Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to the 05/19/2026 meeting of the Chapel Hill Planning Commission. We're a volunteer citizen advisory board, and, we have a few items on the agenda tonight, besides approving a couple previous minutes. One is a conditional rezoning application for 1651 Old is it Lystra? Is that how you say it? Lystra Road?

Just a guess. And, also, we're going to receive a Lumo update presumably from Taz or somebody else on staff, and we're gonna consider making some recommendations on a packet of applications to the planning commission. But first, let's start with roll call. Jeff Green?

Here.

Chuck Mills?

Here.

Libby Thomas?

Here.

Mike Zivai. I might have been gonna get your name right, but

You got it. Zebai? Okay.

Yes. Close enough. You don't care.

Close enough.

And I see Liz is here. Liz, are you here?

I am here, and my computer just decided to update. So I'm gonna I'm on my phone, but I'm transferring over. So I

will see you see you back in a minute. Yeah. And I'm John Mitchell, the chair. We're all here. Six for six.

Are there any suggested, amendments to the agenda or anything folks wanna add to the agenda? If not, maybe just a thumbs up minus Liz if you're okay with the agenda. Okay. Looks like it's okay for folks. Any announcements or petitions?

No petitions received by staff for planning commission.

Okay. Now we have two, previous minutes to approve. One's from December 2, which was, Liz's last meeting as chair, I believe, and then, also one from April 21. I took a look and it looked correct. Does anybody have any, corrections from the minutes? And if not, I'd be looking for a motion to approve those two minutes. December 2 and April 21.

John, I can only vote on one of them since I wasn't at the So could we just do that separately?

Yeah. Let's break them apart.

So the December 2, I, motion that we approve those.

Okay. Is there a second?

I second that.

Mike, second. Thumbs up if you're in favor of approving those minutes. Yeah. That's everybody. Me too. Okay. April 21. So Liz is gonna abstain on this one. Does somebody wanna make a motion about April 21 minutes?

I'll move adoption of the April 21 minutes.

I second that.

Okay. Thumbs up. Accept Liz.

I abstain.

Okay. So a five thumbs up and one abstain on those minutes. Good. So now we're gonna move right along to new business. And our first item is a conditional zoning application for 1651 Old Lystra Road, and I'll turn it over to staff and or the development team. Thank you.

Sure. We'll have the development team present first on behalf of the applicant and staff will follow-up with a short presentation after.

Hey, Josh. You got you got Jeremy Anderson here with Thomas Nuttin, kinda subbing in for Wendy. Wendy Ramston is the project manager you've been working with on this. She's, out of the country right now. And we have Nick Robinson with the church. He's gonna walk through the presentation. I will share the screen here, and we'll walk through this and, go from there. So

Yeah. That sounds great. Thanks so much, Jeremy. Good evening, mister chairman, planning board members, planning commission members. My name is Nick Robinson, and I'm on the vestry at Holy Trinity Anglican Church here in Chapel Hill.

And of course Jeremy is here with us helping with Thomas and Hutton helping us through the the zoning process. And I'm also joined on the on the meeting tonight by our rector David Hyman and another member of our vestry, Diane Martin. We're so, grateful to Josh and the, Chapel Hill planning team for their help, walking us through this zoning process because as you might imagine, zoning is not the core business of our of our church, but we own about 12 acres, just south of town off of 15501 and old, Lister Road. And our our goal, of course, is to get the proper zoning so that we can build our first permanent church building. We I wanna just briefly, talk about our church, to you for just a second and then jump right into the PowerPoint presentation.

And so you don't have to worry, it's a six slide presentation. It won't take very long at all to do it. We, we began to be formed as a church base basically in late twenty ten and with a a handful of families then, and we've we've grown steadily over those fifteen years to about 200 people that, are in regular attendance. And we are I want it to be known for sure that we are not and will never be a megachurch. We have intentionally and purposefully designed the church sanctuary that we want to build on this site, so that it'll see the maximum of 300 people.

It's kind of a founding principle of our church and our diocese that that churches typically grow to 300 and then send folks out to plant another church somewhere else in a local community, rather than just continuing to grow forever. And over those years, since we, have been in Chapel Hill, we've grown more and more integrated into the Chapel Hill community, in terms of, what we do, in the in the way of service and whatnot. So I just wanna let Diane speak for a minute about that to give you the flavor of of our history and role in in Chapel Hill.

Yes. Thank you, Nick. So I am Diane Martin, member of the Bestiary, and I just wanted to mention our church's impact in the community. Our current location rented since 2021 with twenty four seven dedicated space finally has enabled the church to connect with and serve the local community in three important areas, lives in crisis, food scarcity, housing. We provided support teams to assist three refugee families.

We were a stop off the highway for many people in crisis. We run an open food pantry on 15501 that is restocked weekly. We volunteer at the pregnancy support center and provide Christmas gifts each year through a focus on fathers program. We volunteer with Pee Wee Homes, a local nonprofit that provides homes for unhoused elderly, and we hope to eventually build some tiny homes on this property. In addition, we worked with the leaders in the black community to be awarded a North Carolina civil rights trail marker to honor 1964 sit ins at the Watts Grill at our current location, and we're now working with generational black leaders and community historians to establish a policy for preserving and honoring slave cemeteries that are being discovered as development occur.

And finally, we have a strong town gown connection through our members who are doctors, nurses, faculty, graduate, undergraduate stud students at UNC. We are embedded in this community and committed to serving it even more when we have our own building. And I think that's all I'll say, Nick.

Yeah. That's helpful. Thanks, Diane. And so over that same time frame that Diane mentioned while we've been growing and and serving, we've also been in six different temporary locations. This most recent one just across from the entrance to Southern Village, you might be remember that as the Strata Solar Building.

We've been there for four years, and we were delighted to find this tract of land, that was about a mile further south down 15501 from where we're currently are because it allows us to keep all those town connections, and have a permanent facility. So, we bought that land, which I'll show you in just a second. And, now we're just seeking to get it zoned so that we can, put our church on it. So, you see that, first slide there, if you can see it, it's an a rather oddly shaped, tract of land like the letter c. It has access on Old Lister Road there in the South and then also access to Wave Road there in the Northwest, which is a public street that runs out to, 15501, there to the to the West.

And so that's that's where it's situated. You can go to the next slide, Jeremy. We are, outside the town limits, not in a focus area. We're outside, but adjacent to the Owassa expansion area. And, what we're asking for is to just rezone from RLD one to r four conditional zoning district, and I'll show you why, in just a second. If you can go to the next slide. Oh, yeah. This gives you the flavor of what what we're seeking to do. So basically, we have a three phase plan for the property. We we want to build, the the church there right there.

Yeah. And sort of the central section be accessed from Wave Road and from Old Lister Road. And then in the northeastern sort of belt up there is the place where we'll show you on a conceptual plan in a second where we hope in phase the third phase to, to partner with a local, affordable housing entity to put some smaller tiny homes there, for, unhoused people, to live there on land that we own, but, they would they would live in. And then in the, Southeastern corner, the other bottom of the sea, is our second phase, which is really just, we're gonna try to carve off two residential lots there to be sold. The purpose of that really is just to raise money to help construct our church building, because we have about 12 acres, and we don't need that much for what we're going to do, on the land.

So that is the sort of long term concept of it, in order to be able to do the residential lots and the church and the tiny homes. We're told that we needed to rezone this, to this zoning district, which is what we're asking for. Jeremy, if you can go to that next slide. So this shows you, the the setup basically in the center there in yellow or orange is, our first phase of construction, which would be, about 11,200 square feet. It's an upstairs, downstairs, facility, 300 seat sanctuary, and, we've worked really hard with the architects and the construction company to situate the church so that it's built into a hill, and the hill slopes down from the front of the church towards that storm pond.

And the beauty of that design is that we enter on the 1st Floor into the sanctuary and then from the back down by the pond, we enter on the Ground Floor there, which is where we'll have, our space for children, for Christian formation and for offices, for now. That's the first phase. And if things go okay over time, we dream of building phase two, which are the two purple wings, on the sides there. And the point of those would be to move, the children and the children's classrooms and the offices into the purple phase two. And then the space below the sanctuary where that was vacated would be a sort of multipurpose fellowship hall where we could host dinners and gatherings and things of the like.

The yeah. So I guess the, you can see where the future tiny homes would be if, we can pull that together. We were already in conversation with tiny homes, advocates and folks that are doing it on the ground in Chapel Hill. We really hope that we can, get that done. Yeah.

I think you can go to the next slide. These are just some renderings of the the concept of it. You can see that slide on the right shows you how it's built into the hill in the front of it is a plaza area there that, is important to us because a lot of times we have services that start outside on the grounds and then process on into the sanctuary. And so it's been purposefully designed to to meet, the function, the form and the function of of what we do, as a church. And I think that might be, the last slide.

There's one more. Oh, yes.

There is. It's just a elevation from the front. Pretty basic and simple. Yeah. And that's it. So, I know that the staff is is is probably going to report at this point. We appreciate their help, walking us through this and their their recommendation of approval of the rezoning. And we're we're available, of course, with any questions y'all might have, about it. Thank thanks for, letting me run through that.

