually have a fair bit of office stock and it is professional and medical. Therapists, doctors, tax, attorneys is actually something we have a lot of residents who are in these professions who are either working remote or are going out of town to apply their trades

Mhmm.

On a daily basis. Okay. It may not be I I don't know that building more office for trades that are can be done remotely is really, gonna be a growth industry any

time soon.

No. But it is something that we actually do have and do well. When we did build some class a office, it's all sold and we got dentists, we got financial services, things like that.

Like the one corporate headquarters we have.

I heard from I at that time when that was opening up, I started hearing all of a sudden from a lot of local business owners who were like, oh, hey. We we actually pulled some businesses of that kind. So I think of, like, the professional office space. We pulled some of that from Carborough or from Chapel Hill in the process. Now our supply is like tiny. It's just an it's almost anecdotal. But I'm interested to know if we can expand on that. Know sort of this let's think maybe about facilities that could house jobs of the kind done by people who are already living here.

Mhmm.

Then also support support manufacturing, support of retail for those industries. Industries.

I think any of the manufacturing has to be out, like out 54. Leo gave a great example. Mhmm. Rice glass is another example. That market is shrinking.

And and when know, if and when Fitch leaves and, you know, that that property opens up, I mean, Fitch property, the cement factory, I mean, we have to start to reimagine where things are gonna be the next ten, fifteen, twenty years rather than, you know, the businesses, the kind of manufacturing Carbrough has has had because they they really the the cost for them to do business here and and and pay for property use here is it it it's crazy. They could be making money elsewhere. I mean, Leo is a perfect example and, you know, a lot of the automotive I mean, when I first moved to Carbara, it was all, you know, service repair and auto and, you know but that that only has a certain amount of lifetime left in it. I don't I don't think that's necessarily in the future, but I do think this UDO should reflect what happens when these privately held properties become available because there's no there's no organized plan for, you know, getting them to string together and form downtown partnerships. So how do, you know, when these businesses when when the cement plant becomes available?

How do we how are we going to be ready when these large properties that are can be can be anything?

Can be repurposed for something. Right. Right.

So, Chad, I

think where I was going with that is, yes, we obviously have a ton of arts entertainment and restaurant. Like, that's an established that's something we're already established to being good at. We also have an absolutely absurd number of architects per architects' offices per capita. We have the architecture offices for, like, the region.

Okay. Okay. Good to know. I I don't know what his report will say, but I do know that he's going to come back and talk to us about if status quo continues, this is what you can expect. Some of that will be influenced by what's accommodatable in terms of the number of rooftops that you'll add between now and the out year.

And then he'll ask, okay. What do you want to to to favor? And, you know, it sounds like, you know, artisanal manufacturing, professional service kinds of stuff, jobs for people who already live here is probably where you're you'll go. I think he said, and I don't wanna put words in his mouth, but, you know, y'all are not gonna be the next big, you know, manufacturing hub. We're not gonna make batteries. You know, we're not gonna make, you know, car parts and things like that here.

It is jobs for people who already live here, homes for people who already work here.