Thank you, Nick. I

will share shortly. Y'all have received the gist of the information on the project, but we'll just run through it real quickly. This is for 16441 Old Leistrove Road. This applicant is proposing to move is proposing for this piece of property, located at the end of Wave Road along Old Leicester Road and in the town's, transition area, which is subject to the joint planning agreement, which we will talk about a bit. This project is proposing to go from residential low density one to residential four conditional zoning district.

The place of worship building is allowed in residential low density one, the up to 10 homes, particularly with the tiny tiny homes on one parcel, requires at least residential four to proceed. Conditional zoning, as you all know, allows for changes to some of the site specific standards and modifications to LUMA standards. Staff have reviewed those and believe they are reasonable for this location and this applicant. This application is in the joint planning area, so this application will need to go for a joint hearing of the town council and the Orange County Board of Commissioners, unless received approval from both bodies. It will ultimately be judged against Chapel Hill zoning standards but will not be part of the town's municipal boundaries.

As a reminder of the complete community goals that we're looking to judge projects against, planning for the future strategically, expanding greenways, being green and sustainable, and excellence in the public realm. You have the staff report there where we do recommend, approval of this project. For tonight, we ask that you consider recommending the resolution of reasonableness and consistency with the comprehensive plan and consider recommending the ordinance approving the conditional zoning, application.

Thanks, Josh. I see we have no public attendees, so we're gonna go to planning commission, questions and comments all combined. Jeff.

Thank you. And thanks for bringing this application before us. This is exciting. Congratulations on getting to the point where you're, moving forward with your with your own purpose built sanctuary, which is, really neat. And that is a very awkward, piece of property that you all have.

I had a couple questions, and I'm not sure if they should be answered by staff or not. I'm looking at the draft ordinance a that we were provided. There are, four modifications to regulations listed. Number four relates to vehicle and bicycle parking, and it says modify the standards to reduce the blank. So I don't know if that's an error or if there was intended to be a revision to the, vehicle and bicycle parking standards.

Apologies. That is an error. There is intended to be a revision to the bicycle parking requirements. The applicant has asked to have a required maximum, or required minimum of eight bicycle parking spaces rather than what would normally come with the place of worship use.

Okay. Is that reflected in the so currently in the ordinance, says minimum bicycle parking per Lumo that will be adjusted down to eight?

Yes. That, is one that I think did not make its way into the formal request, but has been highlighted in the site plan and its staff review.

One comment I had is that there's, discussion of possible tiny homes. I don't there it's mentioned on the the district specific plan, but I don't don't see that term being defined anywhere. I didn't know if that needed to be defined. That's not really a question. The staff report states that the let me sorry, I'm just trying to find exactly what I'm looking for so that I can make a reasonably intelligent comment.

The project overview states that the proposed building heights are up to 50 feet for the place of worship. The maximum height in the R 4 District is 60 feet, and I don't see anything in the I believe it's 60 feet. I don't see anything in the, ordinance that limits the maximum height. And I would also want to ask if there's any concern, given the recent modification a conditional zoning district approval that we recommended a couple of meetings ago, whether or not that slope will cause any issues with respect to the calculation of heights such that, you know, the building won't be able to be constructed as planned.

Sure. I think the for the heights, specifically, we did not call out a height maximum. We would expect it to follow the underlying rules of the R 4 Zoning district. I think in these cases, we are often looking to, adjust any regulations, if the applicant would, the applicant did not ask to adjust to a lower height than the R 4 District would allow, so we did not place a lower height, restriction on them.

Yeah.

In terms of the measurement, I will say, I think we've hopefully clarified that. I will say Wendy's been working on this, given how many projects she's worked on in Chapel Hill, I have some faith there.

Regarding height, those two lots in the front of the property are intended to be sold off and constructed with single family housing. Is is they could be as much as 60 feet tall, which doesn't seem to sort of match the community context. So I would recommend that there'd be some sort of height limit. It could be a height limit on on any development that's within, you know, a 100 feet of Old Leicester Road, just something that would limit the height of those single family structures that are near the road because you would not want to put up a four story structure if you know somebody would. One more question about the ordinance.

Just looking at the modifications to the regulations and looking at the land use intensity, I wasn't sure if there were some of the items in the land use intensity table state per WUMO. Others give a value, but there's no indication that there was an adjustment from the LUMO standards. So is there an adjustment from the maximum land disturbance requirements in the LUMO? Are they allowed additional land disturbance? Are they allowed additional RCD land disturbance? And is there any difference in the amount of steep slopes that is allowed to be disturbed versus what the LUMO allows?

Apologies. I think we have some, ones that typically go there, if it's causing any confusion or lack of clarity. For the ones listed per LUMO, there's no request for any exemptions. They should follow, the outlined rules of any fibrite project. The one that you did highlight was the steep slope split maximum land disturbance. That one is a request for modification to regulations.

Should that be I think it would just be helpful if that were listed in the introductory text identifying the modifications to regulations. I don't have any issues with any of the specific changes, but just wanted to better understand the application. That's the end of my questions. Supportive of this application, clever use of very oddly P shaped with land, I'm hopeful that you can get to the point where you construct those tiny arms. So thank you.

Thanks. Jeff.

Josh, before we go to Liz, do you want to respond at all to Jeff's points about whether the term tiny home should be defined, number one, and number two, whether there should be a height limit for the the single family, parcels that may break off.

I think we'll we'll take those under consideration. I think we can talk with the applicant prior to, counsel and see what feedback from planning commission we can incorporate. Definitely think those are reasonable asks.

Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Liz's cat. Would Liz's cat like to comment?

My cat has lots of questions. He thinks that the tiny home is just the right size for him. So a a few questions. I noticed in the applicant material, had some comments, from the urban design sheet from the urban designer. Brian. And I'm I know those were from August. It was a little unclear to me whether well, at least one of them I know you have. And I wonder if you could just respond directly to why whether you're taking took some of his recommendations, and if not, why?

Do we wanna address that now, Josh?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And and, again, I I mentioned I'm kind of pinch hitting a little bit for Wendy. I think it was the understanding that we just received these. So I I don't believe we had them in our possession for whatever reason. I note I I see the dates from 2025. But, regardless, we we did look at the comments, and maybe I was wrong there, but we do have some responses.

So there was a question about why the plaza or could we reduce the parking adjacent to building? I think that was the first one, adjacent to the property line. I think as as Jeff pointed out, the site's kinda constrained with with the size of it, shape of it, with the slopes of it. So we've kinda tried to be as thoughtful and creative as we can with the parking lot. We are 20 feet off the property line, so not a lot of room to move the parking.

We may be able to tighten a few things up, but, we're trying to preserve at least a 20 foot buffer along that edge. So it's kind of the response to, you know, wire parking is maybe as close to Wave Road as it is. Number two, considered flipping the plaza and the church so that maybe the plaza was had more of an orientation to Wave Road. As Nick outlined, the topography, we're kind of working with it so that the church from the front where that plaza celebration space is an important part of the church, both from a function standpoint, a celebration standpoint, an entry standpoint. So that wanted to

be

relocated right off the sanctuary. And then we let the topography fall down where we can get that basement condition for the additional space of the church. So rotating the building so that the plaza was kind of facing away wouldn't allow us to do that. It would then put the building on the side of the hill and not allow us to do kind of the way that it's oriented now with with falling away and and opening up the basement. So it kind of needs to be located that way to take advantage of of the plaza at sanctuary level.

And then walking trails, Nick, I don't know if that's been discussed. I'm sure that's going to be something you guys will consider. I think it's a great idea for multiple reasons. So maybe a next level of detail. But if you want to speak to that, but I'm sure that's something the church would absolutely consider.

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate the question and one of the things that before you jumped in Jeremy is the question about the parking near Wave Rd has come up before, and we've been working on that. And I know that we've agreed to remove a few spaces that were over there by Wave Rd in order to preserve some larger trees. And so we feel like on that, if his comments were back in 2025, I didn't know it, but, since that we've made progress on that subject, in any event, from another source. And then with regard to the walking trails, yes, we definitely want to, have walking trails and we agree with that recommendation. We haven't really cited them yet, but once we get going on this, we will definitely do that for the benefit of, our parishioners, of course, but then also, when and if we get the tiny homes for them as well.

It's a beautiful piece of land even though it's a weird shape, and we'll work within whatever the restrictions and confines are in the RCD and nearby to to definitely, put some trails in there. People are pretty excited about that.

Thank you. On the parking, I realized it it looks like a lot of parking for that space. And so I realized for a church, you sort of have one time of the week when you need a lot of parking and a lot of the week when you don't need much at all. Have you thought of how many parking spots does that include? I didn't see that. Maybe I missed that in the materials.

Yeah. I think it is in 25.

25.

And there are some of them that don't get built until phase two. And so we were trying to phase that along with the construction. But, I know there was a lot of discussion about the number of spaces, and, I think we've gotten it to the point where it's the it's the minimum that we would need to meet, the load for 300 people, basically. One thing interesting thing is we've been counting we've been counting cars and parishioners for five years. And, basically, it comes out to about two people per car.

So if you're at 300, you need at least a 125. That's a little light, but it, you know, it varies. And so I'm I'm sure it'll work out. But we appreciate the question. We want as little parking on there as we can have because, of the reason that you stated and because we wanna leave the land, you know, as beautiful as we can.

Yeah. So that I totally get that. I'm wondering if you've just it looks like with the slope of that, if you've thought of maybe having a permeable parking lot or at least for some of it since so much of that is gonna be going downhill towards the pond, etcetera, and past that. Have you thought about that to reduce the water flowing down from that large area? It does cost more money.

Mhmm. It depends. We are on a shoestring budget. But, yes, there is I know there's been conversation about that, and I can't really say much more except for that there and and maybe Josh could. I'm not sure. I know there are portions of the parking lot that we can't do that, right, for fire safety and every other thing. But there are, there might be portions of it where we could. And so we would we would certainly consider it. But it's I wanna be very honest and say that this is a pretty big nut for us, financially. Yeah.

And, so if we can work it in, I see the benefit and the value of it just like you, and we'd like to do that. So I know there have been some conversations about it, but I to be honest, between the engineer and the architect, I don't and the construction company, I don't know exactly where those landed, but it's worth worth worthy of bringing back up.

Yeah. And it it it could end up reducing some of the stormwater.

Mhmm.

Other payments that you're gonna have to be making along the road, so it could help manage your water. And what about it it looks in the schematic. It's just such a large parking lot. I would think you'd want a lot of shade trees, little islands so that it feels not so harsh. Mhmm. It looks like you're planning. Obviously, this is still early, but I would just encourage to really try and incorporate as many trees as you can into the parking lot. It'll just make it a a nicer nicer place to be able and also the not so dramatically different than the beautiful surroundings.

Mhmm. And Very.

My last question is, so why did you reduce the bicycle bicycle numbers? You don't think many people will bike there. Is that the thought? Do you have connectivity to any greenways?

Mm-mm. We don't. No. No. Yeah. And Old Lister Road is a curvy, old Rural Road. You'd be taking your life in your hands to get on on a bike on there. You might be able to come down 15501 and up and down Wave Road. Yeah. But it just it seems highly unlikely. We're we're happy if we can get some people there. We don't we don't think reasonably it'd be more than eight, though.

Okay. Alright. Those are my questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

And I will just, this applicant, has agreed to the parking landscape standards that we have in our rules. I think in these district specific plans, we're trying to avoid details of where those islands will be, but ultimately, each tree will need to be no further than, 70 feet from a shade tree.

I'm sorry. Say that again?

Sorry. Each parking spot. You mean

yeah. Yes.

Each parking spot. The extreme would know also.

Libby?

Thank you. Yeah. So I visited the site today, and it is a a beautiful dry oak woodland, mixed mixed hardwoods forest with some mature trees, some large trees on the site. And I do see why it's rate rated high in the natural areas inventory as staff pointed out. I'm just wondering how much could be done without the rezoning? Could you still get the tiny homes or maybe this is a question for Josh or could you could you do the subdivide and get the two lots without the

reason?

Sure. I will say, especially at the beginning of this applicant's timeline, which was back in October prior to some of the Omnibus changes, it the opportunities to do a subdivision and the opportunities to do multifamily housing, which is what we would, consider the tiny homes, would be very limited in the RLD 1 District. I think the RLD 1 District would ultimately not allow for multifamily, and prior to Omnibus, we did not allow for subdivisions that did not have all lots fronting on a public road, with the appropriate frontage and appropriate, street standards. That was infeasible in this case, so the best way to get to the tiny homes as a multifamily option is to go to ARFR, which is the lowest intensity zoning district that allows them.

So but conceivably without the tiny homes factor, they could do they could subdue a subdivide and ask for an exception for the lower frontage, street frontage, or something like that.

Yes. I think the RLD 1 District allows the, place of worship, and it would allow for a single family subdivision with omnibus in place. There may be a configuration that gets there, but it's the the tiny homes that need the r

four. So

I have kind of another question about that, but I guess that will be I don't recall if the ordinance specified the tiny homes or if that could some would be written into the permitting process. But my other question was, since this is outside Owasso sewer and water boundaries, and that means a lot of trees are gonna be cut down for a drain field presumably. Have you already done a perk test for the site? And

Yeah. We've done it. And on one of the plans, I don't know if it's reflected in the PowerPoint, but we've had all the soils tested and that was, of course, partially what went into siting the building and the tiny homes where they are. Tiny homes that have soils up there that will work for that. The residential lots have soils that will work, and the church, has soils nearby that, that will suffice for the for the church building.

The extent of the clearing, of the trees for the septic is something I'm not really an expert in, but it, I know it varies depending on the type of system that gets approved. We want as few trees taken down as possible, and so we'll be we'll be watching that like a hawk. And

do you know if you'll be required to have a backup drain field?

Yeah. We definitely will. That'll be part of the permitting, whether it's local permitting or state permitting. Yeah.

Okay. Okay.

Those might be all my questions for now. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks.

Other comments or questions from members of the PC? I'll give a brief comment. It looks like a great project to me. The renderings are really, I thought, pretty attractive and interesting. I don't see, you know, issues of potential conflict with the town's land use vision, particularly given that the project is outside of the, town boundaries, where we normally are seeking to manage land use a little more closely for long term, you know, density and livability reasons.

This project seems to me sort of refined and unobjectionable. I I was interested in some of Jeff's comments about sort of technical comments about, making sure that, the ordinance has, you know, all the elements that it needs to to get the outcome that we want here. So I'd be open if somebody wants to suggest some conditions to, you know, whatever recommendation we make here. But, if if nobody has, additional comments or questions, maybe we could move here towards some sort of, formulated recommendation having a vote. I see, Jeff, you're about to say something, and then we'll go to Libby.

No. Libby, you go first.

So yeah. I'm in audio. Sorry. I forgot to mute. I was just wondering about the requesting for the exception on the house size maximum. I mean, that doesn't really seem compatible with the town's goals.

Sorry, Libby, what what could you be more specific? What what house size?

Okay. They asked for an exception, did they not, to help to increase the maximum house size. So the the floor area ratio, I believe.

And and yeah. And, Libby, I noted that too, but that's not in the there's I'm not I read through the code, and there's no maximum floor area ratio for res for single family dwellings in the limo. So assume that was an error, and that did not make it into the proposed ordinance.

That's not in the r four ordinance, or that's

not in

the requested conditional use ordinance?

They they did not need to request it because there is no FAR limitation for single family dwellings.

Oh, okay.

Well, I know anyway, I'm just commenting on that because on the Orange County side, all the houses are, like, 15 to 1,800 square feet, and then you cross over into Chatham County and suddenly they blossom. I think Okay. So that was one question. The other question, will will the two driveways, the access points be considered equal in there?

It'd be considered equal for what purpose? Just For access?

Yes.

Yes. Yeah. We we it's it's a great question. We had a lot of conversations initially before we ever even drew up the plan with the with the folks that live on Wave Road, and we've had conversations with the folks that live nearby on Old Listra Road. And, the sort of happy medium that we came up with is that, the Old Lister Road, is a good access point for two reasons.

One, we're gonna use that for to be the construction entrance because Wave Road, I don't know if you went up and down that Libbey, but it's it's pretty steep. And, there were anecdotal stories about cement mixers coming up there with cement coming out of the back because of the the the steepness of the hill. So we're gonna, we're gonna use that as the construction entrance, and then it also opens up the ability for folks that live out on Mount Carmel Church Road or down in Chatham County to enter that way. And then, the Wave Road entrance will be, accessible to to folks that are coming north or south on 15501. And we had a a traffic engineer look at that, and, his his trip generation letter indicated that he thought that the, distribution would be about 60% coming in off of Lister Road and 40% off of WAVE Road, which was good, we thought, because that that meant that for the folks living on WAVE Road, even though, you know, there's there's more houses on WAVE Road nearby than there are on Old Lister Road.

And so that that would be the nature of the concern that they have even though the traffic is mostly coming in on Sunday morning. They what the traffic engineer said was that, through that distribution of of trips, it was about the same amount of traffic or less than you would expect if you developed all of these 12 acres for single family residential without a rezoning. So it it felt like it was not changing, much in terms of what would ultimately happen with the property overall in terms of traffic trips.

From a staff perspective, we've we are focused on the old Leicester access. We, during the review, recommended removing the Wave Road access, but, the applicant has asked to keep it

in. Yeah.

It does seem like it it might be a disturbance to neighbors unless I was thinking you could add a bike path from Wave Road only, encourage people to take the bus and cycle to church on that nice hill or use a scooter.

Yeah, you would have to be an accomplished bicyclist to get up that hill.

Just one final question, the site where you're currently renting, is is that that's not an option for redevelopment as a church site for you?

No. We would we we we had thought about that, you know, because we really looked at all the options that were out there instead of building a brand new edifice because as I said, that's not really our business. And we did look at that for the, Stratosolar building that we're in now, and the owner is not interested in in allowing that to happen. And you know that that South Creek development is going in all around it right now. I mean, I don't know for sure, but my guess is that someday it will be enveloped or swallowed in some way into that. I I don't know. I'm just guessing. But she, the owner didn't have any real interest in in doing that with us, which is why we found ourselves looking around for a place to put our own building. Good question though.

It's just one more comment, I can't resist. Just too bad to cut down a nice forest to do Are there no sites that

are

already disturbed? We've looked everywhere. I would put you in touch with our realtor if you if you wanted to talk more about that. It's been a real challenge. We've been looking for six years or something. Yeah. And this one Your land is expensive. Yeah. It's not so expensive. No. You're right. And when you look at the size and shape of it, there's a reason why it's still sitting there. Right? And, so we decided to take the flyer on that because it was the most reasonably priced thing in a location that still function for us and that would allow us to to do what we need to do, but not more. It wouldn't require us to do more. All of the things that you're bringing up, though, gonna be our things that we we thought about and talked about in the process for sure.

Does, anyone from the emission want to, put forward a motion?

Yeah. I'd like to, and I'm happy to take any Those friendly amendments, but I would like to recommend approval of ordinance a with the following statements or conditions. First, establish a maximum height that would apply to the two single family lots near Old Blister Road. I pose presumably 35 feet for consistency with the surrounding R L D 1 district. Second, defined tiny homes, which is the term listed on the district's specific plan, but not defined in ordinance a or in the Chapel Hill LUMA to establish clear expectations regarding the type of housing that might be built on the site.

And third, update the modification to regulations section to clarify all modifications to the regulations in the LUMO that are included in the ordinance.

Thanks, Jeff. Is there a second? Liz, you're on mute.

I'd just like to add that they consider minimizing the both the tree canopy loss, particularly large trees, and stormwater impacts risks through essentially the the parking lot, how they where and how they build the parking lot. I think it sounds like they're thinking about it, but I would bring in some real experts. I think it could, in the end, save you a lot of headaches and money down the road if you don't think carefully given the steep slope that you're you're building on, getting rid of all those trees and putting in that impermeable. So I didn't say that very well. Jeff, you are much better if you wanna revise that.

I wrote it down. I actually, I wrote it down as you were writing it and revising it, but I wrote down consider minimizing both the tree canopy loss, particularly large trees, and address stormwater impacts and risks to the location and construction of the parking lot.

Work? Yep.

I'll accept I'll accept that as a friendly amendment.

Okay. And Liz, were you also seconding with that? She's Second. Okay. So we have four conditions. Jeff had three, related to maximum specifying a maximum height maybe of the sort of base single family district, for the the two houses, on Olaisra that may break off from the main property. And oh, it looks like Jeff may be

Put them in the chat.

Feeding me my lines here. That's good. I like that. Ah, okay. So a social maximum height that would apply to the two single family last year old road, presumably 35 feet for consistency of the surrounding R L D 1 district.

Define number two, define tiny homes, which is term listed in the district specific hold on. Need to scroll here. Plans but not to find in the ordinance or in the Chapel Hill Lumo to establish clear expectations regarding type of housing that might be providing the site. Third condition, update the modifications to regulation section of ordinance a to clarify all modifications to the regulations in the Lumo that are included in the ordinance, minor typo there, ordinance. And then fourth, consider minimizing, and you just heard Josh, Jeff said that once.

I won't repeat it. But those are the four conditions that we would append to our recommendation that the council and by implication, Orange County commissioners approve this. Libby?

Well, if they do consider developing paths or trails on the site at this point given the extent of disturbed existing disturbance or planned disturbance already, I would encourage them not to to pave trails and not to put them through the remaining wooded landscape, but maybe to rehabilitate areas once they've finished construction or, you know, use the storm water area or the

Maybe that could be a bit of an enhancement to Liz's modifications since we're talking about storm water impacts of the parking lot. Maybe we could expand that point to include, you know, any trails that are built?

Yes. Use natural surface trails, not impermeable trails.

Location construction of parking lot and location and construction of, or we could just say of the parking lot and, any any trails. How about that? On-site. Yeah. Jeff, are you and Liz, are you okay with with that?

Yep.

Okay. Good. So is there any further discussion on this motion before we go to a vote? Alright. So let's let's have a vote. Jeff? Yes. Liz?

Yes.

Chuck? Yes. Libby?

I've been really struggling with this. I'm gonna vote no because it doesn't seem it fits with the town's goals, but I I understand why you're proposing it. I just wanna go on record.

Okay. Mike?

Yes.

Okay. And I'm a yes. So that's, five yeses, and one to recommend one no. To recommend, this project for council approval subject to the conditions described, which were put up on the screen by Jeff. Right? And, Jeff, you'll send those to to Josh.

I've got them.

Or Josh had them on the screen. Couldn't tell who we screened. Josh is. Yeah. Yep. Quick typist. Thank you very much, Nick and David and Jeremy and I'm missing one person. Diane, there you are. Thank you for bringing this to us and good luck with your project.

Yeah. Thank you. Y'all have been great. We really appreciate it.

Thank you all for your comments. Appreciate it. Have a great evening.

Take care.

Thank you all. Yeah.

Next agenda item is a discussion of upcoming meetings and PC review related to the Lumo. So I assume I'm turning this over to Taz. Hi, Taz. Welcome.

Hey, John. Hey, everybody. I'm Taz with the planning department. It's good to see y'all. I know it's been a while, so really happy to be able to come back to y'all and kinda talk about what the the year ahead is gonna look like with with Lumo. Depending on your definition of a fun time, it it might be a very fun rest of the year. It's definitely gonna be busy, and and y'all are gonna play a big role in that. And so really wanted to take this opportunity to kinda restart the conversation with you all and, again, just kind of think about what what the the next several months are gonna look like. Just give me just a second here. I'll get my screen share going.

Alright. Are you all seeing my my shared screen? Great. So, you know, as I mentioned, what I really wanna focus on this evening is, giving you all kind of a forecast of what the the major next steps are gonna look like in the Lumo process and then discuss, how you all are gonna fit into that process. As you all probably know, you know, staff have been working with a consultant team for the last yawn, it seems like, at this point, working on a on a draft of the new Lumo.

We're getting really close, to being able to wrap up that kind of major initial phase of of drafting. And since the last time that that I presented to the planning commission, we've had a couple of check ins with the, town council, but those have mostly been relatively high level. We haven't had, detailed discussions with them or or you guys in a while, and it's because we've been kinda heads down wrapping up the draft. And so looking ahead, some of the the next major milestones that y'all will will see kinda coming down the pipe. We're gonna be going back to town council on June 17.

We'll probably actually come to you all. I should have put some aside. We'll probably come to you all the night before, I believe, June 16 is is a meeting. I'll check out the jobs report commit to it. We we hope to meet with you all before this council meeting.

The opportunity at the this council meeting in in June is gonna be to kind of officially kick off the more public facing part of of the Lumo project. We're going to kind of preview the council what they can find in the draft Lumo and what engagement is gonna look like over the summer, and what in kind of a high level of specificity, what the fall is gonna look like. I'm just gonna talk through some of those elements at at a at a very high level today, but we'll get into more detail about specific timelines and things of that sort, when we come back to you guys, in just a little bit. So we'll talk to council in, in June. Shortly after that, I don't wanna promise, you know, specific days or dates, but, hopefully by the end of June, maybe into early July, we're planning to share that first kind of major public draft of the LUMO.

And that's going to be that's going to kind of kick off opportunity for council members, for planning commission members, and for members of the public to really start digging in to the LUMO. Because that's gonna be coming over the summer and because we really want to as a staff, we really wanna set you guys up. We wanna set up planning commission to be as knowledgeable, as familiar with the draft as possible. One of the things that we're gonna be doing over the summer is offering essentially, like, staff office hours, for council members and for planning commission members. We really want to be a resource to to all of you as you're digging into the draft.

We wanna be there kind of alongside you. So, reach out over the summer once you have the document in hand, and we'll be happy to talk through it with you, help you understand the structure, the content, any of that sort of thing. I do wanna be kind of transparent that those office hours are primarily gonna be an opportunity to help help you all and help council members understand what's in the draft, but it's not going to be workshop time. It's not really intended to be an opportunity for individual members of either council or planning commission to kind of roll up their sleeves and and offer edits or or, again, kind of workshop the ordinance, on a substantive level. It's really intended to make sure that y'all are going into the next phase of of this process just very familiar with what's in the ordinance.

So that's kind of the the summer months. Once y'all are back from summer break, we're hoping to have a handful of opportunities for three all to again meet as a group to discuss the the draft. You'll have the opportunity to have a couple of work sessions and so will counsel. And those are really intended again to be the first opportunity once the draft has been out in the public for a while, once you all have had an opportunity to really learn familiarize yourself with the draft, we wanted to make sure that you all had an opportunity to talk amongst yourselves in a public forum about your your impressions of the draft and where you'd like to see it go before we get into the final phase of this process which is kind of the official hearings. That really kicks off a period where the ball is really in counsel's support.

As much as we can try to put kind of timelines on any of this work, the one period where the timelines truly kind of are fully out of staff hands are once we turn it over to the official legislative process. You all have some kind of timelines based on state law. Technically, can move forward with their own hearings within thirty days of your first hearing on the LUMO. We really want to set you all up for success and make sure that you're able to engage with the process and provide counsel a meaningful recommendation, within that period of time. Ultimately, it'll be their prerogative as to whether they they wanna kinda keep the trains moving on time or or take a more kind of deliberative approach.

And so that's gonna be something that we we'll kind of offer up a a potential timeline that we think will meet those interests of giving everybody involved a really solid footing and ability to discuss and deliberate, but also valuing that balancing that interest of moving things forward in a timely manner. But ultimately that's just a starting point. The timelines can really start to shift, based on y'all's discretion and and counsel's discretion once it again, once the ball is kind of more squarely in your report. And then one thing I haven't mentioned yet is really when public engagement comes into play. That public education period is really gonna overlap with when you all are learning about ordinance right over the summer At the same time that we're doing office hours with you all and council.

We're also gonna be having opportunities for the public to learn about what's in the draft. We're anticipating some number, we haven't nailed down the specifics yet, but some number of open houses over the summer. Obviously posting the draft online, making it available for people to really dig into and comment on, and really make sure that they understand and are fully aware of what sort of opportunities they're going to have to speak directly to the ultimate decision makers in this process, are going be you all during your public hearings and counsel during their public hearings. And the last bit on here is this notion of user testing. We know that kind of going into the home stretch of drafting the ordinance, At a staff level, we have been so deep into it.

It can be hard to kind of see it from a different perspective. And so one of the things we're gonna do over the summer is engage in a more conservative way with kind of a select group of stakeholders for whom Lumo is part of their everyday work, right? So there's going to be people like the Affordable Housing Coalition, like the Home Builders Association, and folks that know Lumo, work with Lumo and understand really how to how to pick it apart and help kind of stress test the ordinance from a technical perspective. So that's some of the the additional engagement that we're gonna be doing over the summer. And so in all of this, in this whole process, planning commission has a defined role and we really want to make sure that at a staff level we're setting you up as well as possible meet that responsibility.

And really what that responsibility is to be that trusted voice that makes a recommendation to counsel. And so what I wanted to do next is kind of talk through some of the recent discussions we've had with counsel and how that's going to frame, kind of really all of our discussions about Lumomo going forward. Before I do that, though, if there are questions on on kind of timeline and process, I'm I'm happy to take them now. Or at y'all's discretion, we can wait until later, but just wanted to pause in case there were questions on on timeline first.

Go ahead, Liz.

Has, you've made it clear you can't expedite this faster than state ordinances, state regulations allow, but do you have, is there any endpoint that it has to be done by? I mean, you said it can be flexible. It's gone on a long time. Like, is it possible to go into 2027, or is it absolutely have to be done this year, or is it gonna be moving to 2028? I I don't have a sense of when you think it's gonna be done and when it has to be done.

Yeah. I'd really like to take a vacation at some point, but and I know I know there's been so many staff that have been working on this really hard for a long time, but there there is no mandatory end date. There's no deadline other than just kind of our own sense of urgency, right? I think we all feel this sense

that the sooner

we can

get this passed the sooner it can start to make a difference. But beyond that, there's there's no deadline. I say this very cautiously, but the what I have heard, and I I haven't verified this directly, but when today's Lumo was adopted back in 2003, that was a culmination of about eighteen months of public hearings, not just not drafting, but once it went to the public hearing process, it took eighteen months. We would obviously love to avoid that situation and that's why we've had all the work sessions and the lead up to this point. Hope that a lot of the conversations have already been had in a way that they didn't happen back in the early two thousand.

That being said, right, like, once this ordinance is out, that's gonna become the focus of the conversation. And There is a sense of urgency but there's also an understanding that this needs to be a well thought out and deliberative

process. Thanks.

Jeff?

Hey, guys. Just a couple of questions. So just to clarify, at that June 17 council meeting, you don't anticipate having the code ready to show them?

No, we're not expecting it at the seventeenth meeting. We're we're planning to actually get it back from our consultants with kind of, like, the final final loss just shortly before the seventeenth. And, obviously, before we publish it, we need to do kind of our own QAQC, and it just doesn't give us enough time to have it ready on the seventeenth. But we are hoping, you know, end of June, early July at the very latest, to get it out for everybody.

And I assume you're envisioning, the purpose of those work sessions in the fall or to get feedback from council and the planning commission, and so you'll make appropriate changes before it goes into the public hearing process based on that feedback?

Yeah. And I think we have to be very, we have to be, we have to calibrate kind of expectations about how much change we can make between the work sessions and the public process. I think it'll really depend on how the intensity of the ask. Right? If if we're hearing a very clear message from from council during those work sessions or from planning commission that this thing should not move forward, that that council, for example, like, would not be willing to start the public hearing until they see certain changes, then, yeah, we'll we'll definitely make sure to to incorporate that.

So, yeah, we'll we'll just have to kinda calibrate and put it right here depending on what's asked for, and the the relative importance that that's given, like by the people that ask for it.

Yeah. Okay. And that makes sense. I mean, you know, it's hopefully this won't be eighteen months, but, one, you know, one thing of note for the long gestating Lumo process is that nobody's actually seen a word of it. And so I think I would just sort of encourage you all to anticipate, feedback from both from us and also from counsel that may, you know, I know you've had lots of meetings with council, gotten lots of policy direction from them, but, you know, that policy direction has been over three different councils.

And so it's I wouldn't be surprised if there's a request for a new district or to make changes to some district or some other significant changes. So, just something to think about. And finally, just, you know, I know this was brought before council, and I know counsel and the town manager talked about it. But I would like to emphasize the importance that when the Planning Commission is holding public hearings on the updated LIMA, it needs to be a meaningful opportunity for members of the public to participate in the public hearing. So, it needs to be something other than a small room in the library.

I'm gonna add a question of my own here. And, Taz, it may anticipate where you were gonna go next. So if that's so, just, just carry on. So, my question is the the meeting with the council on the sixteenth, and I guess sorry, the seventeenth and the day before with us, what is Taz, you're thinking about the Lumo agenda item there. What what do you think you would be hoping to accomplish or do you think the council's hoping to to accomplish, you know, before summer break?

Yep. Perfect question and great segue into the the next item I wanted to talk about. I'm I'm happy to go there, or if there are any other questions, I can I can give you a quick preview and then jump into it? Okay.

Yes. It looks like go ahead.

Yep. Cool. So the the goal at the the June 17 meeting is to kind of close the loop on a conversation that we started with counsel, in April. So, we had a work session with counsel in April where there's a really strong interest in making sure that before council and planning commission got into officially reviewing the draft LUVO, the council was aligned on their top priorities as as a body, on what they wanted to to see in the new Lumo. I think it's a really helpful exercise that they went through to do that because, you know, we have all indications would suggest that, this current iteration of counsel are the the folks that are going to vote on on this move up.

And so for them to all kind of agree, right, here's kind of the common vocabulary, here are the common interests that we're gonna take into our review, was really helpful. And so, they they agreed to these kind of three overarching interests and five key goals at the last meeting. And ultimately, you know, what what those interests and goals turned into is gonna be the I don't wanna go so far as to say the rubric, but it's gonna be the the primary, like, organizing function through which we talk about the draft. And it's going to be the primary lens through which we hope that the council and you all will look at the move of mode. And so our key kind of substantive goal at the June meeting, is to be responsive to those goals, To say, all right, at a high level, we know we haven't put the draft ordinance in front of you yet, but here are the things that you can expect, kind of described at a relatively high level that are gonna meet these goals.

Here are the ways in which we are gonna meet the goals that you've laid out. And so the as a reminder, if you haven't had a chance to take a look at the the council meeting from April, the kind of overarching interests that council identified were community, sustainability, and equity. And then within that, they identified these kind of five larger goals, right? User friendliness, housing, diversity, sustainability, and supply, economic development and land use, the built environment and public realm, and then environment and resilience. And in your packet for this evening there's a document that lays out these five goals, but then also within each of the five goals, several sub points that put kind of a finer point on what council is looking for out of each of these goals.

And so again, at the June meeting, conversation is really gonna circle around these goals and those finer points. And then that those kind of themes are gonna carry forward throughout how we talk about this with the public over the summer, how we come back to to discuss the Lumo in the fall. We're hoping, for example, that that these goals will will help organize those work session conversations in the fall. They've, you know, they've created some sort of, like, thematic organization. So that's gonna be kind of the main goal in in June.

So Taz, when you say that your staff is gonna discuss with the council or the council's gonna discuss the ways in which, without looking at the draft, but just at a general level, the ways in which the Lumo, revision will, meet the goals or address the goals. Are you envisioning sort just a PowerPoint presentation or some sort of, like, written report that tick and ties, you know, the various bullets and goals that were attached to tonight's agenda to, you know, paragraphs of narrative explaining, like, what what approach is taken and, you know, how they're addressed or what what sort of format are you're going to use to make those connections?

Yes. The primary format is going to be a basically a memo following it, our council alignment memo to demonstrate kind of how council's interests are aligned with the new memo. So, that'll be kind of the the primary tool. We'll probably get into some specifics, but we won't, you know, bore folks with going through all of the content, in the the meeting itself. I think with with as with any of these work sessions, they're the primary goal of the work session itself isn't to convey the information.

It's to create an opportunity for some dialogue about the info. So we'll obviously provide it to, to you all and and to counsel ahead of time and really urge you all to come, with with questions and curiosity.

Okay. So, that alignment memo, it sounds like you're gonna deliver that to the council before their June 17 meeting. Can you get it to us before June 16 meeting, maybe with, like, a few days in between?

Yeah. Absolutely.

Like, before the weekend would be great.

Yep. It

sounds like it may be

not okay. Definitely. So the the typical practice is that, council agenda items, or council agendas, excuse me, are published the Thursday before the

Oh, fine. We can just find it there.

Yeah.

And are you looking at that June 17 meeting with the council as a work session, or do you have a different label for that?

Yeah. We're thinking about it as kind of a a work session format.

Okay. So would it be broadly similar to the ones in the fall with the exception that they're not gonna be looking at the draft yet if they ever do?

Yeah. Yeah. Really wanting it to be an opportunity for questions for for discussion. It's it's escaping me at the moment whether it's gonna be at the library or town hall. Obviously, if it's in town hall, the the the physical space doesn't lend itself to to as good of a discussion, but we've had plenty of of really dynamic discussions in in town law chambers or in council chambers before, so, it's not not much of a barrier either way.

Okay. Last sort of interruption I'm gonna make before I let you talk and other people talk. So I'm envisioning this this memo alignment memo you're putting together as collecting a lot of the stuff that's been in memo form, for a couple years now. You know, you've been coming to the council, coming to us with, topical areas for discussion. You've received feedback, and a lot of that feedback you've sort of compiled into longer documents once or twice.

So that's, I imagine, the fodder for for this alignment memo is just, maybe the, organizing principle, you know, the the priorities that the council has articulated in April and the way that they're articulating it. I doubt any of that's truly new, but it's a bit reprocessed from the way it may have been processed before. But the things that are you're aligning to it, you're matching up to it, are things that have probably been in writing actually before in in agendas to us or to the council. Is it am I thinking about this right?

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that's a really good way of reminding everybody that that we are this is part of a long but interconnected process, that the discussions we're having now are building off of discussions from from last year and the year before. I I don't I don't wanna say that there will be no surprises. Right?

There might be some new information in those memos, but the goal is really to ensure that, even if even if some of this the particulars are are new to folks, it's very easy to draw a thread to, alright, this really aligns with an interest that we discussed, an interest that was articulated by counsel, or in many cases, it's gonna be very specific things that we've we've explicitly talked about with council, and with planning commission, and you're just seeing that again, at in this new organization.

Did you have more that you wanted to say, Taz, before we open it up to, others to ask questions?

No. The the one thing I wanted to say is, I think there's been some question about, how can planning commission kind of best meet its obligation to counsel. Right? How can, you all best situate yourselves to be, that, like, strong source of advice to counsel. And, you know, it is it's certainly at your discretion as to kind of how best meet that that call.

My suggestion would be that given that this is the the framework in which staff are planning to to talk to council about the new Lumo and, you know, staff or council has has signaled that that this is the framework that they wanna use to to talk about the the new LUMO. My one request to y'all would be that that y'all adopt this framework as well and and talk through the ordinance in in the same way. But, again, that's that's entirely up to your discretion. But I do think it would be a good opportunity to to ensure that there is that, like, good continuity, across kind of the the different decision making bodies here.

Okay. Questions for Taz or comments? Libby?

Yeah. I'm just wondering sorry about I don't know why there's feedback. Can you understand?

It's okay. You're good. You keep going. Is

there a ranking or priority order to those goals, Taz? Because it seems to me in all of our reviews, one of the goals is is tends to be weighted more heavily and reviews by staff as well. One of those goals always seems to rank higher than all the other goals. So I'm just wondering how we can understand that.

Well, they're council's goals, not TAS's, right?

Right, right, but maybe TAS has some information about council's thinking and

Yeah. I mean, the the information I can provide is that when we when we had this conversation with them, there there was not an attempt to to rank them. Think they're they're really provided, as far as the conversation went in April, they're they're provided in in no particular order.

Okay. Liz?

So, Taz, when you look at those five topic areas, it if I understand them correctly, the first one seems to be a process issue and the other four are topical. So the first one seems to be an overarching the way a user interfaces with the Lumo, if I'm understanding that right, and the others are sort of goals that the town would like the Lumo to address. Do is that correct? They don't seem equal, those

The user friendliness goal, I think once you look once you look into the the more detailed interests that are associated with it, it is it's some kind of organizational, you know, make sure that the LUMO is well formatted, make sure that it is just like a helpful document. There's some of that. It does also get into process to a certain extent, right? Make sure that our development review processes are streamlined and efficient. So it is it is substantive to a certain extent, but not I think as you pointed out, Liz, it's not it's not the same.

Right? It is it is definitely distinct from the other four goals. Your I think your cat muted you.

Indeed. No. That's fine. Thank you.

Sounds like we're out of questions, Taz. I appreciate the presentation. Thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you.

Actually, I have one more question for Taz.

Go ahead.

I just wonder if that June's I know there's a break in the summer, but it seems like that meeting would make more sense after everybody has the actual instead of before, you know, moving it back two or three weeks and having a summer meeting. Is that not doesn't it seem like that would be a a more productive meeting?

It's always tough. We we've got the, you know, the council schedule we do. It it's kinda put out well in advance, and adding meetings to that is always difficult. So we're we're going to them kind of when when we can. I agree. It's not not the ideal time, but there's just it didn't sync up well between when we could kinda reasonably expect to get the draft out.

It's just not possible. So alright. Got it.

And that you know? No. No. No. I mean, I think it's a good thing to bring up because, it is like we may see that come up from time to time that the the schedule there are certain constraints in the schedule, and then there are certain constraints in, how kind of the other work proceeds. And we're just trying to kind of, like, sync them up sync them up the best we can.

Got it.

Thank you, Taz, and we look forward to seeing you on the sixteenth.

Sounds good. Thanks, John. Thanks, all.

K. So our last agenda item is applications. And as I understand it, we have six folks, who have both submitted applications and affirmatively confirmed recently, you know, that they're still interested. And those are Meredith, Eric, Anthony, Mark, Amanda, and Dylan. I think those are the six that not everybody who I'm excluding in that list has confirmed that they're not interested, but they, as I understand, were given a chance and didn't respond or responded that they're not, you know, interested anymore.

So really there's six. Is that the right way to think about it, Josh, you think,

I can pull up the email I sent. I think the way I worded it when emailing applicants is that we ask that they, if you are still interested in being appointed to planning commission, please let me know by May 18. Okay. What I would say is everyone who did not respond still has a valid application and will be on council's ballot.

The

folks who asked to not be on, we'll we'll take them off.

Yeah. So I'm gonna suggest to my fellow commissioners that we focus our discussion on the six who responded to Josh's request to confirm that that they're still interested because otherwise, I I would say there's a presumption that they're not.

How many other people is that?

That would be look at the count here. I believe that would be out of our 14 applicants. Six did respond. I will note we do have one applicant who was not sent this email because they their application came in rather late. And then we also have Jeff who is eligible to be reappointed in that eight team. So that get that to eight.

And then two people definitely said no, so there are four people you haven't heard back from.

I think six people I've taken the two people who said no out of my count of 14.

Got it. Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. I would just suggest that probably many of the people who Josh sent the email to had never received an email from Josh before. Not to mention that it's a new domain name. So jmayo@chapelhillnc.gov and got caught in spam filters. People might get just overwhelmed by the quantity of email and not focus on that. So I I I'm pretty sure one of the people who did not respond is still interested

Oh, really?

In planning commission. I haven't contacted them, but I just would not assume that people who did not respond, are either either continue to be interested or no longer interested in serving on planning commission.

Well, look, if they're, appointed or or need to do an interview with the council, they're gonna need to respond to an email from Josh at some point. So what what's likely to change?

Yeah. But this was one email But this one email from Josh that, you know, I I can't remember what the subject line was, but it's not clear. You know, I'm just I'm I'm trying to be generous to the folks who receive this email who may not have even seen it. I don't know about anybody else, but my personal email, I get 200 emails a day.

Okay. Mike?

Yeah. John, I mean, we I think it was in maybe it was in April. And I I understand that there's a one one additional applicant now, Dylan. But what we had before, regardless of the ones that no longer wanna be part of this, we recommended four individuals to be interviewed by That was in December. Right.

December. Right. So assuming, you know, there's there's only one delta to that four people now, and that's Dylan. You know, regardless of who didn't wanna be, but those four are still in the running, meaning are part of the one that wannabe in the planning commission. So did we get the counsel at least to talk to them already based on our previous recommendation?

No. It wasn't actioned.

Okay. It was a recommendation, wasn't it? It was in the in the minutes.

Yes.

Okay. So what is exactly then our role in here in in doing this? Now just kind of we have to have some clarification. I I went, you know, painfully. Read every one of those. It was 20, you know, 21 pages. Thanks for, you know, Jeff, for what you did afterward, but I had already spent three, four hours reading these, applicants. So

No. I I reached out, three times in the last month to the council to try to get some direction as to what role, if any, they wanted us to play, and I was unsuccessful in getting a response.

Yeah. And I'll say the effort, in the December recommendation not leading to a new member is on us. I think we have miscommunications between myself and the clerk's office. So I think the council procedure does ask that you make a recommendation. I will note we don't expect an interview committee this time.

So one path forward that Jeff and I had discussed on the phone earlier today was to more or less follow the same process we did in December. We can incorporate whatever discussion we had and outcomes of that discussion at the time in this one. But we'd put, the applicants into, you know, a few groups, and we wouldn't rank them. We would just put them into groups of, you know, these are the ones that we feel maybe that you should interview or that, you know, we we wouldn't interview or what however we wanna define the groups. And then we could include if we want, you know, short sentence or so, explaining, what caught our attention and salient, you know, aspects of the application, at least for those where we're recommending further consideration.

That's just one way that we could go about this. I think it would probably take us about half an hour. Everybody's disappearing from camera.

No. No. I'm I'm I'm also listening. John John is is is a good an additional clarification on, you know, which one had a purpose, which one wanted to do what, but it is still not clear of what the the council is looking for or if they're interested in

That's why I attempted to clarify that.

Yeah.

We don't have to do anything. We haven't been affirmatively asked through official channels to do anything. So we could spend a couple minutes discussing whether to even have this discussion. I'm fine with that.

When it affects our own teaming, right, it's good to kind of look at the people that may be, you know, in line with the future goal of of this commission and the council. And so I think we can be helpful by reducing the number of people they they they need to interview or they can just take our, you know, recommendation, but we just need to know what is it that what what is that ask that they have so we can put our time, you know, wisely into this.

This may be the last meeting before June 16. I saw in the agenda, Josh, that and maybe we decided this last time that there's not a conditional rezoning for us to consider earlier in June. Right? So we're

Puts June 16, we do not expect to bring any item to y'all, for the first meeting of June.

Right. So this may be unless we wanna reconvene our last opportunity before the sixteenth when we may have bigger fish to fry to, to talk about these. So I I don't think we wanna, you know, seek further clarification from the council at this point and kick the can. I think we either wanna, you know, form some kind of recommendations now or or just pass on it.

Good call. I mean I mean, the recommendation is helpful. I hope it's helpful to them.

Okay. I mean

Is this on a council agenda for their last two meet?

We'll look to get on a questions? I'll I'll say from staff's perspective, the advisory board policies suggest that we get a advisory board recommendation on naming new members before bringing it to council so council has that information. Understand there's not been an affirmative ask or response to to John's emails. We would ideally put this on the calendar after understanding where planning commission is, is with the recommendation or if we have a recommendation in hand.

Okay. So it sounds like Mike's willing to have the discussion. We don't need to make it a lengthy discussion. We could go through these, candidates one by one and see if we can, bucket them and use some of the discussion we had in December and write any other notes we want to. And, you know, I I do think we could do all that in half an hour.

Does that sound okay? Alright.

So

in December, we recommended that the council interview four people. I remember one of them was Eric.

I have the four if you want me to go through them.

Yeah. Who who what were the other names? Do we have do have a copy of what we said, you know, that we could just sort of package up with what we're doing now?

I think it's in the minutes we just approved.

It's in the minutes. One or two two minutes that we got.

Okay. Let me pull it up.

December I think December 2, whatever that last Yeah.

It's December. December 2. That's right. Okay. Let's see.

Julia Chamberlain, Peter. Here you go.

Yes. I think y'all recommended Strother, Eric, Julia Chamberlain. Those are the Right.

But there were I thought we had. Liz, do you recall you ran that meeting? Did did we have didn't we have some actual comments aside from just four names?

Well, we had a long discussion. I guess we did not necessarily put those in the, recommendation, I guess.

Okay. Does that sound right, Josh?

I can pull up the full recommendation. I think we were gonna package it in a recommendation to counsel document, for the December minutes. We keep it a little bit shorter.

Yeah. It's probably worth looking at that document to see if there's any other language in it.

Yeah.

Yes. Cool.

Because I thought that there was.

Yes. Okay. Actually, I apologize. I think that is the language that I do have for No.

This is it.

Motion. Here's what I have in my notes from December 2.

Okay. So I guess we decided not to say anything else. So of these, Julia, Peter, Strather, Eric. Eric has said that he's still interested recently. The three others have not said to staff that they're still interested. That email sort of didn't didn't get responded to, except may did did any of them take their names off, Josh?

I do not believe any took their names

Any of these? Okay. Yeah. Okay. So those are we could still consider those live recommendations. Doubt we're gonna reverse ourselves. Thought we could. Right. So maybe that seeds our category of folks that we recommend that they think about an interview. Right? And then we could supplement that with I would say we consider supplementing that with names that we did not consider in December. And who are those? So

Would be anyone that came

after was in our pool back then.

Mark Mark Hamlin was one. Anthony Deser, Amanda Fraser

Hold on. Mark was one of what?

One of the ones that we did not recommend.

Oh, but we considered.

Yeah. No. We considered, but we didn't recommend.

Okay. K.

Well, you know, I have to be honest. This is for my list These are the ones that I went through personally. Okay? So now that you're asking the question, is at group level, at group level, I think we kind of had those four MEI. It was really in line. Exactly.

So, Josh, I'm trying to figure out the delta between who we considered one way or the other in December and and who we have before us now. Dylan is the only one I know for sure that's new. Yes.

I think the answer would be, at this time, Jeff's seat was not up. It was gonna be up in June, so we did not consider that seat. Or Jeff's application, we also did not consider an application Are

you talking about Jeff Green?

Yeah.

Oh, right. Yeah. But

My seat wasn't up in December. This was filled a vacancy. So

So at the applications in front of you, Jeff's application, Mark Haineland's application, Amanda Fryzard's application

Mhmm.

Mark's double application in the packet are all the ones that are dated 2026. So they may have had previous applications that phased out from the twelve month time period, but they actively reapplied this, spring.

Okay. Yeah.

The other mark him in line application from our April agenda was submitted in March 2024.

But, Mike, you have in your notes that we did talk about, Mark.

No. I mean, I retracting. That is what I have in my notes of what I in all the ones I looked at. So I don't know if that was con conversation in at that meeting or

might have known about if we didn't

Micah, when you looked at these, are you saying you what you looked at in December or what you looked at in anticipation of this meeting?

No. That was in December. I went through all those. It's it's like 20, almost 20 applicants in in documents that Josh sent, you know, and with one being there twice. I don't remember which one. But, you know, I went through each one individually. So looking at their objectives, their backgrounds, their experience, you know, all all different factors. Okay? But so all I'm saying is I looked at those, I don't know if that was discussed in the meeting. Like,

Mark If you looked at him, we would have discussed them.

Oh. Alright. So

I'm looking, I pulled down the, materials from the December 2 meeting, and I just searched for Mark and it did not come up.

You know, I didn't remember him from December. I didn't remember.

I don't remember that name either.

Jeff, do you have the list of people?

I have the, 61 page PDF that I could go through. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one.

Could you just run through and read off the names, and we'll just see who's on and who isn't?

Julia Chamberlain.

Alright. Who we recommended?

Anthony Disser. Yep.

Okay.

Robin Langdon, who she pulled out. Think. Yep. Peter Maniloff.

Mhmm.

Who we recommended?

Judy Miller who withdrew. Who pulled out? Brother.

Who we recommended?

Michael Redman or Mitchell Redman. Sorry.

Yeah. That's correct. He was there.

And he's still in he's still in the packet?

Meredith. Rodemeyer. Meredith Rodemeyer. Alright. Rodemeyer.

Thank you. Okay.

And Eric.

Yeah. But Mark was there two times. And I

believe that got in. Apologies. I believe that was the April packet where Mark was mistakenly in there two times. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So you must have prepared in April as well. That's why you said April originally. We never took it up in April. We sort of postponed that discussion till till now, Mike, but I think that's what you're thinking about.

Yeah. You're right.

That's right. So I wanna take care of the low hanging fruit, which is I I think we should add Jeff to the list to avoid a negative implication. I mean, obviously, we support, and it doesn't really matter what we say. Like, he's gonna get reappointed. So let's put him on our list. And by the way, I think he should be on the list.

I second that?

Okay. So now we have a list of, of five. Now, next next low hanging fruit, we need to consider Dylan, who is a new application. And we need to consider Mark who is a new application as far as I know and Amanda as well, Josh? She's Amanda's new application?

Yes, have Amanda Frizard as an applicant who applied

2026.

Yes. On 2026.

Yeah. So we have at least those three that are that are new we need to talk about. So let's do those, and then we'll figure out if we're missing somebody. Does anybody wanna speak about let's start with Dylan.

Did was Trevor Leatherwood? He wasn't on that.

Trevor replied in December 2025 after your meeting, so he is also, someone who you did not consider prior to December 25.

Four for us to consider now. Anybody else?

Hold on.

Jeff, are you aware of others? Trevor, Mark, Amanda, Dylan, beyond those four that we didn't consider in, December that have, you know, applied subsequently?

Leaf is new. Leaf? Yes. Okay.

That's nice.

He applied two days after our meeting in December.

Okay. Searching through this document by 2026 was not the right idea. Yeah.

That looks that looks correct.

Okay. Fine. So let's I'm just gonna tick down those five, and we'll talk about them, and we'll see who we wanna add to our list. And given how many people so there are gonna be two openings. No. Sorry. Three openings. There's currently an opening. There's gonna be two more because Liz and I are rolling off. So, let's put Jeff aside. There's gonna be two openings besides Jeff and, you know, for those of us who are not coming back.

And I'm sorry. So we

recommended four, but only one of those people has even confirmed that they're so it's possible those other three we've already put on our list may not still be interested.

Alright. We can consider, like, if we wanna create more buckets. So let's start with oh, Mike, do you have your hand up? Is that from before?

Yes. It is. Okay.

And I have one clarification point. I apologize. Wes' seat is still open, so we can name someone too.

Yeah. So that's Three. Four seats minus Jeff is three seats because we're a seven member board and we have six people right now.

So one, one introductory thing, Trevor Leatherwood Mhmm. He lists it's his application's confusing. But for seat category for the planning commission, he lists Orange County ETGA resident, and that seat is occupied by Libbey. So I don't know that we can

But you don't recommend him. You could be an ETJ and just take a you don't have to take the ETJ seat. Right?

I think you need to be a resident.

I think you do.

I think you have the ETJ and the other, like, Mike Seed are appointed by the county. I I think you have to live in the in the city limits to be

Yeah. Yeah.

To replace any of you. Okay.

Yeah. I'll I'll I would I hear you. Trevor lists an address that is within the town's corporate limits.

Okay. Yeah. Because he he says ETJ, but he also says Chapel Hill resident.

Solidarity with, actual territorial people.

Yeah. That's, he's in the

Any maps?

He's in the Caraway Crossing development.

Alright. So let's include him in our consideration.

So I wanna throw in another wrench. I know, Josh, you have said my term is up, my two terms. But the actual reading, I don't have I haven't done two full terms. And I might be interested in finishing six years, not another full term. But after listening to to Taz, I think it's important not to bring on three new members to the planning commission at this point who aren't gonna have any sense.

Now Eric would, of course, if he were one of them. So I put I'm just thinking this now. I joined in November. So November would be when I would want to leave. I'm not looking at three more years.

But I do remember when I was interviewed, I said, I'm really interested in this because the town is about to do the LUMA revision. This was five and a half years ago. And this is something that I care a lot about, the Lumo revision. So I wouldn't mind having being able to do that next process. And, John, I don't know about you. It also, given how slow the counsel is at filling these, I find it likely that they won't have three people ready for the September if they're past performance. But if that is considered inappropriate,

I certainly don't to reappointed, Liz, because you're Okay.

But I would then I would You would you'd like to say I would be reappointed with the understanding that I also would not do a full term. Would just do it until Yeah. Essentially the fall.

I I think we have done this on the assumption that because you have served two terms, you are required to roll off per advisory board policy.

No, not at the first as a partial.

I do see that the first is a partial.

The same is true for me. I'm actually not term limited.

Okay. I'm just not reapplying,

but I'm not term limited.

Okay. I will say I think we have very much assumed, I would have definitely included you all in the conversation if we did not assume that you were term limited.

This has just crossed my mind while Taz was talking, actually. I hadn't been I had been preparing to just step off after this since it's close to two terms, not two full terms. But this does seem like this fall is an important moment, and bringing in fresh people to look at this is gonna be really hard, I think. It's just unfortunate that this

Yeah.

They didn't move it just a little bit earlier.

A lot of institutional knowledge to lose all at once.

Liz, do you need more time, or would you like to be considered?

Well, I haven't actually applied, So I don't even know if you could consider me now since Josh doesn't have my application. Alright.

Counsel can do what it wants,

I think.

Yeah. I I mean, there's no rules about this.

Yeah. Alright. So the terms yeah. The terms are defined have an end date no matter when you start?

Or you

can There's

a term.

The term has a start date and an end date. It's just that you can be appointed in the middle of a term that exists.

Right.

They're staggered, terms.

I'll say that the council policy says council members may not write in a person's name who has not applied, but it is a very long set of paragraphs about applying. And so I don't know I don't know if you can apply that. I don't know how to

Okay.

Alright. Well

should try to apply.

You should

send an email and apply.

Right.

If you I Yes.

Why don't we don't talk about me, and let me think about whether this makes sense? This is just something that has crossed my mind.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I do have I do have one thing when we come back to this conversation.

Go ahead.

I would say we can figure out if the, initial October 2020 was a partial or a full. I would also note that while we do require members to roll off on two consecutive terms, we do note that the council may reappoint an individual to a board or commission for an additional one year term by resolution for the purpose of completing ongoing projects.

Oh, fascinating. I've never never seen that language.

Me either.

This that meets your objective. Pardon?

But then would then

someone if she's not term limited anyway. But

Yeah. Interesting. Alright. Well, let's talk about the other folks. As I said, I'm sorry for throwing in another wrench. I wasn't

So Dylan is a real estate agent, and he's an undergrad at, UNC, Dylan. Does anybody wanna say anything about whether he should be included in our, our list? Or maybe another way we could do this is if folks want to of the five, Trevor, Mark, Amanda, Dylan, Leaf, if any another way to do this is, for folks to, suggest, among these people who should be just names that should be on our shortlist. That's another way to do it. It's up to you.

I I suggest Mark in all those.

Okay. Do you wanna say anything about that?

Yeah. I mean, he was at least very clear on his his purpose, and the background was good from the public affair perspective.

Yeah.

Lots of good material that he that he indicated that, you know, he had he his previous reading materials has said it was kind of in line with the the what we do, I think.

Oh, yeah. The the essay with the the reading. Yeah. I was impressed with that. A lot of lot of stuff on there. I don't know if he's read all of it, but that would be pretty impressive if he did. Yeah. I thought he showed a high subject matter interest.

Yes.

Put it that way, which which is useful. So I I would be supportive of including Mark on the on on our he would then be the sixth on our shortlist. Jeff got his thumbs up. Liz, Chuck, would would you object to having Mark on the shortlist? No? No. Okay. Okay. So let's put Mark on the list. So that's that's six people.

Josh, would you mind keeping this list? You just have to add a couple names. I I'm just not capable. Okay. How about well, I'm not gonna say how about. Does anybody wanna sort of how is anybody else to get on that list?

I'll make a comment, but I was on borderline with Dylan. Okay? Just he just he was a real he is a real estate agent, which is he comes with a loss of experience on, you know, hands on experience working with people, you know, especially, you know, people that are looking for affordable housing, this versus that, but I just could not get a purpose out of his material. What is his purpose? That was what I had a hard time with, but, you know, you know, other folks read the material. So, that would be, the only comment I have on that. The other was I really couldn't come up with anything, any recommendation on three. Okay?

He also has only lived here one to three years, although he says he worked at the Carolina Inn for how before real estate. I guess that's one to three years.

He might have lived in Durham or

Might have commuted.

Marlboro.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. I I I'm with I mean, I I was kinda fascinated that he apparently I mean, I'd like to know what he did at the Carolina Inn, and then he's a real estate agent, plus he's an undergrad, and he's older than 25. So that's Yeah. Have an interesting life course. But, yeah, like Mike said, I don't know that why he wants to be under Planning Commission.

Yeah. It was an interesting an interesting group of different characteristics. Might be good to have someone with someone younger but with these skill sets. He wasn't the one who went who's from Chapel Hill now.

I don't think so.

Who grew up one of them was grew up and went to Chapel Hill schools, etcetera. That wasn't him.

Julia, I think.

Yeah. Who

is on our list?

Mhmm.

We have Julia, Peter, Strother, Eric, Jeff, and adding Mark so far.

I would note, and, you know, whatever you all think, but Leif, who I've met a couple of times, very smart guy, I think we'll bring a different and young student, although doing that disastrous commute to NC State from Chapel Hill. But I think he would be, an interesting addition to the mission.

Yeah.

Can you remind me what what

Oh, he's working on a PhD in transportation systems engineering at NC State.

Oh.

Again, he was one of the ones that I didn't find to kinda indicate what his purpose was, but the idea of, know, experience on transportation to me was interesting for sure. Okay?

He also said that he you know, he's interested in the type of mixed use neighborhoods that Chapel Hill is trying to develop.

And you met him personally too, Jeff. Right?

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Alright. That's

He just lived in Denmark.

I'd be supportive of adding I could leave to our shortlist.

We could add him.

Are we okay with that?

Mhmm.

Okay. Fine.

So it's getting longer, but we don't know if all of them are interested.

But This is just sort of the first cut that we're making, you know, and they can disregard it. They don't like it, but, people for them to reach out to and talk to. I noted that Amanda didn't list the PC as her first choice.

Right.

Yeah.

Downtown partnerships.

Right.

Then there's Trevor who was in the navy He looks like he's done interesting things, although I'm not quite sure what is specific to the planning commission.

Yeah. That was my thought as well.

That's exactly where I went with it. No state of goal. Okay?

Yeah.

Okay. So, feel free to interrupt me, but it sounds like maybe we wanna stop there. Yeah. And is that six or seven names, Josh? How many do you have?

Sure. I will say I've heard names listed as on a shortlist, and then I've heard names discussed.

Oh, it's seven. It's the four that we had plus Leaf, Mark, actually, and Jeff. Okay. That's seven.

I heard Amanda in the conversation just confirming that.

No. There wasn't a a

request. Yeah. So

I think that's where we are. I guess the only thing I would add to that is, Liz, should she decide to apply, or should she succeed in applying at this juncture?

One two Yeah. Did we miss one? Where's Julia?

Okay. He's on there.

Yeah. Julia. She's one of them from yeah. Yeah. From December.

Yeah. Okay. And, basically, Josh, think you can well, this is something we ought to vote on. Is is, let's go around and thumbs up if if this is a list that you're comfortable with Josh passing along to the council as folks that we have, you know, looked at their applications and, think that they're worth more, you know, a look from the council and and maybe interviewing or whatever they wanna do. The those are the ones that sort of popped out at us as being I don't know how to describe it.

Worth worth looking at more closely. Thumbs up if that is okay with you.

It's John.

John, Jeff, is your alright. Okay. Good. Yeah. So, Josh, how about that?